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From WWR

The presiding council of neighbors who dispense wisdom and moderation and facilitate peaceful co-existence between everyone involved with Whole Wheat Radio.

Current Members

All seated May 10th, 2008 after Jim asked them via email to participate.

1. Atuuschaaw / talk page / contact
2. Denali / talk page / contact
3. DogNut / talk page / contact
4. Flying Trout / talk page / contact
5. Kelli / talk page / contact
6. Rubenerd / talk page / contact
7. Sparkit / talk page / contact

Purpose

• To provide consensus (or lack of) for proposals submitted by site collaborators.
• To act as an advisory board for important administrative decisions (i.e. decisions with significant financial or legal consequences).
• To provide guidance and recommendations concerning disruptive personalities such as online substance abusers, stalkers, hackers, trolls, etc.
• To "bless", with their "Official Seal" containing a final vote count, actions taken by Jim and other collaborators on the WWR site (or external websites).
• To be flexible to the needs of the real-world WWR situation ... a loosely organized group of creative volunteer collaborators.

I will no longer shoulder the sole burden of responsibility and the resulting complaints and personal attacks for taking actions that need to be taken on this website. I will no longer accept sole responsibility for quietly being the voluntary police force that is assigned the unpleasant task of dealing with online substance abusers, online stalkers, trolls, email attackers and other people who disrupt the good intentions, good portions and good people of this website. - Jim 11:37, May 9, 2008 (AKDT)

Goals

• To relieve Jim of having to act as sole arbitrator of personality clashes and disputes concerning the core WWR mission.
• To help minimize friction between all collaborators.
• To provide quick resolution of "common sense" issues.
• To provide guidance and wisdom for proposals that have longer term consequences.
• To foster creative problem solving flexibility among collaborators.
• To eventually become an elected/appointed self-sustaining body.

What the Council is not

• A technical system design advisory board (i.e. Jim will continue to develop code, test new ideas and function as chief system designer).
• A place to complain about minor or day-to-day problems (lack of knowledge of wiki, trivial disagreements, minor personality conflicts).
• A group with real legal power over any situation. Their purpose is to advise and provide recommendations only.

Methods

• All actions related to a proposal will be documented and archived on wiki page(s) dedicated to that particular proposal.
• Any active collaborator (defined as anyone who has ~100 meaningful edits in the last ~30 days) may submit a public proposal to the Council.
• Proposals may appear in any form the submitter desires. The more documentation and justification given, the more likely the Council will rule in favor of the petitioner.
• Proposals may include all relevant documentation including emails, comments left on WWR as well as other websites, and/or any other verifiable information.
• Proposals can have as many consensus options as the submitter wants. The Council can add or remove consensus options. (i.e. Yes / No but the Council could add "If X occurs").
• The Council may modify the proposal in any way they wish as they consider the proposal.
• The submitter may withdraw the proposal at any time but will provide a reason for doing so.
• The Council and anyone involved with the proposal will discuss and document their deliberations publicly.
• Active collaborators are welcome to express their opinions publicly.
• Consensus voting will be anonymous.
• Consensus (or lack thereof) occurs when everyone on the Council has voted at least once. The Council can agree to as many anonymous re-votes as they like before issuing a final consensus (or lack thereof).
• A proposal may be resubmitted by the original submitter for a 2nd vote if no consensus is reached. No more than 2 submissions by the same person for the same proposal can be made.
• The Council may take as little or as much time as needed needed to reach (or not reach) consensus.
• Once the Council is done dealing with an issue, they will provide their "Official Seal" with a record of the final votes.

Jim's involvement

• Jim is not a member of the Council.
• Jim will create the first Council by asking specific people to participate. Done
• Jim will officially recognize recommendations made by the Council.
• In cases where the Council and Jim disagree, Jim will give the Council's recommendations the highest possible consideration.
• Jim still retains ultimate veto power over the Council in cases of disagreement but will document his reasons for taking opposing actions.
• Both the Council and Jim have the power to dissolve the Council if it ceases to function as planned.

Additional Notes

• The Council is not expected to generally have to deal with more than 2-3 major proposals per month. There may be a larger number of proposals to resolve within the first month due to a backlog of issues Jim has been dealing with.

• The first Council will have 7 members. To be appointed, members must have been fairly active WWR collaborators for a minimum of 1 year. Members can resign anytime. Members who resign cannot be reappointed for at least 6 months. Members who resign will be replaced by new members appointed jointly by remaining Council members and Jim.

• Yes, the first Council will be "hand-picked" by Jim. Considering he is the founder of WWR, accepts sole financial responsibility and has 5+ years experience dealing with issues the Council will be dealing with, he feels it is his prerogative to make sure the Council gets headed in a direction that is consistent with his philosophies. If the Council proves to be successful at keeping WWR a vibrant collaborative effort with fair conflict resolution, Jim will reduce his involvement to the same level as other collaborators.

Examples

• A collaborator has gotten several unwanted private emails from a WWR user (but non-collaborator) strongly suggesting a romantic liaison. S/he has asked the emailer to please stop sending emails but is still receiving them. A proposal is submitted for "Quick Resolution" to issue an Official Public Warning on the talk page of the person sending the emails along with copies of all the emails in question, both sent and received. The Council, after reading the publicly posted emails, adds an option to "Ban user from WWR permanently". An anonymous vote is taken. 5 Council members vote to Ban. 2 Council members vote to issue a warning. The "Official Seal" with the vote count is issued. Based on the recommendation of the Council, a notice is posted on the person's talk page and after insuring they are aware of the decision, Jim bans the person permanently.

• A non-collaborator has publicly stated that they want to be removed from the website. After being gone for several months they reappear. Jim posts a reminder of the previous removal request and posts a standard WWR warning on their talk page. The person responds in a flippant way that indicates they neither acknowledge nor understand why their behavior is disruptive. They continue to act passively/aggressively and repeatedly state their opposition to the core WWR mission. Jim submits a proposal to the Council asking that if the user publicly acknowledges s/he wants continued access to WWR, they be asked to publicly acknowledge their disruptive behavior and give examples of how they intend to change their behavior. If the user refuses to take this step, they will be denied access for a minimum of 1 year. While the Council is deliberating and writing their public opinions, the user exhibits more passive/aggressive behavior directed at the Council. The Council adds an option that says "User will be banned from the website for 1 month." An anonymous vote is taken with 7 votes for banning for 1 month. Jim takes that action.

• Jim implements a major design change without getting any input from other collaborators. A frequent collaborator complains publicly that the new change is pointless, difficult and disruptive. S/he submits a proposal to the Council that Jim no longer make any major system changes without input from other collaborators. The Council adds an option for "A quick non-binding anonymous vote" (straw poll) to see where the issue stands. The vote results in 4 votes telling Jim to stop making major changes without input, and 3 votes saying input is not necessary. The Council quickly agrees to make the non-binding vote the official final vote. They issue their "Official Seal" with the vote results. Jim takes the vote into consideration resulting in him doing more (but not all) design work offsite and then presenting it as a working option.

• A non-collaborator appears and begins making frequent contributions to the site hyping one particular artist whose music is amateurish and borderline acceptable for WWR. Jim requests that the Council take a quick vote to remove the artist's music from the library and if the non-collaborator returns and complains without trying to understand the mission of WWR, they be banned. A quick vote is taken and results in a 7 to 0 vote to remove the artist's music and ban if the person returns and is disruptive. Jim does so with no explanation to the non-collaborator. S/he returns in a few days and complains about the music being removed and that WWR is not fair to artists but does so in a mature and reasoned fashion (i.e. no name calling or personalizing but a sincere effort at constructive criticism). Jim explains the situation, shows the "Official Seal" with the vote, but puts the music back in the library after the person understands that hyping is not allowed on WWR and agrees to stop.

References

1. Communities Online: Trolling and Harassment - An outstanding resource and description of online communities such as WWR
2. Consensus decision making
3. Virtual community
4. Membership life cycle for virtual communities
5. Four elements of Sense of Community / Original (detailed) source
6. The Psychology of Cyberspace (ebook)
7. Computer supported collaboration
8. Wikipedia Rules (simplified)
9. "Flame Warriors" - a humorous but sometimes insightful description of various online personality types