We've been busy. Unfortunately we've often been busy with Real Life. A bunch of volunteers, no matter how
committed, can do only so much at a time.
It's customary to post ed logs hidden like day logs. This is more of an informational post than a record of past (mis)deeds so I'm taking it public in lieu of a front page
newsletter. Here's some stuff that's going on these days:
Voting/XP reform
I talked about reforming the voting/XP system in my last two ed logs. No need to revisit the why and what. What we have done in the last two months is basically wait for the boss to come down from the mountain of thesis-writing and lead us to Canaan. Where we will find lots of good people and kill them because God promised us this land. Or something.
The news on this front is that katherine has signed off on our proposal. We now need to establish exactly
how it will be implemented and who will do the legwork. Then we'll deal with the unforeseen but certain snags
that will crop up while implementing it. There's no shortage of ideas in this place, and I think that we put
them to good use, but coding time is scarce and accordingly precious. One of our main guys is now deep
in thesis-land himself. Volunteers and all that.
The archives of our deliberations regarding the voting/XP system are now public. Discussion is encouraged,
particularly if you spot fatal flaws in the final proposal. Which brings us to where you can view the
archive...
The E2 forum (or E2 now is a BBS)
With the end of the semester, I found time to upgrade the message board to something more powerful and
useful than we had before. In fact it now has features that I dearly wish we had on E2 itself. With the
blessing and cooperation of Katherine and Nate (pbuh), the Forum is now officially part of the E2 continuum. A
link to it has made it into your sidebar in the Vitals nodelet: http://forum.everything2.com/
I started the forum in November '05 as a private attempt to offer a means of communication that went beyond
the catbox, usergroups, and messaging, all of which are a bit clumsy and/or time-sensitive. The big change from
my point of view is that it will get more in line with E2 policies, such as they are, and that its management
will include E2 staffers, which was not the case before. If it goes well and takes off again like it did the
first time around, we will look into integrating it more with E2 itself.
We're offering a reward of eternal gratitude (sans sexual favours) for a phpBB 3.0 theme to go with E2. We might also need a Few Good Noders, ideally with BBS experience, to do the minimal job of acting as mods. Which, according to the board's standing policy, involves mostly enabling the flow of ideas by not acting at all. Mods will probably have Scribe as their chief of staff and head janitor. Over 350 of you already have accounts on the board. If you have any trouble logging in or creating new accounts, message me here. If you have suggestions for topics, need a dedicated area for a closed group, or think that the structure can be improved, let me know on the board or post your suggestion in public. I'll be supervising the board's operations until everything is running smoothly, after which day to day ops will probably go to someone else.
Being friendly to old|new|tender|baby noders
If you've been listening to TheDeadGuy (after reading and ignoring the message from the Surgeon-General about listening to TheDeadGuy), we've been talking about improving the way in which new and old users alike are supported by the staff and by the site as a whole. He's leading a faction of heretics who are resisting the dogma that E2 being unfriendly to old noders or to new noders is a necessary part of its character. Please burn them on sight. They have been heard raising impertinent questions such as "why the hell does E2 have to be unfriendly to anyone?"
What this proposed improvement means is something that I'm sure you have been and will be hearing from him. What's certain is that it reaches a long way past why I love Everything2. OK, so I find the title as cheesy as you do but it's direct and to the point. I also see that node as an opportunity to collect positive attitudes about E2 and
understand where we're succeeding. We need to understand what it is that we do here that works and become more
consistent and conscious about doing these things that work. We know that there are many non-staffers out there
who work small miracles behind the scenes. We tend to concentrate on E2's failures and are pretty good at
listening to complaints very sympathetically. That is not all there is to feedback.
The bottom line is that there's a reason why this site is doggedly hanging on in 2008 despite its 1998 styling and interface. We have no shortage of people ready to point out what's wrong with the site when the management is in fact already keenly aware of its shortcomings. Perhaps it's time for some feel-good navel-gazing and the kind of testimonials that we haven't really had or solicited since the days of E2 is a community and E2 is a family. I don't think that E2 has ceased to be either for those who believe in it as
such.
I come full circle, I guess, back to volunteers. We'd really just like to help people have fun on the site
and create good writing for the world to enjoy. But I'm asking you anyway to raise your hand if there's
something that you know you can help out with. Work with us.