On Sat, 2005-07-16 at 12:18 -0400, Michael Krotscheck wrote: > What things do you like or not like about the following things?
I'm not really sure what this first group of questions means, so I can give you more if you can explain what you're looking for.
> 1- Officer selection (*C/*ST/Domain+)?
Actually, the officer selection system is fairly bad. First, higher- level officers have an arbitrary ability to prevent people from running. Also, most positions are elected indirectly, which means that any problems with the system for selecting domain and regional positions get amplified in the selection of national positions...and the national officers then have too much influence over the regional elections, and so on.
> 2- Officer duties (*C/*ST/Domain+)?
Well, I don't think the domain level positions are especially useful.
> 3- Officer responsibility (*C/*ST/Domain+)?
I like when officers are responsible...but that's probably not what you mean...
> 4- Negotiation?
> 5- Conflict Resolution
> 6- Communications?
> 7- Decision Making Processes?
These all seem like good things.
> 8- Social Cohesion?
> 9- Group Roles?
These are provisionally good things; that is, good when not abused.
> About the conflict over the DST position:
> 1- How are you invested?
I suppose I've become one of the more vocal critics of Charles Bailey and Jon Hermann. I've also been maintaining a website with relevant documents to provide a common reference for everyone to refer to.
> 2- How did you become invested?
Mostly by being friends with Jason and Strauss, with the result that I heard a lot about the situation even before they were fired. That and caring about the principles involved.
> 3- What are your objectives as an invested individual?
See the organization reformed so that something similar can't happen again. Ideally, see a few of the responsible individuals removed from office.
> 4- Who are the invested individuals?
I suppose the obvious ones are Jason, Strauss, Charles, and Alex. Besides them, Rachael, Dale, Jon Hermann, at least part of the Cam Council, and I have all gotten actively involved. And a number of other people in the domain have expressed a great deal of interest.
> 5- Who should be invested, but isn't?
The obvious example would be Jed (the RC), who hasn't done anything (I sent a complaint up the coordinator hierarchy which he passed up to Wes without commenting; it's my understanding that he's told others that he's afraid to do anything).
> 6- Who are the invested parties?
I suppose Jason and supporters on one side, Strauss, Alex/Charles/Jon on another, and, perhaps, a third side of domain members who aren't interested in the conflict and want to move on and elect a new DST (Sameer, Joy, Anthony, and a few others).
> 7- What are the objectives of the invested parties? (What do they want?)
Jason and his supporters generally want to see his removal revoked in some kind of decisive way that prevents it from happening again. Strauss wants revenge. Alex et. al. mostly seem to want the issue to go away. Sameer and supporters want a new DST elected.
> 8- What does each party have to do to attain its objectives?
Jason needs to, eventually, appeal to the moral judgment of enough powerful people (where "enough" and "powerful" are relative, and more of one means he needs less of the other) to either force the decision down through formal channels or bring enough public pressure to bear that Alex is forced to admit he was wrong.
Alex, more or less, needs to prevent that from happening. Jon seems to be trying to implement that, in large part, by trying to get a DST elected so that many in the domain might give up on the issue.
Sameer needs to get a majority of the domain to vote for him.
> 9- Are the objectives mutually exclusive?
I think it depends on how Alex construes his position; Jason's core demands are fairly immutable, but if Alex were willing to negotiate, it's not clear that common ground doesn't exist.
> 10- How is each party empowered to remain in this conflict?
I'm really not sure what this means.
> 11- Who are the recognized 'leaders' of each party?
Jason and Alex, I suppose.
> 12- Why are they the leader?
By being the people directly involved in the original conflict.
> 13- What is each party sacrificing at this time?
Mostly, a lot of time. Jason and supporters are giving up having a DST to pursue this fight. Alex and Jon are mostly just dealing with being subjected to lots of criticism.
> 14- What consequences do you see each party as potentially facing?
Well, the Cam Constitution calls for Alex to be fired...
More likely, the worst case scenario for Jason is that the penalty gets upped to something worse as punishment for fighting it. The worst case, realistically, for Alex and Charles is that their power is meaningfully restricted as a consequence.
> 15- What does each party stand to gain from this conflict?
Alex doesn't stand to gain much at this point (I suppose, from the starting point, he stands to gain that people will be less willing to criticize him). Jason stands to obtain meaningful change to the organization.
> 16- How do you want this situation to resolve?
Alex and Charles fired.
> 17- How do you think this situation will resolve?
I think Jason will eventually win on the merits; Charles and Alex broke too many rules for the decision to stand when it gets pushed to a high enough level. I suspect Charles and Alex will be reigned in a bit, but not much.
> 18- When will this situation resolve?
Either within the next few weeks, or it will take several months longer (depending on what the Cam Council does).
> 19- How did this conflict start?
Strauss harshly criticized Alex.
> 20- What is this conflict about?
Whether the MST can fire people for criticizing him.
Henry