I'm a member at TAZ, a board for administrators to consult on the problems of administration (software mostly), and I made a passing comment about belonging to a board where we were experimenting in internet democracy. artie saw this, and it coincided with his interest, so he contacted me and we spoke together by email for a couple weeks.
Meanwhile he did his 'homework' and has been reading through the Historical threads on B77, and contacting charter committee members, Rangers/Shirriffs, and all members who watched the process from the board to interview them regarding their opinions as to how a democratic process works in a messageboard setting.
We've been encouraging artie to start a thread, either here or on B77, but he doesn't want the conversation to have the character of a debate and feels that interviewing individuals will serve him better. As far as I know, all his requests have been polite, but I am aware that people were wondering what these PM's are really about.
They are about exactly what they appear to be about. artie would like to collect impressions from people who belong to a board that is democratic in practice and not just in theory.
If anyone does not want to receive PM's about this, you can state so here and artie will not contact you. If you have something about internet democracy that you feel compelled to say, but don't want to enter into a PM discussion about it with a stranger, you can also use this thread to post your comments. You can answer artie's PM in this thread if you prefer to do it that way.
What I told artie when we first talked about him joining both boards and asking people to relate their experiences, I explained to him that we would not use HoF to discuss the relative successes or failures of B77 because our Marshalls here have a policy of not participating in discussions about other messageboards. It would be better if any public discussion took place on B77, where the experiment actually took place and all or most of us remain members. artie appreciates this constraint, and is really not asking for personal information about the two boards but about the mechanics of both systems - selection of admins, etc. That has been the gist of all conversations I've had with him so far.
But as he has been interviewing people on both boards, and posters have been asking what the PM's are about, I thought it a good idea to put up a thread where people can ... ask questions about what artie is doing, or opt out of the interview, or make neutral comments about their experience with different administrative systems if they wish to do so.
It goes without saying (I hope) that this is not an invitation to rehash all our history together in an HoF thread.
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Jn