Removing group recalls

We are thinking about removing Group Recalls for 1.7.... I am looking for some feedback on this.

Thoughts?

That would probably be helpful I have heard that it is mostly used as a griefing tool. Basically, if you don't like who's running the group, then leave it

The option of allowing group recalls should be kept, to be selected on group creation.

Seconded

Clarify please.
Officer recalls? Including the Founder? Or officer recalls excluding the Founder? Will the Founder be able to remove officers?
It's more involved than stated.
Thanks

I mean completely removing the ability to initiate a vote to recall an officer (which demotes an officer to member status).

As long as the founder retains the ability to demote/remove officers I say axe it!

add a Ya to the above.

Also:
Allow the founder of the group to disband the group in its entirety.
Allow the founder privilege to be passed from the founder to an officer.


fen-

Keeel eeet!

er... I mean, Yes, I think that should be removed as a good, though temporary and incomplete, change to the group tools.

What I hate the most and believe is the main problem with group recall elections is anonymity.

As a group member or officer I would like to know when asked for my recall vote:



Of course, as it works right now, knowing neither usually makes me abstain from voting.

Knowing both A and B would serve both to identify griefers and enable us to cast an informed vote.

I agree.

Agreed- the group founder should retain that authority w/o fear of being recalled.

We need better group mangement tools than we have now, so please, let's not stop here. And for heaven sake- we need the documentation to utilize them effectively.

Remove the function completely. This is the most elegant and simple solution until you can better configure and refine all group tools.

Officer recall is generally used only for griefing, by malicious people who wish to make an attack on a group or an individual officer they dislike. (Occasionally it is triggered accidently, which is also unfortunate.)

Officer recall is rarely, if ever, used to stop an actual tyrant or griefer in a group.

The hypothetical use of officer recall to ensure liberal democracy in the face of an authoritarian figure is in fact a sham. What really happens is that authoritarian and malicious griefers misuse the intended tool to force themselves and their agenda on an officer and a group against their will. It's a grave flaw and loophole in the group tools that works against, not for, civilization.

Officer recall gives the power of an ordinary member, who may not have contributed purchase cost or tier, the ability to freeze a group, force out an officer, engineer a coup with a 2/3 vote (he may have previously packed the group with alts and griefer friends if it is on open enrollment) and they may engineer a sale of a person's land against their will -- although they did not pay for it, or cover it with tier.

Officer recall freezes all group memberships while the vote is in play, which can be 7 days. In a tenants' group, this is deadly and halts business because people can't join a group to hold prims on land with autoretrun -- land placed on autoreturn precisely to prevent griefing with bad prims.

The only way out of an officer recall is for the targeted officer to leave the group. Yet if he has the tier contribution, that throws the group into jeopardy without the tier donation to cover its land, risking that it will be seized by Governor Linden.

The targeted officer must hope then that another officer, or his alt, can be organized in time in order to invite him back into the group, while he fixes up the tier situation.

Officer recall is a form of griefing 99 percent of the time in landed groups.

The Lindens must remove this form of griefing pronto.

If they can work further to refine group tools, and make it so that this is a function that an investing founder can toggle for others and prevent being used on himself, that may be an option, but the more effective path now is to remove it immediately.

There should not be a method by which a griefer can:

1. Astroturf themselves an election to officer status (by use of alts, &c.) and thereby obtain the ability to sell or transfer group land
   
2. Recall the group founder, for any reason
   

I also agree that officer recalls should include the name of the person who initiates it, as well as requiring them to submit a statement about why that person should be recalled. Letting people do this anonymously creates an attractive nuisance.

Don - I strongly support getting rid of recall elections for 1.7 - with a few caveats:

Short-Term:

-Get rid of recall elections
-Provide some method for the Founder of a group to remove officers
-Don't allow the group founder to be removed except via Linden intervention.


Long-Term:

-Give us multiple group types that better fit common usage
-Give us more flexibility with groups & Land Management, such as:
---------Ability to decide who shares what
---------Ability to decide who gets what land permissions
---------Ability to decide who can sell the land (or founder only if so desired)
---------Ability to decide who can return who's objects.

Thanks!

Step 1: Remove group recalls and give group founder the ability to demote officers

Step 2: Replace "founder" with "leader" and allow the group leader to transfer leadership to another account.

Step 3: Give people choice of ruling system, like for guilds in Shadowbane:

1. Monarchy: only group leader can appoint/remove officers
2. Republic: any officer can initiate recall election for other officers, any officer can invite new officers
3. Democracy: like current system, but without anonymity

Step 4: Give group leader detailed options of setting permissions for group officers and group members. Things such as:

- Invite members
- Dispell members
- Sell land
- Receive group dividend share
- Delete group owned objects
- Access land options of group owned land
etc.

I agree 100%

Anshe is heading on the right track, but I do not want to see a labeling of groups with perjorative words like "monarchy" or "republic" which will then be used as additional means of harassment and reputation-denegration by some players.

To cross-post from my longer post at polysci:

What I would advocate is a changing of the group functions and a new perception of them as functions, not roles, and not types of groups. This way, anyone, whether a landlord setting up tenants, a business creating a CEO and a board of trustees, hippies in a commune, a tsar setting up his boyars and serfs, an artist setting up his collaborators, or a dom his subs, could use the group tools for whatever they like.

Here's the list of 24 functions that would then be toggled in various configurations, starting with the founder, who get all of the privileges, and gets to decide who else gets them, mixing and matching as needed:

o Founds Group, Pays $100
o Names Group
o Invites Members
o Expels Members
o Invites Officers
o Expels Officers
o Names Titles
o Pays Purchase Price of Land
o Pays For and Donates Tier
o Names Land and Describes Land
o Puts Land in Find Places
o Sets Landing Point
o Returns Prims
o Parcels Land
o Sets Music/Video
o Sells Land
o Purchases Land or Deeds Land (to move from individual to group or group to group)
o Takes Land Out of Group
o Announces Events
o Makes Proposals for Votes
o Sends Group IMs
o Deeds Objects
o Collects and Distributes Income
o Collects and Distributes Dwell
o Terraforms and Landscapes

These 24 functions would be mixed and matched up by the founder or founders -- the first thing the original founder did if he wanted would be to click off the "founder" full set of toggles for 2 other people or the more limited list of toggles for "officer" or still less for "member" title -- thus toggling for every permission he'd like them to have.

While it might seem some work at the beginning, it will be a huge boon for a club or a mall, for example to be able to have members that can just return prims, or just set music, or just deed created objects, or have the full range of permissions if they wish.

I'm quoting this so people who have you on ignore can read it. I think it's a good suggestion. In ye olden days I had suggested something similar (but they just wont listen) where users can have a numerical "level of trust" instead of just "officer" and "member".
It could range from 1 to 15. A group would be set up so that certain features would require a level of at least X to use.
I should note I'm not just pulling this out of my ass, it's how it works on IRC for instance...

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. For 1.7, I will probably just remove recalls and give founders the ability to demote an officer.

The other group improvement suggestions sound very good, perhaps you could create a proposal on the Feature Voting Tool?

VERY well said!

Groups on a hole need an overhall!

Group needs control and the ability to remove people creating chaos. why would you remove it? what are the problems it would solve and is there a better solution?

lol there I go posting before reading!

That's great, Don - it will be a welcome improvement to the group system

Regarding creating a proposal - several of us already have (myself included). Unfortunately, concerns over groups appeal only to a minority of the population (although helps everyone indirectly), so they have little hope of making it to the top of the list to get your attention.

I have no more keyboards left, I have broken them all,

Personally I feel the recall should be kept. There are different situations where a group may need a recall. It's much easier to do a recall then leave & create a new group, Particularly if land is involved.