Hi everyone.
We the founders and administrators of SZ have from its inception aimed to establish a community which is all inclusive, friendly and well spirited. Our original remit was and still is to create a community where members have a voice in the way things are run and where they can contribute without being bullied, harassed or belittled, regardless of their views and opinions. We believe that a healthy vibrant community requires balance which can only be achieved when everyone respects the rights of others to hold different views to those of their own.
Unfortunately, we feel that such balance hasn't been achieved on SZ, and that the site and its future prospects are suffering as a consequence. So, sadly, after much in-depth discussion (and a good deal of soul-searching), the three of us have decided to move on and build a new website, because we feel that on this site we are unable to make the necessary changes that need to be made whilst at the same time retaining our integrity.
In hindsight, we were probably far too optimistic in our expectations in allowing community involvement at a micro level, the result of which in our opinion has resulted in the hindering of the development of the community, due to many issues never actually being resolved, and often resulting in endless hypothetical points being brought up over and over again, only to end in a stalemate. Someone needs to take responsibility in order to move things forward and ensure that things run efficiently. As the hosts of the website and related services ultimately we are responsible both legally and to the community, therefore the responsibility falls on us.
Our new site is called
Truth Zone, and is complete.
https://truth-zone.co.uk/forum.html
We hope that every single one of you will join us there. It will retain the original core values of both this and the original Sanctum site, and will still be open to community involvement, but that involvement will be more retrospective. Opinions and feedback received from members will continue to be taken into consideration, but we the administration team will make the final decisions on how best to go about managing the site in the best interests of the membership as a whole.
We sincerely hope that most of you trust our judgement to do this, and will be happy with us making the decisions needed in order to run Truth Zone in an efficient way on your behalf. Indeed, many of you have already told us that this is how you would like to see things done on this site. We don't want to rewrite the rules here and stamp down on the community by imposing changes that some members may not be agreeable to. We also feel that members who feel they can create a consensus based community should have the opportunity to achieve their goals. That's why we felt the fairest solution was for us to create a new site and allow members the opportunity to follow the path best suited to their personal aspirations.
SO, what happens to the current SZ?
Well that's for the community to decide. Ideally it would mean that members who have stated that they would prefer the SZ to be run by community consensus will adopt the site, and take over the management of it. The community would then need to elect a team that we will hand the current site over to. After the hand over there will be a grace period to allow the new team to arrange for funding, hosting and recruitment of technical staff etc. We will offer assistance in the initial stages and provide security maintenance for the core of the site short term. There will be no further development by us, effectively freezing the site in its current state until a new administrator is appointed. The new admin team will be responsible for the running of the community once the community elects them or a volunteer steps forward to head up the new team. The community will need to give the OK to anyone who takes it upon themselves to volunteer. Exact point of handover to be established.
What we would like to see happen is a situation where members have the opportunity to be involved in either or both communities, thereby maintaining their existing friendships, whilst at the same time creating two distinct identities for each community. Although we accept that this may be hard to achieve, we would really like this to result in a positive outcome for us all. Those members who would like to commit to a consensus based system will have the opportunity to build the community they would like to see, while members who would prefer a more conventional system with an open and interactive policy can dip their toe into the new site.
Please open a new thread in order to discuss establishing a new management team or related issues, this thread is for members wishing to discuss the creation of the new site and the effects on this community.
Thank you people,
Your admin team,
DG, Novum, Frog
