Ha. There are several dozen people I'm keeping an eye on at any given moment. I feel somewhat hesitant to just throw the list up, since some of them are controversial names or people I'm uncertain about, but… a few of the names couldn't hurt, right?
Dmatix and zaratustra in particular come to mind, especially since I haven't heard anything controversial about them at all. Both are good writers with many good articles. Both are generally active and helpful, though Dmatix is significantly more active/helpful than zara. But Dmatix is also a bit greener.
Kalinin and Cellar Door are people I've also noticed. I don't know either of them super well yet. Kalinin seems pretty helpful. Cellar Door was inactive last I checked, but since then they have become more active again. I like everything I see from them and they're very helpful.
Jekeled is helpful and active but I think that from my subjective perspective they have a bit of a standards problem in terms of their quality. I always look askance at a user when they are fine with work that's just good enough to succeed and don't want to aim higher. To be fair, sometimes that can just be a sign of a user who produces idiosyncratic work that's still worthwhile but underappreciated and/or not often understood. But Jekeled's stuff doesn't strike me that way. THAT SAID, I haven't read Jekeled's entire portfolio yet. And he's definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Lumancer's been around forever and hits all the traits I look for: helpful, active, good feedback, decent portfolio.
SRegan's name has come up a lot. They're super new and I don't know them very well, but everything I've seen from them is good. So it's not just you, Drewbear. People float this person's name quite a bit unprompted.
I have already been considering suggesting that all of the names here be invited to staff chat except for Jekeled. The reason I didn't think of suggesting Jekeled is that … well, let me be a douche and quote myself:
I almost worry that a staff chat invite would make them want to rest on their laurels via apparent implicit approval, and I'd prefer to light a fire under them. Sometimes a staff chat invite can do that too, though.
It's not that I disapprove of Jekeled at all - in fact, I completely like him. But I don't tend to look at staff chat as some kind of compliment we give to people we like. Rather, the people we bring in should be reasonably stable people with considerable potential AND either a powerful drive, a high degree of community influence, sky-high creativity, or something else along those lines. If we based it on 'people we like', then depending on whose opinions we took into account, staff chat would either be pretty much everyone in 19 who isn't totally irredeemable, or completely empty. ;)
tl;dr I want to see more from Jekeled, but he certainly belongs on a watch list.
