Random Discussion

I had North Korea in a contest in the past. Does that make me North Korean?

Trump tried to warn us

This post is related to the most recent announcement made by the staff.

I'm going to try to keep this brief and straight to the point so this doesn't become a wall of text. I have TWO concerns regarding the recent forum announcement, specifically the part where you mentioned how you plan to pick future staff members.

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1. You mentioned you'll go for the way you did it in 2017. During that time, when mods would apply by making a post on a board and people liking them, I had a very unpleasant experience with one of the main candidates at the time who is currently a part of the staff. This person, in private messages, started asking me why I didn't like their post, which isn't bad if you want proper feedback. However, later this person started to make me feel more and more as if I was a second class user for not participating in NVSC or FC. This behaviour clearly would fuel the ''elitist'' problem.

The problem here was that this person had one of the most liked posts while many people outside the NVSC and FC communities didn't know them at all. Staff members are supposed to be representative of the entire community, therefore I didn't think this person was a good choice to become a staff member.

It was very frustrating watching how someone who made me feel as if the contests that weren't NVSC or FC weren't important was ''leading'' the elections with more than 40 likes in their post.

(All this happened YEARS ago, this person APOLOGIZED and we talked through it properly. I don't pretend to ''attack'' anyone with this post, this is merely to provide feedback on why I don't think that system was proper. I think this part can be missunderstood, so I really want to set it clear that this is PURE feedback and not an attack/vent).

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2. About this part: ''we are considering potentially involving a committee of members who wish to remain just members having a greater say in shortlisting applications''.

This part surprises me considering it's in a post where you are talking about how this community isn't elitist, specially how these people will have a 'greater say' in the process.  As a forum member, why should I trust a person I have barely spoken to before to represent my needs and thus select a staff member, in case it happens?

Maybe I'm being paranoic because you haven't said how you will select these users yet, but as a part of this community, it worries me the decision will be in hands of a bunch of people that are not representative of the forum.

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Therefore, I suggest:

1. The likes of people's posts SHOULDN'T be taken into consideration. I know last time likes were just one part of the decision and not the most defining aspect, but I'd recommend them not being a part of it at all. The NVSC and FC communities easily outnumber those users who don't actively follow those, so there's a risk that it could become a popularity contest.

2. Either not doing this committee at all or having a good variety of users in it. This could be formed by one user representing a contest OR it could be one of the managers of each contest. For example, in FoM we could try to select one person for that committee that we feel would represent the feelings of the contest the best.

This way we could ensure ALL of the forum is actually participating in the selection and not just a part of it.

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I think the staff adressing this ''elitism'' topic is very good and I applaud that greatly, but, in my opinion, we should definitely improve the staff selection process to avoid making some users feel that certain group of people is the one in charge of selecting the staff.

You also mentioned how being in NVSC or FC isn't a requirement to become a mod, while right now, every single one of them is part of one of the two, so from an outsider view, it seems that it actually is a requirement.

Sorry if I didn't put this post in the correct place as I couldn't find any other better place to post it.

This is a really measured response and super thought out, you definitely raise some points that we should clarify and try our best to rectify.

Regarding the first issue about the likes in 2017, I can't say anything regarding that individual matter you brought up itself as I had no idea about it specifically. I knew there were these "like campaigns" going on (which I wasn't involved in), but I guess that's just down to being young and naïve at the end of the day. I'm glad that you talked it through with them though, and that it seems to be all sorted out.

We definitely intend on making likes much less significant in the next process. With the introduction of the committee, people will be able to have more direct, written feedback on their applications rather than a seal of approval, which obviously provides less detail and - as you have correctly pointed out - can be a bit misleading and misrepresentative of the whole forum's opinion. We will probably still accept likes on people's applications, but they won't and shouldn't provide as much of a bearing as they used to.

Regarding the committee itself, we aren't going to handpick members directly. Regular members from all walks of the forums can voice their interest in being part of the committee, and in that, we will try our absolute best to ensure that the committee would be spread across the contests and so forth. We know that the current staff make-up screams of "NVSC/FC," but we are taking steps to ensure that in the future, we expand our team to involve people who are in other contests WITH the greater input of people from other contests.

I should also say that the lineup of staff being all involved with NVSC/FC is not intentional, and rather purely coincidental. At the time when I was picked, I was only in FC (although I was in the waiting list for NVSC admittedly). Other staff members have since withdrawn from either contest, and some of us have withdrawn from the hosting teams of either contest too. But yes, none of this explains why the staff lineup is overwhelmingly NVSC/FC - but I think we should be given the benefit of the doubt here. We may be a bit too late in introducing reforms to the staff lineup, but at least we're taking action now.

The announcement was made to see where we - the staff - stand with the community. There's clearly a deficit of trust somewhere between the staff and members, but hopefully with that announcement and the further elaboration I have provided here, we can mend that trust.