Maybe instead of always sending every issue out to a general vote, we should have an elected Stompy Advisory Committee who will vote on some issues and choose to send others to the general b.org populace.

Why don't we table this idea until we settle this one? We are all too likely to go off on a tangent, and that's the last thing we need right now.

I must admit I chafed a bit at some remarks in a Voting discussion (last week I think) that linked to the TV Forum at WX (which I am a forum owner) and used that as an example of what they didn't want buffistas to become. I suppose I took the comment more negatively than it was intended.

I hope my linking didn't give that impression, because it's the opposite situation for me. I use that forum to talk about TV, and it's obviously a different experience for me, but one which absolutely works.

Also, I'd like to remind everyone that I've been here the longest, because I think it's cool. I'm never first in anything.

Why don't we table this idea until we settle this one? We are all too likely to go off on a tangent, and that's the last thing we need right now.

I agree.

Dana, I think someone else linked it - a name I didn't really recognize (perhaps you and another linked) and it seemed to me it was linked in a negative way. Perhaps it was a response to your post?

Seems to me that the solution to the governance issue would also address the manifest destiny issue, but maybe that's just me. Fine with tabling.

So, maybe we need representational government here to secure the rights and preferences of the long-time b.org community.

Can we table it possibly forever? Please?

Perhaps we need a cap on the number of individual show threads (no more than 10?) that are opened and close some that don't generate enough discussion

I think the notion's come up, and if we go more to an individual show threads model, it's not a bad notion to keep in mind.

Corwood, your governance suggestion hits me the wrong way. There have to be other alternatives that wouldn't alienate groups of people.

I think it is going to hit a lot of people the wrong way, and would really like to avoid the conversation.

Although a poll will likely cause more navelgazing in some ways, I see no other way to figure out what people think. I think msbelle is going to complile some of the questions, which is a good step.

ok, a start - I am too busy at work to really be doing any more.

7/30 evening: I suggested some poll questions about tv threads and the board.

Bon: I think the poll will be very misleading to the extent that people will seek their short term preferences without considering the larger collective goal.

Me: but if the majority of people have the same short term prefernces....

thing is - from just reading this thread the past day or so, it doesn't seem like there is a strong majority for any particular path. it does feel (like so many other times until voting!) like we are just talking in circles.

SA: However, at this point, I do think a poll would be helpful. Even if it isn't perfect, it would still give us some kind of data which which to proceed onwards with, either to refine our questions or at least to give us a rough number of those involved in this discussion, vocal or not.

David: I think we need to articulate the larger collective goal. I think polls will help us do that. I'm not so interested in what people want. We can always add or subtract stuff later. That process is in place. I would rather the polls addressed why people post here. What show thread environment is interesting to them. How they see the board. How they think it works best. Not just for them but for everybody.

Denise: I'm kind of confused now. I see people stating that what the majority of people may or may not want isn't necessarily what's best for the board. But who gets to decide what's best for the board if not the majority?

Me: some proposed general board questions

David: The discussion itself may change people's minds about what each thread vote means. The polling could clarify what we value most and how it works best.

I'm trying to figure out the source of bon's anxiety.

I read her link and I've pulled up some quotes relevant to our experience, some of which address my questions.

And the worst crisis is the first crisis, because it's not just "We need to have some rules." It's also "We need to have some rules for making some rules." And this is what we see over and over again in large and long-lived social software systems. Constitutions are a necessary component of large, long-lived, heterogenous groups.

This was definitely our experience. But we did institute that structure, as difficult as that process was. And now we're looking at the effects of the voting system. I guess all I'm really interested in is whether we need to make either a social or structural change in how we deal with votes. Do we need to actually amend our voting process, or do we just need to think about it differently?

The next quote directly addresses one of my questions.

The downside of going for size and scale above all else is that the dense, interconnected pattern that drives group conversation and collaboration isn't supportable at any large scale. Less is different -- small groups of people can engage in kinds of interaction that large groups can't. And so we blew past that interesting scale of small groups. Larger than a dozen, smaller than a few hundred, where people can actually have these conversational forms that can't be supported when you're talking about tens of thousands or millions of users, at least in a single group.

So - it is the dense, interconnected pattern that I think we're talking about in a variety of ways. Is Natter losing that density because of thread proliferation? Do single show or bucket threads foster high volume, culture-enhancing talk? Do new single show or bucket threads create the high density conversation at the expense of the core community threads? I think that might be the biggest question in my mind.

2.) The second thing you have to accept: Members are different than users. A pattern will arise in which there is some group of users that cares more than average about the integrity and success of the group as a whole. And that becomes your core group, Art Kleiner's phrase for "the group within the group that matters most."

This relates to brenda's "who cares" quote. I'm not interested in turning over the board to a majority that doesn't participate in generating the core culture. Again, no offense to lurkers or others, but the people who have participated the longest and the most often have a greater investment.

The core group on Communitree was undifferentiated from the group of random users that came in. They were separate in their own minds, because they knew what they wanted to do, but they couldn't defend themselves against the other users. But in all successful online communities that I've looked at, a core group arises that cares about and gardens effectively. Gardens the environment, to keep it growing, to keep it healthy.

Gang of 14! I do think most long time members have buy-in to help garden/maintain the community. The way we deal with trolls or offensive statements is that people respond in-thread immediately, and generally as a group. That's community policing.

3.) The third thing you need to accept: The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations. This pulls against the libertarian view that's quite common on the network, and it absolutely pulls against the one person/one vote notion. But you can see examples of how bad an idea voting is when citizenship is the same as ability to log in.

Again, the more your participate and contribute the more....(wait for it) social capital you have. Or simply respect.

Anyway, that does help me articulate what my central questions are.

Continued