Basic Council Procedures

Proposal Types

• Basic proposals: These are proposals from a CM, AHC or the HC. They can be proposals to amend the bylaws, adopt genre guidelines, pursue disciplinary action, ask for an exception to a bylaw, etc.
  • At the beginning of the Subject line of the message, include "[PROPOSAL]" then the rest of the Subject description. In the body of the message, begin the proposal with "PROPOSAL:" following with the description of what is proposed. Identify yourself as the Council Member submitting the proposal by including your name, the chronicle name, chronicle location and an e-mail address where the Assistant Head Coordinator may contact you for additional information.
  • Proposals must be seconded by another voting member of Council. Any voting member can do this. Just post a reply under the same subject line as the proposal. In the body of the message, include the statement, "I second this proposal," or some variation of that.
  • Before seconding, proposals can be amended by the author at any time. After seconding, they will need to be seconded again if they are amended.
  • Shortly after they are seconded, the AHC will post them to the OWBN Council vote page, and the discussion period (1 week) will be announced. During this period, the proposal can still be amended, but it will need to be re-seconded, and if the change was major, the HC may extend the discussion period. If you amend it during this week, please make sure the AHC knows, so it can be edited on the web page.
  • After the discussion week, the proposal will voted on for a period of one week. This will occur on the Council vote page. The AHC will open and close the vote, and Council will be notified of the final tally when the vote closes. A simple majority carries the vote.
• Votes of Confidence: These are votes to decide whether Council wishes to dismiss an elected Coord. They are proposed and seconded as above, but must pass by a two-thirds majority if the removal proposal was submitted by a Council Member. If the submission comes from the HC, only a simple majority is needed to carry the vote.
• R&U proposals: These go through the R&U Coord and do not need to be seconded. The R&U Coord will let you know what information is needed to create the proposal, and the Coord will take care of posting the proposal for you. Different types of R&U votes have different passing requirements, all of which are outlined in the R&U section of the OWBN web page.
• Genre proposals: These are proposals concerning genre which a genre Coord (the clan Coords, Sabbat Coord, Garou Coord, etc.) wants to give urgent priority to. They are will be clearly identified as genre proposals—if you are in doubt, ask the Coord. They do not require a second (the genre coord carries the mandate of having been voted in, so it is presumed Council supports his or her vision in general). These proposals go into effect after a week if there are no objections on the Council list during that week. If any CM objects, the proposal will go to vote as usual. To object, imply reply to the proposal and add “OBJECTION” to the subject line.
• Election Nominations: Council nominates candidates for Head Coordinator, and these nominations require no second. Nominations open on October 10th and close on October 17th. There is no set format for nominations.

Strategies:

OK, lets say you have a great idea for a change that would really improve OWBN, but you're not certain it would be that popular, and you haven't been on Council very long, so you aren't very well-known, and you aren't certain people will jump to support you. What can you do to give your proposal the best chance?

First, consider timing. You will want your proposal to come up when people are already talking about the problem you want to address, if possible.

You can start building a support base even before the idea becomes a proposal. Probably the best way to do this is to announce on the Council and/or ST and/or OOC list that you are forming an informal committee to look at the situation you want to address. Describe the problem in detail, and sketch out the approach to that problem that you want to explore. Ask for volunteers to help you write the proposal. If your proposal is going to have something to do with a matter normally overseen by a Coord, write a special invitation to that Coord to join your committee. Any proposal written by a committee has an automatic advantage in that it will have the support of the committee members. It will probably be a much stronger proposal as well, since having input from multiple sources may formulate a proposal more likely to be acceptable to Council.

If you don’t want to form a committee, consider picking one or two other CMs and asking them to co-author with you.

Once you've got a proposal, take a moment to ask for some help from one or two CMs whom you have seen write very well-written proposals. One of the biggest reasons some people leap to negative opinions on proposals are grammar problems, or poor wording that may create nasty loopholes. Get a good editor and see what you can do to make sure the proposal is worded grammatically, fits in with the language of the bylaws (it would be a good idea to read the bylaws over a couple of times to get a feel for this), and doesn't create any objectionable loopholes.

Next, post it on Council, but do not propose it quite yet. Ask for opinions and see if anyone has any suggestions for edits they would want to see so they can support it. You may want to ask for opinions on the ST list as well.

Now, propose it---if you've done all of the above, you will probably get a second.

During the discussion period, deal with any objections carefully and politely. Do not flame--not even if you feel someone has insulted you. Flaming seriously detracts from a CM's credibility, so don't go there. Answer criticism as stoically as a Vulcan. You may feel very frustrated during this phase, but try to remain optimistic in your posts.

If there seems to be no discussion during the discussion week, you may still want to remind CMs when the vote is about to go up, and briefly highlight the benefits of your proposal. Some CMs do not vote on every issue---make sure this is an issue everyone feels they know enough about to cast a vote.

Likewise, go talk about your proposal on the OOC list, and see if you can drum up some player support. Most CMs will listen to players who have opinions on proposals. Explain to players why this proposal should be important to them, and how it would affect their gaming experience.

During the vote, read any comments from "no" voters, and deal with them as well as you can on the Council list--CMs can change their vote until it closes, so you have a chance to convince them to change their mind.

Doing all of this is very effort intensive, but it will give you the best chance of getting your changes into effect.