Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:35 pm
Posts: 72
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Cully Barger wrote: trylon wrote: With the risk of this becoming a flame bait, I'm just gonna point out a few things. If you consider discussing any disagreement to be a flame, then this will be a flame, because I disagree almost 100% with nearly everything you’ve written. However, I do hope we can have a reasoned discussion about what I consider to be a very crucial topic.
Well, reading your post, it seems you agree with me very much, perhaps you just misunderstood what I was trying to say.
(And in my experience, pointing our that you know people may react fiery on your posts, tends to cool things down beforehand)
Quote: trylon wrote: 1) Contrary to popular American belief, life isn't democratic.
The people I work for aren't chosen democratically.
The DRC isn't chosen democratically.
The persons holding shares of a company aren't chosen democratically. Trylon, the examples you’ve chosen are ALL from the corporate world: of course they’re not going to be examples of democracy!
Exellent. You agree with me on that. My point was simply that not every group is by default democratic, and that appearently not every group needs to be an electoriate to be organized.
(And, I did say, "life", right? not "politics" of "groups". Most of my life I actually have to deal with people working according to the examples I mentioned.)
Quote: And the snide comment about “American popular belief” was unnecessary.
Perhaps it was. It was not meant as a snide comment however.
It was basically a reflection on how from an outsider perspective, American democracy seems to be centered around elections and campaining.
Quote: trylon wrote: And even in politics, the best you can get with voting isn't really democracy. It's in fact essentially an elected dictatorship with limited timespan. In contemporary worldwide politics, corporate rules seem to prevail. However, as you get to more and more localized forms of government, I’ve seen some outstanding examples of democracy in action (City Councils, community groups). And historically, at the level of clubs – which certainly is about the level we’re at – democracy and use of Robert’s Rules are more the rule than the exception: because they work!
And, in fact you agree with me 
It kind of depends on the definition of democracy you use.
In my post I used "democratic", where I probably should have used "electorial".
Often these words are taken as synonymously, while the term "democracy" can in fact be used to describe anything where the group "governed" has a major influence. I was however, specific in the direction of election and campaigning.
Quote: trylon wrote: Having [Elections, terms and majority voting], isn't the only legitimate or viable way to have a leadership. No amount of repeating that it is, will make it that way. There have been a few examples in history of benevolent dictatorships. Are those what what you’re referring to? Because you haven’t given any examples of the other legitimate and viable means of establishing the “leadership” that you mention, and that so many here seem to crave.
Ah, you're right I didn't give an example. I felt the post would become too big if I did. First, please note that I put [Elections, terms and majority voting] in brackets, in an attempt to imply boolean AND. (In fact, I sould have included "campaining" in that set as well.)
Since we're working at "club" level, as you quite nicely pointed out above, I was referring to the system of "Election and campaigning" that seems to be the first thing considered and stressed when leadership in the guilds is discussed. It also appears that some people desperately want that system, and try to force the issue sometimes. However, at club level this is probably not the best way to handle, and in fact can produce some very strange results.
One way that I proposed in the GoW, was to have the current interim leadership inquire who would be willing to accept certain posts, and would be able to do it, based on history, or other references.
Based on this this a proposal would be made, which would be accepted or denied by the Guild. If the proposal was denied, a new proposal would be made.
The work of the new council would be mostly negotiating in problem situations and perhaps later on with Cyan, and ofcourse other things.
Any major decision would then be submitted as a proposal needed to be accepted by the Guild members.
Should furthermore Guild members want to put forth their own proposal, e.g. even a motion of distrust against the current council, they could do so if they are with three of more persons backing the proposal.
A system like this could prevent some manifestation of elected dictatorship, in which someone, after being elected breaks most campain promises, and goes their own way for the duration of the term.
It'd also give the Guild members more the feeling that their voice is heard.
Quote: trylon wrote: Don't be an "election fundamentalist" by (appearently) trying to force everyone onto your system of democracy. Fortunately URU is structured such that none of us can force any of the others of us to do anything in-game! Stating one's opinion about something on these forums is a far cry from forcing anyone to do anything! It sure sounds like you have quite the opposition to the voting process, though.
It was more of a warning than a direct response to something happening.
Ofcouse, I probably used the the term "fundamentalist" incorrectly.
Since the term is often used for fanatics, who want to force their beliefs on people, even through acts of terrorism. I used the term to point out that one should be careful with their opinions, and that over stressing any opinion - also about elections - can be felt as oppressing.
Quote: trylon wrote: 3) It seems like people are constantly negatively criticizing whole efforts, based on assumptions about details. Though you might consider it to be a mistake, people do that when they learn that they have no say in the group to which they belong (sometimes it’s even worse when they belong by choice rather than force). Even the most benevolent of dictators has had uprisings simply because they were not elected to their positions.
Most negative criticism I've heard (and I'm inolved with both maintainer and writers) seem to be from outside the groups forming the guild.
Quote: trylon wrote: I don't even pretend to understand what these people are afraid of, or why they appear to hammer down well-meant efforts on small details. But if they really want to have these guilds, and have fan efforts, they should keep things constructive, and not bicker on details.
Ultimately it doesn't matter if they claim to be official, or claim to be unofficial, or claim to be neither, or even if there is such a thing as "official or unofficial". I hope you don’t consider it to be a mere detail when a group claims to be the “official” Guild of this-or-that. The term implies Cyan sanction. Newcomers take these things pretty seriously and it matters a great deal if a group claims such a distinction – especially if Cyan later chooses otherwise. And if it doesn’t matter, why then there can be as many Guilds of Maintainers as people want to form, right?
True. There shouldn't be any guild presenting themselves as official at this point. I hope I made that clear as well. However, presenting yourself as the "unofficial guild of", can give a wrong impression to newcomers as well.
However, I wouldn't mind if currently there would be two Guilds of maintainers, or writers and Cyan'd choose one of them eventually.
(But yeah, it could be confusing for newcomers.)
Quote: trylon wrote: 4) To conclude about the guilds, and taking the Guild of Writers as an example:
It's a group of people who want to have fun writing ages. As long as they are constructive, and helpful, and getting an organized group, as cyan wants, they should be allowed to keep that fun. Nobody, IC or OOC, can possibly take that constructive, creative fun away from any of us (except for Cyan perhaps)
I'm glad you can take criticism so well. I hope I can too. Many can.
However, I've seen quite a few examples of people who can't. And we should take them in account as well.
One example, is Almlys, the one who wrote the first version of the Blender plugin to write ages. Without this effort, it's possible we wouldn't even have guilds, as there was no group already involved in writing ages.
However, due to repeating hard negative criticism from people who cared, and feared, and made negative assumptions - that turned out to be untrue - he went away. Unfortunately, some smart people like that which are needed, are often not able to handle negative criticism so well.
That's why criticism needs to be carefully applied in order to be effective.
Quote: trylon wrote: The same goes for the Guild of Maintainers, the Guild of Messengers and the Guild of Cartographers: It's important that there is a group ready to take up the job, and prepared to do it the way Cyan wants it. And here we are back at the crux of the matter: we have no idea whatsoever of what way Cyan might want the job done. Therefore there is no possible way to prepare for the unknown eventuality that Cyan might one day define the rules of the Guild game. And repeating “we’re prepared” won’t make it so. For the foreseeable future, we’re on our own.
I fully agree. Repeating "we're prepared" won't make it so. Working based on (pseudo-random) assumptions won't make it either. And indeed we are on our own. We need to assess our borders, and work within those borders.
With "prepared" I meant in this case that they were at least willing to do things the way Cyan wants it, once there are Guidelines from Cyan. And that they would be willing to make the changes Cyan would require.
What this will be will only be known once Cyan tells us what to do, so there's no way any assumptions about how Cyan wants us to work will help. This even includes the assumption that they want only one group of each guild to form
While all of this forms things will go wrong. Small things will go wrong - they may have smaller or larger implications, they might need to be addressed sooner rather than later.
But it is important to always be respectful when pointing such things out, and it's important to acknowledge the good work that people do, before pointing out smaller or bigger flaws.
Unfortunately, many people in the guilds feel that the people pointing out flaws in their designs aren't repecting the work they are doing well. This is experienced as "hammering down the entire effort", and should be avoided at all costs.
Quote: It’s my hope that we can have reasonable discussions about how to form organizations that will endure. Many of us have hoped to see URU develop for several years now, and would prefer to work toward consensual resolutions rather than be rushed into groups in which we have little or no influence.
I hope the same as you.
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