[Gemme]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaMa'am

RE: the new 2017 policy

I have mixed feelings about this, so if everybody wants to change it to a rolling scheduled time-out I am perfectly willing to go along with it.

I just have one point to add in favor of keeping it "clean slate at the beginning of the year". Our policy mostly worked in 2016. Ultimately, that is what we want. Since it is simpler to keep it at the beginning of the year, and since it did mostly work, we might want to consider keeping it.

I understand what you mean about it not being fair, Gemme, in that some people have longer time-out periods than others. However, we all have the choice when we sign up for a project of knowing what the consequences are. In my mind, that goes a long way toward making it fair in another sense - because we all agree to the rules/dates every time we sign up for a project.

I'm a Devil's advocate, debate each little piece of fluff and stuff, beat a dead horse kind of person, so please bear with me. I also talk to myself, so this is a little bit of that too, as I try to work through it out loud.

Okay, so say two kids are caught with equal amounts of pot. This is a first offense for each. One gets 6 months probation and the other gets 16 months in juvenile detention. For the same crime. Even taking out the probation versus juvie, the sentences certainly aren't fair for. the. exact. same. crime. Life isn't fair, no, but do we have to sacrifice fairness for convenience? Both kids knew that pot was illegal. It seems like it should be an assumption that the consequences for their actions should be relative to one another or at least in the same ballpark. This is supposed to be fun for us, right? Having to wait nearly a year to participate because I screwed up would be a bitter pill to swallow if it were me.

I decided to introduce this now to give time for people to let it marinate for a while before the end of the year and really consider some options and what they would feel is not only appropriate but could actually work. I truly appreciate all the feedback so far as it's given me food for thought. I don't expect to figure things out right away but these responses have been a hella good start.

It's one thing to hear from people who haven't had to sit things out for a bit but I'm so glad that sis posted and her idea is really good. I don't think anyone plans on falling off but because this is supposed to be fun, I don't want the consequences to outweigh the benefits of joining rounds. On the other hand, I don't want folks to get away with murder (or ghosting or flaking out, etc ) either. The time of each of us is equally valuable and I don't want to waste anyone's nor have my own time wasted.

I keep coming back to the wranglers. There have been wranglers that, they themselves, have been unreliable with time frames and whatnot. We depend on wranglers now but changing the premise would put a little more responsibility on the wranglers to honor the thread's intent and rules and hold those who don't follow them responsible as well.

Anyway, it's something to think about.