Generally countries get more focus when something happens there and somebody is able to comment. So when the german elections were happening we discussed that. Similarly with Spain, France and Italy. The UK has just had an election that ripped apart the Prime Minister's image, the US has been engaged in an interminable primary election, both of which have drawn attention.
but the primary is over and nothing of substance will happen in the UK, so maybe we'll find more focus for silly stuff now.
Or maybe not. I detect a suggestion that the FPs are tired from carrying the site for so long. Maybe ET is life expiring. I hope not cos I really like this place but nothing last forever. keep to the Fen Causeway
Do you remember the "scrambling lieutenant" incident?
We have had to come up with the frontpager duties and with the [ET Moderation Technology™] tag so that people will separate our editorial duties from our engagement as regular members, but it still hasn't worked.
At least that's what I'm tired from. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Having witnessed this pattern for too often the past year, I'd honestly say it's an endemic feature of ET's growth strategy - it comes with the logical choice to select the most active participants for gnome positions. The Mod Tech tag is useful to indicate changing hats, but it may not give succour when a debate between a participant and off-duty gnome(s) turns heated or downright nasty. Further, the perception of scrambling lieutenants may well be connected what Helen's above comment encapsulated so well - group dismissal by core users, as they've already travelled those curves of debates and insights.
Even while one may tire of this from happening, I think there's little one can do to prevent it from happening again in the future - aside from heightened awareness of risks that come with the current working model.
Another problem is the lack of separation between technical (SCOOP tweaking), editorial (FP content) and moderation tasks. FPers have blanket "superuser" powers but we have different skills and interests and end up not using all the powers or performing all the functions.
Jerome, for instance, adopts almost exclusively an editorial role, his moderation is style is hands-off, and his technical ability is close to nonexistent.
Colman, DoDo and afew take all three roles actively. I think it's fair to say InWales, Izzy, Fran and the stormy present do more editorial work than anything else, with tsp getting more involved in moderation.
My main contribution to the editorial function is diary rescues and promotions as I write less than other FPers but comment more than most users. I also have a hands-off moderation style.
Bob is "on leave" but used to do "friendly moderation" and editorial work, but no technical.
The thing is, really the point of SCOOP is that moderation is supposed to take place on a "community policing" model, but as you point out if you promote the most prolific commenters to FP status who else is left to do the "community moderation"? Especially since everyone wants to be as "inclusive" as possible.
The other problem is that as a FP team we don't have a well-defined editorial line (though Jerome has, on one occasion, objected to one of my diary rescues). So the front page is rather haphazard. The real meat of the site is in the diaries and it would be really good if we could upgrade to a software with a nice "tag cloud". to allow people to browse diaries by topic. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
My tiredness really is from being too busy with work and more recently my PhD and campaigning. Also I'd love to be able to have one good idea of a decent FP story each day but sometimes nothing inspires me at all. I don't have enough time to trawl around and then write something if I don't happen to come across anything in the course of my work or through press bulletins I get.
It is also disheartening to spend time putting a diary together that barely scrapes 12 comments over the course of a week (I know I am not alone in that!) I'm fairly thick skinned on that - enough to know that lack of comments is due to me writing about stuff that others may not have much expertise on or do not feel they are able to make any useful contribution to but still... I'd like to be able to make my diaries and FP stories as accessible as possible and to draw lessons out that can be compared across Europe, even if my diary has been written from a UK perspective. I guess I wish I had the time to develop the thinking within my diaries further, but I don't. Ad astra per aspera
Also I'd love to be able to have one good idea of a decent FP story each day but sometimes nothing inspires me at all.
theres lots of us feel guilty after that comment Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I don't mind the quieter times - especially at weekends - and I don't mind the ebb and flow. I don't start to worry if an open thread only gets a handful of comments, because in a day or two another one won't, and that's not a problem.
I also don't think you can please all of the people all of the time, and if someone with a fundamentally different point of view leaves in a huff because they made some unsupported assertions and got called on it, I wouldn't see that as a problem either.
I'm generally more averse to meta diaries, because I think we can end up talking about specific incidents rather than strategy, and it can easily turn into one of those talks you have in a relationship where someone says 'Yes, but ten years ago you said...' - and it's often not helpful.
So I think if we're going to do meta we should maybe distinguish between 'What should ET do next' and 'How can we be friendlier.'
I think kcurie covered what we should do next. We've talked about, we have to do it.
As for being friendlier - WhatAboutBob was always an excellent balance to the more intense discussions, and it might be useful to have a frontpager who's not one of the policy kids.
I think Bob had a rare talent for setting a civil tone, and I think if we could find someone with a similar vibe it could help balance some of the intensity.
This isn't a criticism of any of the frontpagers in any way - just a suggestion that there may be a gap there, and filling it could help smooth out some of the sharp edges.
Other than that, my main beef with ET at the moment is that I have too many diary ideas and too little time to write them. But I'm not going to blame the FPers for that. (At least - not yet. :) )
But I'm not going to blame the FPers for that. (At least - not yet. :) )
If only you could work out how, I bet there's a diary in it. ;-) Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
