I do not agree with your implied sentiment.

I'll tell you what: If Moderator2 says that I am free to give examples without sending this off topic, I will be happy to specify and not just imply.

Otherwise, let's just respect his wishes.

How nice. I still disagree with your implied sentiment.

Agreed. Sorry.

Was that just the "concept" of Ambassadors versus all the fine details (like dealing with appointees with multiple suspensions, or the role of moderator recommendations)? A lot of discussion in the three different TalkBoard threads has involved the fine points that weren't addressed in your motion, or were not spelled out (such as the part where moderators "may" be consulted).

I have to agree with Spiff that we might as well take this off the table for now. Maybe when TalkBoard has its next meeting you can come to agreement on all the fine points, and maybe even have a joint meeting with the moderators so their input can be considered before your vote.

There's a big part of the problem with the motion as it stood there. You thought it was perfect, so were not willing to listen to any comments, concerns or criticisms (as indeed your whole post shows) and blanket-ignored anyone who disagreed with you - hence your attribution of the loss of this vote to 'politics'. It's perfect to you, so no-one else's problems with it are in any way shape or form valid, so you can just dismiss them :( Unfortunately, that kind of approach is not particularly effective when you are trying to get a 2/3rds majority of people in favour. It lost because there were problems identified with the execution, no attempt was made to resolve any of those problems, and as such, it was not going to generate a majority consensus, never mind a 2/3rds majority consensus.

Actually, our most brilliant and esteemed colleague kokonutz made a yeoman's effort at trying to take all of the control concerns into account in drafting his reboot. Sadly, the result, was even more muddled confused and convoluted than the original proposal. That assessment is not meant to be a criticism of koko, but just, a statement of fact. Once we start to try to incorporate all of the rules and riders suggested, presumably to maintain some sort of uber control, the proposal simply became to cumbersome to reasonably implement.

IMHO, the original proposal was elegantly simple: "If you want to be an Ambassador, tell a TalkBoard member. They will check with the moderator of the forum in question and if you are not a known axe murderer or a serial spammer, they will take a vote and in all likelihood you will become an Ambassador. If you screw up big time once you are on the job, you will most probably get fired".

Moreover, and I think this is the best part, if you don't like the decisions of the TalkBoard, you can question them, argue with them, publicly post about how upset you are, or even boot the bums out of office next fall.

To paraphrase the honorable Mr. Churchill, "The original proposal was the worst suggestion I have ever read, except for all the rest of them that have been proposed."

Above all else, you have to love the democratic system that governs all TalkBoard activities. It allows me, as a TalkBoard member, to post my honest opinions, and also simultaneously allows each and every one of you who happens to disagree with me, to do so publicly, without any fear of recrimination of any kind, and that is a beautiful thing. ^

I have been following the proposals for an Ambassador programme with great interest. I believe there is plenty good intent but unfortunately none of the proposals pitched for discussion thus far appear to me as if they can be implemented as workable solutions.

On the forum which I volunteer time to moderate, we have many, many helpful individuals who share the task of welcoming and providing assistance to new members. These members do this not because they have been appointed to undertake this task, rather because they are good hearted people and want to make a positive contribution to our community. This part of the knowledge transfer is key to the spirit of Flyertalk. So, as I read these proposals, I look for signs which may bring benefits to our community and thus far, I cannot say with any conviction that the appointment of ambassadors actually adds to what we have at the moment, certainly not on the BA forum. To me, it would be a fruitless introduction of unnecessary bureaucracy that serves little to further promote good behaviour, civility and community helpfulness, which I understand are the key aims behind this. The part about attracting new members, I confess is more than a little lost on me.

I accept this may be your humble opinion now, but to be fair, it does differ fundamentally from the original proposal as it was drafted.

That's really not the way I remember it.

Not all 'bums' are up for election next fall. Let's drop the off-topic electioneering, shall we?

Poor Mr. Churchill. You've used his words most inaccurately twice in this thread. FlyerTalk is not a democracy and only 1 proposal was written because it was tasked to you and lucky9876coins. You failed to listen to input from your fellow TalkBoard members and from the public. As a result, this poor proposal was defeated 2-7, which is one of the largest margins of defeat for a TalkBoard proposal. You've tried to blame politics, now you're claiming that it was the best proposal since it was the only one written? :confused:

Thanks again for reposting what you posted earlier.

IMHO, the entire purpose of the entire initiative was to take the sort of posters you describe above and give them a shiny gold star, thereby hopefully holding them up as an example for others to emulate.

How such a simple concept drew so much fear, anger and concern from so many is beyond me.

As far as I am concerned this fantastic idea blew up on the launch pad because, in my humble opinion only, it hit too closely to the third rail of moderator powers. Or at least that was the perception of many with the 'm' word under their handle. Not a criticism, just an observation from my own personal perspective. And yes, I realize that not ALL moderators felt the same way about it, but from what I have heard (admittedly 100% hearsay) about private moderator discussions of this concept the perception was prevalent.

And now it's a real tar pit: the more I try to clean it up the dirtier I seem to get.

So I'm through with this idea for a while. If others want to try to wrestle with this alligator then have at it, and Godspeed.

I know you and Punki would love to try and pin the failure of this on the mods - but actually, it was TB that failed. Hindsight is always perfect (just like Punki's motions ;)) but there were a number of ways in which what we did fell short of what was necessary to drive this from concept to actuality:
- after the motion was written, there was no attempt to take account of or resolve any of the problems identified. As I said earlier, the sticking block here is that the motioner has not actually accepted any of the feedback made about it - when someone describes their motion as 'perfect', then their mind is pretty closed to new ideas, or concerns.
- We failed to sell the concept to the membership at large - this was not something where I saw many members going 'That's a great idea - why haven't we done that already?' I'd describe the reaction as apathetic at best
- we failed to convince the moderator group that this was something which would work for them and help them
- the approach on this was simply too confrontational. We tried to dictate, when we should have listened and reassured. We don't rule, we serve and I think that was forgotten on this occasion.

Lots of learning points in this one - if we are prepared to accept responsibility and actually learn from them and not just try and blame the failure on other people. If we cannot sell an idea on its merits to the wider membership, then I don't think the blame lies with the wider membership if they don't just rollover and do what we want them to do.

koko, you are obviously a sharp cookie, and a diligent one too.

The problems can be summarized as unintended consequences:

(A) People who don't get the gold star may feel slighted and may reduce their contributions or even become irritants.

(B) The selection process could be gamed or politicized (true of any conceivable selection process) and would at a minimum be susceptible of suspicion.

The benefits did not outweigh the risks of these unintended consequences.

That's how I see it, and notice that my reasons would apply even if moderators ran the entire process. In fact, these unintended consequences, especially (A), apply today to the selection of moderators. We would be doubling that problem rather than alleviating it. I have no solution to offer other than not making things worse.

As to a democratic model being appropriate for FT, I respectfully dissent.

We all know that setting up separate power centers that will battle each other endlessly helps keep government in balance. But FT is not a government, it's a business.

No successful business that I know of is run democratically. Nor by a combination of top down command and control and bottoms up democracy.

The closest such model would be a company with a union shop, in which two hierarchies compete with each other. Such companies are less likely to succeed against their real competitors than companies with a single chain of authority. That's just what works.

The government model sets up incentives to fight each other. The business management model sets up incentives to fight external competitors. The latter is what we need, not the former. Just my opinion.

I agree with you in concept but, truth be known, that's the way life works.

Not everybody will get a "gold star" for their actions no matter how we establish the criteria. There will always be those with gold stars and those without.

So do we stop recognizing and rewarding good behavior and refrain from awarding gold stars for fear of offending or ostracizing those who don't get them? My feeling is no.

Offer those who we deem Ambassadors the vaunted gold star. Those who don't earn one can either change their behavior for a chance to earn one in the future or just drop out of the process. And if they become "irritants" then there are ways already established of dealing with that.

And not everybody is eager to become an Ambassador. In a PM to one of the top candidates for this position in the TS/S Forum, I basically said that should this position ever become available, I'd like to nominate them for it.

And they wrote back saying, basically, "Thanks but no thanks". They weren't comfortable with any special recognition for what they consider common courtesy.

I have no problem with this proposal from the aspect of potentially alienating those who don't receive the gold star. Not everybody wants it and certainly not everybody will earn it. But that holds true for nearly any title we might consider here on FT.

It really was a wonderful idea.

Unfortunately, it would appear from their posts that some very vocal moderators will continue to oppose it unless and until they have absolute control over every aspect of how it works. So be it. It is not the first, nor will it be the last, great idea on earth that got swallowed up in a power struggle.

Like koko, I have shot my best shot, and I am done with the idea, at least for this TB term.

The sad thing is that, for the moment, FlyerTalk has lost a great opportunity to make our site a more welcoming and friendly place and to involve more members in making it the best place it can be. Such is life. :(