Years ago I used to run chat rooms. I have a low tolerance for a lot of things when it comes to those that are put in a position of power. I hold anyone to a higher standard and if they can't live up to that, then they're gone. I had time limits for how long anyone could remain in that position because human nature it to become cynical and "corrupt" in their own way. Leaving people in positions where they seemed to create more controversy for me was simply not worth it in the end.
1. DT1 and DT2 should have an immediate blacklisting policy for ANY member that has ANY clear observable financially motivated wrong doing in their history here.
No one that has any "power" or "perceived" power should have more than 1 and any potential favoritism should be removed/minimized. i.e. a mod should not be able to garner merit. They should not have any involvement with trust either. This would cut out a ton of crap right there. The trust system should only be used for actual business related things as opposed to what we currently see a lot of time where people get into some forum spat and it's used by tribes to black ball someone. No one should have any "power" if their use of the forum can in any way, be a conflict of interest or be perceived as a conflict of interest. Those are just a few of the changes off the top of my head I would start to make if this was my forum.
2. Merit ......
The entire merit system is fundamentally flawed as I stated before. It's a reward and people will abuse it. It cannot be "fixed". The current merit system is basically a "like". Twitter has recognized how "like" has created so much of the crap they experience on their site, the toxic atmosphere etc, and they're seriously looking to remove it all together.
What is the problem that merit was put in place to solve by replacing the previous system of ranks etc? That's where the solution lies, in solving that problem as opposed to trying to make the merit system "work". It is fundamentally flawed and will never work well. As a stop gap, I suppose one could prevent anyone from giving more than one. Add in negative merit so the board (yt has both thumbs up and down for a reason) does a little bit of self regulation and let the chaos reign until people realize that abusing the system, on both sides, is counter productive. That would be fun to watch for awhile. Bottom line though, the actual underlying problem is what needs to be fixed, not what's been taped over top of it and so most of your list if worthless.
6. Sig campaign managers must NOT rely on trust and merit scores alone (at this stage) they must be able to offer explanation (that stands up to scrutiny) for their selection process.
Ok? Until the other problems are resolved it just doesn't matter. It's the only thing they can use right now so I'm indifferent. Having said that, if sig campaigns are at the root of why merit was implemented, and it's now involving trust in order to qualify to be in a campaign, then I would probably approach it from a completely different angle. i.e., if they're the problem, make them come up with a solution. Make them come up with their own completely separate system of qualifying people that does not include those forum systems. How that could all work I have no idea off the top of my head but sometimes you need to divorce yourself from the problem and let those that create it solve it for you. It's in their best interest to not be a problem for the board cause at the end of the day, the final solution it to just ban all sig campaigns outright.
7. Moderators clearly abusing their position must be removed at once. Abuse as in clear double standards in post deletion and other areas.
That should be a given.
Hence why you seem to be suggesting we are not "good guys".
How one communicates is as, if not more important than what you communicate. You're method of communicating is, more often than not, full of personal attacks, inuendo, misleading information and more that only serves to make people tune out from the message. If you "guys" approached things in a more rational and constructive manner maybe I'd see things in a different light.
Two of my posts were deleted. Don't see why they should have been but whatever.