My controversial SWC rant Read if you want to be aggravated by the opinions of a very tired SWC old lady :) I’m not going to be fluffy, I’m going to be honest. I have a suggestion for next SWC. It’s probably not going to be very popular and I might get hate but this has been bothering me for a while now, so I figured I’d share it and get it out for others to share their opinions. I think there are too many leaders. There are fifteen cabins. Each one has one main leader and at least one co leader, but most have two cos. This is up to 45 people giving opinions on the camp. Right now I think we have around 40 leaders due to some leaders not being able to participate, and some leaders only choosing one co. I’ve been trying to not participate in many of the heated discussions (trying is the key word here I’m not doing a good job at it) because they sometimes never come to a conclusion that is a compromise. There are too many opinions and so many voices that we can’t all decide on one outcome. Almost everyone who applied to be a leader got in. Currently, as of July 7th, there are 56 remixes on the leader sign-up project. This is probably less than the actual sign-up count, but I imagine it’s close. Close to 80% of the applicants became leaders due to most cabins needing two co leaders. I may be wrong, but with these odds some of these people are bound to not be responsible enough to lead a cabin and help decide some pretty controversial decisions. Kinda half-way through the “co-leader picking season” I see a lot of comments that say “all the good co leaders are taken :(“ or something similar, which shows that simply not all the people who apply are going to be responsible. So far I think most the leaders who are active in the leader discussion, have been responsible and all very good at voicing their opinions. Honestly, my main problem is I just think there are too many of them. With this many people, especially on an online forum format, it’s so hard for us to all agree when we have to decide... Should we allow reserves? What should a good word count cap be? What happens if someone cheats? How should we handle over-estimated word wars? Should cabin wars continue? And so on. Part of this confusion might be due to the fact that we don’t have one central authority. One person who says “I’ve decided we’re going to do this to solve this problem, and that’s final. End of discussion.” I am not throwing Taryn under the bus, because they’ve been an excellent host, but we all know that Taryn is much less active than previous camps. They have stepped in for problems in the past, but this camp I haven’t seen much of them at all in the discussion. Sunny and Icy have also been doing a great job with helping by sorting, creating the activity schedule, and so much more behind the scenes work. But when controversial subjects come up I haven’t seen enough concrete decisions that I would like to see. In the cabin wars problem I was glad to see Sunny and Taryn there and adding their opinions. I kinda just wish the discussion gotten as far as it did.
So my proposed solutions (probably for November camp) are this: -Less leader spots. I think fifteen cabins is too many. With less cabins, each cabin would have a higher number of campers, and leader spots would not be given to nearly everyone who applied. Right now my cabin has a small amount of campers, most of them are active, and we’re not working too hard to add points. I honestly think that three leaders can handle up to 16 active campers, and possibly even more. We’d have to work hard and be pretty active, but I think we could do it. I’ve managed a lot of campers alone before. Less leader spots makes sure that the leaders chosen are good and responsible leaders. You have to put more work into your leader app to get chosen. Less leaders means it’s easier to make decisions and there aren’t twenty different people (who’d probably all agree in a real life room together) getting mad at each other at the exact same time online. -One person is allowed to take charge and say NO. Maybe it’s just because Taryn hasn’t quite passed the torch to another host, but so far I haven’t seen much “take charge-ness” from any one leader. No one wants to step on Taryn’s toes since they’re still the host. I think if one person were to oversee discussions in the forums and make the executive decisions, discussions would get a lot less heated. Once they make a decision, there can be discussion, but that’s the way we’re going to do it. Some leaders may not be happy with the decision, but that’s ok, because that’s just part of life and (I’m sorry if I’m being harsh here but I’m being honest with what I’ve seen) they will just have to live with it. I’m willing to have my own opinions crushed with this option, but I’ll be glad to know that there is a final decision. You can choose to ignore me. My opinions are just my opinions and you do not have to use any of this. These are just ideas I’ve been thinking about for a while, and those who are in a higher position can choose to just say no. Please do not post this in the main cabin, an SWC cabin, or in the main leader discussion. It’s not that I want it to be secret, but I’d rather it get seen by other leaders slowly so if everyone decides to argue against me I’m not dealing with twenty different arguments at once. Sometimes that just makes issues more heated than they need to be. I’ve shared this personally with a few people and it’s ok if you’re reading this no matter whoever you are. An SWC leader, camper, or even just someone who isn’t involved in SWC. Please share your thoughts so I can improve and amend my ideas for better ones. I’m not trying to be rude or say that everything is going wrong. I think this month’s camp is going well, I’ve just noticed a few problems that arise in our discussions and I’m just trying to innovate a little here. Thank you for reading, and please consider these opinions before ranting on me. I’m open to hearing your opinions as long as they aren’t full of hate and anger. There’s a possibility I’ve said things that are already going to be implemented, or have already been x-ed, and that’s ok. There are so many pages in our discussion that I know I probably haven’t read every post. :) (Also, I wrote this before the whole cabin wars debate came up so it’s slightly outdated-ish.)
