ATS Councilors: Roles and Functions

Originally posted by Voice_of Doom
SHUT UP VOD! Just keep your mouth shut! If you don't love ATS you can GET THE HELL OUT! You hear us! Society doesn't need people like you poking at the emperor's naked body. We've done just fine in our quest to turn people into roboticized pegs. We tell them what to think, eat, wear, drive, write and buy. Thats all they need. Thats all they need because thats what we tell them! So SHUT UP or GET THE HELL OUT OF ATS.

Besides...all you do is complain. When's the last time you posted anything of importance? Huh? Schmuck!

I need to ask that you stop being abusive to yourself as we have rules that forbid it on ATS. This includes telling yourself to “Shut Up" and calling yourself a “Schmuck”. If you continue to treat yourself in a hateful manner further steps will be taken.

By using this message board, you agree to the following:

2.) You will not behave in an abusive and/or hateful manner, and will not harass, threaten, nor attack anyone.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Voice_of Doom
There we go. All problems solved. And that's much easier than calling a spade a spade and saying the majority of issues come from incompetant management and absurd policies. It's also a much better way to get to be a moderator. That SWEET SWEET holy grail of internet forums.

VOD! So nice to see you again! Please stop with all the COMPLIMENTS, you're making us blush with all your gushing.

We try and it's nice to see our vailiant efforts are appreciated.

PEACE...
m...

The Voice Of Doom

Originally posted by Voice_of Doom
As ATS furthered down the "incorporation" process its was inevitable that we would need people to fill the role of "team leaders". And everybody knows that team leaders get a nice title, a little party and more work. Thats it. They can't hire, fire or give raises. They have no real authority other than an obsessive ambition for power that can be delayed slowly and used by upper level managment. They are usually tolerated but privately scorned by the rest of the peons...

Hey, I resemble that remark!

You forgot to mention that we still have to park way out in the dirt lot because we don't have our own parking spaces -- but insist on waltzing in a couple of hours after everyone else has started working.

And still no key to the executive washroom.

I'm probably speaking out of turn since I'm basically “off-duty” (Mirthful Me is currently Acting DISC Councilor until next Tuesday or so), but being the power-mad political whore that I am, I can't help but comment as I whisk through the forums.

After some rather colorful misunderstandings, the role of Councilors seems to be taking shape, and believe it or not, it really does seem to be serving as representatives of our fellow members to the senior staff.

Believe me, I'm probably as surprised as you are about that. It was admittedly looking cloudy there for a while, but I think we're getting on track.

We are NOT policy makers or junior mods. We don't make rules or tell people what to do. We traded in our proposed “warn” powers in favor of being able to applaud instead. We don't “own” forums or decide how they will be set up and operated. We have almost NO direct power of any kind (as so poignantly observed).

So what do we do?

One Councilor's Opinion

This is my opinion, of course, so please take it for what little it may be worth.

Councilors listen and talk, and preferably in that order. In a pejorative sense, our job is to be the messengers for people to shoot at.

In a more positive sense, our job is to do what we can to help the senior staff understand what members want, and help the members understand what the senior staff can or cannot do to make it happen.

The senior staff have played the cruelest joke imaginable on us Councilors and left it up to us to figure out how to best do our jobs as a Council. We're still working on that, and for critics (like me) I think it's important to remember that none of us have done anything quite like this before.

Take seven ATSers, add another fourteen, then put them in a room and see what happens. That is essentially what the Council is right now.

I humbly submit that anyone who thinks agreement on anything will spontaneously break out from such a mix may want to remember where we are.

That said, we are doing something very important: We are learning how to be Councilors.

Also, though it may be hard to believe right now, information is already moving, and ideas are being shared.

It is an admittedly slow start, but we are getting things straightened out.

Could we do better? Sure. Could we do worse? Oh hell yes.

I've floundered around enough in my role as a Councilor to be certain of that.

The Bottom Line

As a Councilor, I take my responsibility to represent my fellow members -- you -- very, very seriously. Maybe I can't do much personally, but I can listen and talk -- and maybe help bring about positive changes by doing so.

There is one thing I hope no member will ever forget, whatever your opinion may be about this whole Council business. I am, after all, something of a reformed cynic with respect to it myself.

My job is to represent my fellow members and express their requests and concerns in a form that the senior staff can do something about.

That includes all members, no matter what their opinions, no matter whether I agree or not. That includes you too.

Whatever your opinion may be, if you can express it in a way that I can work with, I will consider it and seek to pass it along in a way that the senior staff can work with.

Getting back to the original question of what Councilors are for, I will repeat my opinion on the matter: We are Councilors to serve as representatives of our fellow members to the senior staff.

Of course, there are plenty of details that go along with the job, and we may be saddled with other duties and whatnot, but that really is the bottom line.