Senate situation: should there be another Forum Senate?

[dragononcrypto]

So thought I'd bring up the discussion regarding the situation with Senators and the Crypto Senate (or lack of). Bare with me.

For background context, the Crypto Senate (that effectively acted as a Forum Senate) was where Senators discussed and voted on changes and improvements to be implemented in the forum by admin, and otherwise were previously responsible for electing President and Vice President. Senators were elected by forum users, as well as appointed after successfully serving as Presidents, and were intended to act as representatives for forum users. The Senate was responsible for the elections of the 2nd and 3rd Presidents, prior to the general election taking over this role for the 4th election. The 1st President was otherwise elected by admin in 2020 prior to this development.

While I'm not suggesting another Presidential election, although we could well be due by given the forums growth this year, it should be noted that the previous general election was when the forum was dying a lot quieter, and thus may not be appropriate for electing another President in the future (for a variety of reasons). Given the recent return of activity to the forum this year, as well as some inactive Senators, I'm wondering whether it'd be worth having another forum-wide Senator election to elect new Senators as we did previously during as-busy times. Either that, or the false titles of Senator should probably be scrapped, as serves only as a historical record at this point.

The benefits could be having better representation for recently teleported members, assuming users would be nominating certain newer users for the Senate (which is something I'd encourage at this point). Personally I've noticed there are some newer faces that definitely look like they would do a better job than current inactive/less active Senators. The downside is that a Senate election is quite time consuming and exhaustive, and also I imagine that admin may well be opposed to re-establishing a Senate after the dissolution of the previous. But as per usual, it should be up to forum users to decide, and for President to approve, so I'm going to politely ignore any opposition from admin here.

Any questions feel free to ask. Given the Crypto Senate forum section is now no more, I can understand it's hard to fully understand what this was like, or how it truly worked at the time. Overall there were approximately 10 Senators who were engaged in trying to improve the forum for the benefit of it's users, who were elected by the forum. And I'm thinking it might be time to bring that back.


Senator response summary:

epidemia: no need for senate
MrSpasybo: re-build but without election
Zed0X: scrap the senate
heyod hewow: no need for senate
alltalk: replace inactive senators

admin: replace inactive, elect new

[epidemia]

Hello everyone. In my opinion, I don't see the point of the Senate; everything can be resolved without making this a big issue. As far as I'm concerned, there are many reasonable people on the forum who are dedicated to helping its growth and are loyal to the community.

Personally, being a Global Moderator is enough for me to help the forum get rid of spam and bad users. The admin is a great guy—I’m always ready to advise and support him without any additional titles or recognition.

P.S. Admin, just make sure not to remove the lightsaber from my profile 

[MrSpasybo]

The most recent event we discussed was how to handle accounts from family members. It's true that many Senators haven't shared their opinions as we expected.

We need the Senate when it comes to making important decisions about AltcoinsTalks forum future. I still remember the tension created by numerous accusations related to multi-accounts, as shared by many members: they tried to bring more friends to AltcoinsTalks from the early days but were seen as scammers, attacked by accusations from a new member. They felt that the new members were trying to take over AltcoinsTalks by removing the old members to increase their chances of being selected in future signature campaigns. The old members were not protected, they were attacked and embarrassed in front of their own community, they felt that AltcoinsTalks was no longer as friendly as before.

I think the Senate should only have terms similar to the President's. However, I'm skeptical about how we can select Senator candidates. Not all of us know all the members in the AltcoinsTalks community, some usernames are familiar to me but completely foreign to others.

Therefore, I propose a process for building the Senate:

1. Direct invitation: admins and the President can select the most reputable members based on the quality of their forum activities and invite them to join the Senate.

2. Self-nomination: members who are genuinely interested in building the forum can leave comments, introduce themselves and their plans as Senators to contribute to AltcoinsTalks development. Admins & President can decide themselves or organize a vote to gather community opinions. Honestly, when we don't know much about other members, the vote results are often unreliable.

Anyway, being a Senator doesn't bring any income, it only brings responsibility to members who are truly enthusiastic and care about AltcoinsTalks development. I don't think it will be abused in any way. I just hope that the Senators will always uphold AltcoinsTalks goal of becoming a friendly crypto forum.

[Zed0X]

Maybe just scrap it. I agree that it will be time consuming and it might not end up in a fair election but I'm also not in favor of centralized selection/invitation by admin and officers. Even before the existence of the Senate, members were already sharing their views/opinions about policies and rules by officer/s then making suggestions for improvements. I'm seeing the same situation now after the forum was revitalized mostly by teleported members. If there will be voting on the direction of the forum, only allow members that earned it. Certain rank, activity, karma, and contribution could be used as factors to determine if a member is qualified to vote.

[heyod hewow]

Personally, I don't see the point in creating a new Senate. I may be wrong, but in my opinion, Senators had almost the same functions and powers as global moderators, it was simply a duplicating governance.
The council of global moderators is quite sufficient to solve some issues, to help Admin and President.
As an addition, we can add several new global moderators by offering this role to several new most active teleported users in the rank of legend.

[hugeblack]

I think that the forum is currently working well and whenever the decision -making will take place and the complications are the best.
The decision -making is simply creating a topic and then supported by the forum that the president sends to the director to implement it or votes on it.
By the end of the year, if a change occurred, then additional decisions will be good.

[alltalk]

Should the forum elect new Senators and re-establish the Forum Senate?

There are around 10 Senators. IMO, it's quite a lot for the number of senators, we don't need to add more senators. If we must get some new senators, just remove inactive senators first. I don't think we need to remove all the current senators because it is not really necessary for now.

Given the Crypto Senate forum section is now no more, I can understand it's hard to fully understand what this was like, or how it truly worked at the time.

As far as I know, we have Senator board in the past. We need a specific board for Senators. It is a place for communication, discussion, or any activity related Senators duty. I don't understand that the board disappeared. If it is possible, we need to have it again.

Anyway, being a Senator doesn't bring any income, it only brings responsibility to members who are truly enthusiastic and care about AltcoinsTalks development. I don't think it will be abused in any way. I just hope that the Senators will always uphold AltcoinsTalks goal of becoming a friendly crypto forum.

There will always be a way to abuse power. That's why the selection should be based on some considerations. We don't only consider the activity or popularity of the members. Make sure they really have good intention to help this forum growing well and maintain harmony between each other. Yep, we don't forget that "Altcoinstalks is a friendly forum".

[admin]

I do agree with alltalk, we can remove inactive senators and elect few new, especially from the teleported members as they don't have proper representation in senate.
why?
because that would give a more deep historic governance rather than who is active these days.

As for the senate, it is being turned on/off when needed, and when some issue require the attention and collective decision of all great members

[Mate2237]

Op what you have said is very good. Most of us don't even know that such institution or organ of the governing body does exist in the forum. And I will also like to suggest that if such happened. It will be very good for those active local boards to bring how representative to the Senate fold. Or seven (7) senators should be given to those active local boards and the remaining three (, should be from the general boards.

I think this suggestion makes sense. I also support the motion.

[dragononcrypto]

Based on the summary of senator responses + admin, there are mixed opinions about this:

epidemia: no need for senate
MrSpasybo: re-build but without election
Zed0X: scrap the senate
heyod hewow: no need for senate
alltalk: replace inactive senators

admin: replace inactive, elect new

Personally I think there are good reasons for scrapping it, as well as removing inactive senators and electing new senators, so am somewhat neutral about this at the moment.

While I agree that any user can make proposals in the suggestion box, there are certain decisions that will either be decided by admin or president, or otherwise by a senate. As a reminder the senate was never for minor proposals or implementations, but for much bigger decisions that a forum poll simply wouldn't be enough for. It can also help to support the admin/president in making certain difficult decisions, that benefits from broader agreement from forum reps.

In reality the senate was never about moderating the forum, but instead governance of the forum, and not all senators were global mods or even mods (such as Zed0x). There would also be difficult decisions on how to run an election based on the previous amount of fraud that occurred from multi-accounts, probably only Legendary and upwards should be voting in my opinion, even though this won't eliminate abuse.

Still waiting to hear from President & VP, as well as others, but so far there seems to be at least some enthusiasm for electing new senators, even if only to replace inactive ones.

Edit: @heyod hewow it might be assumed that this forum is governed by global mods, but in reality and for transparency sake here, governance based discussions effectively moved over to a presidential section (for president, vp and ex-presidents) sometime ago.  The forum team section is only for global mod stuff now...

[Freemind]

I think it's a good idea to elect new senators and have these (at least some) be teleported members. That would give another perspective to the forum, and I think it would also be good for that group of members to have their representation even if they are "new users", since that would be the most interesting.

[admin]

I think it's a good idea to elect new senators and have these (at least some) be teleported members. That would give another perspective to the forum, and I think it would also be good for that group of members to have their representation even if they are "new users", since that would be the most interesting.

ok then, it is your call
- how many ?
- who will vote ?
- all votes equal ?
- other rules ?

[Mbah Jenggot]

I think I agree with alltak n admin, better replace inactive senator, elect new.
Maybe we can take new senator from teleported member and reputated bounty manager.

[Freemind]

ok then, it is your call
- how many ?
- who will vote ?
- all votes equal ?
- other rules ?

We will elect the same number of senators that are currently inactive, if we need more we could vote again.
The same users who voted before and the most active teleported can vote if everyone agrees.
All votes are equal, but in case of indecision, doubts or any type of problem, the votes of the oldest users of the forum will decide what to do.
I can't think of any more rules at the moment, but they can be expanded if necessary.

[admin]

All votes are equal, but in case of indecision, doubts or any type of problem, the votes of the oldest users of the forum will decide what to do.

I'm the oldest user on the forum