Hi! This is the first of a series of short columns the Council staff will be contributing in the coming months. Here we will seek to give you an overall view of what the Council is up to. I've volunteered to kick off the column with my thick prose, but other Council staff members will be presenting their comments in future columns.

As the first elected ATS Council, we've been been dealing with a lot of questions regarding our role at ATS, where we fit in and how we should do things. The first month of the Council has been a learning experience for both the senior staff and the Council (I know I've learned a lot!), but based on what we've learned, the Council is moving forward to take its place in the future of ATS.

The future is what I would like to focus on here. Much of what is planned needs to be kept under wraps, because ATS has an ongoing problem with being emulated by other sites on the 'Net. Generally, that's not a problem, because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

However, a negative side effect is that the staff can't discuss upcoming changes as candidly as they would like, because doing so may lead to another site implementing them first -- then claiming we copied them. Sigh. Such is life on the Internet. It's a conspiracy, I tells ya!

This is a source of personal frustration for me, because as a member representative, I consider it vital for me to keep you as informed as possible so I can get your feedback and present it in Council. It's a balancing act, and I'm still learning the ropes, but I pray you will be patient with me and the Council as we find the sweet spot between confidentiality and openness.

Without going into too much detail (yet), big things are cooking. The senior staff may, at their discretion, be more specific, but I'll try to keep it general in this column to avoid accidentally spilling the beans.

What's being worked on behind the scenes is big. Very big. SkepticOverlord's title of “Director of Community Development” is not just window dressing. It is, in fact, what he does. He is designing an entirely new kind of online community, and he is working with other staff members and the new Council to make this happen.

The upside with this approach is that when a problem gets addressed, it will be handled as part of a larger strategy. Instead of running around patching things up, the senior staff has decided to fix problems at their source, and design entirely new solutions to meet the needs of our growing community.

The downside is that fixing problems at their roots takes much more time and effort than just slapping a band-aid on things. Thus members may feel that nothing is being done to solve chronic problems when, in fact, a lot of work is being done to do just that.

As a Councilor, it is my job and the job of my fellow Councilors and Council staff members to bridge the gap between the need for protecting proprietary information and the need to keep members informed and involved with the coming changes.

We're still learning how to do that, but we're getting better, and I encourage you, as fellow members, to keep in touch with us and make sure we're doing a good job of representing you.

After all, that's why we're here.

    Sincerely yours,
    Majic
    ATS DISC Councilor




Creative Commons Usage Guidelines for this article.

This archive article is retained in our Political Conspiracies discussion board forum, which is part of our Conspiracy Theory Discussion Forums Group. Visit the discussion thread for member comments and additional information.