flaglady
20th July 2007, 11:19 AM
Anyone here read "Animal Farm"?
The reason I ask is because I see a lot of comparisons. All we've got here now is a pseudo democracy.
There are those trying honestly to bring Erwin's vision into being, working like crazy to develop the Wikis and others are also doing their level best to help in other ways. We have more applicants for mods now than ever.
Then we have the others who are doing their level best to shoot everything down in flames. This may either be by disagreeing, inserting scarlet fishes into the debates or moaning about what a mess it all it, all that sort of stuff.
And then there is the majority (by far the majority) who are wandering around in a haze of ignorant naivety, either unable to grasp what it is all about (and who can blame them? I might even be one of them!) or totally unaware that anything is going on anyway.
Sadly, at the moment the vocal minority are having their way and convincing everyone else that it's far worse a mess than it really is.
I don't care for the muddle. I don't/can't contribute to much of the debate because it's over my head but I notice that in many Wiki discussions it's only about 6-8 names are that involved. In 'my' patch (Spirit-filled) we had 93 people in the forum last light yet there only seem to be about half a dozen people engaged in the rules discussions and the polls that have spilled out of them.
So I ask myself - can this really be a democratic procedure? Barely 1% working on the rules!! Is this not exactly what we had before? The majority being 'ruled' by the minority? Land sakes, do we really think we're going to get more observance of the rules with this method?
I would point out that I had and still have hopes for the public reporting system. It is my belief that members will be a lot more supportive of staff when they see how the reports are worked and action decided upon. I also think we'll be surprised how they will be much more ready to take action than we would have been before, how they won't put up with the nonsense we so often have in the past. But I don't think it will be like that if the rules are decided by the minority that are working them out now. It will be, to those who misbehave, that they are being penalised by a minority decision and they won't be far wrong.
I suppose after my years in management and at my age, I'm more accustomed to an autocratic management style. I decided what the rules were and my staff had to abide by them! Not that I'm proposing that but one thing this exercise has shown me is that there are those amongst the members (and that includes all of us who are first members before we are staff) are pretty much incapable of behaving in a mature and adult fashion. Given the anonymity of our screen name and keyboard, we are not capable of restraining ourselves or - more importantly - our 'tongue' (keyboard!!). So what happens then to the third group who are unable or unwilling to voicde their opinions? In fact nothing - nothing has changed for them, the 99%, because they are being dictated to just as much as they were in the previous 'regime'.
Motto - no matter how much things change they always stay the same!!
The reason I ask is because I see a lot of comparisons. All we've got here now is a pseudo democracy.
There are those trying honestly to bring Erwin's vision into being, working like crazy to develop the Wikis and others are also doing their level best to help in other ways. We have more applicants for mods now than ever.
Then we have the others who are doing their level best to shoot everything down in flames. This may either be by disagreeing, inserting scarlet fishes into the debates or moaning about what a mess it all it, all that sort of stuff.
And then there is the majority (by far the majority) who are wandering around in a haze of ignorant naivety, either unable to grasp what it is all about (and who can blame them? I might even be one of them!) or totally unaware that anything is going on anyway.
Sadly, at the moment the vocal minority are having their way and convincing everyone else that it's far worse a mess than it really is.
I don't care for the muddle. I don't/can't contribute to much of the debate because it's over my head but I notice that in many Wiki discussions it's only about 6-8 names are that involved. In 'my' patch (Spirit-filled) we had 93 people in the forum last light yet there only seem to be about half a dozen people engaged in the rules discussions and the polls that have spilled out of them.
So I ask myself - can this really be a democratic procedure? Barely 1% working on the rules!! Is this not exactly what we had before? The majority being 'ruled' by the minority? Land sakes, do we really think we're going to get more observance of the rules with this method?
I would point out that I had and still have hopes for the public reporting system. It is my belief that members will be a lot more supportive of staff when they see how the reports are worked and action decided upon. I also think we'll be surprised how they will be much more ready to take action than we would have been before, how they won't put up with the nonsense we so often have in the past. But I don't think it will be like that if the rules are decided by the minority that are working them out now. It will be, to those who misbehave, that they are being penalised by a minority decision and they won't be far wrong.
I suppose after my years in management and at my age, I'm more accustomed to an autocratic management style. I decided what the rules were and my staff had to abide by them! Not that I'm proposing that but one thing this exercise has shown me is that there are those amongst the members (and that includes all of us who are first members before we are staff) are pretty much incapable of behaving in a mature and adult fashion. Given the anonymity of our screen name and keyboard, we are not capable of restraining ourselves or - more importantly - our 'tongue' (keyboard!!). So what happens then to the third group who are unable or unwilling to voicde their opinions? In fact nothing - nothing has changed for them, the 99%, because they are being dictated to just as much as they were in the previous 'regime'.
Motto - no matter how much things change they always stay the same!!