board77

I know that Holby and tp and perhaps others favour someone in charge who can control disputes from above and I gather it works perfectly well on most other sites. However given that this site has developed into an experiment in online democracy the proposal seems somehow inappropriate here. HoF has this system and not to criticise it - for there are many interesting posts and how could there not be with some of the people there - but compared to here it seems a little cosy.
As I said before I can work with most rules but the committee has my full support in streamlining, rewording, simplifying the Charter.

Bear in mind though Eruname's valid point that a lot of procedure is written down to save time reinventing the wheel each time we do something. So perhaps when it comes to procedure it is better to simplify it and/or make things run faster rather than ditching it willy-nilly.
I presume the mission statement for the committee is to see what changes are practical that make the Charter simpler. I wouldn't expect unanimity within the committee on this having never seen it before on previous committees.

My suggestion to the committee would be to look at each step of the charter and ask Why? Why was it done this way? What were they worried about when they put in that proviso. Although it may not seem like it now, everything in there is there for a reason, because someone felt it was important enough to be in there. If you're going to take something out completely, first ask yourself if you should, or whether you'll just cause more problems further down the line. A lot of smart people worked very hard on this for a long time. There's a reason for that, and believe me, nobody was doing it for fun.

That said, I feel the charter is too wordy and the language could be simplified dramatically.

Just don't get slap-happy and please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Alatar

I'm not doing anything willy-nilly.

I don't think the charter needs simplifying- just do a word search to find applicable sections. If you take it in small chunks, it isn't that hard, and I don't have a head for this kind of thing at all.

The people who wrote it were very thorough, and very smart. I don't think you can "improve" it by simplifying it.

You'd be better off adding some kind of membership oath of good behavior or something. Have everyone swear to *tolerate* the people they don't like or don't understand. And tolerate means to put up with something you don't like, not to actually like or approve of it.

What you are trying to fix, won't fix the problem.

Not much to add myself except to nod my head vigorously alongside Alatar. Everything in the charter is there because of a good reason. I seriously don't think it can be much improved.... besides, it's not really the charter that needs improving but the behaviour of the people that frequent this board........

... but we've been there.... and many words have been said. Yet I think Holby of all (that I've seen and I'm only just back since a few days) said it most poignantly

Holby the wise wrote:

You can't legislate tolerance.

...so true, so true....... and sadly so

Swearing an oath - LOL, would be kind of cool actually but not very practical, aye?

..... we also always can go back to benevolent dictatorship




















.... just kidding!

ALANDRIEL FOR BENEVOLENT DICTATOR!!!




I would ride on your coat-tails any day, buddy.


JUST sayin'.





Oh, and: . I've missed you!

Maria & Alandriel, do you disagree with this previous post of mine then?

I wrote:

Don't know how helpful this will be, but primary gripe with the current Charter is how cumbersome it is to make simple adjustments. It took weeks, if not months, to propose a very minor change to the Bike Racks text that was ultimately shot down anyways. Something like that should take a week or two, not a month or two, and do so without sucking up hours and hours of some posters time. I know that there were good reasons for making it so cumbersome - the desire to allow every viewpoint a voice as well as avoiding constant changes every other week - but this isn't issues of national security we're dealing with so I feel the safeguarding is way overdone. If the BR issue had been resolved in two weeks, a lot of damage might have been prevented (yes, I said might). In other words, I think we need more flexibility.

When did I say I was trying to legislate tolerance?

If you think that the committee is talking about getting rid of sections/articles that are important, please specify that. Just saying that we need to be careful about what we're doing doesn't help, because of course we are being careful, as I think is obvious from reading the Jury room thread. We aren't suggesting that we throw out Article 1 or the Key Principles or something, honestly. I promise. So if you think we are throwing out something important (if you read the thread, it states what we are thinking of putting up for deletion) you need to tell us so, in detail, with reasons why we shouldn't and all.

We're smart people too, okay? Have a little faith and help us out here.

Yov: re your << primary gripe with the current Charter is how cumbersome it is to make simple adjustments>>
Believe me, I feel for you. Actually many of the 'founders' of B77 at one point or another said just the same. But then there comes the but (and that was reiterated eventually with each new 'wave' of posters joining the board: everyone should be granted a chance to discuss before decisions are taken or things are changed.
Not everyone can be here every day and is willing daily to keep up with matters pending yet we wanted to include as many people as possible in the decision making process. Hence the timeframe for discussion/voting threads.
I agree with you – it is cumbersome. But what is the alternative?
Sure I'm with you and I see that the simple re-wording of something is not the same as re-writing or changing major elements. Yet – where do we draw the line? Is it not simple to just have one rule and follow that rather than create different time-frames for x possible instances?

I'm all for simplifying – KISS – as much as possible, but not when the price is people!

From the jury room thread however I see that apparently it's not a matter of simplifying the constitution but rather to rewrite it more or less entirely (or I really read the wrong things).

Now frankly – I'm against that. But I'm just one fish in a pond of many. If the many feel that a new constitution is in order then so be it. A committee can hash that out and let it come before a vote of the membership and they'll decide to accept or not. My gut feeling is that they won't, but then I might be wrong and in any case I really don't want to speculate what might be or might not be.

One part of me is thoroughly disillusioned with this experiment in online democracy and I feel that as such it is a failure. Not the system, please don't get me wrong. I think there's nothing wrong with the constitution. I'm disillusioned with the people, some people here. I don't know what it is but I suspect that 100 monkey syndrome thingie is not so far from the truth. In any case it does not matter why – we can discuss that to death too without getting much anywhere.
It matters that it is. It has happened and some people are still angry and hurting…. And many want to avoid *ever* having to face a similar situation again.

But understand: no matter what we do or not do with the rules here, it does not matter an inkling if PEOPLE don't care. If people drop all sense of respect, propriety and decency…..

We can't make them – and no TED, I know you never said one can legislate tolerance. No one can. No one can really legislate propriety either because it means different things to different people even at different times in their lives.

I was and am just silly. I had a dream….. a wishful thinking pipe dream and I think somehow it got contagious and a whole bunch of great people got wrapped up in it too – many of whom are now no longer here. In the 'euphoria' the constitution was devised and wrenched out amidst long and serious discussion between people of goodwill and integrity, even if their opinions were often opposing, and so much the better for what came out of it I thought.

At times, now not so much as pre-Christmas, I get this really ugly feeling inside of me welling up that says: shut it down! Just shut it down. Let someone else make a new place with their rules as they like.
But of course I can't really do that. Not now and not ever. But because of these ugly feelings I think I really need out (*)– for maybe one day that very ugly feeling will get the better of me and I might just do the unthinkeable should I get seriously fed up ( no worries, I'm not speaking of now). It's weird you know, part of me still cares so much…… the other part of me just can't be bothered anymore. Now is that sane? I really sometimes ask myself. One thing is for sure, I really don't like this in me and I really don't like being still responsible for this board…

… now I really got off-track and for that I apologize… and also for the rant (I thought of editing it out but heck, this one time I won't apply self-censorship).

To the committee: do as you think is right/best and good luck with your discussions and proposal. I'm afraid I still don't see how things can be made more concise – but then I always like to be positively surprised

And thanks Anthy: but that's the last thing that's ever going to happen here I'd rather start all over again - but for that I simply don't have the time, not at present. Besides like that we'll end up with 200 different phpbb boards


edit to clarify(*): out of being the responsible/registered Admin vs phpbb


and ps to Hal I can't believe what you've posted in the Jury room thread. I simply refuse to believe you've actually written and mean it. Either me or you are completely in the wrong place

Alandriel,

You've expressed my feelings exactly.

Jn

Alandriel!

Rewrite does not mean complete change. Let me use a new word... reword. Alandriel you got the completely wrong impression from my intentions here. I've said it ten times... simplify, skim, rewrite, reword. It's my fault really since I use rewrite as a writer which doesn't always mean change, but reword. But you know, I'll have to repeat this over and over I'm sure. I always do. I'm either not clear enough (unlikely in my opinion) or people just skip my posts.

The lack of faith many posters here are showing in us as a committee is just wonderful. First rule of b77... assume the worst. Was that snippy? Yes. Do I care at this point? No. Am I fed up with explaining myself 8 different times? Yes. Sorry people, but that's how it's going to be from me.

This committee is going to do what it set out to do and if our work gets voted down, so be it.

Ok, here's a question. Are we trying to simplify the charter without changing how things work, or are we trying to simplify how things work?

The first.

hmm... if we're not changing anything, that makes it really easy... it also doesn't really accomplish anything.

I mean, sure, it will be easier to read, but it doesn't "fix" anything.

If we don't want to "fix" anything, that's fine. we shouldn't spend a lot of time on just editing the charter, though

I understand your intentions TED and trust you. You have a very strong streak of common sense in you.
Once a simplification has taken place it will be more understandable to a wider range of member. Not everyone of course as there will always be people who won't be interested. One has to also balance Alandriel's point that adequate time is needed for discussion with yov's point that it is cumbersome to change things and sucks time out of people. There are solutions out there to this.
If change is in fact needed it may also be easier to see and carry out with a shorter document. It would be less daunting.

Quote:

One has to also balance Alandriel's point that adequate time is needed for discussion with yov's point that it is cumbersome to change things and sucks time out of people.

I quite agree, Tosh. Since the charter is still in effect while this committee is in discussion, the normal amount of days will be allotted for discussion of the simplified charter.

I also agree with you about changes to a more concise document.

I just wanted to applaud hal's effort to make up the short 'n sweet charter. It's hard to say how much I agree with the details not having given it much thought (it's a rough draft, as you said) but I certainly like the spirit of what you're doing.



And I had misunderstood your intent as well. I assumed part of the goal was to simplify how things worked. If that isn't the case then a lot of my comments aren't relevant to what ya'll are doing.

It would really help if people focused on what the committee is supposed to be doing, not putting in all this stuff about "moderating tolerance" blah blah blah. Not the time or place to give lectures about behavior.

We as a committee are here to simplify the charters wording so that people won't fall asleep after five pages and hopefully it won't even be five pages long. This won't solve future problems and it certainly won't heal old wounds but it will help us get to the heart of the matter sooner.

Who wants to wade through 30 pages of fancy wording and then try to explain that to someone who may or maynot have broken a rule? Not me and it seems that most other members don't want to either.

You can only modifty yourself and if you are unable to do that then unfortunately there will have to be consequences.

Stop taking things so personally. Hal's proposal is trying to help not hinder and is in no way malicious or devious. He's not trying to slap anyone in the face so can we please put on our thick skin and focus (yes you are entitled to your opinion)?

Am I the only one who wants to move forward?