Hey,

So, being a new add to to this group, but being an admin longer than I realized (which I humbly appreciate), I'm reading a bit of the forum and see like a good frame of organization I was unaware of. Most of it seems like from a year ago or more though.

So I want to divide my thoughts into 5 areas-- so I may as well get this out of the way right now this will be very long-- as that seems to be a good way to organize them.

With regard to Vote Chess, something that I'm very interested in:

Is there a designated "captain" or one chosen for each game? I saw discussion of this in another forum topic but haven't seen it in practice. That might be on me though for missing it.
Is there one of those pre-prepared notes that some teams put up, instructing team mates what period of time is for discussion, what period of time is for discussion and what remaining period of time is for voting, the "discuss before voting" thing, and all the other things that people new to the process must be "hipped to"?
When I think of "Total Random", and what drew me to the group besides the note in a tournament I was in (or maybe I'm still in it) asking people to join the group if they play in the tournament, I think of being thrown into an possible opening or position (like if you could set up starting positions from like a theoretically equal middle game position) and working from there. Is that the like unifying principle behind the group or am I over-thinking it. If so, then should our vote chess (and matches) reflect that?
I like the idea that some one had of the strongest player voting for the move they think best and posting it and then if a better move is found then it gets out voted. That is good on a team that is both small and has a couple of mysterious drive-voters in their ranks. I think some games here with this team the voting is undisciplined sometimes but I'm not sure if it is a very bad problem. I do see my share of "join to vote for this move before a lesser move wins" posts, but I'm not sure if the better move was found only after legitimate voting began.

With regard to Matches with other groups:

Do we accept too many matches? If we're always over matched by rating (which is often meaningless, I mean I was over 1900 for a couple of weeks and AM NOT!!) it does mean we might be playing in learning situations, but winning teaches things that losing doesn't. I think if we're consistently scrambling to fill matches and being out-rated and even cancelling them, then maybe we're too eager to accept. The NJ team tries to "gear up" the members for the matches that their admins consider important, like for leagues and such, and they are trying to get more disciplined with vote chess.
Dividing the matches up by rating restricted sections makes sense, and I see that a lot. I guess that is a way to deal with the out-rated problem.
Often I see challenges and oppurtunities to lock a match. I think I've done it once-- locking. I'm not sure what guidelines the founder or super admins want us to follow.

I want to save some other thoughts for later. The issue, raised in another topic recently, about individual members conduct is important and I don't hope that it looked like I was making light of it there. Has a little note been written to hip new members as to what the standard is?

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