What's been going on

[Lucius]

Ok, there's been a lot of conflict recently, and I'm partially to blame. I'm going to try to set things straight, as much as possible. Other admins, please don't lock this thread just yet.

First, I want to apologize to Izad. I didn't mean to come off as rude, and i realize I did. That was stupid and insensitive of me. I was thinking that it was a private matter between Vors and the admins right now. I'm so used to not being able to tell people stuff as part of my CA job that I did it here in Dag.

However, we didn't tell you that we haven't actually punished Vors yet. He's on medical leave right now, for something that I consider private. When he's back from medical leave, we're going to set up a fair trial to determine a punishment, if any. When we discuss the tribunal, then it's everyone's business. I wanted to make it up to Vors to decide to tell everyone.

Also, it's not just a personal vendetta or anything. I like Vors. He's a great fighter, a great teammate and a good friend. However, his actions were inappropriate for several reasons.

From the Dagorhir Manual of Arms

2.1. Event organizers reserve the right to eject or exclude any person from a Dagorhir event for the following reasons:

2.1.1. Violating local, county, state or federal laws.

2.1.2. Endangering the safety of persons or property, including excessive violence with intent to cause actual harm on the Dagorhir battlefield.

2.1.3. Endangering Dagorhir's ability to use land or equipment

2.1.4. Behavior unbecoming of a Dagorhir member.

As event organizers (and I think practice can be considered an event), we can forbid Vors for violating the law by getting into a fight. It's assault, even if nobody is pressing charges. Endangering safety; I'm sorry, but that's what a fight is. All of Dagorhir could have gotten kicked out if the campground people had found out about the fight. As far as I'm concerned, fist fighting at a national event, even friendly fighting, is unbecoming of a Dagorhir member.

That's my rationale, but I'm not the one who's going to be punishing Vors. Other people are.

I guess I can't speak to how Merc and Nova feel, but I'm not on a power trip. I'm just trying to do my job; help run the realm. We've never had to deal with a situation like this, so Merc, Nova and I tried to make something up on the fly that would work to resolve the situation.

Also, Nova's title shouldn't be bookkeeper. She's an administrator on equal footing with Merc and I.

We don't mean to have only private meetings. An emergency meeting was called (by me, so blame me for this), to start to deal with the occurrences at Badon. We will be having public meetings. Maybe somebody can suggest a time and place?

Once again, I'm sorry if I have alienated or offended anyone. That was not my intent. I'm just trying to do the best I can with the cards I've been dealt. I welcome feedback to help me, and maybe the other admins, to improve.

[Haze]

just an FYI, nobody but admins can post in this forum Lucius, including replies if that is what you meant by not locking it
and I changed the front page title

[Lucius]

Thanks Cyrus. I moved it to the general board.

[Swordbrother Nova]

As Lucius said feedback is welcome. We won't know if we've done something horribly wrong otherwise until it explodes unnecessarily on the forums. I know I told several people to tell me if I was doing something they thought should be different, but I never heard anything until it went straight to the public forums. We do have reasons for our actions, I don't sit here and think of ways to abuse my power over a boffer fighting realm, I have classes and work to worry about, this is a hobby that I do care about and I would love to see Maethodoron succeed, but you guys have to help me help you. I hope that we can quickly come up with a way to regulate the systems of Maethodoron so we can clear out the shit and focus on participating in Dagorhir.

[araduin]

It's been said that once you're a realm leader, you're a realm leader until you feel like stepping down. While we're quoting manuals...

Page 32 of the Dagorhir Manual

SCHEDULING EVENTS, PRACTICES, MEETINGS, and ELECTIONS

As you set up your Chapter, remember that EVERYONE burns out eventually. Plan to retire
from administration in a year or two. Set up a timetable for elections for administrative
positions. This empowers everyone in your Chapter, follows the American Democratic Ideal,
and provides you a time to retire, so you’ll be able to just show up and fight, rather than having
to WORK at every battle. Remember, the point of Dagorhir is for everyone to have fun -- and
that includes YOU!
As with any human endeavor, positions of authority in Dagorhir will sometimes attract people
who mistakenly associate “responsibility” with “power.” If you think running a Dagorhir
Chapter will be “cool because you’ll be the king,” think again. Staring and running a Dagorhir
Chapter is a lot of work, with no “power” attached. You’ll be important, yes. But powerful?
The only benefits that comes from running Dagorhir events are:
1. People occasionally thank you; and
2. You get to fight in well-run battles.
Don’t kid yourself that there’s more to it.

www.dagorhir.com/dagorhir/Dagorhir%20Handbook%202003%20Edition.pdf

Cyrus said:

"Mercaine started the realm, he is in charge ultimately. He decided that Lucius and Nova were administrators with him after Araduin and Tiradora stepped down."

True, but nobody has to show up. I know of about five veterans are ready to leave based on how things are being run. If you want to try to put adults in their place with your authority, have fun fighting when you have three veterans and fifteen new people on the field.

We never had elections when we were administrators, but nobody ever complained about having them. If they did, we would have held them, and I probably would have stepped down a long time ago.

[Tiradora]

i just wanted to add to Araduin's post that while we support the idea of elections, it's not because we think that the current admins need to be ousted. morguiness's comment

"I'd like to know who decided who was going to be an "Admin" and what powers they have. I don't recall being asked to vote on it or anything. "

really hits that idea home. having an election gives administrators legitimacy. personally, i think that maethodoron needs more structure than it previously had. and everything that is being done is in the heart of improvement. but if the people putting the rules in place aren't chosen by the group as a whole, noone has a reason to follow those rules. no matter how good an idea may be, it will always be received with contention if the masses don't feel they're being represented.

[Swordbrother Nova]

Sept 29, 2009 21:24:59 GMT -5 araduin said:

Page 32 of the Dagorhir Manual

SCHEDULING EVENTS, PRACTICES, MEETINGS, and ELECTIONS

Plan to retire
from administration in a year or two. Set up a timetable for elections for administrative
positions. This empowers everyone in your Chapter, follows the American Democratic Ideal,
and provides you a time to retire, so you’ll be able to just show up and fight, rather than having
to WORK at every battle

www.dagorhir.com/dagorhir/Dagorhir%20Handbook%202003%20Edition.pdf

This is the most important form of order we need to agree upon and it needs to happen ASAP.

[Lucius]

Araduin,

I'm not an administrator because I think it's cool. I'm an admin because I want to help the realm. I'm not trying to be all powerful. I certainly wasn't planning on holding onto my admin position forever. I'm not opposed to elections. It's just that the precedent was always that people were appointed. I didn't have a problem with being appointed because I didn't think other people would have a problem with me being appointed.

My only problem with elections is how to do them. Should they be at practice? if so, then people who can't come to practice won't get to vote. If we do them online, then people without internet can't vote. Should we let people who have only been in the realm for a few weeks vote? Either way, if we did decide to do elections, people would still be pissed off at whoever got elected admin.

Araduin, I haven't heard from six people who want to quit, though I have heard from a couple. I appreciate people sharing stuff with me, but I wish they would share it before things got so bad that they want to quit. Believe me, I'm getting to the level where I want to quit too. It really sucks to have everyone tell you you're on a power trip and doing your job crappily.

It really hurts me that people are saying I'm on a power trip. I'm not. I'm just trying to do what's best for the realm. The problem is, we never had a system for dealing with things in place; we didn't need to. Now that we're trying to make one people start yelling at us. The reason why I didn't want to post about the tribunal is that it was something new that Merc, Nova and I had just thought up. We were going to put the idea out there for people until they jumped the gun.

Nova and I have only been admins for a few weeks. We're still new at this and we're trying to do the best job that we can. Give us a little patience and some constructive criticism please.

[Haze]

I'm out of this discussion. I have a feeling some of those people complaining are the same people that refuse to use our forums for whatever stupid reason so what is the point.

[Tiradora]

just to be clear, araduin wasn't saying that you guys were on a power trip. that quote was directly from the Dagorhir Rules and he quoted the whole thing for continutity sake. as i stated in my post, and i think he agrees, we think there should be more structure in the group and we're glad someone is doing it.

i fully acknowledge that elections will be difficult. and i think we all agree that whoever is moderating the elections needs to be entirely impartial, possibly even from a different realm. but as nova said, this issue needs to be discussed and decided upon. so far as we can tell from the rule book, elections are NOT mandatory. but if enough people don't like the idea of appointments, then the idea of an election should at least be discussed. in that discussion, all the details can be hashed out on how best to run it fairly.

[Lucius]

I agree, Tiradora. At this point, elections seem like a necessity. We need to figure out how we're going to do them, first of all, in a way that will be fair to everyone. I think a discussion about that should be forthcoming. If people want to message me their ideas, or start a thread about it, I think that would be great.

[Haze]

I agree with that completely. But people shouldn't be upset NOW with it, it is the way it has always been and it is unfair to Lucius and Nova if its made into anything personal and I hope it isn't just saying.

I wonder what the people Araduin mentioned are/were upset about because this seems to be a fairly recent thing. I mean don't like how things are being run? I think everything is going fine personally. Or is it really just the appointment of 2 people to administrator or is there something more I'm not seeing.

[araduin]

Well, of course, people aren't going to post on the boards that they're ready to quit. But I'm hearing it more and more. Five was a modest amount, too; it's probably more like eight. If you don't believe me, keep things the way they are and see how many more complaints you get.

And people are also getting pissed off for being treated like their opinion is not important because they don't post on the forums. Our HEAD HERALD never posts on the forums, does he not matter just because he's too busy to live on the Internet? Personally, I don't get it either; I keep up on the boards, and I always assume that everyone else does too (just ask Six about the Fellowship-Six Fingerz Klan battle). But they don't, and we should be sensitive to that.

And I don't think the admins are on a power trip (well, not all of them). But this is the first time people have requested votes, and it is right in the rules. Are they required? It isn't clear in the rules. But it might be a requirement, and even if it isn't, you're going to lose a lot of people, or at least a lot of respect, if you don't have them.

As far as deciding what the rules should be, most other groups have by-law meetings that EVERYONE attends so no one complains about the rules, since they at least had a say in them. I would never want to sit in on by-law meetings; they're horribly boring. But they are pretty important to have.

[Lucius]

Araduin, I understand where you're coming from, but how are we as admins supposed to know what we're doing wrong if people don't post on the boards or tell us in person? As it is, only a few have posted on the boards, and I don't know of anyone who has told me in person.

In terms of being on the forums, I'm not sure how I feel. The internet is something everyone cah have access to; students get it for free on campus, you can go to your local library, get a card for free and use their computers. Or, if you absolutely can't, then come to practice, even if you're not going to fight. It seems like an impossible task for admins to understand what people are thinking if we're not in contact with them online or in person.

I'm with you that votes are a necessity now. People have asked for them, I think people should get them. The question is, how are we going to do this vote?

[Swordbrother Nova]

The nail has been hit on the head by the last two lines there. Respect is (I think) the biggest part in a leadership position for everyone involved.