Loomio

Should we rename group admins?

Robert Guthrie Thu 25 Apr 2013 2:34AMPublicSeen by 52

I'm soo tired of seeing the term admin around loomio.

It's used in 2 ways: managing the loomio system (accepting new group requests etc), as well as having special privileges in groups.

So I want to suggest we use another term for the latter purpose of facilitating discussions and managing groups - Keeping admin for the system sense.

I see most other communities use the term Mod, short for moderator. So I will suggest we use that. I would like to suggest the term facilitator too..

ANYTHING but admin. please. Your thoughts?

Robert GuthrieFri 26 Apr 2013 12:53AM

Today, I'm pretty happy with the user facing term Admin. Why was my opinion so different yesterday?

Alanna IrvingFri 26 Apr 2013 1:22AM

@yagoabati you really believe that most popular = best? Think about how that works in the real world. I have a feeling you have many experiences where the popular opinion really isn't the best one. By forcing people to wrestle with the options, not just having a poll, as you can see people's thinking evolves. See what happened to Rob's opinion? That's the beauty of Loomio.

Personally I prefer "facilitator" for the group admin role, and admin for the Loomio admin role.

Richard D. BartlettFri 26 Apr 2013 2:16AM

I think currently our Group Admins are doing mostly administration and a little bit of facilitation. They are the only users that can perform administrative functions, so it makes sense to identify them on that basis.

I don't feel good about calling them Facilitators or Moderators, because anyone in the group can facilitate or moderate.

We want to encourage facilitation to be as widely distributed as possible, so I think it could be quite problematic to label a couple of people Facilitator, because the inference is that the rest of us are Not Facilitators.

Potentially in the future we will want to identify a Facilitator for particular discussions, but I don't think it is a role that needs to be named yet.

@robertguthrie if we called the Super Admins 'mechanics' or 'gorillas' or 'execs' or anything, and left Group Admins as they are, would that feel better?

Robert GuthrieFri 26 Apr 2013 3:28AM

Yep. System admins.

iacocobaFri 26 Apr 2013 10:05AM

@alannakrause i didn't mean I believe that. I think the most popular=best when you have a significant sample of people. This sample of people have to be informed and connected with reality. If you create a Loomio group you have to add people in order to make everything work in this direction.

iacocobaFri 26 Apr 2013 10:16AM

@richarddbartlett This is the ideal situation. @alannakrause Obviously you will never have this ideal situation. In this case i wondering if is better to have a liquid feedback so people who are more informed and better prepared could have a delegation over them so they have extra votes.

Danyl StrypeMon 29 Apr 2013 12:24PM

I think @robertguthrie has raised a good point around the confusion created for the Loomio team. Important to remember though that only the term for Group Admin is a user-facing term. It should be a term that has the same meaning in Loomio as it would in a face-to-face meeting. I agree with @richarddbartlett that the actual mechanics of the role is more administrator than moderator or facilitator. Perhaps "engineer" could replace admin for Super Admins (this phrase makes me cringe too ;)

Rename group admin to "Group Coordinator"

proposal by Richard D. Bartlett Closed Sat 18 May 2013 12:16AM

Results

Richard D. Bartlett
Agree
Wed 15 May 2013 12:13AM

Admin, facilitator, moderator... all these words have connotations that don't quite fit the role. Talking about a 'coordinator' feels more neutral and accurate to me.

Joshua Vial
Agree
Wed 15 May 2013 12:19AM

I prefer coordinator personally

Megan Salole
Agree
Wed 15 May 2013 12:34AM

Love it.

Robert Guthrie
Abstain
Wed 15 May 2013 12:59AM

No really happy about a 2 word label - but the meaning is captured well. I wonder if we're worrying too much about the meaning when we just want a simple term people already understand. The double use of admin is not user visible so not a big prob

Alanna Irving
Disagree
Wed 15 May 2013 4:05AM

I prefer simply "coordinator"

Matthew Bartlett
Disagree
Wed 15 May 2013 4:26AM

coordinator

Benjamin Knight
Agree
Wed 15 May 2013 5:03AM

'coordinator' is great!

Alanna Irving
Agree
Wed 15 May 2013 5:09AM

I prefer simply "coordinator"

Chloe Waretini (Loomio Helper)
Agree
Wed 15 May 2013 8:12AM

Yay for coordinator :-)

Matthew Bartlett
Agree
Wed 15 May 2013 8:34AM

coordinator

vivien maidaborn
Agree
Thu 16 May 2013 6:12AM

yeah, just coordinator is great

Ivo Gruner
Agree
Fri 17 May 2013 8:42AM

for it just makes so much sense :)

Robert GuthrieWed 15 May 2013 1:05AM

Maybe we should do a UX test on this. Something like "Here is a screenshot from loomio - from looking at this, which users would you contact if you wanted to suggest someone to invite, or required someone to remove a comment from a discussion" and look a the results using admin vs coordinator

Or we do what we want.. and teach the users our style/system rather than trying to meeting their expectations all the time :)

Matthew BartlettWed 15 May 2013 1:23AM

@robertguthrie What about 'coordinator' by itself?

vivien maidabornWed 15 May 2013 3:22AM

Yeah I like coordinator by itself, can we make that change in the proposal @richarddbartlett ?

Richard D. BartlettWed 15 May 2013 5:03AM

Oh yeah that's what I meant. Rather than starting a new proposal, treat it as if it just says "coordinator". If that pleases you please click green!

@alannakrause @matthewbartlett @vivienmaidabornloo

Richard D. BartlettWed 15 May 2013 5:44AM

See how it looks in context:

Imgur