Thank you all for sharing feedback to me over email. I skimmed the replies here, but I read everything someone wrote to me directly.
Immediate Changes & Reset
I do not support the recent moderation/administrative actions, but I take responsibility for them. For the time being, I’ve arbitrarily undone them all. I did not have the time to review them any of them, and while I do believe the actions were made with good intentions (like I believe most actions are done), they were inappropriate. If, for no other reason, they were unilateral. There’s only one person who gets to act unilaterally around here, and that’s me. I don’t do it very often, but I’m doing it now.
The reason this all happened is because I did not make roles and responsibilities very clear, nor did I articulate guidelines for how I’d like the community to operate. That’s my fault, and I’m working to correct it. As Remy wrote with On Systematic Debt, it’s time to correct these mistakes. Today, I will clarify the community guidelines and seek your feedback on how to handle administration going forward.
Community Guidelines and Policies
First and foremost, transparency in community policy, and changing/clarifying those policies, are important.
- Not all members may agree with the guidelines, and they are free to voice their opinion in the appropriate place (such as a Meta topic or something).
- Not all administrators may agree with the policies, but they will publicly support and apply them to give the appearance of fairness. There are places for “closed door” guideline discussions, and as capable adults, the administrators can figure out a way to come to a consensus. Or they can ask me to moderate the moderation. But regardless of the result, the administration team will come across as acting as a collective, without fear or favor.
This is a technology community, formed around software development. That’s not to say other topics are forbidden, but they should occur in appropriate, limited-access places (such as Trolleybus Garage). Generally speaking, they certainly can’t drown out the discussion on software development.
We encourage diversity. Many communities think of diversity in terms of ethnicity, race, sexuality, religion, and age. Those are important, but we will strive to inclusive of nearly everyone, which means being tolerant of different personalities, opinions, skillsets, experiences, and communications styles. There are limits to this tolerance, and these will be expressed in the transparent community policies that are maintained by the administrators.
Members need to act appropriately, guided by our community policies. This is not a problem for most adults most of the time, but for the exceptions, the administrators will clarify these policies with the member or take other actions as appropriate.
And last, but not least, if this system breaks down, anyone (members, administrators) should feel free to contact me off-forums. Email, whatever; I'm easy to get in touch with if it's important.
Current Admin "Team" & Future Admins
For the time being, I’m the sole administrator/moderator/dictator. And to warn you, I’m not very good at this. At all. I won’t do a good job of following any of the guidelines I just outlined. I act arbitrarily and capriciously. I won’t define what “appropriate” means to me, nor will I tell you what will happen if you act inappropriately. Even I don’t know, because it will depend on my mood and calorie intake at the time.
I’ve asked @boomzilla to (temporarily) act as my righthand man, since he knows the software and community much better than I do, and he’s graciously agreed and already helped by undoing all the actions.
We all want me to step out of this role very quickly, so let’s start by rebuilding an administration team so I can. I’d like a quorum of three to start; I’ll encourage the new team to expand to five if they can. Please nominate yourself or others, and continue to share feedback to me publicly or privately, so I can decide.
I’ll start by nominating @boomzilla.