I do not believe a democratic model is ideal for maintenance of a website. The reasons for that are very simple, and some of them are that the founders of website have a moto and a goal for the website. However, if the users are allowed to choose who runs their communicating medium, then the choices may at times be biased, and do more damage to the earned reputation than good. Often the original idea and the principles maybe compromised, and continually may eventually fade to nonexistence.
At a micro level, users may be allowed to vote and pick moderators, if even that. But Admins should always be chosen by a select group, most probably the owner(s) and some sort of a selection committee who have always run this place (i.e. X2, Azkar, Ehsan), and it is them who should decide irrelevant of peoples' vote who should take over for them and run this place on the same moto and keep the principles intact while allowing the overall environment to expand and revolutionize with time thereby keeping the website up-to-date.
A structure doesn't always mean the overall within cannot innovate and/or change with times, it simply means that the structure be kept in the shape its founder meant for it to be. There is a reason this place has been successful thus far, and i think the original structure is a very big part of that equation.
financial sustainability aside,
if the founders of the site were unable to run it
how would this site be run, could a democratic model work, and if so, how, if no, why not?
Financial sustainability? Well any business ideally should be self-financing. Personally I think GS is a good idea and doing a lot for Pakistani community, personally I would be happy to contribute, like I might to Edhi foundation or something, I think many others would do the same.
I don't think a democratic system could work and when how you you decide who is eligible and who is not. Is it going to be one member one vote? or is there going to be any weightage? I think maybe a better idea would be to get people to buy a share in the site. Give each member the opportunity to buy one share and this would result in members coming forward that are motivated and care about the site.
If we assume the part about politics is true, how can we appoint a panel without getting affected from politics? What route would you take assuming such a situation?
Well first of all you need to create a job specification for the moderators. Then there should be written rules and policies to have consistency in giving warnings to people, also once people know that they have broken some written down rule, they would be more happier and less likely to argue. Then you appoint a panel that has people from a professional background, or people who are known to be mature or impartial. At the end of the day someone has to make a decision based on their opinion. It might not be perfect but it will be better than existing arrangement.
arshad - the topic about the written rules and policies for moderators is beaten to death and it is often reminded to us that there is a guide for moderators in a place unreachable to non-mod guppies. As for consistency in warning, I personally do not believe in warnings - only to an extent. Warnings are a show-off of your status IMO. A good moderator would have enough stamina to handle and COMMUNICATE with its members that there should hardly arise a need for a warning - and that too as a last resort.
For example, let's think about it. A new comer posts in cafe with three consecutive replies. Now having the excuse that a user is assumed to have read the RULES before posting, a mod gives him/her warning on his/her arrival without a reminder of the rule - thus creating a communication gap and more likely steering away a new user who might be an asset to the forum; would you agree with such a decision? Atleast, I would not.
Coming back to the topic, you do seem to have a working plan but appointing of panel is where I am still feeling skeptical because remember as per you, politics is there, how would you avoid that?
Rules should be visible to the members as well, it gives them more confidence that the moderators are being impartial. There shouldn't be any grey areas.
As for the panel. I think there are 3 ways that you can try to remove politics. Whereever there are people you will have politics but we can try to minimise it.
a) By the selection of the panel based on the criteria I mentioned earlier.
b) So long as panel members don't have same circle of friends on GS, they should balance out any biases of the other members.
c) By having a job specification and a written crieria for selection in front of them, there will be less room for personal biases.
Sorry to go off on a little tangent here, but just wanted to clarify for any of my well-wishers that I am still alive and not really “late Faisal”, at least to the best of my knoweldge (not sure if I have internet in janat-ul-firdous or something). Granted I am old, but not *that *old. Jazak Allah.
Pls continue this very important discussion. I will chip in with my thoughts later (once I get over the news of my premature demise).
leaders are designers, and designers innovate..we are saying the same thing. if yoiu dont innovate then what you have will become irrelevent because someone else will innovate.
Inhabitants of status quo dont like revolutionary change :)
Ideology need a life... the idea maker should always be driving the car, if he give seat to other to drive and gets off the car then his car will go anywhere the new driver wants to take it.
Idea maker has to be in charge ... always, else there will be no guaranty that car will follow the same route which he imagined... !
Indeed there is no perfect democracy exists, because every thing has boundaries and limits, we have to follows the rules and should live within these limits!
A Perfect example of derailing is GS ...
Mods were selected on the basis of personal liking and grouping, many who deserved were rejected by groups for their personal unlinking and they threatened admins, this is left turn where the car was derailed.
When you start hating one set of people, you will yourself corner your own group, you misuse your *powers *and start acting as dictator and this is just to shut some mouths, and problem starts.
anyway hoping for the best inshAllah... and **idea **should remain alive
Mods were selected on the basis of personal liking and grouping, many who deserved were rejected by groups for their personal unlinking and they threatened admins, this is left turn where the car was derailed.
When you start hating one set of people, you will yourself corner your own group, you misuse your *powers *and start acting as dictator and this is just to shut some mouths, and problem starts.
anyway hoping for the best inshAllah... and **idea **should remain alive
lol. u wana say admins or mod selecting body(z) are not challenging people, who dont like to deal with challenges?
arshad good points
btw mod duties and rules, and roles and responsibilities etc will be placed
rules is a whole diff story, as they say you can create something pretty idiot proof and then a ebtter idiot comes around :) thats where ppl then have to extrapolate and all, and thats what gets them in hot water.
so far what I am reading is that aside from some weaknesses and errors, the format we have generally works well, i.e. strong leadership team providing consistency picking operational team which they feel can align operationalize the strategy.
admittedly we have not done the best job at it, especially over last few years, which will change, and this is part of it.
now, additional point, how would a user advisory group work here?
now, additional point, how would a user advisory group work here?
prone to get ridiculed - and that I am talking from experience :) but that besides the point that a user advisory group is a neat idea however, people in the advisory group feel left out when they are just that - advisory group.
First of all, Azkar is jawaan-jahaan ( I have to say this, because if Azkar is old, then I am way too old), plus he is filthy rich, so hopefully, this won't be an issue for quite a few years, and he can continue to maintain status quo.
The real question is financial. I am absolutely convinced, that in the long run, the site (and all its sister-sites) have to be financially independent and generate their own revenues to support their growth. They can't indefinitely live off someone else's private funds. Short of that, the site will either be closed, or will be sold to someone. The real key is to be able to monetize the site's user-base, content and value.
The issue of managing the site (admins/mods) is actually the easiest, by comparison. Whoever is the owner/paymaster of the site, will select operational leadership (Admins) and they will, in turn, get mods to manage different functions. When mods/Admins get de-interested or de-motivated or inactive, they move on and are let go, and newer people take their place. As long as we keep getting new members to join the site, and keep the place exciting (full of new and fresh content) this will be a natural process (members will keep bringing more members in here). Member growth is usually two-pronged, fueled in part by by real-life word of mouth referrals and online marketing/placements/connections etc. Having the site indexed by major search engines and our discussion threads popping up in response to web searches by outsiders is a great way to bring new people in. Many of these new people are future leaders of the site. I don't think a full-blown self-sustaining democracy in getting mods/Admins is either practical or even necessary. There is no substitute for human touch in evaluating quality of a person's contributions and leadership potential.
now, additional point, how would a user advisory group work here?
who made groups? when one person refuses to listen 'users' and keep on defending his other group or team, it just creates groups! ...
consider everyone as valued costumer and give them respect and listen them...
break those groups and every thing will be all right! ... no need to make user(another group) advisory group! Every one should be allowed to give advice and for that we have feeding back forum, but 'parday daar' group should also share their ideas openly!
AQ- The role of an advisory group to give advise, now if that advise is taken or not for financial, technical, bandwidth reasons, thats that. I do think that in such an advisory group and site leadership a better communication should be there which was simply not there in alldost case, going back to limited personal bandwidth issues.
I have served on a few advisory boards, for my uni presidents advisory council and then on school of business dean's alumni advisory council, some of the recommendations were accepted and some were not. but communication was there.
the advatage of that oin my view was that a group of levelheaded pplfrom diff backgrounds but witha vested personal interest in the betterment of the place was allowing some insights into what the dean or president may otherwise be missing, in some cases they knew some of it already and simply could not do it for one reason or another.
I do think that there is a place for a user advisory panel here, but the who how and why I dont know yet. Last time we tried we picked a group of people,seasoned guppies, ppl who could be considered mavericks, some were willing to help, some exceeded our expectations (AQ for example) and some were bench warmers .. no names mentioned.
so a GS user advisoty panel is probably going to come about at some time with a direct line to site leadership at regular intervals. how.. not sure yet.
who made groups? when one person refuses to listen 'users' and keep on defending his other group or team, it just creates groups! ...
consider everyone as valued costumer and give them respect and listen them...
break those groups and every thing will be all right! ... no need to make user(another group) advisory group! Every one should be allowed to give advise and for that we have feeding back forum, but 'parday daar' group should also share their ideas openly!
You missed the point. I meant a user advisory group, not user group baazi.
and not really “late Faisal”, at least to the best of my knoweldge (not sure if I have internet in janat-ul-firdous or something). Granted I am old, but not *that *old. Jazak Allah.