A GS democracy?

[X2]

A GS democracy

First of all, this is just an open discussion..a sharing of ideas, suggestions..

How would that work out. Think forward, 10 years from now, 15 years from now..whatever the technology is then..how would this community evolve and how will it be run and managed.

You will not have ehsan bhai, or myself or azkar..It simply can not be tied to us in the long term. Because as I say if tomorrow a handful of us are kidnapped by some aliens from another galaxy and asked to fight to death and the winner then serving as the main course what happens to GS? Really, we take it for granted that its running..some of us have been here for a decade, some more some less. Some will leave some will stay and their circles will change or the people they met as teens or as college students would age with them and this will still be a medium they will use to interact..its a vision..

How would it be run, if we move beyond the fact of financial self sustainability of the site and take it for granted that that problem is solved. How will it be run, who will call the shots? How?

Could we have a democratic system on GS? Where mods, admins etc are picked by users? How would that work, how do we prevent from people casting votes using multiple nicks. Do we have a paid member who can vote and unpaid cant, thus trying to limit the number of multis? But then someone with money can buy multiple memberships and vote multiple times.

Do we go based on number of posts, i.e. you can not vote unless you have a certain number of posts, but then do we factor in quality, is someone with 200 really good posts less of a guppie than someone with a 1000 posts out of which 900 are smileys (no dig on anyone really)

Do we give a higher weighting to a seasoned guppie who has been around for years versus a newbie? But would that not be discriminatory based on tenure?

Talk…

Share… this is for the moment an open discussion, but could very well be the direction we go to in the future.

And I would like the entire community to give their views.

Last request, I would be blind to not see the issues people have with one another, and request that as we have this discussion we put our axes down, fill in any chips on the shoulder, put down any baggage we have carried, and look at it as a positive group exercise. There is only so long we can dwell in the past, only so long we can keep the minutia from eroding positivity. to all those ppl I have not named, I know all of you, and the thign is, in your own way, all of you want to do the right thing..I know it. so please keep this in mind. critique is fine, negativity is not

so lets start doing the right thing about talking about a future, however distant that may be.

while I want this to be an ongoign discussion, lets keep this thread open thru April. then we will close it, go back and review, organize the ideas around rpos and cons suggestions, and then come back with a cleaned document, and restart the conversation again.

Thanks

[TLK]

Re: A GS democracy?

O' Boy, that is where those reputation points would come in handy.

People above certain rep points will be qualified to vote. I dont know if we have guppies with multis, whos more than one multi has enough rep points

ANd if that guppy was good enough to earn good rep for each of more than one multi, all his multis that quallify should be able to vote.

But before we vote, what would be the nomination process

[Niksik]

Re: A GS democracy?

While I am democratic person by nature, I think a place like GS which is comprised of people of all age groups, professions and backgrounds, I feel there should always be a management and administration that oversees the general well being and development of such a large forum.

I personally don't think voting would work. It may lead to more chaos and negativity.

I think what has worked for so many years as a successful model should continue.

Now, regarding you and Azkar and Ehsan bhai, etc. not being around, well, maybe you could sign a will as to who will take over this place in event of an alien abduction yada yada. Or transfer leadership to admins gradually...

[zobia]

Re: A GS democracy?

we should fix ourselves first.

we should be nice with/to ourselves, not for others as on the day of judgement all of us gonna be answerable for our actions not of others.

rest i dont care who is mod-admin as long as they are nice!

[inzi_rocks]

Re: A GS democracy?

While I am democratic person by nature, I think a place like GS which is comprised of people of all age groups, professions and backgrounds, I feel there should always be a management and administration that oversees the general well being and development of such a large forum.

I personally don't think voting would work. It may lead to more chaos and negativity.

I think what has worked for so many years as a successful model should continue.

Now, regarding you and Azkar and Ehsan bhai, etc. not being around, well, maybe you could sign a will as to who will take over this place in event of an alien abduction yada yada. Or transfer leadership to admins gradually...

Good idea.

[X2]

Re: A GS democracy?

The topic of bench strength and some sort of succession planning has been discussed by Azkar and myself. Its unlikely that among the founders all of us are gone in one fell swoop so in short term it is not an issue, but I know it, azkar knows it..in long term we simply will not have the time or the energy, or maybe even the relevance.. well into the uncledom category, we are anomalies..at one time Azkar an I were teh avg guppie..now on a normal distribution we are all the way out on one extreme

...would we still be involved in one role or another. yes...hopefully. BUt would we be the right people to handle the day to day stuff..no. and what if for one reasn or another we cant be involved i mean i die of old age and azkar gets arrested for dadagiri then what? so these are real questions

we know that the biggest hurdle is financial sustainability, because who pays the bills to kep this going. Thats top of mind for us, and for us to deal with, but we need to start having some sort of long term operational model in place as well.

either way, at some point in time a user elected mgmt team will be the model. That was agreed upon, but the question is how, and that would determine when.

[Niksik]

Re: A GS democracy?

and what if for one reasn or another we cant be involved i mean i die of old age and azkar gets arrested for dadagiri then what?

Jab shakal achi nahi hai to baatey acchi kia karo.
Lahol walaquwat!
Allah mian nazar say bachai.

Quote by my ammijaan.

[TLK]

Re: A GS democracy?

^^ I think is kee shakal achchi hai, jabhi baatain itnee behoodaa kertaa hai

:D

Sorry for off topic :D

If you can some how share who pays the bill now, and what is the motivation of yours or Azkar (who ever gives the financial support to the site), maybe some people who are young, able and willing can volunteer themselves to take this site through next generation

10 years from now, the way we are moving into Sidekick and Iphone culture, who knows that forums like such and social networking of this form would exist or not.

Why to worry now

[X2]

Re: A GS democracy?

@TLK

^^ I think is kee shakal achchi hai, jabhi baatain itnee behoodaa kertaa hai

chall hatt.moaa perdesi babu…cherta hai

Bites edge of tie

[Niksik]

Re: A GS democracy?

It is always good to be a possibilty thinker, hence this discussion.

But there are so many questions. Like, one, what TLK said about financial support structure and the income generation setup. Second, has any group or individual ever expressed interest in purchasing this site before? Third, you can't just hand over, you have to train people to handle. So what's the first step?

[fghd]

Re: A GS democracy?

Nikki : gr8 points :k:

X2:=

err I mean good topic

[X2]

Re: A GS democracy?

If you can some how share who pays the bill now, and what is the motivation of yours or Azkar (who ever gives the financial support to the site), maybe some people who are young, able and willing can volunteer themselves to take this site through next generation

10 years from now, the way we are moving into Sidekick and Iphone culture, who knows that forums like such and social networking of this form would exist or not.

Why to worry now

Azkar pays period. my contribtion has been poradic and limite to a lil this or that, nothing really substantial to mention.

The motivation..communication, understanding, learning..

things evolve, i agree... but realize paklinks was born on irc effnet when azkar thought that it was going to run its course an i not have scale an permanency and history attributes.

so as the net becomes a grid and whatever happens we will try to evolve.

if we become irrelevent I would rather see it happen as due to things outside our control, not things that were in our control but we did not do anything about them.

[Niksik]

Re: A GS democracy?

@X2

chall hatt.moaa perdesi babu…cherta hai

Bites edge of tie

All your ties must be soaking wet since morning. Send TLK the dry cleaning bill.

[X2]

Re: A GS democracy?

It is always good to be a possibilty thinker, hence this discussion.

But there are so many questions. Like, one, what TLK said about financial support structure and the income generation setup. Second, has any group or individual ever expressed interest in purchasing this site before? Third, you can't just hand over, you have to train people to handle. So what's the first step?

Oh yeah we have had diff groups interested in purchasing, but they were more interested in accessing the established userbae of this and/or sister sites. These include media companies of Pakistan, social service groups..but at the end of the day their view of the community differed widely from ours and they were told no thank you.

We have always tried to have a good bench strength, It has suffered in recent years but that is how I was pulled back into the organization by Azkar, and before me Muzna, late Faisal, sabah, ehsan. we ha admins who we id not just look at as super mos with policing power that spanned forums but people who we saw as people who have the ability to take over. The process will be restarted and augmented. One chief and then many braves is a recipe for disaster, we need to have a few asst chiefs as well.

[X2]

Re: A GS democracy?

@Niksik

All your ties must be soaking wet since morning. Send TLK the dry cleaning bill.

I am a shopaholic, lets not get into how many ties I have

[TLK]

Re: A GS democracy?

Test some people to run virtual spin offs with in GS enviornment, just like testing new software with in VM, which acts like a pc but actually a software that can be deleted if bug happens.

I see that Unplugged can move in such direction as it is little independent but also tied to GS, and that team can prove itself as next candidate

Do some more of such experiments to qualify some more

[X2]

Re: A GS democracy?

TLK well the model we will most likely be going to is admins for each section..i.e. hangout, society, etc etc, and have them be kinda like mini directors. Not only o we build bench strength that way, but have more focus on different sections which woul otherwise be diluted. between a mod looking at one forum and a director looking at all sections we have a gap, which will be tackled.

[Kaka_MaNNa]

Re: A GS democracy?

Determining leaders for gupshup based on # of posts is useless. This way we would have every little monkey and their cohorts as mods and admins. Bad idea.

There is a huge problem with group-bazi *and *tola-bazi *on gupshup... who are those individuals (*even some adults resort to such stupid practices), we've come to find out in past week or so.

Therefore, system where users pick moderators would cause more problems than solve any.

Moderators should be picked based on these things and not if they have more posts or if they are liked by other members:

1. Experience in their field / career
2. What they know about the subject
3. Their conduct
4. Resolve disputes objectively
5. Can they determine the difference between right and wrong?
6. Do they have the courage to call something wrong when it is wrong and even against their friends and personal interest?
7. Do they bend and flex based on what is good for themselves and their group of people (whom they agree with or share same interests)?
8. Users / members should not have any say in who the administration picks for moderating their website. The users are here to discuss and enjoy their time, not deal with administrative aspects and running the day to day activity/management. Admins need to realize that mods can also make mistakes and often they do, therefore, the mod is always right and admin must take their side idea needs to be thrown out. The problem should not get to the admin but when it does, admins must look at the mod as well as the user through the same lens.

Failure of any online community starts when public polling is held where administration/management allows regular users and no bodys (often it would be those with multiple nick names here on GS) to pick who should moderate their website.

[Kaka_MaNNa]

Re: A GS democracy?

Moreover, I think no matter what day it is and what happens, you will always have users who are willing to moderate.

What you should be discussing (not in public :D) is who will manage the website? The server? The updates? The upgrades? The bug fixes? The money / finance, hosting? Software renewals? Who will bring the website up when it goes down?

Gupshup should be seeking those invdividuals and not moderators... moderators will come and go and picking them is not that of a big deal.

[X2]

Re: A GS democracy?

so JL

your point is that it should be selection by mgmt team, and not election?
I mean we can go back to the centuries old debates on strengths and weaknesses of democracy vs oligarchy etc.

what is the corrective mechanism, what if somewhere alone the line the people who are picked go renegade, and then the chain becomes ppl like them picking other ppl like them, until there is a reformer.

do you know of any user managed, user run successful communities? I would really like to study their operating model.