NERVUN wrote:A whole forum filled with multiple threads wandering in different directions where everyone and their dog can voice an opinion, informed or not vs a selected (how, we'll leave out for now) group of vetted, dedicated players in a more focused and controlled setting where (hopefully) some kind of rules of order for voting and whatnot takes place... That's the difference, and much more valuable.
This is just sounding more and more like an "advisory body". If you find a thread too cumbersome to read, you can always come in and request that one player from each side post a brief summary of their opinion. I realize referencing the organization that ran pretty smoothly for five years is inexplicably forbidden now, but in the NSUN, that's exactly what Fris & TMGH did with the UN Security Act, which grew into the kind of sprawling debate you're mentioning here: they requested Forgottenlands and HotRodia each post their opinion, limited them to a brief word count, and then came to their decision. It worked well.* If that's all you want - condensed summaries of player opinions with no extraneous guff - then you already have that facility without any need for a special council. (It would be a lot easier for you, I'll admit, if the Illegal Proposals thread could be used for this, but sadly it isn't and as other moderators have observed, they don't even take much notice of it anymore.)
* What worked less well was in the WA, when "X Mod" unilaterally overturned that decision in a seven-word reply, the explanation of which had to be delivered by a second party months later, with no chance for player comment or input.
NERVUN wrote:I think you're misunderstanding what it is I am calling for. I see the Moderator in question functioning as a president/royal in terms of the council making the ruling and then delivering it to the Mod who then gives it a looksie and publishes, or returns should there be problems.
Giving the presiding mod veto power over the decision - again, this is just shaping up to be an "advisory body".
NERVUN wrote:Again, you're yelling at us for not being here to be yelled at. I get yelled at regularly in the course of my Moderation duties. That's part of being a Moderator, I accept that. But I'll be damned if I hang out in a place where just showing up I get yelled at, even when not being a Moderator.
No one is yelling. But sure, the WA is argumentative: it's a debate chamber for international politics! Topics such as abortion, nuclear disarmament and free trade are going to generate some disagreement! If someone can't handle that, then maybe they're just not a good fit for moderating the WA?
NERVUN wrote:When I come in here and see how X Mod is incompetent or should have never been appointed because they know nothing... That's not saying the ruling is poor, or was decided wrong because of Y reason, that's an attack on the person.
I do not see why it cannot be both.
For example:
- the ruling to delete Non-Interference in Elections was poor;
- that ruling was decided wrongly because it's very longstanding precedent that committee duties can be expanded by a subsequent resolution;
- "X Mod" could have avoided this issue had they simply read the forum thread (the telegram on deletion suggested the author of the proposal draft the proposal in the forum...which they had been doing, for several months);
- "X Mod"'s failure to do the basic thing the moderators themselves suggest to all new players, to engage with the forum, is incompetence.