I seem to have been making a bit of a name for myself in alex's editor logs: he's mentioned me two months in succession now. Maybe it's time I said something for myself. It's only taken me two-and-half years to make use of an editor log.
E2 is a community; we have our own culture, our memes, and our history. For a new user making her or his first foray into the world of writeup types, C!s, voting, and the catbox's obsession with boobies, our multi-national weird headless death cult of writer apostles can be an overwhelming and confusing experience. I sincerely hope that e2 is not unfriendly to new noders, but I do know that the learning curve is steep. For existing users there can be relationship issues, political confrontation, and social fractures. In short, we're every bit as complicated as any other large group of people that is brought together and interacts.
We don't want new users to feel quite so lost; we don't want existing users to feel as if their opinions are inconsequential and that with so many other pressures on their time, they would rather spend it elsewhere; we want a creative group of people to be creative. To this end, e2contact has been established as e2's user relations department. You can read about the original vision for e2c in TheDeadGuy's August editor log. Since then, however, we've learned what it is that we're good at doing, and how best we can help e2. In a nutshell, we want to help users get the most out of e2.
To expand on that a little more, we're there to help new users treading their first steps into our strange and wonderful world; we're there to help existing users who feel they have something to say about e2, but aren't sure how to address it, or who will listen; we're there to help with the mentoring programme; and we're also there to help out when the catbox gets a bit more than colourful. There is a great deal more to e2c's machinations, though, more than needs to be said here, when there is a detailed explication of the remit here. Please do go take a look. It's by no means a document that is set in stone — as e2 evolves as a community, so too will the role of e2c — but it does lay the foundations for what we do and what we intend to achieve.
In December 2008 the chanops group was established to fulfil a role similar to IRC channel ops. Initially, Ancientsnow and GhettoAardvark were recruited to this team, who are there to help with users who feel the urge to rant or rave or scream or shout publicly. At the end of April, BookReader, lucychili, and moosemanmoo were also added to chanops, whilst Ancientsnow joined Content Editors and e2c. They were selected on account of their catbox presence, sense of humour, and sensible heads. To date they have handled any situations that have arisen admirably and I have no doubts that they'll continue to do so.
In his most recent editor log, alex mentioned briefly that chanops is going to enjoy a more prominent role henceforth. After some discussion amongst the immortals, we've decided that we are going to devolve general control of catbox operations away from the gods group and towards the users who frequent that facility. This fits with alex's more specific approach to staffing, and allows people who have the best understanding of the catbox to administer it. For those gods who would like to retain catbox operational powers, it is still available, and all members of e2c have drag, borg, and silence capabilities. For now, overall responsibility for chanops rests with me and TheDeadGuy, but it is possible that this could change in time.
My inbox is always there for people who would like to ask questions, make suggestions, or need to talk about something. If you feel that our messaging system is too constraining, I've a groovy staff email address: my user name, as all one word (arroba) staff (dot) everything2 (dot) com. You know how it works.
This place is more than just the words on the screen that you see. Behind all these words are people with feelings. Take care of the people and the content will take care of itself.
Pour one measure of elderflower cordial and one of chilled vodka into a tall glass. Add ice. Top up with sparkling water. Garnish with mint leaves.
Enjoy in the sunshine.