informal discussion - Membership criteria

I know this is brought up from time to time, but I have just been doing some adminny stuff, and I realised how often a person comes onto the forum, applies for the RA with their first or second post, and then disappears until a few weeks later admins are asked to remove them from the RA roll.

Now that is, perhaps, no biggie, but each application takes quite a lot of admin and speaker time. I remember once when there were a few applications backed up spending over an hour just on security checks.

I thought I would open it up for discussion. Is our current system actually a good one? I have removed a number of people recently from the RA with only a scant handful of posts by the time they were removed. Should there be a period of, say, a month before a forum account can be considered for Regional Assembly? Or a minimum number of posts? Should RA membership be considered (as now) a fundamental right, or should it be a reward for actual involvement in our community?

Flem, Isn't IP collection a bit of a benefit from this process?

As someone whose opinion doesn't matter as much, and one of those new guys who seemingly disappeared right after joining (for a Fourth of July weekend vacation), I'd say that I feel RA membership should be a fundamental right, just as citizenship (RA membership's rough equivalent) is a fundamental right in my home region of TAR; I've had a lot of experience with recruitment, and I know that legitimately active new members are a rarity -- too many simply create a nation, register on a forum, make one or two posts, and never come back. I'd suggest requiring a few days' wait, but if you want the best chance of integration, you've got to allow new members instant gratification, lest they get bored and die off.

TNP, of course, attracts another species of inactive -- foreigners interested in participating in the largest UCR -- hell, largest region, period -- in NS. I won't pretend to be an expert on feeders, but the general vibe I've gotten is that they've got a ton of those cosmopolitan types, many of whom, I'm sure, simply forget about it over time as they're caught up in the internal affairs of their first home. For those, I believe that we should take advantage of the registry information and use it to contact inactives' mains (if their WA is their main, as it is with me) every so often.

We also attract people who maintain a very low level of inactivity just so that in times of conflict they can pop up and say "I am just as much a native as you. I have been on the forum since 2008". But I am not talking about that. I am trying to think of a way that demonstrates a reasonable (not onerous) level of commitment to the community before folks are admitted to the Regional Assembly.

Is 50 posts unreasonable? A personal introduction in the "introduce yourself" thread? A period of 2 weeks after registration on the forum?

I will point out that if any of those measures had been in place when I joined, I wouldn't have been able to run for speaker in January, because I would not have fulfilled the residency requirement. I really appreciate the openness of the RA in this region, because it allowed to become exactly as involved as I wanted to be in short order.

As a GCR we have a duty to be as open and welcoming as possible, as we are both a kind of public property and the arrival point for new players.

Further, in my experience those GCR's that are the most open and the easiest to get involved in quickly are the most active.

flemingovia:

I know this is brought up from time to time, but I have just been doing some adminny stuff, and I realised how often a person comes onto the forum, applies for the RA with their first or second post, and then disappears until a few weeks later admins are asked to remove them from the RA roll.

Now that is, perhaps, no biggie, but each application takes quite a lot of admin and speaker time. I remember once when there were a few applications backed up spending over an hour just on security checks.

I thought I would open it up for discussion. Is our current system actually a good one? I have removed a number of people recently from the RA with only a scant handful of posts by the time they were removed. Should there be a period of, say, a month before a forum account can be considered for Regional Assembly? Or a minimum number of posts? Should RA membership be considered (as now) a fundamental right, or should it be a reward for actual involvement in our community?

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I think newcomers need to be in the RA and able to vote as early as possible. Security checks are also very important.

I also think we could be fulfilling our feeder role better if we trained up the newbies, as not everyone knows what they are doing when they arrive.

I think it's a good idea to get new members into the RA fairly quickly. Making new people feel welcome and giving them responsibility will help keep them from getting bored and leaving the game too soon. I'm pretty new and being able to vote and contribute while meeting everyone makes the game much more interesting and fun. I think the rules should remain more strict for higher positions like the security council.

Here's something Flem and I discussed on IRC:

Currently, new RA members are restricted from running for office or voting in elections for ~2 weeks after joining the RA (I can't recall if it's 14 or 15 days specifically). Given the sheer number of people who join, post once or twice, join the RA (necessitating a full security check, remasking and addition to the RA membership rolls) and then never reappear (requiring removal from the membership rolls and another remasking on the forum), we thought it might make more sense to switch the waiting period to pre-RA membership and then eliminate any waiting for new RA members in terms of running or voting in elections.

The tradeoff in this change would be a likely vastly reduced admin workload versus a delay imposed on people interested in getting involved in legislating and voting on proposals as fast as possible - is this a worthwhile exchange?

That's actually a good idea, Silly.

If I read your proposal correctly, all that would need to be maintained is a simple list of 'Pre-RA' forum members for a given period of time (a public list of applicants with the date of application). Provided they meet a certain level of activity that shows a true interest in participating in the region, they then are masked as RA members if they chose to be RA members. At masking, they can immediately run for office.

It would weed out a lot of passers-by that simply show up and then vanish. Essentially, contrive a means for a person to demonstrate that they are (pardon the term) worthy of RA Membership.

Now, if you wanted to be somewhat diabolical, one could require a certain amount of 'service' to the region before being afforded RA membership (such as service in the NPA for a certain amount of time or some such 'service').

I am of the general opinion that citizenship is something to be earned and not just granted willy-nilly. This makes TNP citizenship at the level of RA Member something that is obtained by personal effort and not just simply 'being here'. Sure, it's sort of a merit based system, but frankly, something like RA membership has more value if one is required to work for it rather than to be perfunctorily given it.