http://www.dipsters.org/forum/tags/organization First please read the post, "Welcome! Using the Forum". en-US Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:48:14 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://www.dipsters.org/forum/search.php http://www.dipsters.org/forum/topic/more-news#post-105 Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:20:38 +0000 Alan Mennel 105@http://www.dipsters.org/forum/ <p>Hi Everyone:</p> <p>After having my problems with time management last year (to put it politely), I decided that consolidating the Dipsters and Diplomacy Direct sites from the YAHOO! into a new group here would give us a rare opportunity to improve our group. </p> <p>Based upon my experiences over the last 5 years, I decided to "tweak" the bylaws from the old Dipsters group and adapt them for the new group.</p> <p>I encourage everyone to read the current (new) bylaws in their entirety</p> <p><a href="http://www.dipsters.org/members/members.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dipsters.org/members/members.html</a></p> <p>but I shall summarize the major changes here:</p> <p>Membership:<br /> We now have 4 classes of Membership<br /> 1. Diplomacy Direct - This is a provisional membership for new online players who have completed one to four online judge games. These members may play only in Diplomacy Direct or Open Games. They may participate in the Dipsters Forum but they may not vote.<br /> 2. Dipsters Active - While in good standing, active Dipsters members may play in all Dipsters games, participate in the Dipsters forum, and vote.<br /> 3. Dipsters Inactive - Active Dipsters Members in good standing may put their membership on hiatus for any length of time. While inactive a member does not need to fulfill the membership requirements relating to GM games. While inactive, a member may participate in the Dipsters Forum but he may not vote and he may not play in any Dipsters games other than open games.<br /> 4. Dipsters Charter - This class of membership is reserved for members who have already made a significant contribuion to the hobby, such as Judge Keepers. While a charter member is not required to GM any games, he may play in all Dipsters games, participate in the Dipsters Forum, and vote on all Dipsters issues.</p> <p>Remaining in the Dipsters Group<br /> GM Requirements: In order to spread the work load around and to create accessible games for more members, I changed the requirement for active Dipsters members from "playing" a Dipsters game each year to "GMing" a Dipsters non-tournament game each year. Admittedly this does not add very much to anyone's workload but it makes a big difference in having games accessible for all members.</p> <p>I believe that these bylaws will improve our group. If enough of you disagree, I have left the mechanism intact for amending the bylaws so feel free to change them.</p> <p>One other thing:<br /> You may have noticed that there is now a section describing the job and duties of the Moderator.<br /> I am hoping that having these duties on paper in the form of a time-line will improve our group by allowing us actually to run all the tournaments this year.</p> <p>Although I have run this group for 5 years as you hopefully benevolent dictator or Moderator, I would like to see someone else take over the position in 2011.</p> <p>I want to spend my time playing a few Dipsters games and improving this website since there is much, much more that we can do with our to the benefit of all the members of our group.</p> <p>Wishing you all the best!</p> <p>Alan Mennel </p>