Dear fellow Citizens,
it saddens me, but I have to resign from Curatorship due to off the site events which demand my full attention. To draw you just a quick and dirty picture, the business I'm running had suffered severely from the storm a month ago, my wife has been taken to a sanatory for the foreseeable future and last but not least my now 17 months old son demands my attention. Therefor, I have next to no time left to spend for this site in the forseeable future and thus will be inactive for the comming months, at least.
However, I feel the need to leave you with a few thoughts of mine.
Running for Curatorship was born from a joke with Brew. I actually didn't feel like becoming Curator again. However, you choose to entrust me with that office, despite the fact that I did expressis verbis state I would not have the time needed to commit to it. I thank you all for that. I was deeply touched and honoured by your confidence in me.
I like to also thank the entire Curator Team, who did a great job in the few weeks, to keep my back clear and to cover me in next to every regard save the technical restrictions which can only be dealt with by the Curator. Other than that, they were the Curator, not me.
Brew and Iskar were sterling Co-Curators and acted in all but name like a Curator. Without them and their constant and tireless efforts I would have resigned the minute after the poll result was public. I love you both and you do really grand! Brew managed the citizen aspect of the office with grand engagement while Iskar was a great meantor with regards to the moderational aspect of the job. I can only commend you for your work and work ethos!
Then there are Elfdude, Aexodus, King Athelstan and Greek Strategos, who all did a great job in getting to know the ins and outs of managing the day-to-day activities. I would love to see you guys take up a more proactive role in the Curia as elected officials. All of you are great persons and have huge talents which could only benefit the site.
I had a great team!
However, any given team can only be so good as its leader and I was not a good leader. In the start I layed down the rules and policies and then real Life struck and I virtually went MIA. Brew and Iskar did their best to fill that gap, but naturally their mandate derives from me and so, in the end, I let them down. I like the Curia to know that in cases where members of my team did act outside their remit or outside the procedure I wanted them to act in, it was only done with them having the best intentions. They are without fault! The fault is entirely mine since I failed in providing them with guidance when they needed it the most. For that, I can only appologise to my team and to every Citizen. I'm sorry.
Now, that being said. I like to spend some thought on what I've experienced in this very short month of Curatorship. I was socialized in a Curia where becoming a CdeC member was something to strive for and becoming Curator was the highest honor and duty you could reach in the Curia. I always regarded the Curator as caretaker of the Curia, as somebody who was bound by the Constitution, but had discretional freedom of decision whenever something was not written in the Constitution. A leader, whose duty it was to shape policy and set things into practice and to flesh out the roughly outlined duties of the office with his ideas. I never conceived the Curator as a rubber stamper or as simply a the bookkeeper of the Curia (of course that is one of his duties, but not his purpose). However, that idea might have changed.
Also, when I got access to the Politia forum the irritation about the public referrals and appeals I've read in the past months changed to being completely stunned because of what the instrument of referrals had been degenerated by now. Seriously, if it was only for that referral system and the way people "use" or "abuse" it today, this place needs to be redone. Referrals really need to go. Same with the spirit of when and why people feel compromised when judging referrals. Do not get me wrong, pelase. I respect the decision of each and every Censor. However, the Triumvirate sometimes is rendered incapable of dealing with cases due to such simple things as Censores knowing or guessing the referrers name. ...
Then there is moderation. I am really sorry, maybe my time in Moderation has changed my point of view with this regard, but I find the notion that a subforum should be exempt from the regular and coherrent application of the ToS based on the notion that the members interacting in said forum would be behaving themselves at least so good as that it can be resonably expected them treating eachother with respect and them not breaking ToS would be a given, at best naive, at worst laughable and in practice unrealistic.
I don't see any justification why the Curia should be allowed to be a place where people can behave like a dick to eachother and get away with it while on the same time providing a very bad example for behaviour and conveiing the idea of it being accepted, even cherrisehd since they are the premium users of the board. In the same time, all others are expected to adhere to the ToS and be nice to eachother, at least to a minimum degree. That, gentlemen, is living double standards at its finest and I feel ashamed I have to say that.
I could go on here for hours, alas I don't have the time and I don't want to waste yours. However, maybe you like to think about some suggestions. If you really want to do something good for TWC as a site. I suggest to reform the Curia with regards to:
- rethink the entire structure of officials and their duties and discretion
- get rid of the so called "citizen behavior"
- get rid of citizen referrals
- keep staff referrals
- introduce moderation in one way or another
- train your officials/executives
- do something useful with the part of the FP that is reserved for the Curia (remember shank doing all the cool stuff in his Curator stint?)
- keep the populism and political agitation and obvious trolling and personal vendettas out of this place and tell people who do that off
- treat yourselves and eachother with respect
So, I think I've said my piece. I wish you all the best of luck and goodspeed and maybe we see eachother around in a couple of months, since we all know that you can take a break from TWC if you must, but you cannot leave it
Cheers,
Aik