Posted by mair on September 13, 2002, at 13:18:01
In reply to Re: Before Deciding, posted by Dr. Bob on September 12, 2002, at 8:16:40
I don't think it's wholly a coincidence that things seem to have heated up here considerably since Bob got back. I can understand Dinah's view that she wouldn't want to monitor this site as a steady diet and Shar's that she doesn't want deputy monitors at all, but I continue to believe that having posters serve a monitors has value.
I'd like to throw out the suggestion that the "deputy" monitors change on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and that they, and not Bob, have primary responsibility for monitoring. My idea is that Bob would defer to the decisions of the monitor on duty unless they asked him to step in or unless perhaps other posters asked him to step in.
I think there are several potential benefits to this plan. First, using a number of people will address Dinah's concerns that the poster/monitor bears the burden of too much responsibility and doesn't really get to ask for support in the same manner as the rest of us. I don't believe the job will look as onerous if you know it's for a more limited period of time. If someone doesn't feel up to monitoring when it's his or her time, they could be passed over for that week and come back into a rotation later.
Also I think my system gives Bob the help he needs without turning one person (Dinah) into his perceived alter ego. I think the idea of a single deputy is a really bad one and will create confusion, potentially, between Bob and his deputy over who should step in when. (this is why I also think the deputy should have the first right to intervene) By spreading the work around to many people, no one person has to be so closely identified with the "job," and many more people, perhaps, will come to feel more of a positive investment in how the site is run.
I think there are many people who are more than capable of serving the same kind of function that Dinah did in Bob's absence. The only requirement should be that the deputies be people who've been posters for awhile. Any number of people fit that bill. Bob has gravitated to Mark and Dinah because they've performed this service before. However they both did a great job even though neither had any prior experience.
Many of the complaints that I've heard about Bob's monitoring involve situations where people felt that he looked at statements made out of context or that he misunderstood the intent of the poster or the likely response of others, or that he simply acted too autocratically. I think these kinds of misunderstandings and complaints would be avoided to a much greater degree with poster/monitors. I also think that people can live with the decisions made by their peers much more easily than they can with those made by a supposedly more impartial person who really isn't at all impartial. I also believe that people will be far more tolerant of monitoring mistakes made by their peers than those made by Bob.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:7094
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20020725/msgs/7406.html