On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 03:05 PM, Mahendra Bakshi wrote:
No need to get hung up in 'titles'.
I have been thinking about a response to the query for several hours. The line I have quoted above is simply the perhaps most relevant part of Mahendra Bakshi's post, almost all of which I agree with entirely.
I think the first point I would make is that if you are comfortable with the titles of
Chair and
Secretary then there is no obvious reason why you should object to
Owner. A hierarchy of some sort is implicit in Chair and Secretary, in fact more so IMHO than is implicit in the terms
Owner and
Moderator.
I agree that some confusion is just about possible where an on - line group (such as the one we are using at the moment, i.e. GMF) has no physical existence compared to a "group of people" that
does have a physical existence; they have meetings; they take minutes; they elect a Chair (etc) and so on. There is no need for conflict between an on - line Group Owner and the Officer and Committee of a physical organisation; plenty of groups have "owners" who run a group on behalf of the Officers and Committee without any conflict arising.
Ownership relates to getting a group established with the correct settings, dealing with queries about "how? to" for the (on - line) group and so on. It requires a good knowledge of how Groups.io works to be developed over time so that others - the group members - can draw on that knowledge.
Notwithstanding the above a Group Owner may have to step in without reference to a Committee; a member may (accidentally or otherwise) violate Groups.io's Terms of Service and it falls on the Owner to deal with that promptly or risk having the group closed down by Mark Fletcher, should he become aware of the violation. The owner has to ensure that members' on - line behaviour remains within acceptable bounds.
I think you would have a hard time getting general acceptance of any change of title, not least because of the vast number of subscribers Groups.io has, all of whom are (or ought to be!) fully au fait with the accepted terminology. If someone was to come on here (or on beta) and say "I am the Group Administrator for..." it is likely that very few would really know what was meant by it; Owner? Moderator? Something else entirely?
Just don't get hung up over what the title is; remember
What's in a name; that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (William Shakespeare)
Chris
