If this is created (I think it is a great idea), I would run.

Awesome idea.

- Kyle

“Nick Durron” wrote: It appears to cover some of the things I would have thought the Minister of Discussion should have been responsible for, but I guess he’s not.

I guess not too. And in the election forum…

“RevMen” wrote: Minister of Discussion (currently Cometgreen) – In charge of the forums and the chat. Responsibilities include setting standards for proper forums behavior and overseeing all moderators.

So it’s not explicitly the role of the Minister of Discussion to do the things I have suggested need doing.

Would the MoD still oversee those forums?

Yes. If I understand correctly, this job would be to watch out, and help new people. Create contests to inspire them to increase their skills, and review their films, so they know what to fix.
EDIT: So the MoD would still have the same responsibilities.

I’m going to be controversial and oppose this idea for several reasons:

• Firstly, it is currently the role of the minister of discussion to moderate all forums. Dividing the community into to two parts, brickfilming and non brickfilming, is bound to lead to more people with rose tinted nostalgia glasses wanting forums deleted and members who don’t spend as long in certain forums criticised. If you feel that the brickfilming forums are not being run to a high enough standard, then this is most likely an issue with the current minister and not the system. I personally see nothing wrong with the way they are run at the moment.

  Secondly, there are many times more new non active accounts than active ones. Attempting to marshal all new “members” would invariable lead to sending PM’s to inactive accounts and generally wasting time trying to contact people who arn’t there. I would make a guess and say that only one in ten new accounts registered are people who become active and contributing members of our community. Additionally, I would imagine that many new members would rather explore the entire community than be limited to one forum (for a set period or whatever you had in mind).

  Thirdly, I doubt that you will find many experienced brickfilmers willing to be paired with new aspiring members. As much as we would all like to help new members, real life commitments and other such things often get in the way of us finishing our own projects, yet alone helping out an apprentice.

  Finally, almost all of the work and tasks that your minister would be exclusively taking on are open to any existing member (whether in a position of authority or otherwise) to do themselves. We can all, and often do, all of the following anyway:

  – welcoming new registrants to the site and pointing out the features, resources and FAQs
  - Offer our expertise to new brickfilmers wanting to improve or point them in the direction of other experts in the field in question, or simply give them advice in the threads which new members often set up with such queries.
  - provide feedback on lower quality films being ignored in the forums, or which have been rejected from the directory
  - advise the Minister of Film Contest to create, or create of our own accord, contests for newer members which will encourage them to learn and improve, and which give them a real chance of winning. These might be judged on greatest improvement over previous film, original storyline etc.
  - advise the Ministers of [various resources] and help to ensure these are fully accessible to new members

  Giving all of these tasks to one member would cause people to become complacent, and not help out new members or answer questions because it is someone else job. It would be very ironic if this system actually ended up limiting the help new members get, but I see this as a real possibility.

  Additionally, other proposed plans (such as a new member forum, organised mentoring scheme etc) could be implemented without the need to create a new ministry by the minister of discussion.

So, to conclude, I believe the proposed ministry to be unnecessary, as there are already various tools in place to allow the aforementioned infrastructure changes and general behaviour towards new members to take place.

^Er, wait. Where did you get that we will be paired with aprentices? Or that new people would be limited as to where they go?

Rather than creating an entire new ministry, perhaps you can put pressure on the MoD to appoint a deputy to fulfil this duty.

I’m hesitant to accept this idea because I don’t like the thought of electing someone to do what we all should be doing anyway.