Posted by thuso on October 14, 2005, at 17:48:32
In reply to Re: Sent my reply via Babblemail » thuso, posted by alexandra_k on October 14, 2005, at 17:29:17
> I wish you would post it to the boards too...
>
> Because then all of us can benefit from what you have to say as well :-)
>
> I don't know much about politics or management and it is interesting to me to read what other people think.
>
> And I always enjoy your posts.I didn't post it because of one paragraph I put in there. I didn't want anyone to think I was talking about them and get offended. It was only a general observation from me. Better to be safe, eh? I'll just copy and paste the rest of it here (minus that one part) so you can read it and comment if you want.
---------------------------------------And here I thought MINE was long! ;-) hahaha! Well, here is my second chance to out-type you...
>> Now when I talk a specific person as the "leader", I don't necessarily mean someone who has veto power and/or has the ability to make any decision they want(i.e. your role right now). The ideal would be to have a group administering the board with a leader taking on more of a managerial role to make sure things run smoothly for the group.
>>> Like a CEO reports to a board of directors?
Kind of. I like the idea of the checks and balances this type of structure brings. The CEO is the person officially in charge, but the BoD has the power to fire him/her if the CEO gets off track. So, I guess on here that would be a 3-tiered approach. The bottom tier would be the deputies who “police” the boards. The next tier would be the leader (CEO) who would manage the boards and the deputies. And the final tier would be a BoD type thing where they would have the ability to step in and do what is necessary if something relating to the CEO gets out of hand. So, their job wouldn’t require much time or energy if the CEO and deputies do their jobs correctly. The only problem with this method is the number of people it would require. If you can find enough people you trust to do this type of structure, I think it might work out well. You would just need to set something up to make sure the BoD and CEO positions are not permanent. That would help protect everyone from an oligarchy being created and it would help get more people in the community involved. The more people get involved with running it, the more the board will become “theirs”. At least that has been my experience.
If you decide on an idea like this, I would also suggest that you set minimum time limits on membership or a minimum number of posts before they can apply to take on a leadership role. The best leaders will be those who have already taken ownership of the board. That won’t happen if they’re new or haven’t posted much.
> But electing someone from the community wouldn't count as "by themselves", right?
Yeah. When I said “by themselves” I meant almost like a commune where ideally everyone is equal and no person or small group is running things. In theory, that type of community/group should work if everyone is doing their part to keep the community running, but then again the theory of communism sure looked good on paper. Obviously, communism didn’t pan out well in real life.
> I've started thinking of large groups as political systems.
That is exactly how I’ve begun to see large groups. If you think about it, some sort of hierarchy or political structure always emerges when a large group forms. It may not be a complicated one, but that structure seems to be what helps a group maintain longevity.
What might be good is when you finally have this structure in place and the people are chosen, you stay on as a consultant for a while. You can have absolutely nothing to do with the boards or even ever come on, but if the leadership has questions or a big issue that they don’t know how to deal with appropriately, they have the ability to consult with an expert. And even if you permanently leave forever, it would be good for the board to have a professional there to act as a consultant. And only the leadership (CEO or BoD) would be able to contact this person for advice on administrative/board related issues. That person can have absolutely no association with the board other than to be available for the leadership to ask pertinent questions. Just a thought.
> So I guess we'd be trying to move from a monarchy to a republic? Or from traditional to rational-legal?
I’d call it more of a tyranny...but why mince words? ;-) In terms of political systems, I think you would really have to do a lot of deep thinking if your idea is to turn the community into a republic or a democracy or maybe a mix of both. Do you want a group of people elected to represent the community and make all decisions? Or do you want a group of elected leaders to run the community, but have every decision ultimately decided by the people? I can see positive and negatives in having either of those types of systems incorporated into this community. There are soooooooooooooooo many questions to think about relating to these political systems. It’s ultimately going to boil down to what your long-term vision is of this board. I don’t know exactly what that is (I have a broad idea), so it is something to think about.
And according to Weber, I think you are correct that we would be going from a traditional to rational-legal type of rule. At least to a degree. As of right now, I think that if you left there would be quite a few rule changes made by the group. There seem to be more than a few people who are loud about their disagreement of your rule enforcements...especially relating to blocks and length of blocks. I think it would technically be rational-legal if we kept the community running with rules exactly the way you have it set up now. I have doubts about that.
Those are just some more of my thoughts and ideas. Like I said, I’m always full of ideas. It’s good that you are starting to think about this process early. It will make the transition soooooo much smoother when it actually takes place (even though it will still be torturous for many people). Once people get over the shock of "this is actually real", I think you’ll get a lot more feedback on
ways that the community can look once you hand it over.Good luck!!!!!
poster:thuso
thread:564410
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20051013/msgs/566942.html