Should we rename group admins?
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?
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
| Results | Option | Votes | % of votes cast | % of eligible voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agree | 18 | 95 | 2 | ||
| Abstain | 1 | 5 | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Block | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 882 | 98 |
19 of 901 votes cast (2% participation)
Richard D. Bartlett
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
Wed 15 May 2013 12:19AM
I prefer coordinator personally
Megan Salole
Wed 15 May 2013 12:34AM
Love it.
Robert Guthrie
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
Wed 15 May 2013 4:05AM
I prefer simply "coordinator"
Matthew Bartlett
Wed 15 May 2013 4:26AM
coordinator
Benjamin Knight
Wed 15 May 2013 5:03AM
'coordinator' is great!
Alanna Irving
Wed 15 May 2013 5:09AM
I prefer simply "coordinator"
Chloe Waretini (Loomio Helper)
Wed 15 May 2013 8:12AM
Yay for coordinator :-)
Matthew Bartlett
Wed 15 May 2013 8:34AM
coordinator
vivien maidaborn
Thu 16 May 2013 6:12AM
yeah, just coordinator is great
Ivo Gruner
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

Robert Guthrie ·Fri 26 Apr 2013 12:53AM
Today, I'm pretty happy with the user facing term Admin. Why was my opinion so different yesterday?