Team Staff Updates

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Mike

Windows Forum Admin
Staff member
Premium Supporter
Joined
Jul 22, 2005
Location
New York, NY, United States
If you have been here for awhile, you will notice that the format of the site has changed. So has its make up.

Our current team staff consists of:

@Mike
@nmsuk
@kemical
@Josephur
@bassfisher6522
@patcooke
@Captain Jack
@Mitchell_A

The following team members have been removed from moderator or administrative access to the website due to inactivity, inability, or unwillingness to use the website to perform moderation or administrative tasks due to real world concerns. We wish them the best of luck in their endeavours.

@zvit
@Adamsappleone
@whoosh
@Elmer

If you have any questions or comments about these changes, please comment in this thread. Thank you!
 
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Just only five people?

Five people can do a lot of things if they put their minds together. But I understand.

By no means was such a decision easy to make, but many of the members of the team, by this time, had limited resources or willingness to use the website in any form. This is understandable, as people move on to new projects, and have a real life agenda to pursue as well. Does that mean that we will remain a group of five forever? It certainly does not. What we needed to do was to make sure we had an active group. Under our own rules, a team meeting must be called, twice a year, and no such meeting has been called since the Summer of 2012. Granted, there have been thousands of conversations and dozens of admin chats since them, but we cannot call for a general meeting, which will likely be made public, if most people don’t show up.

Many people who volunteer to help on the site are limited by time constraints and this is understandable. However, we need a reliable network of people who are available on Skype for communication purposes and understand forum software. We are sticking with those people. Nothing can undermine, or place in dispute, the contributions made by our former team mates, and they are certainly still welcomed to the website.

It is simply a matter of moving forward, and in a different direction, of being pro-active about how things are handled. People cannot be forced to join the website and engage in moderation tasks or perform administrative functions if they do not have the time, willpower, desire, or sense of inclusiveness to do it.

There is also a lot of inertia from people having real live responsibilities, as well as difficulties. So we need people who are active. @Trouble and @kemical did resign. Trouble did so a long time ago. The other members, for all their contributions, seemed to remain in some kind of low earth orbit stand-by mode for a very long time. You should understand that back in 2010-11, we were getting a huge influx of traffic. So huge, that you'll find the majority of messages on here are from that time period, and coincide with the release of Windows 7. During that time, we never expected the site to become as big as it did. People were practically on bended knee looking for moderator access.

The reality is that moderator access is not fun. It requires skill, planning, and a lot of dedication to mundane tasks and a lot of boring brainstorming teleconferences that we do. A lot of people don't have time for that. So rather than have them hanging on and coming in once in awhile and saying, "I'm here! BUT....", we decided to let those people go.

The people who resigned either had disagreements with new site policies, technologies, myself, or some other issue. But Randy, for the most part, has been supportive of the website, and so has Ross. While I can't speak for them, sometimes you just get tired of doing the same thing over and over again. We need admins who are willing to answer e-mails and interact with the community on a level that goes above and beyond the call of a moderator. I am not saying they did not do that, but we are looking for people who are extremely active. I regret the loss of these great contributors, but they continue to be free to use the website anytime they want.

The reality is that it is not a special status to be a forum moderator. It just gives you account privileges to moderate threads and change site options. It does carry with it some title and a bit of weight, but only to those easily impressed by authority. We have rules and guidelines that prevent abuse by these team members. But for most of the people on that list, they were great supporters of the site, and still are recognized as such. No moderator badge is ever needed to answer a question or contribute something to the website.

We are just trying to move in a more active direction. Some of our mods, since 2010, started their own websites. Others have different work requirements. A weekly or monthly check in makes it difficult to conduct serious discussion, and so we have been doing that on Skype with the people who were not removed from that list.

I hope you understand. We do have a moderator application, if you look it up, however, it may be awhile before we pick up on any new requests.
 
Five people can do a lot of things if they put their minds together. But I understand.

By no means was such a decision easy to make, but many of the members of the team, by this time, had limited resources or willingness to use the website in any form. This is understandable, as people move on to new projects, and have a real life agenda to pursue as well. Does that mean that we will remain a group of five forever? It certainly does not. What we needed to do was to make sure we had an active group. Under our own rules, a team meeting must be called, twice a year, and no such meeting has been called since the Summer of 2012. Granted, there have been thousands of conversations and dozens of admin chats since them, but we cannot call for a general meeting, which will likely be made public, if most people don’t show up.

Many people who volunteer to help on the site are limited by time constraints and this is understandable. However, we need a reliable network of people who are available on Skype for communication purposes and understand forum software. We are sticking with those people. Nothing can undermine, or place in dispute, the contributions made by our former team mates, and they are certainly still welcomed to the website.

It is simply a matter of moving forward, and in a different direction, of being pro-active about how things are handled. People cannot be forced to join the website and engage in moderation tasks or perform administrative functions if they do not have the time, willpower, desire, or sense of inclusiveness to do it.

There is also a lot of inertia from people having real live responsibilities, as well as difficulties. So we need people who are active. @Trouble and @kemical did resign. Trouble did so a long time ago. The other members, for all their contributions, seemed to remain in some kind of low earth orbit stand-by mode for a very long time. You should understand that back in 2010-11, we were getting a huge influx of traffic. So huge, that you'll find the majority of messages on here are from that time period, and coincide with the release of Windows 7. During that time, we never expected the site to become as big as it did. People were practically on bended knee looking for moderator access.

The reality is that moderator access is not fun. It requires skill, planning, and a lot of dedication to mundane tasks and a lot of boring brainstorming teleconferences that we do. A lot of people don't have time for that. So rather than have them hanging on and coming in once in awhile and saying, "I'm here! BUT....", we decided to let those people go.

The people who resigned either had disagreements with new site policies, technologies, myself, or some other issue. But Randy, for the most part, has been supportive of the website, and so has Ross. While I can't speak for them, sometimes you just get tired of doing the same thing over and over again. We need admins who are willing to answer e-mails and interact with the community on a level that goes above and beyond the call of a moderator. I am not saying they did not do that, but we are looking for people who are extremely active. I regret the loss of these great contributors, but they continue to be free to use the website anytime they want.

The reality is that it is not a special status to be a forum moderator. It just gives you account privileges to moderate threads and change site options. It does carry with it some title and a bit of weight, but only to those easily impressed by authority. We have rules and guidelines that prevent abuse by these team members. But for most of the people on that list, they were great supporters of the site, and still are recognized as such. No moderator badge is ever needed to answer a question or contribute something to the website.

We are just trying to move in a more active direction. Some of our mods, since 2010, started their own websites. Others have different work requirements. A weekly or monthly check in makes it difficult to conduct serious discussion, and so we have been doing that on Skype with the people who were not removed from that list.

I hope you understand. We do have a moderator application, if you look it up, however, it may be awhile before we pick up on any new requests.
Thanks for your contributions! it's short time for me to join the forum,but l start to like this forum!
 
The reality is that moderator access is not fun. It requires skill, planning, and a lot of dedication to mundane tasks and a lot of boring brainstorming teleconferences that we do. A lot of people don't have time for that. So rather than have them hanging on and coming in once in awhile and saying, "I'm here! BUT....", we decided to let those people go.
I agree with that. I was a moderator in another site for almost three years, and it was a heck of a job. To do it properly, it requires almost daily attendance, and the pay... there is none? Eh? Many moderators have stated that former friends have become foes as they became moderators, and that also happened to me, although in my case it was mainly due to a generational gap, most of the members were 15-18, whereas I was past 50. It was a site built around a game series.

But it's not the most lucrative of offices. It takes true heart and dedication. I truly honor those who have the muscles for it.
 
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