the current board has the most active and opinionated lineup ever since i&#039;ve joined it. there&#039;s a lot of arguing going on about, well, anything and everything. you have to understand that after 6 hours of tearing into each other in #idlb, one gets testy when a vocal guy in #idl decides our bloodied compromise is useless and dismisses the whole league because of that one issue. i will be addressing the public and i will speak colloquially, so don&#039;t take it personally when i say &quot;you&quot; and follow up with a small sarcasm.<br /><br /><br />on direct democracy:<br />--------------------<br />great concept in theory, but why do you think all democratic countries use representatives instead of referendums? people don&#039;t care enough about every issue to do their research and cast [i]an informed vote[/i], so they either don&#039;t vote or click an option willy-nilly, or worse, according to someone&#039;s advice. this leads to passing of populistic measures and deterioration of a robust system. also there&#039;s a lot of menial work to be done, but if no one&#039;s responsible, no one is accountable when nothing gets done or shitty rules ruin a season. the commish and the board are here to enforce smooth running of the league past the lack of care and negativity of the general public. anarchic self-policing will crash and burn, because IDL is not a small group of friends just having some games. once you get into the details, it becomes srs business.<br /><br />however i do like the idea of having public polls and discussions about general ideas and directions the idl should be headed in, before the board processes the output into coherent rules. BUT - this system is already in place. anyone can get off their fat ass to free up their hands and type their ideas for the rest of us. [url=http://forums.intldoomleague.org/index.php?board=17.0]see this forum?[/url] [b]use it.[/b] [url=http://forums.intldoomleague.org/index.php?topic=452.0]look how much feedback[/url] the draft reordering idea (the first thread in this forum) got. we assumed everyone liked it or didn&#039;t care about it, so pardon us if we don&#039;t take you seriously if you cry about it [i]now[/i]. be active when it matters. we posted the poll about team names and the public feedback changed my opinion on the matter, which released the deadlock in the board and passed them, so don&#039;t think your opinion doesn&#039;t matter/doesn&#039;t change the IDL.<br /><br />and no, it doesn&#039;t count if you went on a tirade in #idl once. that&#039;s a general hangout channel and chances are half of the board wasn&#039;t there at the time and the other got distracted by a funny dickgirl video by rottking. it&#039;s why we have these forums and the board channel in the first place - and even there our discusson gets watered down by mikehail ranting about his kitchen adventures and bones pretending he cares.<br /><br />on the board &amp; shady deals:<br />---------------------------<br />i will want proofs of the vote manipulation you are talking about (directed at chow now), because if you have them, you will give me ammo for my constant struggle against nostar&#039;s coup d&#039;etat. because it&#039;s coming and it&#039;s going to happen if i blink in the wrong moment. must... stay... vigilant...<br /><br />seriously though, as much as i argue with nostar and mass on a lot of subjects (and believe me, it doesn&#039;t look like a tea break argument about cricket teams), i respect them enough to think they have the quality of IDL as their primary objective, as well as i do. not for ourselves as egotistic players, but for everyone. accusing them of plotting a fascistic rule of parity is my catchphrase, but i value their input, because they are smart, active, enthusiastic and willing to do the boring board tasks as well. me and the other board members just need to balance out their wacky antics every time a cartoon lightbulb appears over their heads.<br /><br />oh, and after a lost vote your usual board member will accept the majority opinion and move on - we all suffered losses and got ideas rejected. this is an important concept of maturity and it seems impossible for some princesses in the general playerbase who break down and quit the league in disgust over [i]negligible[/i] issues like a 1/32th of the idl wad not being to their liking (not aimed at anyone in particular).<br /><br />on map changes:<br />----------------<br />we made cuts. we introduced new maps. we got flamed to hell. deja fucking vu. this happens every year. people were going nuts over the changes from idl2010 to 2011, so i have to wonder... is the wad going gradually worse? or are people just projecting their accustomization to the current selection?<br /><br />i don&#039;t believe the public can conjure a better idl wad than we did. we went through a massive amount of wads and filtered them out relentlessly in rather arduous sessions. we voted and voted again and even with just 5 people on the board, there were 5 different opinions - and i&#039;m not even counting bones and the other people in #idlb whispering in our ears the whole time. there&#039;s no way the 50+ people out there can do that without some ugly shortcuts and &#039;cliques&#039; taking liberties with choosing for others.<br /><br />people [i]wanted[/i] change. you may disagree with a decision here or there, but please don&#039;t dismiss the whole process. you are disqualifying yourself from sensible discussion by saying all the cuts and picks are bad. you don&#039;t even know how good these maps really are, because you haven&#039;t played them enough and distinctive tactics haven&#039;t been fleshed out yet. this often happened only after a map was [i]forced[/i] by injecting it into the schedule and people had to start taking it seriously. map05, map12 and map28 are fairly popular priv picks nowadays, but they had zero playtime before their first league usage. a dismissive opinion after playing one or two 4v4&#039;s on a new map is a knee-jerk reaction and starting a massive campaign against the whole board because of it is silly. we&#039;re not a monolythic entity... you know what, i&#039;ll address our IDL wad decisions in a separate thread so the topic doesn&#039;t hijack this one.