Taxi wrote:

David, thank you for taking the time to reply to me and your thoughts and comments. I think it is fair to say that you and I are very different in our approaches (not right or wrong, just different) and my observations are that your approach is a "telling" approach (have a look back at the wording in your message to me to find plenty of examples)....Now that is not intended as a critism, just a statement of how I see it.... My approach is often asking open questions to encourage others to come forward with their views (often asking questions to which I already know the answer, aiming to prompt input)....I often noticed Andy doing this too. It might be that the lack of involvement in the notes can come down in part to this. I fully agree that the chat and general involvement has declined (and I myself no longer join in) and that this is a good starting point to rebuild interest. I too want Team England to be great again and think that the more people inputting at an admin level the better (as different people bring different approaches). I hold a senior management role at work and have coaching qualifications, which all point towards different people react to different approaches, which often needs to be done by different people for this communication to be effective. In summary, I would be keen to do whatever needs to be done to help get Team England back to the great heights of the past and keen to see much more input by others.....So taking my thoughts into account and our joint ambition for future greatness for the team and do believe that the way forward would be to bring more admins in to share the load, ease the burden of those of you that do all the work and bring a variety of approaches. I would therefore like to see your thoughts and views on: 1) Adding more Admins 2) Consdieration of bringing past admins back Interested to see your thoughts Kind regards Colin

This is in response to the message posted here:

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/from-colin-re-the-wl-newspost-etc

In any case, I replied:

DavidStyles wrote:

Colin, I'm a little confused there.

You mentioned that I take a "telling" approach, whereas you take an "asking" approach. The thing is... You asked for my thoughts, so I gave them. You cannot ask for opinions and then say "Ah, I see you go for a giving-opinions approach". You may notice I also invited you to share yours, especially on the topic of how to revamp participation.

You've now asked again for my thoughts, on two points, the first one of which (thoughts on the matter of "more admins") I've just answered in the exact message to which you're replying. It's all very well asking people for their opinions, but that only works if you then notice their answers! I do realise that Chess.com can butcher the formatting sometimes in these messages, and that can cause things to get lost in a huge block of text.

Regards the second point and the matter of returning admins, it quite obviously depends on who they are. There are some admins we'd love to have back, and some we'd definitely not want back.

Why, are you tacitly volunteering to reprise a role as admin? If so, I'll put it up for discussion in HQ, for procedure's sake. To be frank, I think it's clear you'd be a decent admin just as you were before. Your name has come up from time to time over the course of the 146-post thread where we discuss potential admins, invite them, and then post their "thanks, no thanks" messages when they decline. From the comments there, I see the only reason you've never been asked is because in Rik's words you "quite emphatically retired". I do see that when I originally mentioned you in post #1, Andy took my shortlist and shortened it in post #2, and you weren't on his shorter version, but I've no idea why and obviously cannot ask him now. It's probably just for the same reason that Rik mentioned.

Now, I mention this here, such that we can discuss the elephant in the room without it causing offence if we do decide to have him back (to which, as I suggested to him, I'd personally not be averse). If nobody vetos here (and he does indeed want to return, as he seems to be hinting but hasn't explicitely stated) then of course we should put it up for formality's sake in the appropriate HQ forum. Obviously none of the other admins will veto, but hey, policy, and it'd look weird if we didn't. So, onto the matter itself:

Firstly, just like I said to him, I think he'd be just fine as an admin per se; he certainly appeared to be just fine back in the day, and he does seem sincere.

However, I think it should be clear that if he is an admin, we cannot expect discussions in HQ to be entirely private from Pam and perhaps Bill.

Personally I do not think that this is a tremendous problem, and if anything, it might actually be of benefit. Right now, they are from time to time "outside the tent pissing in". With Colin as their eyes and ears, it may actually help them to have a small degree of empathy for the fact we actually make quite an effort behind the scenes. For example, they think we stubbornly refuse to get more admins, when we have pages and pages of polite declines of invitations, and such. Colin will be able to report back on that, and other similar things.

And like I say, I think he'd actually be a perfectly decent admin, based on past performance, unless Rik knows better for ye ancient times.

Better than Thumbs, who at best shows up for recruitment, and not always that, and doesn't do it very well when she does it.

Rik and friends

Super Admins