Boko: I think you and everyone else here are coming from two entirely different perspectives, so I'm going to try to explain mine. Staff members are not employees, they are not even co-workers, they are friends. They are friends who are voluntarily interacting with each other, with the only personal benefit being their own sense of enjoyment and satisfaction. Therefore, they need to work together in a way that is fun and doesn't turn managing EoFF into a tiresome chore.
If you turn EoFF staff into a job with quotas and performance evaluations and, even worse, no time-and-a-half, then you make EoFF less fun. And EoFF needs to be fun, for everyone involved, or else they won't come here. And that would make BoB cry.
Then why not just agree with the general policy supported by myself, Vivi, and most everyone else? Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly, but the only thing you seem to be arguing against is that it's worth caring who is on staff. Do you think that the staff should be equally dismissive with how they choose new staff members?Originally Posted by Boko
Apparently you do. I'm not sure how to respond to this. Do you really think that every single second the staff doesn't spend focusing on "improving" EoFF is a second wasted? That each staff member shouldn't be able to afford taking 5-10 minutes every 12-24 hours (and really, how often does one posted in even the most active and important threads?) in a new thread or two? I just don't see how any time is lost. There may be a reasonable argument to be made that the precise "activity policy" isn't a very significant issue. But I don't think that argument is that who is on staff doesn't matter and that worrying about it takes away valuable efficiency from EoFF staff. What exactly is being lost by EoFF "affording" all this attention to fun and games?Any time spent discussing their current makeup or deciding new members is not time spent on the previous two things. One can argue it is an investment but this isn't a site that can afford spending all of its time with a single investment as we currently do.
In fact, even from an efficiency standpoint, I think our general proposed "be considerate and patient, but nudge them to resign if they stop showing any interest or maybe don't show up at all after a few months" is the most efficient, in that it doesn't require hashing out and voting on arbitrary guidelines. Unless you come from the "being on staff is a permanent right after its granted" crowd, it also should be generally acceptable.
And what about the issues the staff face, such as combative members or declining activity or PG? Don't you think it's important to have capable, reasonable people in charge to manage those issues?