More Member Involvement

[SnowyCheetah]

I'd like to suggest something that I think would be incredibly beneficial to the forum. Basically, let members vote on not only the next staff members (which we had in the most recent election, FlipMode), but also bans of members (not the warnings of members) and changes to the rules.

Time has shown the benefits of a government of, by and for the people. It has also shown that when the government (in our case, forum staff) acts without the approval of the people (forum members), crap hits the fan. Might I reference communism, which has never worked anywhere.

So I'd like to take a vote along with this suggestion: should the staff take votes for bans and rule changes as well as staff elections? Here is my proposed system for bans:

1. Staff decides member needs to be banned.
2. They PM said member, asking if they want to have the members vote before the ban. If the member says no, they are simply banned. If they say yes, the staff create a poll.
3. Based on the results, the staff act accordingly.

Obviously we rely on the staff's honesty as to who has requested that their ban (in ban cases) be voted upon, and them actually considering the poll results. But we can count on that type of decency from them... right?

[FlipMode]

It is pretty rare we ever have to warn or ban a member to be quite honest, I mean I haven't had to yet beisides the odd few spam bots...

Okay as a staff member, I will not be voting on this because it makes sense since it is about members being able to vote on changes and stuff (I will make a non acountable vote at the end to see results though). But I have a few questions about it, if you don't mind awnsering them....

What if a member is posting racist or sexual stuff around? We have to PM them asking if they want a public vote and then wait for the vote to take it's place, yes? So that gives the spammer all that time in which to go unpunished, or do you think exceptions can be made in cases like that?

Also how long would the polls run for, roughly?

[TheIvanMuse]

I don't see how this would work on a long term basis. Yes,it's always beneficial to hear a second opinion,but making polls about whether a member should be banned just doesn't sound right to me. It would take too long till issues are dealt with and it's just a lot more hassle over something that has been handled on this forum and on every other forum by staff members only. There is a reason why staff members are there and there is a reason why the staff members are the ones who are. There has never been a problem with that system,so I don't see why it should be changed to a system which is slower and is obviously bound to bring forth more drama on the forum as the issues of a certain member are being shared to everyone.

[TheGunner18]

Yeah, I agree with Ivan and Flip. A vote would probably take too long because we would probably need to wait until quite a lot of people had voted and, to be honest, not everyone is going to vote. They may not see the topic, or might not even be bothered to vote If it's just some random new member that has decided to start trolling, the mods should ban him/her immediately and without any hesitation after a couple of warnings.

Anyway, if people want to start making hateful comments, then they'll get a couple of warnings. if they still don't change, unfortunately for them, the ban hammer would have already struck before they could type another hateful remark.

By the way, i'm remaining neutral in this. Just voicing my opinion.

[SnowyCheetah]

@Ivan: there have been a lot of problems with the current system. Mainly, the members as a whole are stuck with the staff decisions because they, as a whole, have no power or say in the decisions unless the staff are kind enough to grant it. Which is almost never.

@Flip: if need be, the member could be suspended until the vote is done. Perhaps even the member could be banned for a month or so, then the members could vote on letting them back based on the changes in atmosphere from the member in question being gone.

[TheIvanMuse]

I agree with Gunnner.
No one is ''stuck'' with our decisions,here on this forum we give member a say in stuff very often. I don't see where you are coming from,because this ''issue'' that you're talking about it is the way that things have worked on this forum ever since it was made,even while you were a moderator here.
I don't think this can work and that is for one very important reason. If a member was,so to say, popular, people who were the member's friends would only vote for him/her to say based on the fact that their friends with the member and not on the matter of what the member did wrong. It's not objective and being objective is something that staff members are when dealing with things like these. So yes,there is no problem, you're the only person to want to make this happen,which is not good ground to actually make a change happen.

[FlipMode]

Okay so in an extreme case that would apply, personally I think a month is a bit long though, would make it no more than a week to be honest as I think that is time at least for the active members to have a say then ^.^.
Still not entirely sure about it, in regards to people possibly being able to break the rules and not be punished for it. But you have raised some fair points, let us just wait for a bit more input and give people the time to vote :-].

[quote] you're the only person to want to make this happen,which is not good ground to actually make a change happen.[/quote]
In fairness Ivan, the thread has only just been made...

[SnowyCheetah]

I'm actually not the only one for this. The thread is only like an hour old.

Yes, it's the way it was when I was a moderator here. It was one of many reasons I left. You of course won't see a problem because you like having your power the way it is. I don't expect you to agree with me in the least.

@Flip: it's all tentative, just to give a feel for the idea, which the staff could tweak should they choose to adopt it.

[TheGunner18]

Well, i suppose the mods could try it out a few times to see if it's going to work and if it does work, then we could adopt the method. If it doesn't work, then...I don't know. We'll see what happens.

[DGFone]

I understand the reason why mods are not very willing to share power with the regular users: When everyone is a mod, no one is truly a mod. However, Using real life-examples, many democracies discovered that this system actually works quite well (most of the G8 nations are democracies one form or another). However, they all have a system of checks and balances to keep any one group from getting power. I don't see this forum getting such a system, as it will be extremely complicated. In short, I believe that the mods will always get outvoted simply because there are less of them than regular users. (Us vs Them when the Us are several times larger than Them).

Despite this I actually voted for giving regular members a voice. Why? Because if we actually get such a system to work, it will be much better than if the mods have all the power.

Note to everyone: I would love to see such a system work. But there is a catch: When discussing serious things, you will need to stay serious. I know this is a Lion King Fan Forum, but democracy is not a game. People lost their lives fighting for it, and while we won't have to, the attitude must be the same. We need to show that we can handle a democracy as mature people. As the cliche goes, Freedom is not free.

Mods: Give this a try. Imagine telling other people: "I am part of a democratic forum". By all means, if we can't handle the responsibility, remove it! But I suggest to the Nth degree to let us try a democratic system.