The Open Assembly or OA, or simply the Assembly is where all editors who are not imprisoned in the Sandbox can meet to hold the admins or Sysops to account, and also submit motions to the committee, and from where the admins can recruit editors to join them on the committee.
Assembly meetings can be quite lively, and the editors are currently divided into several factions.
Factions in the Assembly[]
currently the main factions include;
The Democrats or Reformists, Rob Lake identifies most with this faction. Most of them believe the OA should have the right to elect the Admin Committee at regular intervals, and vote out admins they are not happy with. Some of them are more 'moderate' and simply want to be able to elect an Oversight Group that can monitor the admins and sit on their committee without actually having admin powers.
The 'Quo Most of the admins are in this faction, as the name suggests they are happy with things the way they are. They are normally the largest faction in the Assembly.
The Thousand Flowers League This jokily named little bunch want the admins abolished and admin powers granted to all editors, and they want all prisoners in the Sandbox released and forgiven. As far as they are concerned editors have the right to do whatever takes their fancy, and all other editors have the right to try and stop them, but only on a 'level playing field'. This faction is especially popular among the younger and newer editors.
There are other smaller factions, and sub factions and wings within each faction but those are the major ones.