Changing the Locking Regulations

Personally I think we shouldn't have any power in the Assembly; we may well be members of the forum but our status as mods/Senators being questioned by the powerless is what sparked the PA in the first place. Tribs have mod power and it's not like we're shoving a huge workload on them. The primary reason I think we ought to have null and void authority here is that we're supposed to make the decision on when a conversation has gone awry and lock it then; our status is at the very least affecting these decisions in some manner. In the area created to give the average Joes of the forum a means of bringing about reasonable change we authorities ought not to have any say in what's acceptable and what's not.

Proportionally I think this forum has more locked topics than any other (barring the Junk Archives), even the Off-Topic section. To me that's a signal that something is wrong.

I disagree fully. The Tribunes have a job, it is not to be mods. It is our job to moderate all the forums. People elected mods is also not a good thing. Imagine if we had Link and Kara for example? Everything would get ignored. The threads were all locked for a reason.

so far its just 1 guy questioning us

are there any threads that you thing should be reopened, not based on your personal philosophy but based on the rules

It makes more sense that an elected official police the area of public discourse than an appointed one.

I'm only asking that Tribs handle the PA, because there is a definite conflict of interests in the status quo.

Maybe so, but all the reasons are coming from us, the appointed and omnipotent officials who by our status as such have created the need for a People's Assembly.

@Mayor
There's a very strong pro-staff sentiment on the forums that makes it difficult to speak out against us, which is why the two people who already have established themselves as ardently anti-staff are the only ones actually doing so. I don't like the atmosphere of fear we have of speaking out against something you see as wrong just so you can avoid being jumped on by a horde of loyal followers.

EDIT: Remember when the PA first came out? There were a lot more people actively advocating changes before doing so was demonized.

I haven't examined any closely enough to answer that, but I know there's something up if this forum has over 50% of threads locked on the first page.

That something is people spamming, going off topic, other issues and a lot of it is coming from the same people complaining about the locks.

Can I get spamming privileges?

No you can't. But if it was people elected mods you might could.

Just a for-instance here, what rational basis was there for locking this thread?

Ronald Ray Gun is thumbs up for being the newest mod if not!

Also in the Suggestion thread it seems like it was locked simply because the original issue was dealt with... When did we make it a policy to lock threads when the original subject matter had been cast aside? Generally we split discussions when there are points left to be made but it's veered off, and even then only if the OP asks.

Thanks for the info.

He created a thread based on the issue that was off topic. So that worked and the lock was fine.

It seems a common theme in the PA for threads to be locked when they were considered "finished," which is something we simply don't do in other forums at all.

Can you stop doing those btw?

it's hard to declare an argument "finished" though.

Kinda one of my points.

this section has less of an argument and more of a gut reaction. Someone has a suggestion, most people say "Yay" or "Nay" and that's it. Or one of us submits a new rule and people start freaking out. Usually either scenario ends with insults.

Another problem is that I don't know jack shit about what my Tribunes are doing. For all I know they could not even be involved in the discussion.

How can our democracy work if we don't even truly know what we're voting for?

They are involved in the discussions. Both Tribunes can attest to this.

I am pretty sure the Tribunes will tell you that they are actively involved if you ask them.

I know they're involved, it was more of an example

Anyway, I seriously have no idea what kind of agenda Ler/Ronald are pushing. I'm sure I could find out minor details if I pm'd them, but if litterally every forum member did that it would be chaos in their PM box.

This is a valid point. I do think that they voters should have some senses of what their officials policies and proposals are like.