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What's going on in the LEA Committee?


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3 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

It is NOT a fun job. There is a LOT work involved.   THERE IS NO MONETARY GAIN for the committee members.

Yes, I do suspect that the real reason is that they can't find volunteers for the committee.

But looking at the two versions of the bylaws, they are obviously trying to cover things up rather than ask for and accept help. There are several possible reasons for that and some of them are quite innocent but it is worrying.

What we need now, is an official statement from the LEA committee.

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5 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

From that link it seems that the rules changed in March 2016 to remove the minimum number of Committee members.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160317200142/http://lea-sl.org/about/lea-bylaws

and in May this year pretty much all the organisational rules get vanished

 

 

I'd say the LEA Committee made their own interpretation of the Bylaws and then removed them from their site.

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12 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Yes, I do suspect that the real reason is that they can't find volunteers for the committee.

But looking at the two versions of the bylaws, they are obviously trying to cover things up rather than ask for and accept help. There are several possible reasons for that and some of them are quite innocent but it is worrying.

What we need now, is an official statement from the LEA committee.

I don't know that they are "obviously trying to cover things up" because the version of the by laws the original poster was complaining about in the post were changed in March 2016 (from the link they themselves provided).

NWN's raised separate issues with the LEA in a post from July this year. The details aren't really that relevant but reading the background to that does give some insight in to how the committee works and it does appear from that Linden Labs had taken a look at the way the Committee was operated.

A quote from that article:

  • Since publishing that post, a Linden Lab staffer is reportedly looking into this conflict. I reached out to several members of the LEA Committee for their perspective, but the only one who'd speak to me on the record was Jayjay Zifanwe, who's also founder of The University of Western Australia (UWA) in Second Life. According to him, the issue was more about a personality clash among volunteers doing exhaustive (but thankless) work:
  • "There have been people who have come onto the committee and there have been those who have left," as he puts it to me, "Some on good terms some on bad. In the final analysis, because it's a thankless and relentless task, those who are there doing the actual work (with honestly little kudos) need to be able to work together harmoniously. And where there are personality clashes, as there would be in any walk of life, there needs to be a way of finding a good equilibrium. And sometimes finding that equilibrium again causes people to get upset, as happened with John and with this person [Aemyth]."

I don't think we know or really can know enough as outside observers to comment much on this productively. I doubt the group are power crazed despots and I doubt they are all saints.

Edited by Aethelwine
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5 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

What we need now, is an official statement from the LEA committee.

I really don't think that is going to happen. The LEA Committee doesn't like to answer troublesome questions. I posted the attached questions to their Facebook group a while ago. I never got an answer but shortly, very shortly after I was banned from the group.

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5 minutes ago, apw9900 said:

I'd say the LEA Committee made their own interpretation of the Bylaws and then removed them from their site.

So long as 80% of the Committee voted, proper notice was given at a properly convened meeting they were entitled to change the By-Laws by the terms of their original Constitution

 

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7 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

So long as 80% of the Committee voted, proper notice was given at a properly convened meeting they were entitled to change the By-Laws by the terms of their original Constitution

 

I was just reading that section, also: 

12. Amendment to Bylaws

12.1 The bylaws may be amended, altered, or repealed by a 80%  vote of the Committee at any regular or special meeting.  The text of the proposed change shall be distributed to all Committee Members at least 5 days before the meeting.

 

 

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20 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

I don't know that they are "obviously trying to cover things up" because the version of the by laws the original poster was complaining about in the post were changed in March 2016 (from the link they themselves provided).

Awww, Aethelwine, you're ruining all the fun!

Back to my original position then: LEA is a small, obscure group on the fringe of Second Life. It doesn't do much good, but it doesn't do any harm either. If Linden Lab wants to sponsor them with a few free sims and reserved spots in the Destination guide, it's their problem, not ours.

Edited by ChinRey
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It is a little sad that they have left the democratic but perhaps idealistic by-laws behind, but from an external perspective it is hard to judge whether the change to a more static management committee system was justified. It would perhaps require a lot more involved submissions and information from those around at the time of the changes to make sense of.

But they seem to have gone from 20 odd sims to now 30 and from the link Chic Aeon provided they are definitely being very productive at the moment. Perhaps moving beyond the initial idealism is justified by an improved product, more sims and more opportunities to support art in SL.

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57 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

So long as 80% of the Committee voted, proper notice was given at a properly convened meeting they were entitled to change the By-Laws by the terms of their original Constitution

 

The headline of the page says: LEA Operational Guidelines

It is not the LEA Bylaws but a set of guidelines telling the public what the committee does and how the committee works. I have no information that the committee have had any meeting where they have used section 12.1 to change/remove the original bylaws.

And even if there had been such a meeting whatever decision the committee had reached would have been inapplicable as one of the committee members at the time would have had a seat in the committee for 6 years which is not in accordance with the existing Bylaws at the time.
 
And then we for sure are talking about fraud.

 

Edited by apw9900
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25 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

It is a little sad that they have left the democratic but perhaps idealistic by-laws behind, but from an external perspective it is hard to judge whether the change to a more static management committee system was justified. It would perhaps require a lot more involved submissions and information from those around at the time of the changes to make sense of.

But they seem to have gone from 20 odd sims to now 30 and from the link Chic Aeon provided they are definitely being very productive at the moment. Perhaps moving beyond the initial idealism is justified by an improved product, more sims and more opportunities to support art in SL.

There were always 20 Artist in Residence sims and the CORE sims which host other events and the very popular Aritist's Sandbox.  Really not much has changed from Round 2. Round 1 which I was in as an artist (won the spot on a button hitting contest) had some smaller plots but now all area all full sim grants. 

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20 minutes ago, apw9900 said:

The headline of the page says: LEA Operational Guidelines

It is not the LEA Bylaws but a set of guidelines telling the public what the committee does and how the committee works. I have no information that the committee have had any meeting where they have used section 12.1 to change/remove the original bylaws.

Do you have some insider information then? or is there somewhere where the committee meetings are posted publicly?  For someone who isn't an artist and hasn't been rejected, and does not want to be a committee member, you seem to have a lot of investment in this issue.  Which is fine, if that's your thing, but it seems like a lot of time and effort being spent on an issue that may not affect you personally?    

I do have to say though, that I have spent more time reading about the LEA today than I ever had, and I realize that there are some exciting looking LEA exhibits currently that I hadn't heard about but now want to go check out.  

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13 minutes ago, moirakathleen said:

Do you have some insider information then? or is there somewhere where the committee meetings are posted publicly?  For someone who isn't an artist and hasn't been rejected, and does not want to be a committee member, you seem to have a lot of investment in this issue.  Which is fine, if that's your thing, but it seems like a lot of time and effort being spent on an issue that may not affect you personally?    

I do have to say though, that I have spent more time reading about the LEA today than I ever had, and I realize that there are some exciting looking LEA exhibits currently that I hadn't heard about but now want to go check out.  

Some background on APW9900 you may like to read

https://my.secondlife.com/es/solo.mornington/posts/55788666c7017714e7000032

For clarity in understanding the background the Save Me Oh person discussed is a sort of performance artist that has or had a habit of wearing attachments that would dominate their surroundings in a perhaps artistic way, but also a way that could be considered griefing in a context of doing it during someone else's performance or at exhibition launch parties. Controversial, to say the least. That was part of their act, I suppose.

Edited by Aethelwine
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8 minutes ago, moirakathleen said:

For someone who isn't an artist and hasn't been rejected, and does not want to be a committee member, you seem to have a lot of investment in this issue.  Which is fine, if that's your thing, but it seems like a lot of time and effort being spent on an issue that may not affect you personally?    

 

I have an interest in art.
 
And for about 5 years I had quite a large gallery (I have been told it was one of the largest private galleries) in Second Life with about 250-300 pieces of 2D and 3D art made by both known and unknown artists.
 
And by talking with the artists I got to know how difficult it was to get access to a LEA sim if you weren't on a friendly level with the LEA Committee members. Many of them had to struggle hard to find an audience while they could watch how already established artists got access to the LEA sims over and over again.
 
And as far as I understand it that wasn't the purpose with the LEA sims.
 
That's why I spend time on the way LEA works and specially not works.
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8 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

Some background on APW9900 you may like to read

Oh, my fight with Solo has nothing to do with my issues on LEA.
But Solo was once also one of the reasons while LEA was brought to my attention.
 
Solo and I are still crossing swords, however, but now it's on YouTube :-)
In the comments to this video for which I did some voice over:
 
 
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7 minutes ago, apw9900 said:
Oh, my fight with Solo has nothing to do with my issues on LEA.
But Solo was once also one of the reasons while LEA was brought to my attention.
 
Solo and I are still crossing swords, however, but now it's on YouTube :-)
 
 

I would be interested to see your gallery it sounds worth a visit. I too have a little gallery where I display some of the stuff I have bought. I think probably just a fraction of the number of exhibits you have, but always interested to go see new galleries.

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2 hours ago, apw9900 said:
Funny you should ask about a link to the LEA Bylaws :-)
 
Because the LEA Committee removed the Bylaws from their website when I started asking questions about the LEA Committee with references to the Bylaws.

I think it is more funny that you did not mention this in your first post

The most reason LEA Bylaws that you refer to was written late 2012 and I can see that the page where changed from that version to a newer version 17th Mars 2016, the latest version are from 9th Apr 2017 and it links to a wiki page where you can read about the Community Land Partnership Program and how communities shall work.

Edit: I edited this post, made it shorter for I will not involve me in it, for as fast as it come to debate about art and culture it can turn ugly very fast and things like that can make me sad, and I do not like to be sad.

Edited by Kennylex Luckless
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7 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

I would be interested to see your gallery it sounds worth a visit. I too have a little gallery where I display some of the stuff I have bought. I think probably just a fraction of the number of exhibits you have, but always interested to go see new galleries.

I don't have the gallery anymore. I shut it down ealier this year. It was getting too big and I didn't have sufficient time for taking properly care of it.
 
In real life me and two mates reunited and old band from our highschool days and we have been busy writing and recording new songs for an album. At the moment we are working on story lines and story boards for videos.
 
But Glasz DeCuir made a video of my gallery and the artists I exhibited. That will give you a hint of how it looked:
 
 
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37 minutes ago, Kennylex Luckless said:

I think it is more funny that you did not mention this in your first post

The most reason LEA Bylaws that you refer to was written late 2012 and I can see that the page where changed from that version to a newer version 17th Mars 2016, in that page where the points removed and replaced with a simplification and the note, "This in­house document will serve as a guideline describing how the LEA committee operates as we work toward these goals. The primary operating philosophy combines open and free discussion through regular ongoing communication (emails) and bi­weekly meetings. Every item in this document is open for discussion and/or revision by the Committee by means of a majority vote".

So we see here that the rules have been changed to guidelines and that the guidelines can be changed after discussion and vote.

The latest version are from 9th Apr 2017 and it links to a older wiki page where you can read about the Community Land Partnership Program, so I think there is no fraud going on but that they rather lean towards the CLPP and "Each Community should be clearly represented by an owner and/or officer(s) (the “Leaders”). CLPP Participants must notify Linden Lab if there is any change in the Leaders’ roles".

I can not say why the rules was changed, but it sounds a bit odd that they just should change everything just for you asked, and in the end is it Linden Lab that have the final word over LEA and how it is managed.

And even if there had been such a meeting whatever decision the committee had reached would have been inapplicable as one of the committee members at the time would have had a seat in the committee for 6 years which is not in accordance with the existing Bylaws at the time.

And then we for sure are talking about fraud.
 
And even if the LEA Committee really had made changes to the Bylaws in a legit way, they could have answered my questions more than a year ago and this thread wouldn't have been necessary.
 
So I am still waiting for LEA to give me a satisfactory answer to my two questions in the original post.
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34 minutes ago, apw9900 said:
I have an interest in art.
 
And for about 5 years I had quite a large gallery (I have been told it was one of the largest private galleries) in Second Life with about 250-300 pieces of 2D and 3D art made by both known and unknown artists.
 
And by talking with the artists I got to know how difficult it was to get access to a LEA sim if you weren't on a friendly level with the LEA Committee members. Many of them had to struggle hard to find an audience while they could watch how already established artists got access to the LEA sims over and over again.
 
And as far as I understand it that wasn't the purpose with the LEA sims.
 
That's why I spend time on the way LEA works and specially not works.

Thanks.  That answered my question and gave me a better feel for the context of your original post. 

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Fraud is completely the wrong word to be throwing about here.

Fraud in USA terms requires one party to misrepresent a fact to obtain an advantage, and it also requires the other person to sustain disadvantage due to the misrepresentation.

A takeover of a committee with the slow, methodical erosion of it's constitution is not a fraudulent act. It's just a takeover of the original concept.

 

Edited by Callum Meriman
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13 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

Fraud is completely the wrong word to be throwing about here.

 

A question of interpretation :-)
 
But let's look at the facts:
 
One current member of the LEA Committee has had a seat in each and every committee since the beginning of LEA in 2010.
 
His two terms should have ended in 2014 according to the bylaws in force at the time. Dispite of that he continued to be a part of the committee. And he still is.
 
That means that every single decision made by the LEA Committee since 2014 has been invalid due to his presence in the committee. That includes recruiting new members to the committee, finding artists to exhibit at the LEA sims - and also the decision to remove the LEA Bylaws from the website replacing them with a set of 'organizational bylaws'.
 
It has been invalid because it was a violation of the two terms policy stated in the bylaws in force at the time for each decision made by the committee since 2014.
 
So I actually do believe the word 'fraud' is the right to use ;-)
Edited by apw9900
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