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Admod Votes of Confidence discontinued


Qutenkuddly

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Qutenkuddly

After first implementing the Admod Vote of Confidence system approximately 2 years ago, whereupon both moderators and administrators would undergo a vote of confidence to retain their positions every two years, the AVEN Admod Team has re-evaluated the value of the Vote of Confidence system against the additional stress and workload it presents to admods undergoing review. After much debate, input from the AVEN membership, and evaluation of the results of VoC system to date, the AVEN Admod Team has voted to reverse the decision to implement the Vote of Confidence system. This change of policy will be reviewed in one year.
 
We recognize that there are a number of people, both on and off the AVEN Admod Team,  who are strongly invested in the idea of the Vote of Confidence. We will soon be discussing the concerns that the Vote of Confidence system was intended to address to find more effective means to resolve them.

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Noted. I will no longer vote in admod elections then.

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Grumpy Alien
11 hours ago, timewarp said:

Noted. I will no longer vote in admod elections then.

I might follow suit. I have to think about it further just to make sure it’s the best form of protest/nonparticipation. But I think this is likely what I’ll do.

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Absolutely the right decision. It sounds to me like pointless unnecessary bureaucracy that should not have been introduced in the first place. 

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3 hours ago, Ortac said:

Absolutely the right decision. It sounds to me like pointless unnecessary bureaucracy that should not have been introduced in the first place. 

I'm sure Vladimir Putin would agree with you. Reelections are a complete waste of time.

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13 minutes ago, timewarp said:

I'm sure Vladimir Putin would agree with you. Reelections are a complete waste of time.

Given that there's been like 2 here that hasn't changed anything, I'm sure he agrees with you.

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On 3/12/2020 at 8:10 PM, Qutenkuddly said:

We recognize that there are a number of people, both on and off the AVEN Admod Team,  who are strongly invested in the idea of the Vote of Confidence. We will soon be discussing the concerns that the Vote of Confidence system was intended to address to find more effective means to resolve them.

See, I really don't get decisions like these.

 

Come up with a proper alternative first, with input from the community. Once you have a proper alternative ready to go, then discontinue the vote of confidence.

 

So much unnecessary drama could be avoided this way...

 

And yes, it's important that the community must have input on this.

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13 hours ago, Kimchi Peanut said:

I might follow suit. I have to think about it further just to make sure it’s the best form of protest/nonparticipation. But I think this is likely what I’ll do.

Same. I already make enough posts challenging the team ever since I have noticed admod biases. That admod ex of mine now can get away with even more ToS violations for lifetime. They will never get demodded ha ha ha ha.

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There’s normally an admod elections every few months, if it is felt that the way things are now are unsatisfactory feel free to run in the next election.

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4 minutes ago, N8LV3y said:

There’s normally an admod elections every few months, if it is felt that the way things are now are unsatisfactory feel free to run in the next election.

You're relatively new to AVEN, so I take it your statement is down to lack of experience. Those of us who've been around for longer know that you can't change things by joining admods.

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15 minutes ago, timewarp said:

You're relatively new to AVEN, so I take it your statement is down to lack of experience. Those of us who've been around for longer know that you can't change things by joining admods.

Then how did was VoC originally put into place?

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Janus the Fox

What some miss here is that the membership itself did vote against this, it’s in the thread.

 

Yes there’s pretty mixed feelings on this but the VoC was not working to remove Admods.  With turnover like it is, most staff rarely stay put in one place after 2 years.  I certainly didn’t being DT for 2 years and now Mod for perhaps as long.  I think it’s for the best to just allow a staff members contributions to run its course as long as there’s a drive to continue, when not, staff naturally stand down.

 

There are systems in place already that any staff can be placed under.  Staff are not just under the ToS, staff have a complex Code of Conduct to work under anyway.  If a staff members work slips past a minimal contribution, staff are put under review anyway.

 

Any other staff and any member can report any staff member as usual and it will be brought up as normal.  Any staff as discussed as an idea, any mod can run their own VoC or VoNC in their own forums at any time citing actual Thread Actions made in that forum.  A mod could ask for Early Declass for some threads or include parts of already declassed material.  The vote in those are not staff binding but could be useful to fine a current mood and actual level of confidence between a mod and their forum members.  A mod can stand down voluntary based on that.

 

So back to how things where, there’s Admod Archival threads that lead to the development of this process.  In a years time when this policy action is reviewed, maybe it might be a better time to introduce it again.

 

24 minutes ago, N8LV3y said:

Then how did was VoC originally put into place?

Let's hammer out the details for VoC without delay

Admods Vote of Confidence

Term limits slash vote of confidence

Who can vote in VoC

 

This decision to put VoC in place in the first place goes back over 2 years, I’m grateful to be able to Declass those at the time.  It’s a big read though and one that could form the basis of an investigation as to why it didn’t work out in the end.

 

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Good news. It should never have been a thing for any of the staff. 
 

The more people realise being a mod on an internet message board isn’t the same thing as being a president or a senator or whatever, the better. 

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2 hours ago, N8LV3y said:

Then how did was VoC originally put into place?

And? Was it a success?

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11 hours ago, timewarp said:

I'm sure Vladimir Putin would agree with you. Reelections are a complete waste of time.

AVEN is not a cooperative of which we are all members. It is not a company of which we are all shareholders. And it is most definitely not the government of a nation of which we are all citizens, like Russia!

 

AVEN is a small group of individual volunteers working to raise awareness of asexuality in the community and provide a service to us in the form of this website. Having unnecessary levels of bureaucracy in a small operation such as AVEN will detract from their ability to do both of those things.

 

I have no doubt that this will be an unpopular opinion, but the AVEN 'members' are just any Tom, Dick or Harry like you or me who happens to register on this website. We should all realise that we have no automatic right at all to expect or demand any vote or input as to who serves as admods, or regarding any other decisions that are made. The fact that AVEN is organised in a way where they do allow that to a certain extent is very nice, but if the person or people who own this website and keep it running wish to appoint people to moderator positions themselves (or indeed dismiss them), then that would be their prerogative. That is how most other web forums work, and anyone who doesn’t like it is under no obligation to use them. It is not the case that every single organisation or entity in this world needs to be or should be a "democracy". If you work for a company, you don’t get to vote on who you want to be your boss or on every decision they make!

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Janus the Fox

AVEN as a governmental entity, I wonder what the rules of cake could be? 😛

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5 hours ago, Janus DarkFox said:

AVEN as a governmental entity, I wonder what the rules of cake could be? 😛

Ban waffles, only pancakes allowed.

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Spoilering because it doesn't totally have to do with the subject of VoC, but I felt I needed to address this.
 

Spoiler
7 hours ago, Ortac said:

That is how most other web forums work, and anyone who doesn’t like it is under no obligation to use them.

The "if you don't like it, don't use it" argument... I have never liked that argument, because it pretends that everything is always okay and that any concerns anyone ever has are invalid (or, at the very least, not worth addressing.)

 

I think the backlash on this thread about this is a bit of an overreaction, but people are invested in the community for a number of reasons. Many even depend on it. It's not reasonable to tell them they should just leave if they're not happy with something. They should be allowed to voice their concerns, and have them be taken into consideration, if the concerns are reasonable.

 

It's also in AVEN's best interest to operate in a way which keeps their user base happy. The owners of the site could just decide to dismiss every current member of the staff and appoint their closed group of irl friends as moderation team instead, and rejecting any complaints with a "my way or the highway" attitude, but if they did that, I think it would make the site very unfriendly. And AVEN needs to feel friendly and welcoming, if we want people to stick around. It would be hard to efficiently help and educate as much people as possible if an unfriendly moderation team was causing people to leave.

 

New members are important, because those are usually the people who are there to receive advice and to learn. We want them to stay so the community can provide that help, and educate them. And older members are important too, because those are the people who have experience and knowledge. We want them to stay, because they're a large part of what we rely on to provide help, support and education to those who need it.

 

We are not shareholders, no... but you can't forget about the stakeholders. Every member of the community is a stakeholder. And it's important to take them into account, because I don't think AVEN could even keep up and do what it does, without the support of the community. Not just because the community is what we rely on to help with education, but because AVEN also relies on donations to stay afloat. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, and all that.

 

Ultimately though, I'm sure the staff means well, and that they would never make a decision or do something which actively works against the community. I know they understand how important the community is to AVEN's success and I doubt they would want to alienate it. I still think it would have been better for staff to wait until they had alternatives ready to present before making an announcement like this, because I can understand that some people might be a bit apprehensive of VoC being discontinued without having any alternatives ready to replace it, but... cut them some slack, guys. They're getting there.

 

Also, thank you @Janus DarkFox for your wonderful reply. I appreciate that you took the time to write a constructive reply to address concerns. We can never have enough of this kind of thing.

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OptimisticPessimist
50 minutes ago, Jon A. said:

Beware of Waffle's Revenge.

:ph34r:

 

@Ammy I wish i could like your post more than once. 

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Just now, Jon A. said:

What did I do wrong this time?

Nothing :) 

(But French Toast is still better) :P 

 

On topic:

Admods do try to do what they think is best for AVEN and for the members who make AVEN the community it is, but admods don't always agree on everything. We do try to take into account members' concerns, thoughts, and ideas. That's why there was a thread about the votes of confidence asking for input so we could consider that in our discussions in the admod forum. Like many decisions, this wasn't unanimous (just as it wasn't unanimous in the poll that was in that thread for member input). But we all agree to abide by majority decisions in such matters.

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OptimisticPessimist
7 minutes ago, Jon A. said:

And all mine got was a ninja smiley. What did I do wrong this time?

Nothing, waffle's forever. 

 

On topic: 

 

Also @Ammy we will take that point on board. 

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Thank you @Ammy for your excellent and constructive feedback. I do in fact agree everything you say. We are all stakeholders, and that is important.

 

The group of people who administer and moderate this site are volunteers trying to do their best to enable this community to exist. They are all human and they may make some mistakes, but overall, I believe that they are all here for altruistic reasons and that they all do a wonderful job. And it is a great thing that they DO engage with stakeholders, that they have good procedures for making decisions, and that they are transparent. They do try the best to keep the community happy. I therefore think it is largely unfair that there seems to be a sub set of this community who are always ready to accuse them of bad practice, and pounce on them and criticise so many of the actions or decisions they make, and that was what prompted my previous comment.

 

I think we do all ultimately need to remember is that being part of this community is a privilege, not a right. If the staff didn't do what they do, it wouldn't exist at all.

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Regarding the vote of confidence thing. I think that they way that AVEN were applying it was somewhat unusual. In governments, councils, clubs and organisations, perhaps more common than votes of confidence are votes of NO confidence. Despite the names which mean opposite things, they are both kind of the same – they establish whether someone holding a particular position should remain in that position. But my point is that with such votes, they are normally extraordinary events which have to be triggered by general discontent or as a result of questionable behavior or bad decisions made by the holder of the position either on a single occasion or over a period of time. It is unusual for someone to have to go through such a vote as a matter of routine at a set time, and that is another reason why I think the AVEN team were right to discontinue it.

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4 hours ago, OptimisticPessimist said:

Nothing, waffle's forever.

Absolutely, a decade of waffle-style patterns didn't just come out of nowhere.

 

bobcat-interior.jpg

 

Concorde-Airport-79-3.jpg

 

2 hours ago, Ortac said:

We are all stakeholders, and that is important.

For sure, we need to be ready to slay those pesky vampires.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Jon A. said:

For sure, we need to be ready to slay those pesky vampires.

I prefer using a whip, myself.

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