TAFI Town Hall

[jdmdisney99]

I'm really upset by all this, and in many ways feel responsible. I hope as a community we can take a relaxing break over the weekend, as was well expressed by space and eng, and think about everything from the outside world of thought. We can get through this with levelheaded discussion, concession, and support...starting around Monday.

 

[RMichael21]

I'm really upset by all this, and in many ways feel responsible. I hope as a community we can take a relaxing break over the weekend, as was well expressed by space and eng, and think about everything from the outside world of thought. We can get through this with levelheaded discussion, concession, and support...starting around Monday.

That sounds great, jdm! But, @Zweiland and I have some stuff that we'd like to post tonight that will give everyone something to think about and reflect on over the weekend.

 

[jdmdisney99]

That sounds great, jdm! But, @Zweiland and I have some stuff that we'd like to post tonight that will give everyone something to think about and reflect on over the weekend.

Can't wait to see it!

 

[The Mom]

@wdwmagic kindly provided a subforum where like-minded people could come and "dream.' It was not supposed to become a clique where some feel unwelcome. It was certainly not supposed to become a place where members could come in and dominate the discussion with airing of grievances. It isn't Festivus!

And it was always a forum where members seemed to be able to straighten out any problems without involving the mods, which was much appreciated. But today I'm forced to step in and tell you that I don't care who started it (said in my Mom voice) but this is to end now. No more posts about infighting, etc allowed.

Please take a couple of days to calm down, and then get back to imagineering. Thank you.

 

[Zweiland]

This is something I wrote a few days ago to help get us back on track for the rest of the season and the future, hopefully without drama. It's just to help stimulate some discussion.

Fixing the Forum

Hi, members of the Imagineering forum. As you probably know if you’re reading this, the events of the last few days have been somewhat stressful and very exhilarating in a bad way. We have people clamoring for change, and lots of it. I know that you don’t mean to stage some sort of coup that destroys the community, but if we continue making rash decisions, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

But never fear. We are some of the most creative minds on here, so I know we can put some thought to all of these issues. With luck, we can come up with something that fits everyone’s needs. In my view, the problem seems to be that people’s opinions have been lost in a large sea of posts last night. It’s really hard to tell what the community wants right now, from the outside perspective of someone who missed most of the events of the night.

And so, to my main point. I think the best way to organize this so that we hear everyone’s voice will be in a "competition” format, since that’s what we know best. No one will actually be “judging” anything, and there will be no rankings, winners, or losers—the point of this is to condense each person’s thoughts into one large post.

Your “challenge” is to address some or all these issues, as well as any others that you want:

· The Conversationalists- what they do, how they are voted in
· The Competitions- how do we determine the schedule? Who determines it?
· The Point System- keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?
· The Elite Eight- goes with the point system. Keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?

There are no due dates, but of course we’d all like it resolved as soon as possible. I will probably submit one myself, but no one has to.

Good luck! Hope we can get this settled.

 

[Sam Magic]

This is something I wrote a few days ago to help get us back on track for the rest of the season and the future, hopefully without drama. It's just to help stimulate some discussion.

Fixing the Forum

Hi, members of the Imagineering forum. As you probably know if you’re reading this, the events of the last few days have been somewhat stressful and very exhilarating in a bad way. We have people clamoring for change, and lots of it. I know that you don’t mean to stage some sort of coup that destroys the community, but if we continue making rash decisions, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

But never fear. We are some of the most creative minds on here, so I know we can put some thought to all of these issues. With luck, we can come up with something that fits everyone’s needs. In my view, the problem seems to be that people’s opinions have been lost in a large sea of posts last night. It’s really hard to tell what the community wants right now, from the outside perspective of someone who missed most of the events of the night.

And so, to my main point. I think the best way to organize this so that we hear everyone’s voice will be in a "competition” format, since that’s what we know best. No one will actually be “judging” anything, and there will be no rankings, winners, or losers—the point of this is to condense each person’s thoughts into one large post.

Your “challenge” is to address some or all these issues, as well as any others that you want:

· The Conversationalists- what they do, how they are voted in
· The Competitions- how do we determine the schedule? Who determines it?
· The Point System- keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?
· The Elite Eight- goes with the point system. Keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?

There are no due dates, but of course we’d all like it resolved as soon as possible. I will probably submit one myself, but no one has to.

Good luck! Hope we can get this settled.

I've said this before, but I agree with many of the ideas others like Zweiland, englanddg, and others have proposed.

- I would suggest we turn the Conversationalists into a group that does the schedule, runs the website and social media, and a March Madness like contest rather than Elite Eight.

- We should have six month elections, this way to group of people stays fluid and hopefully everyone would have the opportunity to serve on that board.

- Like others I believe the contests that make it into the schedule be voted on publicly in the Town Hall. The Conversationalists would then take the results of those votes and put it into the schedule. Which could then be publicly voted on again.

- The Elite Eight should be replaced with a March Madness styled contest. This contest could allow for 16 players or more and be a more accurate and open judging of the best of the best.

- The current point system should be replaced with either no point system (and March Madness be a come as you wish contest), or with a much more simplified point system.

- Do away with the position of 'Guide' or any position that puts one person in charge. The people here should be on equal footing with one another.

- Continue doing TAFI awards, and rename the ICS, TAFI Competitions.

- If possible, resume SA with slight changes that could later be discussed.

- Make the Town Hall the main and primary discussion and debate thread. No secret PMs or back door dealings. As much as possible debates and discussion should be held in this thread in view of the public. An exception could be the Conversationalists schedule PM.

- Finally I propose an election to take place in the coming weeks to determine a new Conversationalists group, for the remainder of 2015. Another election would be held in January.

 

[DSquared]

Is this something to post in a day or so, or do we have more time to think?

 

[JokersWild]

This is something I wrote a few days ago to help get us back on track for the rest of the season and the future, hopefully without drama. It's just to help stimulate some discussion.

Fixing the Forum

Hi, members of the Imagineering forum. As you probably know if you’re reading this, the events of the last few days have been somewhat stressful and very exhilarating in a bad way. We have people clamoring for change, and lots of it. I know that you don’t mean to stage some sort of coup that destroys the community, but if we continue making rash decisions, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

But never fear. We are some of the most creative minds on here, so I know we can put some thought to all of these issues. With luck, we can come up with something that fits everyone’s needs. In my view, the problem seems to be that people’s opinions have been lost in a large sea of posts last night. It’s really hard to tell what the community wants right now, from the outside perspective of someone who missed most of the events of the night.

And so, to my main point. I think the best way to organize this so that we hear everyone’s voice will be in a "competition” format, since that’s what we know best. No one will actually be “judging” anything, and there will be no rankings, winners, or losers—the point of this is to condense each person’s thoughts into one large post.

Your “challenge” is to address some or all these issues, as well as any others that you want:

· The Conversationalists- what they do, how they are voted in
· The Competitions- how do we determine the schedule? Who determines it?
· The Point System- keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?
· The Elite Eight- goes with the point system. Keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?

There are no due dates, but of course we’d all like it resolved as soon as possible. I will probably submit one myself, but no one has to.

Good luck! Hope we can get this settled.

As we've discussed earlier, I feel as though the conversationalists should have a greatly reduced role. We don't need it. The community is self-sustaining. The only thing we've really done this year is sticky a few threads. While important, we didn't need 10 people to do it.

My thoughts on the conversationalists would be to have them solely be the keepers of the schedule. This would call for a smaller group of people (we could probably do with 5, and even that's pushing it) who would keep everything on track, look over the points system and so on and so forth. And, of course, all "policy-changing" discussions would be brought up in the Town Hall thread rather than a PM. Other than very basic planning, of course.

In terms of scheduling comps, I am totally for hosts sending an application into the conversationalists. They would then post all of the comps in a thread for public vote. Top how many ever are played for points and put into the schedule, which is again approved or disapproved by the community.

Points system is tricky. I know that we've talked about having multiple tiers and such, but that just complicates it. I would keep what we have now. Perhaps tweak the hosts' percentage, as I know that that's been a huge problem point, and take it from there.

Elite Eight is also a bit tricky. I think we should move it from December, as a few of us have discussed. December is tough. Holidays, and school getting out really doesn't make it ideal. Perhaps we could do it in the spring, or even late August?

In terms of its format, I have no idea. I know that we've discussed opening it up to 16, doing team-based wins, and such, but I'm honestly not sure.

 

[Sam Magic]

Is this something to post in a day or so, or do we have more time to think?

You guys have as much time as you think you may need. We just want to discuss the future publicly, you can take a day or however many you need. Just be sure to comment before things become official...I guess what I'm trying to say is don't post your ideas a month or three weeks from now.

 

[spacemt354]

This is something I wrote a few days ago to help get us back on track for the rest of the season and the future, hopefully without drama. It's just to help stimulate some discussion.

Fixing the Forum

Hi, members of the Imagineering forum. As you probably know if you’re reading this, the events of the last few days have been somewhat stressful and very exhilarating in a bad way. We have people clamoring for change, and lots of it. I know that you don’t mean to stage some sort of coup that destroys the community, but if we continue making rash decisions, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

But never fear. We are some of the most creative minds on here, so I know we can put some thought to all of these issues. With luck, we can come up with something that fits everyone’s needs. In my view, the problem seems to be that people’s opinions have been lost in a large sea of posts last night. It’s really hard to tell what the community wants right now, from the outside perspective of someone who missed most of the events of the night.

And so, to my main point. I think the best way to organize this so that we hear everyone’s voice will be in a "competition” format, since that’s what we know best. No one will actually be “judging” anything, and there will be no rankings, winners, or losers—the point of this is to condense each person’s thoughts into one large post.

Your “challenge” is to address some or all these issues, as well as any others that you want:

· The Conversationalists- what they do, how they are voted in
· The Competitions- how do we determine the schedule? Who determines it?
· The Point System- keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?
· The Elite Eight- goes with the point system. Keep it, modify it, or get rid of it?

There are no due dates, but of course we’d all like it resolved as soon as possible. I will probably submit one myself, but no one has to.

Good luck! Hope we can get this settled.

I'll make my thoughts sonewhat quick and add on as we generate more discussion

The competitions -how do we determine the schedule?

My suggestion would be to have a community wide vote on the competitions run throughout the year. Previously, all comps were to submit proposals in PM form and the decisions would be made behind the scenes.

To get the community involved more, the people who will actually compete in these competitions should play a major part in determining which contests are run during a calendar imagineer year. That would be my thought, and then once the competitions have been chosen by a community vote, a few designated people will simply fit the comps into a schedule for the year so that the competitors are not overwhelmed doing 3 comps or so at the same time.

Point System? Keep but have it not be the sole factor in who reaches our "playoffs"

Elite Eight - edit it. Have it include more people and possibly alter the time of it as December is a very busy month and we shouldn't be taking time away from much more important things like final exams and family.

Suggestions have been a sweet 16 style to include more peolle, and the possibility of having the challenges be team based.

Basically my main goal would be to diminish the governmental role of the conservationalists and to try and create an enviornment where everyone feels welcome and everyone feels like they play a part.

This place should be more fun. More inclusive. Less political. And I think everyone here can benefit from not being on the forums 24/7. I've taken a few days off and I have to say, I'm not riled up, I think clearer and the he said she said of the boards means a lot less to me now, because i just come here for fun, and we need to make that our goal.

At this point I'll leave it up to more discussion. Thanks everyone for reading!

 

[Sam Magic]

As we've discussed earlier, I feel as though the conversationalists should have a greatly reduced role. We don't need it. The community is self-sustaining. The only thing we've really done this year is sticky a few threads. While important, we didn't need 10 people to do it.

My thoughts on the conversationalists would be to have them solely be the keepers of the schedule. This would call for a smaller group of people (we could probably do with 5, and even that's pushing it) who would keep everything on track, look over the points system and so on and so forth. And, of course, all "policy-changing" discussions would be brought up in the Town Hall thread rather than a PM. Other than very basic planning, of course.

In terms of scheduling comps, I am totally for hosts sending an application into the conversationalists. They would then post all of the comps in a thread for public vote. Top how many ever are played for points and put into the schedule, which is again approved or disapproved by the community.

Points system is tricky. I know that we've talked about having multiple tiers and such, but that just complicates it. I would keep what we have now. Perhaps tweak the hosts' percentage, as I know that that's been a huge problem point, and take it from there.

Elite Eight is also a bit tricky. I think we should move it from December, as a few of us have discussed. December is tough. Holidays, and school getting out really doesn't make it ideal. Perhaps we could do it in the spring, or even late August?

In terms of its format, I have no idea. I know that we've discussed opening it up to 16, doing team-based wins, and such, but I'm honestly not sure.

I think 5 people for the Conversationalists would be perfect, but I think having hosts submit applications to The Conversationalists is a bit too bureaucratic.

I liked what someone said about the points...you get 1 point every-time you join and move up in a contest. What are your thoughts on that?

 

[JokersWild]

I think 5 people for the Conversationalists would be perfect, but I think having hosts submit applications to The Conversationalists is a bit too bureaucratic.

I liked what someone said about the points...you get 1 point every-time you join and move up in a contest. What are your thoughts on that?

I was thinking that applications could go to conversationalists solely so they could compile them and we wouldn't have a thread littered with comments between applications.

That point system could possibly work. I'm not sure how easy it would be to follow, though.

 

[Sam Magic]

I was thinking that applications could go to conversationalists solely so they could compile them and we wouldn't have a thread littered with comments between applications.

That point system could possibly work. I'm not sure how easy it would be to follow, though.

Ah...I see. I actually really like that. I think it's things like that the Convo's should do. And I agree five people are really only needed for that.

 

[spacemt354]

I'll make my thoughts sonewhat quick and add on as we generate more discussion

The competitions -how do we determine the schedule?

My suggestion would be to have a community wide vote on the competitions run throughout the year. Previously, all comps were to submit proposals in PM form and the decisions would be made behind the scenes.

To get the community involved more, the people who will actually compete in these competitions should play a major part in determining which contests are run during a calendar imagineer year. That would be my thought, and then once the competitions have been chosen by a community vote, a few designated people will simply fit the comps into a schedule for the year so that the competitors are not overwhelmed doing 3 comps or so at the same time.

Point System? Keep but have it not be the sole factor in who reaches our "playoffs"

Elite Eight - edit it. Have it include more people and possibly alter the time of it as December is a very busy month and we shouldn't be taking time away from much more important things like final exams and family.

Suggestions have been a sweet 16 style to include more peolle, and the possibility of having the challenges be team based.

Basically my main goal would be to diminish the governmental role of the conservationalists and to try and create an enviornment where everyone feels welcome and everyone feels like they play a part.

This place should be more fun. More inclusive. Less political. And I think everyone here can benefit from not being on the forums 24/7. I've taken a few days off and I have to say, I'm not riled up, I think clearer and the he said she said of the boards means a lot less to me now, because i just come here for fun, and we need to make that our goal.

At this point I'll leave it up to more discussion. Thanks everyone for reading!

Also two other points kinda going off of this.

We have to realize this sub-forum isn't about ICS. It's about imagineering and I think we take the procedural stuff way too seriously.

These "ICS sponsored " comps are just a small portion of the imagineer community, and we should recognize that if we want to have a pedistal of sorts and sticky our threads to the top of the boards, a lot more people are going to be watching us.

With that said we can't all act like bratty teenagers when we don't get our way. We need to have a sense of serenity to the forums where we go with the flow.

Let's say your comp doesn't get picked if we do a vote. Who cares? If you generate enough interest and get a decent number of people (who maybe were not active for the vote) to join...then do it!

The ICS sponsor stuff should go out the window imo, because it makes it seem like another comp isn't "official"

A comp is a comp.

And in order to allow this community to grow, isolating ourselves isn't the way to do it. We need new and excited members. And we need those members to feel included.

Also I'd like to get more brainstorming community threads going as part of this new imagineer forum. I think that would be a great way to get everyone involved in a fun and cohesive way, and I've heard of a few ideas that have really been impressive.

 

[Zweiland]

The ICS sponsor stuff should go out the window imo, because it makes it seem like another comp isn't "official"

A comp is a comp.

Devil's advocate here... then what's the point of making a schedule or voting on comps at all? I thought that's what the "ICS sponsored" tag meant, that it was part of the schedule. Nothing more.

 

[Zweiland]

- Continue doing TAFI awards, and rename the ICS, TAFI Competitions.

I personally like the name ICS much more than TAFI. But that's just me.

 

[spacemt354]

Devil's advocate here... then what's the point of making a schedule or voting on comps at all? I thought that's what the "ICS sponsored" tag meant, that it was part of the schedule. Nothing more.

You can have a base schedule and then include more as you go.

Say a plan is put in place for 6 comps next year (for example). 6 are voted on and they are locked in for next year. But what if a member comes up with an idea in december ,a few months after the vote. If the member has an idea, proposes it, and gets enough competitors. Why is that one non-ICS? Why not just add it in to the "story" of the year.

People who compete in that comp also receive points for participating and advancing, same as any other.

 

[spacemt354]

You can have a base schedule and then include more as you go.

Say a plan is put in place for 6 comps next year (for example). 6 are voted on and they are locked in for next year. But what if a member comes up with an idea in december ,a few months after the vote. If the member has an idea, proposes it, and gets enough competitors. Why is that one non-ICS? Why not just add it in to the "story" of the year.

People who compete in that comp also receive points for participating and advancing, same as any other.

An example of a successful comp in this situation would be tiki's 1984 comp.

So many new members that we could include into our "ICS/TAFI" etc community. We need members to stay for long term. Not just do one comp and leave.

If they are included and receive points towards the "playoffs" they will be more inclined to stay for future comps imo.

And also if everything counts, we would have much more cross-connectivity with comps and other threads. We work together instead of working in our own bubbles. 1984 thread says hey check out the ending to SA Challenge 5 and vice versa.

When everything is connected i think this place could really take off

 

[englanddg]

You can have a base schedule and then include more as you go.

Say a plan is put in place for 6 comps next year (for example). 6 are voted on and they are locked in for next year. But what if a member comes up with an idea in december ,a few months after the vote. If the member has an idea, proposes it, and gets enough competitors. Why is that one non-ICS? Why not just add it in to the "story" of the year.

People who compete in that comp also receive points for participating and advancing, same as any other.

That flexibility was always an option. The discussion at hand before the nuclear option was selected was over how to adequately allow for enough slots for people to plan around. 6, for example, doesn't work for many comps, as a 2 month timeslot is too small for the larger formats. Rather you need more like 8 to 16 weeks (part of why JDM actually has all these quick run challenges this SA because he's trying to escalate eliminations to keep within his agreed schedule so that Matt can start up his comp on time afterwards.

Welcome to 21 of the 60 some odd pages of discussion in the Convos threads (and why it wasn't done in the Town Hall).

The intention was always to come up with the schedule idea (or a small group of ideas) then bring it to the Town Hall for a larger community wide discussion. But, that way, all the obvious concerns could be addressed in that public thread as community members had their own input and questions. Of course, we never got that far.

People can create comps whenever they wish. No one was stopping them, or did stop them (note what happened when a comp started up the same time as SA...nothing was said, and nothing would be said.

The Convos (or whatever name you guys pick for them) was never a ruling body. It was an organizational one with elected members from the forum elected publically by the forum just for this purpose. And the group of 5 you suggest sounds no different than what we had before (except it's a smaller group).

Now, I for one had suggested at one point that we should have elections for those positions more often than annually, but the group as a whole decided against that in favor of keeping the new organization in line and giving it some stability, at least for this first year.

As far as the role of the "Speaker" or whatever, that was also an elected position (by the elected people) similar, in concept, to Senate Pro Tem. Basically an secretarial / administrative position that was there to act as a tie breaker in the case of a hung vote, and keep the topics on task and moving forward so the group doesn't get distracted. That was it. There was no "ruling body" or "ruling power" associated with it.

 

[englanddg]

And also if everything counts, we would have much more cross-connectivity with comps and other threads. We work together instead of working in our own bubbles. 1984 thread says hey check out the ending to SA Challenge 5 and vice versa.

Also was the plan, and the function of the newsletter (which, we dropped the ball on repeatedly) to invite people in and let them know what was coming as well as highlight non-tier comps / threads they could participate in that are especially noteworthy (like some of the brainstorming threads).