I think a good portion of us have been guilty of this. Something comes up that we don't quite understand and after repeated attempts at information, we finally start screaming to be heard. This, at least in my case, has not been terribly productive, heated posts with accusatory headlines causing further anonymity amongst users in the comments.
There are a lot of things that have caused this, I am going to point to a couple recent examples. Recently there was a proposed change to the target number of votes. I fell on the side of no changes should be made, interestingly a week later after reading many different viewpoints, I feel it would have been a move that benefits all users.
Most recently, I went after a member of one of our Designated Curation Groups. My intent was truly to call in to account actions of a member, however it quickly skewed and I had to delete the post. While I was wanting to address the responsibilities of the individual members and their responsibilities as a leader in the community, there were other concerns that was coming out just as heated.
Wether I was failing to understand the intent behind a change, or the role of a member of the community.... I either felt ignored in my line of questions, or that my concerns were being drowned out with heated comments from others with other concerns. I want to change this and I have an idea I would like to try.
I do feel that the majority of the sensationalized headlines are users concerned and wanting to get information. After soft questions and asking without response, we are left with a user that has already separated themselves and their interest from steemit. They're posting out of desperation, and in their mind, with nothing left to lose. The answer I would love to see is a different avenue of communication made available.
Steemit Advisory Committee
I feel a good solution is a small group that helps with this middle area. This would not be another group similar to these, but ones made up situationally. Allowing a small group of individuals access to a group they may otherwise not know of, or have access too.
This would serve multiple roles, as I have said, it allows an avenue for people with concerns to be heard, but it would be just as much about serving as a focus group for these same groups. As an example, had I been able to spend a bit of time discussing with @dantheman the reasons and motives behind the voting change, with less of the engineer speak, I believe I would have been firmly in favor of the change, and make a post discussing the details from an impassioned user perspective.
Getting Answers to Create Headlines
The most significant change is that we would begin to have posts that are informed perspective, and less of a witch hunt. If we had a rotational committee of users that were put in contact with these group members, I think it would serve a dual purpose.
It creates an avenue of approach, which in turn would reduce in part some of the witch hunt posts. It addresses concerns before they become a rage post. As a byproduct of this, it also serves the role of focus group for these groups. These groups do desire transparency for the most part. It doesn't mean that what they think we want to hear about is what everyone really wants to hear about. It allows us as people to tell them what we want from them.
I think about my flip-flop on the proposed 40-5 vote change. If I had been in a small group chat with @dantheman or @ned and had a chance to go over it, get past the engineer speak. I honestly would have emerged with an informed post talking about my doubts going in, which concerns were addressed and how and instead of a single post saying what will happen and the reasons THEY feel they are good. There would be 10+ posts talking about the changes from different perspectives.
I don't want another Designated Curation Guild. I see this as a small group of concerned active users in the community that finds people with reasonable concerns, and simply put them in touch with a member of that group. The intent, to get answers and alleviate lingering doubts. Ideally it serves again as a focus group to help these groups with realizing what is wanted from the community.