Hi Warcliffe,
Thank you for your reply & interest in the topic.
First of all: I am not proposing "change for the sake of change," but for reasons (I hope at least).
- The New Guild currently is vague collection of duties between "the board" the "faculty" and the Secretary. I think first that since this "board" appears to be no more then who participates with the New Guild and shows up for voting, that this adds pseudo-complexity to the organization, it adds jargon for jargon sake ? Jargon and unnecessary complexity can be "fun" for who have been somewhere long and who find the strangeness and weirdness of how things have developed and can be found back in the little quirks and names of a system through history amusing, and who find a sense of comfort in the idea that they know exactly what is going on while new people would be excluded from knowing how to operate the many weird quirks and names. That will give the 'old guard' more power then new people, secondly it may repel new people. With 'new people' so injured in their ability to be a full citizen capable of excercizing their share of power, the "old guard" may feel more comfortable. I think general effect that would happen to - presumaby - everyone in a given situation (who isn't attached to some history ? who isn't amused by certain quirks that came about ?) this may be something to consider when becoming too attached to the past and no longer seeing what the past was doing: charging forward to make things happen as best they could, making new charters, organizations, structuring themselves. I would think that redoing the New Guild charter from scratch would be furthering the history of the CDS, improving the current situation where the past likewise wanted to improve the situation in their day. If they had been looking to their past, they would not have set up a New Guild, nor provided it with a charter, or set up the CDS Democracy at all.... History is being creative... !
- The New Guild *should* be an effective transparent organization, for which reason it needs to be simple. You mention the need to "separate powers," I think separation of powers is necessary to prevent abuses of power, especially near the Sovereignty (RA, SC, Executive). In the New Guild we are far from the Sovereignty: we are under the power of the RA mandates. It may be relevant to remember that 'separation of powers' is also a mechanism to ensure the will of the people is done by injuring the organizational effectiveness in the top. However you can - and this is already practice - have general votes by who is active with the New Guild. If you then "separate" that general power, don't we risk creating more confusion then 'separation of power' is worth ?
- I was thinking about the New Guild and its secretary, and it went through my mind that there is something like the law of Democracy, but then there is something like the practice or culture of democracy as well. Let's take a truly democratic people, which does not exist in the western world or perhaps anywhere on Earth. You would give them a tyrannical system, but the tyrant would all the time do what the people wanted - that is their culture, it does not easily change. On the other hand - and now I am for example thinking about our Real-World Governments and the war for greed they fight: give a people used to dictatorship a democratic law, and they will turn it into another dictatorship anyway. The parliaments are supposed to represent the people, but we in the west are a culture of tyranny of a long long time, and that does not change merely because the law changed. This occured to me when thinking that the Secretary of the New Guild seems to have a function which is of - in my opinion - excessive powers and burdens. Why can't the New Guild not be a group of people who love to build, get together to look at various needs, the current RA mandates and requests, talk about who does and wants to do this or that, and then goes on to do it ? The NG Secretary can then be a simple chair person who more or less gives the whole creative energy a little bit of structure and routine by chairing the meetings, keeping the agenda and minutes. Not getting builders together and having a major influence, as if it was a 'boss.' On the other hand such a more true democratic culture also requires an active base, but I think we have that already ?
I propose something like a charter like this, I have renamed it "Building Guild," because it is relatively different from the existing 'New Guild:'
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Building Guild: building of the CDS sims.
Charter
The Building Guild is a publicly chartered organization, which does not have a profit motive.
Purpose: To organize the citizens of the CDS for effective simulator building (prims and land editing in general).
Organization: The Building Guild is comprised of citizens of the CDS. Membership of the Building Guild is an assumed right of all CDS citizens, participation is neither an obligation or prohibited to any CDS citizen. The Building Guild is chaired by a chairperson elected by the general assembly of the Building Guild. Decisions of the Building Guild are made by majority, within the constraints and guidance of the Representative Assembly, and the previous decisions of the Building Guild itself.
Meetings: The chair of the Building Guild calls together the Building Guild for regular meetings. If there is no such chair the Building Guild may be called together by a citizen, but the Representative Assembly must be informed of such action. Meetings take place in the Building Guild building, or wherever the chair of the Building Guild so directs.
Transparency: minutes of the Building Guild are public, the meetings are open to all.
Invitation: inexperienced and non-experienced people are invited to join the activities of the Building Guild, to learn by participation.
Projects: The Building Guild can form project teams which handle specific projects. The organization of a project team can be stipulated by the general assembly of the Building Guild. The Building Guild can organize simulator-local maintenance teams.
Funding: the Building Guild is obligated to spend its funding fairly for the benefit of all, beholden specificly directed funding.
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The role of education is not in the charter as a separate mission so that there would be classes organized for test-prims, but in keeping with the 'New Guild' I put it in there as a participatory learning way. That is also how guilds worked back then: you would start doing menial jobs and become a second rate assistant (hold this, hold that, dust the floor, get those planks here, get me a sandwhich, good boy now you've learned a few things by watching and doing....).
A class-room education, being taken out of this 'Building charter,' would be done by a separate organization such as a 'school.' I would for example imagine that people who like to tutor people on building in a classroom setting, to do better in their own school organization and building then that this big task is another burden on the shoulders of the New Guild Secretary.
I think something like this would be rather simple, wouldn't it ? You merely have a chair, and the ability to form project-teams, within RA mandates: simple, therefore efficient and understandable ?
- The charter of the 'New Guild' seems to reflect social conditions which do not currently exist; I think it is a charter that ...<i>leaves room for improvements</i> hehe : ).
- We have the unresolved issue that there is a small active population, so that there may be issues finding a NG chair because the current charter excludes several groups of people to be that Secretary. I note that by reducing the importance of the Secretary of the NG that there is less reason to separate this 'power,' because there would not be 'power' attached to it (as much).
The existing charter is long, it wants to do much; it seems to describe a social condition of the past but does not seem to fulfil the purpose of a charter to act as an organizational back-bone on paper to fall back on when in doubt. "The faculty appoints itself and rules the NG with the 'board.'" That does not provide direction when in doubt, but seems to be a recipe for confusion when you need a charter most. I think the current charter injures the New Guild its ability to be an effective organization, and only by the 'grace of god' have we found a new Secretary and can move forward now, not thanks to the charter which on the contrary caused serious problems recently (with the exclusion of RA members and the Secretary of the NG).