New Approach to Forums

This idea may be far-fetched, but I find it to be very intriguing, so I'd like to get some nice discussion going.

We tend to strive for our forums to be more than just "forums" - we want a community; that is, a friendly atmosphere with the perfect balance between socializing and information/resources.

Now, it's the norm that a forum has administrators and moderators. The administrators make decisions and rules (and have ultimate power), and the moderators enforce them. We all expect this on any forum we visit, as it is a clear hierarchy.

Is that how it has to be though? Wouldn't a true community be one that is not only run for the members, but by the members? So instead of the members putting up with whatever the administration throws at them (and if they don't like it, they leave), why not let the members put their thoughts and ideas to good use?

You could create a group of active and dedicated participants of the community; say, those who have over x posts and have been a member of the forum for y months (and any other tough restrictions). These members could serve as the forum council; they put any ideas and suggestions forth (like U.S. Congress puts bills forth) and those ideas would be implemented (or not) based on a majority vote. They are then passed to the administration for the final stamp of approval. If administrators don't approve (veto) then it would go back to the council and instead of a mere majority vote, a 2/3 or even 3/4 vote would be required.

As for voting on the ideas, it could either be just the council members, or the community that meets restrictions that aren't as tough as the council's.

There are of course some decisions and ideas that should be left solely to the administration, but those are fairly far and few between.

What are your thoughts?

 

We did this on Pisoga... http://pisogaforum.com/showthread.php?tid=3150 The one I was at, I was User Council Group #2.

 

That's an interesting concept. I may implement this, or at least a form of this, on RHM.

 

How did that work out on Pisoga, FullMetalBabe? Do you think it improved the forum?

 

=\ Uhh, it was a hysteria really. To be specific, the User Council #2 was the one who actually made changes on the forum and such. Some mods who needed to be demodded were demodded, we made the admin fix the rules and we did many healthy things for the forum. Although we did a lot of good, this kind of makes some users think they are 'not important' enough to be part of the Council. We had our own forum, access to the administrator forum. We made many polls, interviews and surveys personally taken by us.

It brought a lot of drama to the forum though. Since we were honest with our opinions and we didn't hold back on we thought, a lot of moderators felt offended by us speaking up with no censors.

In my opinion, if the new Pisoga gets big, I would do it since I won't be able to be on at alll times, though there is a suggestion/feedback forum.

The reason the User Council was created in Pisoga was because some users were afraid of speaking up. When you see an administrator, no matter how friendly he/she is, you still sense a very...how to put it... 'high' figure, some one above you, therefore you have a lot of respect.

Users who insult and such 'think' that it's because they are not afraid...but to be honest they seem more afraid when insulting.

Reason the User Council was made for the message to go through with out insulting.

 

I have actually been thinking about doing this but before I would even think of implementing such a system its alot of things that need to be worked out so it doesn't just get chaos around the forum.

 

Yeah, it really does require extensive planning and thought. It could easily turn for the worst if not setup properly.

 

That sounds like an interesting and new process. The only downside I see is that you would already need somewhat of a community for it to be effective. Just a couple of people participating wouldn't really be so great.

 

Mhm, that was one of the problems for Pisoga.

We chose three people, some of the most active. You know, if we chose two and never agreed, they wouldn't have reached a decision, so an odd number so a decision could be made. But after a bit the 'good' members ran out, so the was dismissed.