Some thoughts on being an Editor
It occurs to me that I am both the newest and the youngest user among the Content Editors. I never was around for E1, I never was around for all the wackiness during the frontier days of the internet, I never was a part of this community before the bar was raised. My writing is not the best on the site by far and, I would hazard, perhaps not even in the median of quality. What I can bring to the table, however, is a unique perspective because of these things.
I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of imposing my philosophy on others and yet that is what my duty as an editor is. It is a way for me to act on what my vision of E2 is and should be, a vision which is mostly in conjunction with the visions of my fellow editors.
Welcome to Everything
Of late it seems to have come back in style to question the future of Everything2 and do a little bit of community wide soul-searching. This is not anything new. For oversimplification but from my standpoint we're faced with one of two options. We can either continue with the small changes and all that decision entails or we can make significant changes to the dynamic of the site, hopefully for the better.
I think that it's time we take a serious look at Everything3 as more than just a pipe dream. Stop adding functionality to E2--if it ain't broke, don't fix it--and let the coders devote more time to other projects. Listen to what the noders want, what features they like in other sites. It is possible to take a leaf out of another website's book and still maintain what makes us unique. Give edev free reign, turn Suggestions for E2 into Suggestions for E3, lay the foundation for something new and yet familiar. It is not a viable alternative to continue as we are indefinitely. How old before the site is too old? Eleven years? Twelve? How small can the userbase get before it collapses? At some point we're going to have to face the fact that the internet has changed around us and that people are not looking for the same things that they once did. We can choose to either adapt to those changes and make them our own or we can resist them like a sandcastle in the face of an oncoming tide.
I have great faith in the power of E2 as a community. I adamantly believe that E2 can maintain the quality of output with 100, 1000, or 10000 noders and can survive traveling to a new website. Yes, it may mean more work for the editors. Yes, it may mean that we get more bad writeups but it will also mean that we get more good ones as well.
Trust the noders; trust each other. We are all here because we love the community, not because we love the website. The website is not E2, we are E2.
"We cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Recently I've gotten more than a few messages voicing concerns about my nuking practices. I actually welcome requests for explanations as it helps me both re-evaluate my own priorities and reminds me that communication is a two-way process, something which I have forgotten on occasion. Thus, I think a layout of my (very) general criteria is warranted.
The reputation of a writeup is the first thing that draws my attention: how many total votes does it have, the general ratio of upvotes to downvotes, any C!s, etc. Next, I read through the entire writeup; multiple times if I don't understand a part. I check for clever pipe links (those are my favorite) and other indications that real thought went into the writeup. I take into account the type of writeup (e.g. daylog, poetry, fiction) and how long the noder who submitted it has been around. I then make my decision as to whether I believe it should stand as a representative of E2's content or not.
Above all it should be remembered that I make subjective judgements: I am an editor, not a robot. It would be easy for there to be a line of code which deletes any writeup with a reputation below -5 and yet it doesn't exist. That's because I understand that public opinion can be wrong for writeups rated both high and low. In general, I always give a writeup that I don't understand or even that I don't like the benefit of the doubt.