New Knighting Procedure

On behalf of the Council it is my pleasure to announce a new knighting procedure.
The knights of the temple are entrusted with the teaching of our members and especially apprentices. As brothers and sisters they stand together to hold up our faith and they help to keep the temple running from day to day.
As from now on they will also be welcoming new knights to their ranks.

The new procedure will soon be posted as an article as well.

New Knighting process

1. A TM presents their candidate for Knighthood by submitting their recommendation, the apprentices assessment of the Journey, DQS spreadsheet, and a link to the Journal to the Knight's Secretary.
2. The Knights Secretary creates a thread stating that "Candidate, Promotion to Knight"
3. The Knights Secretary reaches out to Education Administration, who look over the DQS sheet and Journal and grant the Adiv. A post to that effect will be added to the thread.
4. All knights generate the questions for the interview and collect them in the thread.
5. A Knight may conduct the interview with the candidate and the Teaching master.
6. The interviewed is posted in the thread and a week for discussion is allotted.
7. All knights vote on the request for a promotion to Knighthood within 10 days.
8. Majority rules, the quorum should be no less than six.

Adhara
- Secretary to the knights

Loving seeing that Knights will become increasingly more important going forward. Well done, Council!

Been waiting years for the Knights to be granted more authority over the Knighting of Apprentices, thank you...

Edit
Reword my comment. I know its got to be frustrating for all of you who are working to generate ideas and make the compromises to please everyone and then get the ideas passed and then implemeted. I really am not trying to frustrate you and i value your work. I see something that makes me think a certain risk is being instantiated into the process and im asking about it

Seems this method will put Apprentices in the position of having to play the Popularuty Game. Some may have presence of mind enough to vote for someone they dislike, maybe, but no one will vote against someone they count as a friend.

Thank you to everybody who put work into this. Very much appreciated!

OB1Shinobi wrote: Edit
Reword my comment
Seems this method will put Apprentices in the position of having to play the Popularuty Game

LOL actually no different than it was before, just now with a wider audience.

I have to agree with both Ob1 and Kyrin

I think it’s naïve to think there is a way that doesn’t involve human connection in any decision we make.

Are we not biased 100% of the time?

The only ways to detach would be to assign the Knighting process either objective standards (never will happen) or a 3rd party that evaluates to our standards (probably even less likely to happen).

This is less a step toward a better Knighting system and more a step towards lessening the power of the Council to make day-to-day decisions. This is about giving Knights the power. If it doesn’t work, it will shift to something else.

This is a strategic move.

Yea that takes the topic into a realm i cant speak on. I know theres been a lot of infighting and i know there are knights want more authority.... i know theres been A LOT of good people who have chosen to move on from here... but i was never involved directly and can offer no explanation or insight. I just dont see how it will end up anything more than a popularity contest but i acknowledge that im not the one who is responsible for drafting solutons to .. whatever the actual problems are.

I’m sure your point is noted, and the Knights will do their best to remain as objective as they can.

Connor L. wrote: ... a step towards lessening the power of the Council to make day-to-day decisions...

Actually this needs to be strengthened not lessened. They are virtually nonfunctional now. Moving this power is not fixing anything. Its putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

Good. They should be barely functional. Give the power to the people. The Council’s sole job should be to manage law and finances. The Knights should run the site. That’s my opinion.

We shall see how this goes

I have hope

I am optimistic about the delegation...spreading that power I hope creates that space to allow people with held positions the opportunity to interact with community as their own unique person, rather than the duty of responsibilty they hold with office.

There's a whole bunch of goodness going on behind the scene (enough to consider it part time status for volunteering) and the critical nature of people burning out is a real challenge to mitigate when responsibility is clutched too tight.

I'm also hoping this fosters teamwork and strengthens the community.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Connor L. wrote: ... a step towards lessening the power of the Council to make day-to-day decisions...

Actually this needs to be strengthened not lessened. They are virtually nonfunctional now. Moving this power is not fixing anything. Its putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

The Knights corps are a wide and diverse group of individuals, stating that granting this authority (something the Knights have worked on getting for years now) is turning the process Into a popularity contest is making the assumption the majority of Knights all think alike & we need our egos stroked, we don't...

I trust our Knights much more with this process now than I do with the council after everything that's went down in the last couple of months in all honesty. We have some outstanding individuals serving this Temple, i'm optimistic...

I have less familiarity with the council than i do with most of the Knights. That itself may be point in favor of the new system. I would trust SOME of Knights to vote for someone they disliked if that person had done the work, but definitely not all: ive been here too long, lol, and i certainly wouldnt want to put very many of them in the position to vote against a friend. You want to be the vote that shoots down a friend? Ready to deal with the feeligs of betrayal from someone you care about? Its so much easier to just vote “yes” lol i mean “such and such” is a nice person anyway and Im sure s/he will mature in time....
Yes i believe everyone will promise at the gate to be very fair and objective, lol, as all people always believe themselves basicaly fair and objective.

OB1, this is true no matter who is in the decision seat.

With great power comes great responsibility and all that.

I wonder what Knights will do if said person does NOT mature.

I'd be interested to see the solution

OB1, I'm curious if you have any ideas for improving the system. The Knights, I'm sure, would love to hear your contributory ideas.

OB1Shinobi wrote: I have less familiarity with the council than i do with most of the Knights. That itself may be point in favor of the new system. I would trust SOME of Knights to vote for someone they disliked if that person had done the work, but definitely not all: ive been here too long, lol, and i certainly wouldnt want to put very many of them in the position to vote against a friend. You want to be the vote that shoots down a friend? Ready to deal with the feeligs of betrayal from someone you care about? Its so much easier to just vote “yes” lol i mean “such and such” is a nice person anyway and Im sure s/he will mature in time....
Yes i believe everyone will promise at the gate to be very fair and objective, lol, as all people always believe themselves basicaly fair and objective.

That's a valid point, brother. I think, for at least my effort, me and other Knights vested in the welfare of the Temple can bring up those hard questions about continued commitment and service to the community. For me personally, I wanna see more people step up to serve because workloads here can stink at times. Knighthood shouldn't queue the credits rolling and the audience applauding. I can only hope we are firm, fair and consistent with voting, but I firmly accept those difficult conversations should be held amongst each voting authority.

Rosalyn: you are right. I suspect this is as good of a solution as is going to be had atm. Im sorry to be negative.

Connor: you already said it; objective sandards. A MUCH more difficult road, but the right one, imo.

What does it really mean to be a Knight? How do you train it, how do you test for it?
Theres no reason a general training protocol cant be adapted to specific individuals as circumstances require. I would have more confidence that people could recognize where and how to adapt the regimen to the applicant than i would that people are going to vote the truth under the shadow of their personal relationships....or resentments.