Originally Posted by
Jenbel
False analogy. Who better to tell someone where the TOS lines are - someone who has always kept on the right side of them, or someone who didn't know where they were and got a/many suspension(s) as a result? Your suggestion that those who have never had a suspension don't know the TOS is frankly ridiculous - I've never had a suspension or warning precisely because I do know what the rules are. I'd rather seek advice on TOS issues from someone who has not been disciplined than someone who has a handful of warnings and suspensions to their name - one clearly doesn't get what the TOS says!
Um,
= sarcasm/joshing.
And these types of 'this type of poster is better than that type of poster' is exactly what I am making fun of with my sarcasm/joke. Because to me it is silly, unproductive and
totally misses the point of this concept.
Can someone who has been suspended meet the criteria listed above to be an ambassador? Yes, of course. Can people who have not been suspended meet those criteria? Yes, of course. The criteria are about people's attitude and willingness to help, not about their suspension records or lack thereof.
YMMV.
If Ambassadors are to be advising on TOS issues (and where has that come from? shouldn't ambassadors be diverting such questions to the mods for definitive answers? Mods are still capable of assisting members and answering such questions, even if this scheme goes ahead. ), then it also becomes more important that they can work closely with forum mods as NickB points out.
It grew from NickB's comment that "I have severe doubts on the credibility of someone explaining to a newbie issues relating to ToS when that person has recently been found in breach of such ToS." Of course, that responsibility is NOT spelled out in the proposal, but I can see why he might think ToS questions might be natural question folks might ask Ambassadors.
I would love to keep such a scheme simple. Simplest way would be for forum mods to simply ask (or accept volunteers) to help out in this area. Of course, the anti-moderation politics means that will never be accepted as a process, meaning we've got to bring in external people and vetting and checking and double checking and cross-checking and referencing and votes and meetings and cake baking competitions (ok, maybe the last is a slight exaggeration
). And its' a real shame as the more bureaucratic it becomes, the more ridiculous the scheme becomes - Cholula's (I think it was his - apologies if i have misrepresented!) way of selection seems to be about the simplest, fairest way of doing it and even that involves quite a lot of bureaucracy.
If you look at the proposal, you could use enough of the bracketed options to put just that process in place.
The obvious downside, of course, is that with no oversight, straight moderator selection of ambassadors could easily become very 'cliquish,' as moderators decide that only the people they know and like should be made Ambassadors. And you are correct: some feel that the moderator selection process itself has already become that way which might also make such a selection process unpopular with some posters.