gee0765

MalyceGraves

DrAkimoto

Currently I think we'll split the teams to 2 commanders per flight, though we could also do 1 commander for the first flight and three for the second.

Front-page feature divvy-ups will be decided by the commanders; if we have fewer than 6 commanders this month then some teams will be choosing more than one page to feature.

Staff members, please let me know if you are interested in being a flight commander for May! Ideally we'd have 6 teams (6 commanders), but the minimum we can work with is three.

Please message me with your recommendations for officers whom you feel should be given greenlighting privileges, and let me know which page you would like to feature on the front of the site!

I will start updating the Butterfly Squad Roster today and tomorrow with the names of successful officers and their flights/commanders.

Flight 2 commanders, your Flight begins tomorrow! I've sent you the same prelim info.

If they've been doing well, maybe ask them to start thinking about the page they would like to feature. As the teams involve two officers, I recommend asking officers to generate a pool of suggestions (maybe one or two pages each) and their reason for wanting to feature those page(s). The officers and commander can then discuss the pool of suggestions and pick one page to feature (the entire flight team's names will be on the front page).

As a general note for the future, flight officers may continue to assist with forum moderation even after their flight has concluded. At the end of April Flight 1, I will be adding the names of the recommended officers to the Butterfly Roster in a special "flight officers" collapsible.

However, I will say that it becomes an issue when flight officers are addressing things that would be better handled by someone with proper authority. I've asked my flight officers to do some light moderation, but requested that they run more serious offenses to me so I can handle it.

In short, directing users to stick to the format and such is fine, as long as they don't represent themselves as staff, because they are not staff.

Are the flight officers allowed to direct users to use the correct format when they fail to do so? As in, would directing a user in this way be considered backseat modding, or would it be covered under the Flights mandate?

It is my understanding that this policy initiative is designed to ease pressure on site staff in dealing with the forums, and this would definitely fall under that. Am I correct in this?

cybersqyd, gee0765, RockTeethMothEyes, I've sent you some preliminary info for being commanders on the first run.

Also, please respond here indicating which type of front-page feature you would like your team to pick (first come first serve):

• SCP Article
• Tale
• GoI-format document

Flight 1:

• cybersqyd - Nagiros, EzekierAltavista
• gee0765 - SharpEmbrace, Vincent Van Gone
• RockTeethMothEyes - CR Jenkins, Truc Linh

Flight 2:

• DrAkimoto - DatMonkey5100, IronDruid
• N_Aepic_Fael - Dyslexion, rioludoodle
• TheMightyMcB - F15H35, Hatcheye

Commanders, please check in with your selected officers and confirm if their schedules work for the current Flight setup. At this time, here are considerations:

• Officers should start thinking about their future Activity and Quality goals.
• Commanders should check some of the recent reviews from their officers and think about determining 1-2 critique techniques they would like to mentor their officers in.
• Regarding front-page features, I would like the commanders from each flight to determine which teams will be selecting the featured SCP, the featured tale, and featured GoI-format.
  • (Remember, 6 teams, 6 features. Two features of each page type per month.)
  • For this portion, feel free to respond here if anyone has a specific preference for their team's page feature type.

Commanders, please keep an eye on the thread and post a reply to the officer(s) you would like to mentor. I have no idea how many responses we'll get, but ideally it shouldn't be an overwhelming number of responses to sift through. If it turns out there are a lot of replies, by all means be selective!

I think I'd prefer mentoring 1 officer for the time being. EDIT: Realised I've got more free time in April than I thought, 1 and 2 officers would both be fine.

I also have a slight preference for 1 officer but I'm happy to take a second.

gee0765

DrAkimoto

cybersqyd

TheMightyMcB

RockTeethMothEyes

So I can get the announcement post ready for aspiring officer candidates to sign up, can you six please note:

• if you would prefer to lead Flight 1 (April 1 - April 15) or Flight 2 (April 15 - 30)
• if you would prefer to mentor 1 or 2 officers

Thanks!!

If at all possible, I believe we should reevaluate the policy of staff responding to Ideas Critique threads by default.

Is there a way to address this without resulting in staff getting inundated with PMs requesting critique/assistance getting more critique?

I think overall we should work to get the more experienced authors trying out light amounts of critique too. We already have plenty of good authors, so pushing to let them experience the enjoyment that can come from critiquing ideas would be extremely helpful.

I think this current system will help get some newer members to enjoy critiquing however, and as such am totally for it.

If at all possible, I believe we should reevaluate the policy of staff responding to Ideas Critique threads by default. Users already need to display initiative to get their second greenlight, so asking them to reach out for two doesn't strike me as too high a hurdle.

It's a band aid on a bullet wound and we seriously do need to consider further revisions to the system.

What would these further revisions look like? I feel like every time that point is brought up, everyone agrees and then nothing further is done. How can we make being a reviewer less thankless and tiresome?

I wonder if allowing for greenlight priviledge would be a better incentive?

I'm in support of commanders being able to grant greenlighter privileges to their officers, depending how well the flight went.

ETA: how about being added to the Butterfly Squad Roster as "flight officers", and having a running tally of successful flights completed?

That being said, supporting and willing to work with prospective critters.

I agree with Pedantique that this feel more of a band-aid/supplement to the existing unsustainable solution rather than a permanent answer.

My opinion on this is overall positive - I think jaded experienced forum crit OS etc. can act as force multipliers for inexperienced critters, so long as we have new critter intake.

All-in-all, I like this. I've been interested in launching some sort of mentoring program for a while, though it was more in the interest of fostering authors than reviewers. That being said, I think it'd actually be more time-worthy to foster new reviewers than authors simply because its a step in the right direction of positive community contribution. Authors rely on the site audience to gauge reception, so it makes sense to me to start with peer review.

I think involving features is a good start with regard to incentive to join, but I wonder if allowing for greenlight priviledge would be a better incentive? I figure that mentors are already trusted reviewers, and that by learning from skilled reviewers that "officers" might be qualified to greenlight as well. The drawback that immediately comes to mind is that it could cheapen the reviewers' spotlight qualification, but maybe thats alright?

I'm in support of this expansion of Forum Crit duties, as I see it being an overall benefit.

okay I need to sleep but I may have more to say on this after.

Disclaimer: this is a quick and probably messy post from me to spitball and gauge reactions.

My thoughts:

• Front-page features will be chosen entirely by teams of reviewers. Each reviewer on the team will have their name posted on the front page.
  • there will be two SCP/tale/GoI format features per month (so up to six teams can pick features per month)
  • reviewer spotlight remains the same

• Each month, we will open an interest-stating thread for SCP wiki members to put their names forward to be considered for 2-week-long reviewer training teams.
  • the team members (let's call them… officers. And the leader can be the commander.¹) will receive mentoring from a current Butterfly (debating whether only staff members or not).
  • officers will practice giving feedback in the forums, focusing on concept threads from newer authors
  • officers will be taught some forum management like how to respond (without backseat modding) to a thread that breaks guidelines
  • if the officers cannot yet greenlight, they will be given an "official recommendation" privilege related to their commander (think magic summoning circle, but only to be used if they really really think the commander would greenlight the idea)
  • officers do not need to be newbies!
  • officers will have weekly goals for two categories: activity and quality. Activity can be something simple like "crit at least one thread a day", quality something like "be more familiar with matching authors to helpful resources/guides/example articles". Commanders will discuss these goals weekly.
  • teams can have funny/rule of cool names. Commander discretion.

• At the middle/end of the month, commanders and active officers choose the page they would like featured on the front page of the mainsite.
  • if any of the officers were absent, their name is not posted to the front page and they do not get to be involved in choosing the feature.
  • the monthly mentorship teams get posted in the Site News page for the next month. Maybe accompanied by a "sign off" message at the end of their "flight".
  • try to bring in new reviewers for training each month, but officers can do monthly "flights" in succession if desired.
  • repeatedly successful officers can be made commanders in later flights, potentially fast-track to staff.
  • interest-gathering thread for the month is updated to include some debrief stats from the officers, to serve as testimonials or the like. Things like what they discovered about themselves as a reviewer, an idea that surprised them, or just the general reaction to learning how to handle one of the crucial elements to the site's writing process.

So in implementation this would look like:

Things that will hopefully change:

• shifting forum crit staff roles from just critting to also mentoring
• general bulk "common formula" concept threads will be opportunities for up-and-coming reviewers to practice how to respond to different kinds of material
• keeping the forums tidy is less of a staff-only burden—let the community be responsible for looking out for its population rather than necessitating that staff be the only ones who can state when something needs to be cleaned up
• community warms up to reviewers/being a reviewer more; 2-week rotating flights prevents burnout
• REVIEWERS GET MORE FRONT-PAGE NAME RECOGNITION (pls)

Big, big, big thanks to N_Aepic_Fael does not match any existing user name for already starting a mentorship sort of practice and taylor_itkin does not match any existing user name for discussing teams!!!

Again, it is late and I am tired and I still need to check the site so… if this is too complicated, the big things I need to know first and foremost is how we can make being a reviewer more attractive to the community, and how we can make reviewers feel more appreciated overall.