Council Forum icon should be changed

The Council Forum picture (the little guy) should be changed. It looks really lame in my opinion. Who is that anyway?

I think it's supposed to look like an ultra-slick politician.

The image in question:

Throw The Bum Out?

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
The image in question:

I've always thought it looked like a young Al Bundy -- who did, after all, score four touchdowns in a single game for Polk High School, you know.

I'm not sure that has anything to do with politics, but then, I'm not sure the ATS Council does either.

After all, just how many political parties do we have on ATS?

The member Council represents member interests in various ways by working with the staff, but that's about as political as that process gets, as far as I know.

As for the icon, well heck, maybe we should have a big political campaign to elect a new one.

How about a rendering of Al Capp's Senator Jack S. Phogbound?

Originally posted by Majic

I'm not sure the ATS Council does either.

We have all these important meetings...


No, what we do is classified... topsecret... you don´t wanna know...


But you have to trust it´s all for the best interests of ats and its members


Cool picture Grady

I did'nt even know we HAD an icon..........

Wait...

ATS has a council? Why didn't anyone let me know about this?

Surely, it is better that the Council does its job rather than the icon? That to be honest, isn't overly important and it does the job already.

[edit on 4/2/2006 by Odium]

How about this one?

I have a question.

Why is it that the council meets behind closed doors?

If the council is working for the membership why can't the membership see what the council is doing?

Umbrax, ask the other members.

I stated, rather clearly when I ran for the position I believe we should be accountable to the membership. A record of how many votes have came up and how people voted/if they did vote should be public. However, it just seems as though bored drama stops that from being able to happen.

It is understandible, but certain members would cry foul or end up making a scene if they could see such things...

I honestly LIKE the Bonnie & Clyde pick Grady is shareing

Honestly? the reason we are behind closed doors is to quash bored drama plain and simple......we discuss all manner of subjects and issues brought to us BY THE MEMBERS....some is mundane, and some is rather exciting.....The coucil is guided and informed by administration, and the info they share is on the workings of the site...there is much talk about CODING and very geek type can/cant do topics.("We havent enough power Captian")*quote from StarTrek................ If membership could see inside the council forum you would fall asleep, its just NOT that compelling.......the main boards where events & ideas are discussed is much more interesting seriously.

Remember....if YOU have any idea that might improve your ATS experiance, TELL one of the Councilors and we get right on it!!

Thanks for the response theRiverGoddess and Odium.

It does seem that drama control is very high on ATS's priorities.
But how can I tell if the people I voted for are doing a good job?

In Canada I can see what my government is doing. For the most part the government here is fairly transparent. I can see what is happening at parliament meetings. With that, the public will criticize what the government is doing. And we have the right to criticize our government. They work for us.

With out viewing the goings on of the ATS council, how can member hold the council accountable for their actions or non-actions?

Right now I feel that I can only speculate on what is happening. As a person who is paranoid and untrusting of people with power I can come up with all sorts of negative ideas as to what the council is for and does.

This is just one member's opinion but I'm sure I'm not alone.

Remember....if YOU have any idea that might improve your ATS experiance, TELL one of the Councilors and we get right on it!!

I've had a few. One of them in particular I've been hammering on for months now.
www.abovetopsecret.com...'

I'm starting to get worn out about it but I will continue. There are only two ways to stop me from bugging about it.

When We Get Behind Closed Doors

Originally posted by Umbrax
With out viewing the goings on of the ATS council, how can member hold the council accountable for their actions or non-actions?

I think the best way is to look at what public results you get from your Councilors, and use that as your yardstick.

While I used to lobby strongly for making the Council forum publicly visible, time and experience changed my mind. I now think it's best that the Council forum be private.

To give you an idea of what you're missing, however, I can tell you what the Council forum contained at the time my term ended.

About half of what you would have seen in the Council forum consisted of long-winded and ultimately pointless “give me liberty or give me death” rants about how the Council should be organized and vote, temper tantrums about the failure of the Council to agree on these things while simultaneously insisting on 100% consensus, all sorts of irrelevant philosophical diatribes on self-government, gratuitous drama and fruitless attempts to plant the seeds of bureaucracy where ad hoc discussion would suffice.

And that was just what I contributed to the Council forum.

The rest consisted of Councilors expressing confusion and frustration over what they could or could not do, what their actual roles on ATS were, suggestions from the senior staff on what they could do and how to move forward, discussion of suitable projects for the Council to tackle, repeated attempts to build consensus for various things and – in the case of Councilor Lysergic – a cool and successful initiative that brought the BTS and PTS boards into pointdom.

That said, there are actually many positive things that might not be so obvious which have resulted from the Council, and potential for many more positive things, which is why I remain an avid proponent of the Council.

ATS-SPAN

I'm not sure what's going on now, but perhaps the Council can bring us up to date.

One of the challenges facing Councilors is balancing the confidential nature of Council deliberations (which I myself have mildly violated in this post) against the need to keep fellow members informed. Also, the sometimes paradoxical nature of representation requires Councilors to do what they think is best, even if a majority of members might disagree with them on specific issues.

I think it would be good for the Council to bring some of these issues “out of the closet” for public discussion, but I respect the difficulties involved.

Still, no guts, no glory. My advice to Councilors is to err on the side of the membership.

Of course, all this has little or nothing to do with the choice of Council forum icon, but then again, maybe a better understanding of what the Councilors do may help in creating a new theme to base it on.



[edit on 2/4/2006 by Majic]

Thanks for the input Majic.

I think the best way is to look at what public results you get from your Councilors, and use that as your yardstick.

in the case of Councilor Lysergic – a cool and successful initiative that brought the BTS and PTS boards into pointdom.

So this is the single public result from the council since its inception?

Just a thought, I didn't want to make a new thread on it. When are the next council elections due and what are the requirements to run?