Recap: After the lengthy conversation about the promotions suspension, stormfallen says that staff need to "Discuss how to better format these long conversations so that people who aren't around/can't follow along as easily can still know what happened". Dexanote says that staff should make sure they stay on topic, and that policy discussions start in smaller groups to avoid off-topic discussion. He suggests that discussions be limited to only those who are essential to the conversation, and that not everyone needs to be consulted.

Later, stormfallen replies to Dexanote with a suggestion to use 'focus groups' to reduce chaos and keep things on-topic. He says that staff's tendency to retreat to AdCap and Admin chat is due to those channels already being like these smaller groups. He suggests that when a subject which requires significant discussion is brought up in staffchat, the person bringing it up would ask for volunteers with relevant skills or experience, who would work on the policy in a public thread or a private group DM in a group of approximately five people, where logs would be sent to Recap Team at the end of the discussion. These groups would then bring the conclusions directly to 05, whether they're a finished policy or something different. Croquembouche responds to stormfallen's message, saying that while he empathises with staff retreating to AdCap chat as a pre-existing focus group, he recognises this isn't ideal and sees value in stormfallen's idea. He states that there are already implicit focus groups made of whoever is active in staffchat when a subject is brought up, but there are issues with these, such as the individuals involved regularly changing and information being constantly added and lost. He thinks that open, explicitly opt-in focus groups using discord threads would be a good idea, as they would avoid the issues stated above, and enforcing who can contribute would be detrimental. gee0765 says that group DMs working on proposals has already occurred in the past, giving recap team, votes of no confidence and Junior Staff promotion reform as examples. Croquembouche requests a thread be opened for the topic, as "it's grossly ironic talking about the values of a thread outside of a thread". stormfallen creates a thread for the topic.

Within the thread, Croquembouche sends a message which largely repeats points made outside of the thread, while adding anecdotal evidence that discussions within threads are generally less chaotic than those which occur in the main discussion channel. GremlinGroup says that this is not always the case, but he is in favour of the overall proposal. He has concerns that discord threads can be easily lost, though says that a pinned announcement could solve this issue. gee responds to stormfallen's initial proposal, saying he is opposed to threads where all staff not in the focus group are forbidden from talking, and that his preferred steps for a policy are a group DM, a brief staffchat discussion, then a post on 05command.

Dexanote enters the thread and requests a summary of the topic. gee says that what's being proposed is similar to the group chat that had been used for the JS promotion reform, as Dex had been part of that policy. Dexanote is supportive of this. GremlinGroup says that it is important that these should be opt-in, and people wouldn't be asked to join. Croquembouche replies to Dexanote with a different, looser, interpretation, where these groups would not restrict participation. Instead, they would be visible within staffchat and opt-in to ensure that all contributors have full context. Dex says that he thinks only a small group is necessary for forming a proposal, and that these small groups should present drafts to relevant captains/admins, then the wider staff body if captains/admins don't have major issues. gee asks Croquembouche for an example of how his suggestion would work. He replies with an example, stating he is aware it is unrealistic, in which all discussions must take place in threads and the requirements for joining a thread would include having read all messages sent in it.

gee then says he would like to substantially cut down on staffchat's use for policy discussions, and focus more on moving topics to 05 faster. He posts a screenshot from the 27th September, in which ROUNDERHOUSE and stormfallen said that 05 should be reformatted to focus more on discussions and less on policy proposals which have already been finalised.

Dexanote lays out his idea of how a policy should be formed. He says that it should begin as an idea between a few staffers. Their team captain should give them the go-ahead, at which point they should work in a small group to create a proposal, discuss it in staffchat to iron out flaws, and post to 05. He says that the steps before it is posted to 05 are often jumbled and mixed together. gee says that discussions in staffchat are often less than ideal, as discord isn't good for multiple simultaneous discussions involving many participants, and that 05 is a better platform for this type of conversation. GremlinGroup suggests that edits such as wording changes occur in staffchat, while more developed opinions are saved for 05. gee disagrees, thinking that wording changes can also occur on 05. GremlinGroup responds to this, explaining that minor wording changes that change how the policy is understood should occur in staffchat. gee replies, saying that he does not want staff to have to make decisions on what counts as 'minor'. GremlinGroup says this decision should be made by the person or group proposing the policy.

Limeyy enters the discussion. They are in support of groups to work on policies, but do not think use of discord threads is a good idea, as they only remain calm and non-chaotic because they get buried in upscroll. They say threads could be usable if combined with a way to ensure they remain visible, but without this are inherently exclusionary. Croquembouche says that this also applies to private group DMs working on proposals, and dexanote replies that for certain situations this exclusionary nature is good, citing Tech Team as an example. Limeyy replies to Croque, saying that exclusion is more of a concern with Threads, as they're designed to be public while working groups are intentionally private. They also say that the staff member spearheading a proposal would select people with relevant experience to join the group DM, avoiding issues with every proposal being created by whoever's most active in staffchat. Croquembouche asks how staff would find who has this relevant experience. Limeyy, GremlinGroup and gee reply that people will have to figure this out by interacting with people. Croquembouche believes this is not the only way, and suggests a private documentation of staff members' skillsets. This is briefly discussed, and parallels are drawn between this idea and the current Meet the Staff page. Suggestions are made to merge the two

gee explains his ideal step by step policy process in slightly more detail. He says an author should ask in staffchat for volunteers, stating which skills would be relevant. This group would put together a basic outline of a policy, then move it to either staffchat or 05, depending on whether or not 05 had been reformatted to allow more general discussions. Following this, a finalised policy would be discussed and voted on on 05. Optimistic Lucio suggests his ideal policy discussion, which is mostly similar to gee's, though it includes an initial step on 05command before a group is formed to gather general thoughts on the issue, and passing the draft through DMs before it goes to staffchat/05. Cyvstvi asks if there would be an upper or lower limit on the size of the private groups. There is a brief discussion, and general consensus is that a mandatory size is unnecessary. Pedagon asks why these focus groups are necessary, and everyone discovers they've been using the wrong terminology for the entire discussion. He then explains his view of working groups, in which experienced people would reach out in response to a staff member's call for help on 05, and the finished proposal draft would be posted directly to 05. The conversation on maximum group size is brought up again, and Dagon and Cyvstvi both state that they are concerned that a lack of an upper limit would lead to groups becoming too large to be useful.

Limeyy says that these working groups don't need to be a formal policy, but Croquembouche thinks they should be written somewhere, to avoid the information being lost. Lucio suggests a list of guidelines or helpful tips, none of which are formal policy, to be posted somewhere as a staff resource. Croquembouche supports this idea, and Pedagon thinks it could be folded into an in-progress proposal surrounding staff training. Lucio asks for volunteers to join a group chat to discuss this resource. stormfallen returns to the discussion, and says that he now thinks that private DMs are a better way of running working groups than the public threads he had previously suggested. DrBleep enters the discussion and requests a brief summary of what had been discussed. Croquembouche responds with a summary. Bleep says that she believes the discussion is "spinning the wheel" a little, as the existing staff team model was created to act as working groups, though she sees a use case for proposals not attached to a specific team. Additionally, she supports measures to document important knowledge to avoid it being lost. She then outlines how she creates policies, by taking them to MAST captain chat to bring in experienced members of the team, then bringing a rough draft to AdCap before creating a more presentable draft. This draft is passed through MAST, then general staffchat, and finally posted to 05.

Bleep then says that the current situation, where discussions consist of several people talking past each other in discord, is unsustainable. gee agrees, saying that this is a reason to put things on 05 as soon as possible, as people make better-formed points and have time for read other points made. Bleep agrees that this occurs more on 05. stormfallen later states that he's working on a policy draft, which is later dropped after he decides that, as other staff had stated, this does not require a formal write up.
This conversation takes roughly a day, not including stormfallen’s final statement, which took a minute, two weeks later.

Recap: pr0m37h3um posts a link to a draft of the September Recap, which has been completed and gone through AdCap review. A thread is created, and DrBleep pings all members of the Staff Discord. After initial reactions at the length of the longer recaps, staff members begin reading the draft. Edna Granbo questions whether the Disc-J recap includes the identification of transphobic sentiment within the article. It is clarified to her by Dexanote and GremlinGroup that this is included, but that this aspect of the article was more relevant to the community voting it below deletion rather than any specific staff response.

CuteGirl suggests a number of edits for clarity across the document, as well as those which further explain the outcome of the discussion with a warned user. HarryBlank responds, stating that all her points will be implemented.

MomBun identifies a statement during the Disc-J recap which she feels does not express her intention when contributing to the discussion. GremlinGroup provides a direct quote to back up the sentence in the recap, and MomBun provides a later statement during the discussion where she expounds on ther thoughts. GremlinGroup maintains that the recap is accurate to the sentiment she expressed during the discussion. MomBun & GremlinGroup agree to an amendment to her wording in the recap, and an additional footnote is made clarifying her feelings during the recap review.

FabledTiefling notes that he is concerned that individual staff members may be uncomfortable with their portrayal in this recap. After clarification on this statement is requested by J Dune, FabledTiefling notes that, given he can see these instances being addressed in collaboration with Staff members, he is happy that the team appears to be receptive to feedback. pr0m37h3um states that if she were concerned with possible bias in the recap team, those recap members would be taken off the team.

pr0m37h3um then notes that, in preparation for October's recap, Admins and Team Captains will be permitted to enter Recap's Discord server, as overseers of the process of finalising recaps. AdCap will be able to observe finalised recaps before the full draft is assembled, and can comment on these recaps, but the process of drafting individual topic recaps will remain limited to recap-team only.

Stormfallen suggests a number of edits, which would help clarify or further explain the discussions in StaffChat, as well as pointing out some unfinished sentences in the recap. HarryBlank & GremlinGroup responds to these points; all edits are accepted, and the request for further clarification helps to improve the detail of the Disc-J recap.

Athenodora notes that Recap staff have repeatedly spelled her username "Athenadora". This is amended, as are other inconsistencies in usernames, such as variable capitalisation. Athenodora also identifies a paraphrase of a point she made during the Age Unraising discussion. GremlinGroup notes that her point had been somewhat overlooked, and suggests a rewording which removes this inaccurate paraphrasing and expounds on her point. EstrellaYoshte notes a paragraph in the Disc-J recap which is repeated almost word-for-word later in the recap.

GremlinGroup notes that this occurred due to an improperly-amended edit made during AdCap review, rectifying this. CuteGirl notes that none of her requested edits have appeared on the draft; GremlinGroup states they were drafted but may have been neglected, as the review occurred parallel with the Promotions Suspension discussion. GremlinGroup then adds these drafted changes, porting them to StaffChat where they are approved by CuteGirl.

pr0m37h3um states that the recap will be posted the next day, unless any significant amendments are required overnight. Zyn points out two instances in the recap where she feels her statements are not fully represented. HarryBlank responds and amends these instances. Athenadora requests another minor wording change, HarryBlank enacts it.

After the tag rework voting thread's timer expires, its result is included in the recap, and pr0m37h3um posts it to 05 and the mainsite.
The re-cap re-view took nearly two days.

After the recap is posted and feedback is given on the mainsite mirror, GremlinGroup states that the recap team remains open for suggestions on presentation to staff as well as the userbase. GremlinGroup intends to add a table of contents to the next recap, as well as adding an abstract to the beginning of each monthly recap. There is discussion about whether collapsing all recaps would be beneficial or unnecessary, and EstrellaYoshte suggests adding larger headers for each topic.
This short discussion took around 10 minutes.

Recap: Stormbreath asks a question about the current Donations Policy; is paying someone to write an article a violation of this policy? Additionally, he notes that a rule banning excessive advertising of articles, located in the donations policy, would be better located elsewhere. A thread is created to discuss the donations policy on commissioning articles that are posted to the wiki, with stormbreath specifically asking about commissioned CSS themes. It is agreed that there is nothing specifically barring this behaviour in the policy, and the staff present discuss whether it should be barred. Rounderhouse points out that, whether commissioning articles should be barred, he believes commissioned CSS themes should be permitted, likening them to the relatively-common practice of commissioning art for an article. Gremlingroup points out that a clause in the donations policy, which disallowed donation-incentivised competitions, cannot be up to date; the 2021 MemeCon competition, hosted by SCPDeclassified subreddit, offered prize money. Rounderhouse points out that the same was true of Halloweencon 2018. Many Meats shares a link to an in-progress rewrite of the donation policy, stating it still needs work. In the ensuing discussion on commissioning articles, Many Meats attempts to make a distinction between general commissions and specific commissions; theme-based commissions should be acceptable, but commissions for a specific plot (vanity posts) should not. Rounderhouse and Stormbreath believe there would be no clear difference between the two. Stormbreath states that he believes a flat rule against commissioning articles would be the only fair solution, but that he would be against it. Rounderhouse agrees.

GremlinGroup believes that any policy banning commissions would be easy to dodge, asking what would make a flat ban on vanity posts difficult. Many Meats says the flat ban is already included in the rewrite of the policy, but that no consensus is reached on policy beyond this ban.

Nine days later, GremlinGroup re-activates the thread to ask whether any resolution has been reached on this further point. Stormbreath states that a resolution was reached on whether commissions are currently banned (they are not) but that there is no conclusion on any changes to the policy in this area.
The original discussion on the 13th took two hours.//

Recap: During a discussion about the disciplinary treatment of a user, wherein some staff members state more discussion with other staff should have occurred before a user’s membership was revoked, Zyn mentions her difficulty with reaching out for “opinions/sanity checks” due to time-zones reducing the number of awake staffers. Additionally, she draws up a list of responsibilities she fulfils that she believes can benefit from assistance from other staff members. The list comprises; checking recent changes and posts for vandalism and questions, checking the writing help forums for posts that don’t follow guidelines, voting on deletions for articles below -10, and adding deletion timers to articles below -10.

18 hours later, stormfallen creates a thread to discuss alleviating Zyn’s workload. Zyn & stormfallen note that many of these responsibilities are fulfilled by a small number of staffers, while DrBleep & Limeyy point out that these responsibilities could be handed to the MAST and Forum Crit staff teams, for a better distribution of responsibility. stormfallen notes that many aspects of Zyn’s workload fall to her as they require mod+ permissions on wiki dot to perform, while Limey states that Operational Staff could still assist with organisation. Zyn agrees that deletions should be the responsibility of MAST.

DrBleep states that recent decreases in staffer numbers have made organisation and delegation more difficult. Limeyy suggests promoting plenty of moderators in the Winter, opining that there is no difference between OS and Mod besides trust and the ability to handle more duties. DrBleep suggests that the greatest dearth in staff is at the junior / operational levels, rather than requiring more staff higher up the hierarchy. EstrellaYoshte notes that they already check Recent Changes, which Zyn is happy with. FabledTiefling volunteers to assist with answering questions that arise when checking Recent Posts.
The majority of this discussion occurs within the first 8 hours of the thread's creation, but some messages are sent over the next few days, including specific requests for Zyn's advice for staff performing the duties listed.

Recap: It is noted in staffchat that the wiki's search function is often useless, turning up inaccurate results or otherwise not loading. HarryBlank suggests replacing the search bar with an embedded Google custom search bar. Pedagon suggests a link to the Let Me Google That For You website. Rounderhouse notes that this was attempted in the past, but security and ease-of-use concerns led to a revert to the wikidot search function. DrBleep notes that the search bar “used to moderately work at trash frequency”, but no longer works at all. stormfallen locates a relevant thread, where staff from 2019 note that the search bar appears to have been “fixed”, and is “probably good until further notice”.

stormfallen asks whether this function is worth revisiting, but opines that it is low priority. DrBleep states it is likely a feature that will be addressed by the upcoming Project Foundation. stormfallen then asks whether workarounds, such as searching the site by adding "site:scp-wiki.wikidot.com" to a google search, is mentioned in any guides onsite. Rounderhouse states that it is not. With the conclusion that no action be taken until Project Foundation, the conversation drifts into general complaints of Wikidot’s impotency.

This discussion ends within 12 minutes.

Recap: EstrellaYoshte states they are working on a rewrite of the Wiki’s Frequently Asked Questions page, showing it to StaffChat for feedback. They create a thread in staff chat for the discussion. Athenodora suggests that the page include a clarification that signing up to WIkidot does not equal signing up to the SCP Wiki, or its sandboxes. She suggests this as it’s a common question asked on #Site17, the primary IRC channel for staff-user interaction. Optimistic Lucio and stormfallen offer wording suggestions for Estrella’s suggested wording for Athenodora’s point. stormfallen requests that the link to the FAQ rewrite be pinned.
This discussion mostly took place within an hour.

Recap: Calibold asks when the projected censure of Dexanote and DrEverettMann can be expected to take effect. YossiPossi believes Dexanote has been "considering it"; Pedagon wonders whether the censuree should be determining the timing of their own censure. Calibold feels it's time to act on this before the issue becomes even more polarizing. Limeyy wonders why there is a decision-making process involved in accepting a punishment applied through the proper channels. Pedagon notes that being able to determine the timing of your own punishment defeats its purpose. Yossi asks who specifically is going to apply the censures; he assumes it will be the Disciplinary Team. Calibold has pinged both Dexanote and Mann, and both aismallard and later DrBleep criticize this action. aismallard feels that present difficulties are causing staff a great deal of stress, so bringing this to Dexanote's attention may have deleterious effects. Nevertheless she notes that the matter is under investigation. ROUNDERHOUSE points out that this issue has been tabled for a long time. aismallard suggests that the situation with DrAkimoto has taken priority; ROUNDERHOUSE counters that said situation was very recent, and it has been months since the censure was decided. Pedagon suggests that extending the period in which nothing is done on this issue makes staff appear not to be managing themselves. Calibold suggests taking the censure would reduce staff stress, including for the censured individuals.

While aismallard feels the Akimoto issue has caused admins to internally re-evaluate the present situation, Lucio elucidates ROUNDERHOUSE's point: there will never be a good time where nothing else is impinging, so the censure needs to be dealt with promptly. ManyMeats wants to know if acknowledgment that these concerns have been heard is the action desired by the interested parties, or if they have additional requests; Lucio wants a statement on the progress of the censure which is not merely an acknowledgement, Pedagon would like to know why there is difficulty applying the censure and to see action taken, and Calibold would like a precise timeframe. Meats promises to have results by Sunday (the 17th). Limeyy and Pedagon are pleased with this. DrBleep puts a slowmode on the conversation; Lucio and Limeyy note that this favours admins in the conversation, as they are unaffected. Bleep removes the slowmode, noting it was applied to give ManyMeats time to respond.

Pedagon wants to know if Dexanote will be informed that this is going on, since it seems unfair to talk about him in his absence; aismallard asks that comments on this matter go through her, and she will relay them. stormbreath states that Dexanote is aware of the conversation. The conversation is tabled until later.

On 17 October Dexanote posts an O5 thread (http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14230046/joint-statements-regarding-miscommunication-and-on-censure) making a statement about his and Mann's censure. First he explains that phrasing in the second of Cerastes' disc threads accidentally suggested that the Disciplinary Team had unilateral control over whether action would be taken; he notes that this is not true, and that the line was instead meant to reassure everyone that Disc was not being influenced by outside actors. On the topic of censure he states that staff cannot "call for or enact censure on themselves," and therefore prepares to pass the issue on to Disc. A discussion is slated for the following Sunday (one week from the announcement.) Dexanote then links this post in staffchat and asks for comments and questions to be handled there in advance of the O5 thread's unlocking for the formal discussion.

Limey opines that the ability to deliver action and the ability to decide whether or not to do it are not extremely different; "The fact it took backlash on the level of cerastes 2 to break the tie between 'what disc wants/says' and 'what happens' is incredibly telling." They also feel that for the interests of transparency, this conversation should be held on O5 and not in staffchat. ROUNDERHOUSE suggests making a discussion thread on 05command to avoid the mess of a StaffChat conversation. gee notes that while the thread was intended to be an announcement, there's no reason why, in the interests of transparency, it couldn't be a discussion thread. He also agrees that making a second thread for discussion is reasonable.

Dexanote clarifies that Disc is not empowered to decide whether it pursues action. It is constrained by the charter and by the administration. Limeyy feels this does not apply to the Cerastes case: "'Disc can't just ban people for no reason, there has to be a cause/proper disc matter to deal with' in response to an incident where a member of the site was almost banned for a fabricated cause, followed by a second even more fabricated cause really does not fill me nor anyone reading this with confidence." Cystvi notes that "the broad nature of the charter" and the need to interpret it has caused many issues.

gee and Limeyy state that this conversation should be on 05command. Dexanote makes the discussion thread (http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14230078/discussion-joint-statement-re:miscommunication-and-on-censur#post-5110658) He also alters his phrasing in the "Cerastes incident" thread to use the neutral term "November 2020 incident." gee notes the need for a mainsite mirror, as the community is invested in this issue and it relates to policy. Dexanote makes the mirror thread (https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-14230086/).
This conversation took several hours over two days.

Recap: stormfallen passes along a tweet by Kufat about new IRC policies regarding specific rules to prevent harassment. (The IRC is now owned by Kufat and operated at the server level separately from the official SCP channels, which are still run by staff.) Limeyy is of two minds: the new rules are well-intentioned, but handling harrassment at the network end is incompatible with the idea that the IRC changeover was primarily to handle maintenance issues. Limeyy cites the original statement by Kufat, including "Very little will change day-to-day for most users, although there will be some rule tweaks (e.g. age policy) to be announced in the near future" and "We're going to keep things running, we're going to enhance anti-troll measures, and above all we're gonna make sure this network will be a safe and fun place to chat." CuteGirl points to the reference to potential new rules; Limeyy does not think the announced alterations are in keeping with that statement. CuteGirl suggests that Kufat is "preparing the network" for future use in the event that the wiki moves to other platforms, and that most of the new rules mirror existing chat policy. Limeyy feels that measures such as this should be the purview of SCP chatstaff, not network staff. Athenodora counters that Kufat's measures are "setting/codifying basic network rules to the point where the network can be trusted to run without snags."

CuteGirl asks why chatstaff should be writing network rules; Limeyy agrees they should not be, but again states that these are major changes which were not anticipated when the original announcement was made. stormfallen and CuteGirl do not think the changes are major, and in any case merely pre-empt work chatstaff would have done anyway. CuteGirl also feels that addressing the lack of rules in the server constitutes maintenance; DrBleep concurs that the IRC's low staffing level requires such measures. Athenodora notes that Kufat consulted IRC operators about the new rules.

Limeyy considers the rules reactionary, and considered alongside earlier controversial changes regarding leaks, finds the pattern concerning. CuteGirl notes that Kufat has other communities on the network which these rules will also serve, and that this is preferable to waiting for chatstaff to implement their own or find other platforms. Limeyy merely wants rules of this sort to go through chatstaff, rather than through network operators whose promotion from the ranks of resigned staff resulted in controversy. DrBleep suggests Limeyy contact Kufat, as the matter is outside staff purview. Limeyy is uncomfortable with handling matters such as this alone and in a non-public space. The question of whether Kufat is aware of conversations on other platforms is raised, as the new rules address issues which were being discussed by staff in other channels. CuteGirl explains that her presence in both conversations explains the similar topics, and that similarities in wording are merely coincidence.

This discussion lasts just over an hour.

Recap: Stormfallen brings to the attention of staffchat that two inactive operational staff¹ who voted on the ongoing promotion cycle should be informed that they can now vote on moderator promotions, and mentions that one of these staffers has only been active on wikidot to vote on promotions for several months.

The next day, this discussion is relitigated, and it is discovered that neither of the relevant staffers are even present in staffchat. While this is occurring, stormfallen attempts to figure out what can and cannot be abstained on for promotion votes, and discovers the promotions policy allows abstentions on all ranks, although promotions threads state conflicting rules. Gee0765 states he has been considering proposing a policy requiring all active and reserve staff to be in staffchat. ManyMeats responds that he has already recommended a similar idea for the charter review. Stormfallen mentions that at some point, a policy related to teamless staff began to be formulated, and aismallard responds that it hasn't been followed up on. Limeyy states that asking staff to be in staffchat if they wish to keep their position is not unreasonable, and ManyMeats and Gee agree.

ROUNDERHOUSE states that the staffers in question only exist on the wiki or wikidot at all in the capacity that they vote on promotions, which is counterintuitive. He also states that not being present in staffchat, not being on a team, and being inactive on the site individually are not damning, but when all three are superimposed, there is little point to the individuals' remaining on staff.

Rounder briefly discusses the role of abstaining on promotion candidates who the voter doesn't know enough about. He questions whether abstaining for such a reason is acceptable if the voter has been too inactive as opposed to that candidate simply never crossing paths with the voter. Bleep states that she agrees with his position that abstaining because of one's own inactivity is weird, and that she would typically agree with Rounder in reference to the two inactive staffers in question, but that some people who are on teams with nominated candidates have also abstained on those candidates. Rounder clarifies that he was specifically referring to the three-part condition of inactivity, teamlessness, and promotion voting, and Bleep agrees with him. LilyFlower states that she believes the staffers in question should be removed from staff, and Vivarium agrees. Vivarium is asked by lily about his in-progress policy that will cover staff without a team. Vivarium notes that he and WhiteGuard are working on it, but that progress is slow.²

This conversation took place over a few minutes on the first day, and about 2 hours on the second.

Recap: thedeadlymoose posts a screenshot in #staff-discussion of part of one of their posts in the Censure Statement Mainsite Mirror thread. The screenshot contains a user mentioning their dissatisfaction with the overly-harsh punishments for plagiarism, and a reply from thedeadlymoose saying they agree and relating the Metaphysician case, but apologizing for being unable to address the issue at the moment. gee0765 notes that staff attitudes on plagiarism have changed and believing Metaphysician should be unbanned is no longer a fringe take. Yossi points out that Harmony was the main driver in Metaphysician's ban; gee0765 and Limeyy respond that Harmony was far from the only person in aggressive support of a permaban and that her role is ultimately minor. Yossi says he'll "save [his] grumpiness about that case for later".

Pedagon says that the wiki's view of plagiarism is highly punitive and excessive, and that it is more akin to someone forgetting to source their images and should be treated as such, suggesting that the offending portion be removed and a warning given rather than an instant permaban. thedeadlymoose responds to gee clarifying that they believe Metaphysician should have been banned but not permanently because while he did plagiarize, the larger issue was his behaviour and attitudes to other users which could not be Disc'd due to senior staff engaging in the same behaviour. They informally suggest that the ban should be commuted to a year and given that a year has passed, he be unbanned or allowed to appeal.

gee0765 and ROUNDERHOUSE note that they never saw any such behaviour from Metaphysician, but admit it was likely before their time on the site. There is some discussion that admitting that the ban was unfair but making him appeal anyway would be contradictory and unreasonable. Limeyy suggests that thedeadlymoose go to Disc-ord to suggest Metaphysician be unbanned; thedeadlymoose pings the Disciplinary team in #staff-discussion, contacts them with a message in Disc-ord, and shares a screenshot of this message in #staff-discussion. Manymeats states he doesn't believe Metaphysician has ever appealed the ban, and gee0765 and Limeyy agree that he should not have to. Athenodora suggests that rather than an appeal, whatever discussion occurs should be framed as "a dialogue with us on how to sort things out best". Staff members continue to refer to it as an appeal.

thedeadlymoose and gee0765 agree that at the time of the ban, Disciplinary's opinion on plagiarism would have made it a waste of time to appeal. Limeyy suggests that he simply be unbanned, apologized to, and extended an invitation to rejoin the site. thedeadlymoose agrees with this, on the caveat that Metaphysician offer a good-faith explanation on how he will prevent it from occurring again, which Limeyy believes is an unfair expectation but better than the current situation. aismallard enters chat, stating that they have volunteered to help handle the matter. Cyvstvi also enters chat and expresses support for unbanning Metaphysician and offering a public apology. gee0765 affirms that the ban was enacted in Februrary of 2020, making it well over a year since, and suggests Disc commute the ban to a year, meaning it expired 8 months ago.

Pedagon believes Metaphysician should not be made to appeal and anything more than a flat unban would be staff making themselves feel better, which thedeadlymoose agrees with. aismallard agrees that an apology should be offered. After some discussion on the private context of Metaphysician's error in attribution, Pedagon notes he has not slept since Sunday morning, 2 days prior. The conversation ends with several staff telling Pedagon to go to bed.

This discussion took place over the course of roughly an hour.

Recap: aismallard links to a message in the #staff-announcements channel stating that the Disciplinary Team's discord server is now accessible by all Moderators and above, with access to Operational Staff planned for the near future. This change is popular with all staff present. Athenodora asks whether this change could delay ongoing cases, and if measures need to be put in place to deal with this. aismallard thinks this will not happen. ROUNDERHOUSE asks if there are plans to make this change public. gee0765 and Limeyy agree that this should happen. aismallard and Dexanote clarify that they are writing up an 05command post, which is later posted [see below]. Hexick asks if Junior Staff on the Recap team would be allowed to access the server, as they are able to see the OS+ channel in the main staff server. aismallard thinks this is unnecessary, as information which isn't sensitive will be ported to 05 when possible. She pings pr0m37h3um, captain of Recap team, who also does not think this would be necessary. All other staff present agree with this decision, with Pedagon stating that recaps of Anti-Harassment and Disc spaces would turn Recap into "the pr team".

thedeadlymoose responds to Pedagon's message, saying that while they are open to AHT recaps, they would have to be produced by members of the team. Other staff members are unsure that AHT requires recaps at all, and moose clarifies that they do not mean lengthy, in-depth recaps like the general staffchat ones. stormfallen says that a member of AHT responsible for "keeping track of things" could be beneficial, but that this should only be for internal reference by the team. Yossipossi says that he has already done this for the past 3 AHT cases. Moose clarifies what they mean by AHT recaps, explaining that they would consist of a member of AHT posting to 05 about which policies have been discussed by the team, and any other information which has been assessed to ensure it will not harm people if made public. They say it currently isn't possible, but remains on the table for the future.

05command thread: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14233505/

This discussion took about 1.5 hours.

Recap: Jacob Conwell posts a link to a Google Docs file and summons all moderators and admins, asking them to read up on the current deletions protocol that is in place while Wikidot potentially poisons slots when they are directly deleted. Conwell also notes that deletions are usually recorded in the deletions channel of the Maintenance and Ancillary Staff Team discord. GremlinGroup asks why deletions require confirming votes from staff, stating that it seems to imply deletions are based on opinions rather than standard vote thresholds. Stormbreath responds, stating that he is not sure what the original purpose was, but that they are now effectively witnesses and that the name should be changed. GremlinGroup states that the only time voting to confirm deletions would be relevant would be in a mass downvote raid, which would require a breach of protocol anyways. Zyn suggests calling them "confirmations", while GremlinGroup suggests sticking with "witnessing".

Stormfallen states that he believes votes were originally used to confirm that articles should be deleted rather than archived and/or rewritten, but that these processes are antiquated on the modern wiki. Aismallard agrees that, by her understanding, when articles were less common, deletions were more debated, and that it is now a formality. She also acknowledges that it offers certain anti-malicious behavior protections, such as allowing downvote brigades to be identified, and states that an article only needs three more "yes" votes than "no" votes to be deleted, rather than a "no" instantly cancelling a deletion or simply needing three "yes" votes. Stormbreath asks if this power is codified in any place that is still valid site law and Aismallard states that she believes it is still in the deletions guide. Limey asks why 3 confirmations are still needed if almost nobody denies deletions, and Aismallard states it could potentially be lowered to 2, to which GremlinGroup responds that he is fine with keeping the 3-vote threshold. Stormbreath suggests rewriting the deletions guide.

Conwell states he will change his use of the term "staff votes" to "staff confirmations", and that he prefers to keep the threshold at 3. stormbreath states the opinion that requiring summary deletions to have two witnesses would not be the worst idea either, and Conwell states that he can begin performing this in practice, but that a discussion and "the usual hullaballoo" would be required to officially codify it. Conwell confirms the new language as being "Deleted at -X and Y staff confirming," and on the 30th of October reminds moderators and admins of the new summary deletion witness threshold and the wording change.

Four hours later, thedeadlymoose replies, stating that the reason votes are named as such is to avoid abuse of power, as "witness" just implies those individuals saw the article prior to its deletion. Additionally, they note that they are horrified at learning of the deletions issue, but that they believe the solution is very clever.

This discussion lasted around an hour and a half, not including Moose's reply.

Recap: Optimistic Lucio and Edna Granbo are discussing the site’s navigation redesign when Edna brings up the idea of having the User Curated Lists, a guide created by S.D. Locke, appear on the sidebar. User Curated Lists, as a guide, is intended to function as a way to introduce users to “quality” works on the site. Edna feels that the lists are outdated, as they primarily consist of articles created before the SCP-4000 contest. Lucio feels the User Curated Lists are helpful to new users, and that updating them should be a matter of contacting Locke and asking her to make the page public, so any user could add to it. Edna agrees that this should be done, and says she will contact Locke.

A few minutes later, Locke responds to Edna’s PMs and states that she is open to staff taking control of the lists, but only if someone is willing to vet them, as to assure baseline quality of the works therein. EstrellaYoshte suggests handing the lists to Sirslash, as slash had been one of the few users actively updating the UCL page. Limey states that he believes Sirslash is not open to rejoining staff. Lucio asks if staff as a whole will assume the role as curators of the lists, and any user will be able to add to them. Edna clarifies that Lucio’s understanding is correct. Edna states that the previous curators of the lists, as stated on the page, are djkaktus, taffeta, greenwolf, modern_erasmus, and sirslash. DrBleep, once being brought up to speed about the situation, asks if this would fall under the purview of MAST. Vivarium believes it does, and is willing to take it on. Bleep is unsure, as she feels maintaining the UCL is an endless task with an undefined end-goal, as works would continue to be curated indefinitely. Bleep retires from the conversation, stating she will consider it. Lucio clarifies that staff will act as curators, and that users will suggest articles for the list or potentially creating them, and staff will add them. Bleep sees this as more manageable, and tells Vivarium that if they are also in support, they should begin drafting policy for incorporating this into wikiwalk’s duties and consulting the appropriate parties. Vivarium gives Bleep thumbs up.
Conversation lasted a little over an hour.

Recap: In the wake of suggestions made during the Promotions Suspension and Communication discussion, aismallard publicises the Staff Project Tracker Jira board; all staff can join this by sending her their email, allowing her to create an account for them. The Jira board is visible to all staff with accounts, but it not public.

This announcement was a single message.

Recap: Lucio poses the issue of quorum being too high due to staff apathy towards policy discussions beyond their purview and uninformed voting due to a need to reach quorum. To correct for this, Lucio proposes a change in quorum to become 1/3 to 2/5ths of active staff in order to account for staff who choose to focus on doing team duties rather than engage in policy discussions. Gee expresses discomfort with this before finding that real life quorums tend to be around the 1/3 mark too. Athenodora asks about how real organizations handle different levels of topics and lucio points out how, in the site staff case, important topics will naturally draw more people. Because of this, Lucio argues that a higher quorum would be unnecessary for larger topics anyway and the lower quorum would prevent the possibility of controversial proposals being sunk by not voting rather than voting against or abstaining. Stormfallen states that reaching the current quorum threshold is not an issue and that the issue is more to do with advertising of policy discussions and making abstaining a more acceptable option. Vivarium agrees and adds that quorum should be easier to reach going forward anyway because of the larger pool of voting OS+. Gee argues that staff should not rely on advertising through pinging staff multiple times since it makes people feel that they have to vote despite not caring for the proposed policy. Lucio ports the conversation to 05command for more constructive discussion: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14237333/

Dora expresses concern that the volunteer status of staff may be a barrier to the idea that more important topics will draw more people to vote. Bleep asks if the 05command discussion is about gathering perspectives rather than to drop a policy vote soon and lucio confirms that gathering perspectives is indeed the intent. Bleep and vivarium both identify that any change to quorum should be considered and discussed thoroughly because it could have drastic impacts on how staff implement policy in the future. Gee argues that all policies have drastic impacts on how staff implement policy in the future and Bleep argues that this is different because it could allow for a minority of staff to push policies through with minimal input. Lucio proposes a minimal time for votes to deal with this problem and gee states that he will respond to each concern discussed thus far in staffchat once they are put on the 05 discussion. Athenodora cites Pseudo-Xenophon, Constitution of the Athenians 2.17 in staffchat as a relevant excerpt to the discussion while formulating a more complete comment to place on the 05 thread. Lucio interprets Athenodora’s reference to the Constitution of the Athenians to mean that “people will choose to abstain because they can choose to not be at fault if anything goes wrong, and reap the benefits if it goes right” and Athenodora confirms, while adding that there can also be valid reasons to miss out on a discussion or vote, and that future-proofing to ensure that this does not cause problems for votes intended to be in the interests of the Wiki's community would be a good idea.

Cyvstvi states that the issue isn’t really about the quorum and is actually a problem with people not bothering to vote or, when they do, it is done begrudgingly - resulting in many abstentions. He also adds that the difficulty of reaching quorum presents an issue coming from the number of inactive staff on the active staff list counting towards quorum. Athenodora suggests fixing this by making voting mandatory and lucio argues that this would cause poorer voting standards and more uninformed votes. Bleep suggests fixing this by implementing team-specific input on non-major policy proposals, to which Gee responds that this is even more extreme than reducing quorum to 1/3 of active staff, with lucio pointing out that most policy decisions are not any one team’s purview. Bleep agrees that this would be extreme and expresses agreement with the reduction of quorum as the best solution. Cyvstvi, lucio, and gee bring up the subjective nature of determining what is a major and what is a minor policy decision. Bleep proposes that staff discuss making a defined way to identify what is a major change versus a minor change and directs people to the 05 thread to discuss this further.

Bleep identifies the risk of allowing policy to pass due to time running out and a small number of staff voting/discussing. Bleep then identifies how the amount of time for voting has unchanged since 2016 without accounting for the changes in the lives of staff these days. Lucio argues that increasing the time can cripple proposals and points to admin fiats as the existing solution to the problem of votes/discussions needing more time. Lucio also states that there are few proposals needing many eyes compared to the number of smaller proposals that do not. Athenodora argues that certain proposals require certain people to be chased down and lucio points to the proposals that were stoppered while waiting for Taylor and procy to return as an example of why mandating specific individuals to be part of discussion may be a bad idea. Bleep agrees that fiats may be used to extend discussions when necessary but that she would prefer they not be used frequently to deal with discussions needing more time. Cyvstvi, fabled, and gee agree that, hiatus or not, some proposals just can’t wait for certain people to be present for the discussion, vote, and implementation of new policy. Fabled argues that, because of the volunteer status of staff, it is unreasonable to expect everyone to be available 24/7 and, as a result, it is unreasonable to complain when votes occur without certain people being present.

Stormfallen points out that some proposals do rely on expertise from specific individuals so we should have a way to identify these situations and act accordingly. Fabled agrees with the addition that, in situations like these where one person is absolutely necessary, we should also discuss why there is only one person capable of addressing that concern. Lucio responds to Stormfallen that, in these situations, it would make sense to use a fiat or vote the proposal down until that necessary person is consulted. Stormfallen replies to Lucio by linking the Junior Staff Promotions Reform proposal and stating that Bleep being unavailable at the time was an example of necessary persons not being consulted. Lucio points out that promotions are not reliant upon Bleep and Bleep retorts that it is MAST’s purview to wrangle the junior staff and make captains aware. Fabled states that they do not personally like the idea than anything done by staff is fully reliant upon the work or input of one specific person because it is unfair to that person, unfair to the rest of staff, and is too risky for the case where that person goes on break. Bleep then explains that she would have preferred to have been consulted on this proposal and has felt annoyed that she wasn’t consulted but now has to deal with the policy directly. Fabled points out that this is why it is important to not have one single person in charge of things. Athenodora inquires on how difficult it would be to reopen debates or propose new policies that would undo/change policies previously voted on and implemented. Cyvstvi states that they are unsure due to the quality of the site charter, which opens discussion between fabled, lucio, and bleep about the site charter rewrite

This conversation took place over approximately two hours and segued into a discussion about the rewrite of the site charter.

Recap: gee0765 asks if the Dexanote/Mann censure discussion has been delayed, as the specified starting date has passed. Zyn replies that "There's discussion happening about revising the staff disciplinary process in general" which may incorporate definitions and use cases for fiat, and notes she has "poked" the Disciplinary Team to respond. aismallard apologizes for the delay, and notes that an update has been made on 05command:
http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14230046/joint-statements-regarding-miscommunication-and-on-censure#post-5116510

TheDeadlyMoose indicates that they have recommended no further progress be made on the censures until a detailed review of the disciplinary policy is carried out, so that issues and obligations are understood in full. They note that the work is ongoing, and will likely lead to fiat reform (and may tie in to the rewrite of the Site Charter). Moose underlines their goal: get the issues addressed quickly without adding more mistakes to the existing litany. They also welcome further requests for accountability measures/information," and note that Dexanote "wants this over with as soon as humanly possible (and desires to be censured)." Finally, they acknowledge that delays have poor optics, but hope the work being done will justify this.

A thread is later opened to discuss the disciplinary and fiat processes, recapped elsewhere.
This conversation took approximately five hours.

Recap: Stormbreath initiates a thread discussing major moderator powers assigned by Wikidot, the two biggest ones being locking/unlocking pages and deletions. He concedes that page locking/unlocking is something that could possibly be entrusted to JS, but that deletions is a power that would never be given to JS. He claims that even if staff had the ability to seamlessly revert deletions, it would be extremely difficult to notice when a page was deleted, especially if it received relatively low traffic.

Cyvstvi requests to know why stormbreath would be hesitant to give page lock powers, to which stormbreath responds that anyone with such powers could unlock locked pages and allow for malicious editing to take place. Furthermore, locking and unlocking are not able to be logged anywhere, so it would be incredibly difficult to catch anyone abusing such power.

Stormbreath goes on to discuss how logging page locks could theoretically be implemented into Wikijump, but that it would still require some consideration in regards to execution and purpose. He does acknowledge that page lock management could definitely be given to OS, and that the inability to do so without making them a moderator (under Wikidot's staff structure) is incredibly inefficient. Cyvstvi agrees.

Stormbreath brings up another moderator power which he believes would be useful for JS or OS to have, that being the ability to upload files to pages made by other users. He explains that this would be very useful for Licensing staff in particular. He then returns to deletions permissions, and acknowledges that it may be useful to give OS such power, but only if deletions could easily be logged and reverted, which is presently impossible under Wikidot structuring.

This turns into a discussion on Wikidot vs. Wikijump staff structuring, and how much of these moderator permissions changes could only be made possible through Wikijump's staff structure capabilities, which still remains in the distant future. Aismallard enters and suggests that many of these issues are caused by Wikidot's hardcoded permissions structure. She uses page locking as an example, and how page locking is the only way of protecting against vandalism and unauthorized edits. She cites Wikipedia as an example of a far more efficient page protection system, with multiple "tiers" of page protection and permissions.

Aismallard brings up deletions as another case of Wikidot's lack of nuance, how all deletions are "hard" deletions, being completely unrecoverable, and are also not logged. She finishes by agreeing with Stormbreath that there needs to be a thorough assessment of what permissions are needed for different levels/roles in staff, so that Wikijump can be structured in a way that tailors to SCP Wiki staff's needs, rather than demanding that they contort around Wikidot's rigid and inefficient permissions systems.
This discussion takes around 20 minutes.

Recap: During a discussion about whether a user’s name is acceptable to be accepted onto the wiki, Limeyy asks whether being a President of the United States of America constitutes “unacceptable offsite behaviour.” Edna Granbo suggests this may be within the jurisdiction of the Anti-Harassment team, and Yossi states that actions taken while president or vice-president may be considered during AHT’s decision making. LadyKatie confirms this, stating that Bill Clinton would be AHT banned. In response to Calibold’s question about drone strikes on innocent people, DrBleep confirms that these would be considered harassment. Yossi at first states that murder is murder, not harassment, but appears to change their mind.

LadyKatie points out that AHT have never had to rule on “actual war crimes”, and suggests the matter would be handed to disc. Calibold brings up the insightful point that these murders did not take place on the wiki. Yossi makes a joke.³ LadyKatie agrees with Yossi. Yossi requests to be mentioned by name in this recap, and requests that this request also be recapped. Calibold also makes this request, adding that he wishes this gif be included. Vivarium wishes to be named, with flair. Vivarium. Yossi suggests that the recap team will be imbibing alcohol to deal with the ensuing recap of this conversation. Yossi asks whether the wiki should ban for tax evasion, and Vivarium takes a hardline stance against this "for reasons", stating he "pay[s] taxes". A list of public figures that would be banned by AHT is drafted by YossiPossi, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and The MyPillow Guy. GremlinGroup asks whether it is strictly necessary to recap this conversation.

Vivarium notes that he will be disappointed if any details are left out of the recap. Yossi notes they will be disappointed if this recap is not included. After confirmation from two moderators and one admin, GremlinGroup shares a screenshot of the beginning of the recap. Siddartha Alone states “Look mom I’m in a ironic recap” (sic).⁴ hungrypossum requests that Limeyy’s assertion that at least 1 wiki member has committed murder be included in the recap.

stormbreath asks if there are any US presidents that would not deserve an AHT ban, and postulates Jimmy Carter. Limeyy brings up the fact Carter supported Indonesian genocide, and stormbreath states that Carter must be duly punished. Aismallard then makes a statement that users who join with a name that isn’t theirs shouldn’t be permitted, and that AHT or Disc should be given the ability to ban for murder or assault. LadyKatie agrees that impersonating public figures should not be allowed. GremlinGroup suggests that murder and assault are covered by Rule 0.

In response to the idea that someone would not be allowed to join if their username matched the name of a celebrity, Limeyy and GremlinGroup state that the user could share a real name with a public figure. Riemann points out that under this policy, they would be banned for naming themselves after the German mathematician. Yossi requests clarification as to whether Riemann has ever killed anyone, believing Riemann was discussing aismallard’s second point. Aismallard states that Riemann isn’t using the full name, and that they are still alive (while the German mathematician is not). Riemann does not answer Yossi's question.

stormfallen notes that the conversation has become more serious, and states that it would be fine, but low priority, to make an addition to the rules allowing for bans to be made for conviction of serious crimes. He further states that AHT could be involved if this was not the case, if users did not feel safe. Finally, he notes that pre-banning the president would be "dumb and meaningless virtue signalling." aismallard agrees that pre-banning would be pointless, and notes that the Internet Outreach team would probably be involved. LadyKatie states that she doubts any staff member would want to ban the president. Riemann responds to Yossi's question about murder with the "eyes" emoji. Limeyy espouses the desire to ban the president, prompting three ":chad:" reactions. Calibold states it would be hilarious, and LadyKatie agrees but calls it "not worth doing," as she considers it work. It is clarified that AHT have no precedent for non-harassment crimes. LadyKatie states that this would be a low-priority addition to the site charter. Pighead nominates "all members of the French Government" for banning, Optimistic Lucio says that being members of a government already qualifies them for this.

Two hours later, thedeadlymoose replies to stormfallen’s statement, with clarifications. stormfallen is correct in saying that the Disciplinary team cannot ban someone for misconduct not covered by the rules (but that “severe misconduct” on-site, is bannable). Moose notes that adding a clause for serious crimes to the site rules would be “meaningless” as the Disc team could ban someone for something so extreme without a particular clause. stormfallen stated that the site’s Anti-Harassment team could act if users on-site feel unsafe, which Moose clarifies as only possible if the user crosses the AHT policy. Finally, moose states that banning a president sounds like an attempt to bait trolls to the site, rather than legitimate action. Calibold retorts that banning the president would be funny, to which Moose reacts with an “:abooz:" emoji (which reads “Admin Abooz pls Demot”). stormfallen states it would be funny for people not on the Wiki’s Internet Outreach team (prompting “:point_up_2:” reactions from aismallard and Moose). Calibold clarifies that banning the president would be a bad idea.

stormfallen requests clarification on a previous ban, made on a user who had been accused of sexual harassment in contexts entirely separate to the Wiki. It is clarified by staff that this ban was originally brought up by a sole actor on staff, Dr Cimmerian, as the situation was very rushed. The ban was later enacted by an admin of the wiki. After this is explained, Moose clarifies that the AHT ban on the user was possible as they were a member of the community and site, and that AHT does not have the ability to ban people who are not members of the site or community without Admin Fiat. They state that they are unaware of any community member being a President of the United States of America, to which Calibold responds “I have some news for you regarding my present occupation”, earning three more “:abooz:” reactions. Yossi replies to the same statement with “To your knowledge.”, earning three more “:abooz:” reactions and three “:staff:” reactions (which show a version of skippy crying with laughter).

LadyKatie agrees with Calibold that banning a president would be “extra super funny”, and Yossi seconds this agreement. Moose requests that the Internet Outreach captains be demoted, a motion which YossiPossi hands over to their team, the Internet Outreach team. Less than a minute later, Yossi states that the Internet Outreach team, which they captain, did not want to demote their team captain YossiPossi (who is one of the captains of the internet outreach team). Storm fallen notes that the recap of this conversation will be “a little awkward” given some parts deal with exceptionally serious topics while others are filled with lighthearted intra-staff communication. The conversation ends with Bleep’s statement, presented in full:

Hi everyone what's hap- *Smacked in the face by discussion to ban a motherfucking president*

This statement is met with three “:staff:” reactions.
This discussion took roughly five hours. It is of note that no disciplinary action was taken against the user whose name incited the conversation.

Recap: ROUNDERHOUSE feels PixelatedHarmony's involvement in many aspects of staffwork has been regularly used to distract from conversations about addressing systemic issues. He would like this to stop. LadyKatie begins to describe working as Junior Staff under Harmony; ROUNDERHOUSE asks her to stop. TheDeadlyMoose does not agree with ROUNDERHOUSE's perspective. gee0765 agrees that Harmony's involvement is often used as a way to avoid more in-depth discussions. The extent to which very active staff members determine site affairs is discussed, with occasional statements by ROUNDERHOUSE that this approach continues to be unhelpful for solving problems. The discussion about not focusing on the actions of former staff instead of discussing systemic issues has now become a discussion focused on the actions of former staff, notably Aelanna, AdminBright and Harmony. LadyKatie feels that the conversation is not productive. gee argues that the individual-level focus is not productive, but he feels the conversation is. LadyKatie states: "We all know what Harmony, Bright, et al did. We need to talk about what let them get away with it." Moose points out that long-term staff know, but new staff do not. hungrypossum, as a new staff member, agrees that the context is valuable but doesn't necessarily see its relevance to the earlier discussion.

A thread is made to discuss issues with former admins. hungrypossum asks what sorts of events triggered changes in policy, and what those changes were, and what the lessons ought to be. LadyKatie notes that communication used to be slow and difficult; Moose notes that AdminBright accrued far too much power, which required a great deal of effort to prise free, and that the Charter was written and staff teams were created in the aftermath; LadyKatie remembers a time when the different branches did not communicate. DrKondraki engaging in harassment and Fishmonger demanding that his articles be deleted are also discussed, as well as the difficulties inherent in working with right-wing users to achieve positive change. The thread gradually ends with reminiscences.

The conversation leaks out of the thread and becomes elliptical. Moose reminds everyone that they are working to prevent the abuses of the past from being repeated, noting that structures created by previous admins tended to allow such abuses. Pedagon notes that while previous administrators may have caused many of the issues facing staff and its structure, they are not doing so any longer; if present issues can still be traced to them, then the system has not been sufficiently improved in the interim. "We should be solutions oriented rather than explanations oriented as site staff," he states, as staff's tendency to provide explanations without solutions can look like making excuses or ignoring concerns entirely. Moose is not entirely convinced, replying "Solutions without explanations are pretty unhelpful solutions typically!" Pedagon clarifies that when an issue outlives the person who caused it, it represents a deeper problem which cannot be solved by complaining about the absent person. He also feels that problems can be profitably described, and solved, without lingering on personal details. It may not even be necessary to know why the problem happened to find a solution for it. Moose agrees that being "solution oriented" is good, stating that staff (particularly admins) must become more solution-oriented to prevent the wiki's existing problems reaching an "emergency level". Pedagon agrees: "this discussion is the undercurrent of everything we do. And, since I joined here, it seems like people are constantly playing catch-up to deal with issues and broken policies but there really is a need for a discussion of what assumptions we are all making that form our approaches. Like we can talk all day about "what should we say to this person" or "how do we word this policy" but those don't really address the fact that many of our approaches are rooted in systems of binaries and knowing rather than understanding and acting."

Moose feels that they and other past staff are responsible for this problematic paradigm and wishes to help correct it. Pedagon expresses appreciation for Moose's earnestness and willingness to discuss, but notes that the conversation has not made it past the explanation phase yet. Moose feels that the solution needs to start with admins; Pedagon feels that "the current initiatives of getting wide opinions on things and bringing people in who have different approaches to things (restorative justice vs punitive justice, new plagiarism understanding vs old plagiarism, etc.)" will be important.

Moose responds at length:
"my current solution for this is three-pronged
Prong 1: Disc issues / Censure. Necessary for admins & Disc to truly function and be granted any trust
Prong 2: Create systems for admins to have specific personal responsibilities and by default seek opinions from all staff in various venues (this chat, O5, etc)
Without such systems, admins can only be reactive unless they're team captains, and then only for their team‘
Prong 3: Charter reform
So we have a useful, actually usable and readable basis of policy, and coherent accountability processes
Secret bonus Prong 4: Creating better Rule 0 standards of behavior so we can finally further address staff’s Original Sin: the powerful get to abuse the powerless (and everyone gets to abuse each other within certain limits)
(But all the first 3 prongs need to be addressed before that can be addressed)"

Moose and Pedagon briefly joke about Pedagon becoming an admin, and Moose briefly discusses the interpersonal skills and dedication to accountability required for the position: "I would argue personally that either "high levels of interpersonal competency" or "high levels of collaborative ability on important projects" or "extremely good handle on policy" should be the only admin concerns for qualification." Pedagon agrees.

Pedagon feels that admins will eventually no longer be the natural drivers of policy. Moose feels existing channels for non-admins to "drive changes" are not used very often. Their intent with staff teams was that while "Any staff can propose policy," "Admins are obligated to propose policy." They are also responsible for "supposed to be disciplining staff who regularly don't vote on things" but do not fulfill this duty due to the lack of a functioning "enforcement mechanism." Moose does not wish to see admins become powerless, but feels that most users think admins have more power than they have and that most admins use less power than they ought to. Moose also encourages feedback, and holding admins to account which is not happening at present and is causing problems like the censure debacle.

Calibold suggests writing a new charter from scratch, as the "convoluted structure" is causing problems. Moose is making reforms a priority.

Pedagon outlines his understanding of an ideal admin position: "primarily (or exclusively) an actual administrative role rather than a standard staff member with power. Admins acting as heads of teams just makes little sense to me because it leads to really complicated power dynamics of dealing with their own members who break rules or require administrating… It also makes there be issues of lower level staff reporting their higher-ups when they have to report to the people in the same group." Moose agrees that the existing system is at least partially broken due to compromises made early on because of manpower shortages which did not properly distribute both power and accountability.
This conversation took place over approximately two hours within a larger conversation.

Recap: EdnaGranbo wishes to issue a stop order to a comment chain on the "Joint Statement re: Miscommunication and On Censure" mainsite discussion thread, where the conversation has taken a venomous turn. Multiple staff suggest not stop ordering and getting other opinions, and TheDeadlyMoose asks why this would be stop ordered. Edna wants to prevent "a full blown argument." Moose asks, non-rhetorically, if there is now a rule against arguments on the site. OptimisticLucio notes that there is not, but stop orders to prevent serious arguments are allowed. LadyKatie suggests merely issuing a suggestion to "take it back a few levels" to keep the conversation productive (which she will later do). Moose notes that the conversation is fraught, and they take issue with its contents, but they see nothing rulebreaking. Edna agrees not to implement a stop order. Moose considers the possibility that one user is being baited into an argument, and notes said user's history of taking such bait, but still does not see anything rulebreaking. HarryBlank notes that said user has quit the wiki. Staff briefly discuss the content of the argument and continue to bandy about the question of whether it would have escalated; ROUNDERHOUSE notes that rules were not broken, but stop orders have been made without rules being broken before. Dexanote agrees: "We can stop conversations if they look to be gonna be aggressive." Edna prepares a post to encourage the remaining participants in the thread to calm down, and workshops it. ROUNDERHOUSE wonders whether stop orders should be implemented when users who historically cannot avoid intense disagreement with each other seem to be heading towards one. Moose isn't sure; "I'm loathe to preemptively censor. But but, preemptive censorship is common." It is generally agreed that this particular argument was bound to happen at some point.

PlaguePJP has been involved in an altercation with a former staff member in the same thread, and staff briefly discuss this. Plague feels he behaved irresponsibly and edits his post, noting his emotional involvement.

stormfallen suggests that talking about users who can't see the conversation is problematic and unproductive. "Particularly as this will be recapped," HarryBlank adds, a note of weary panic evident.

As it is relevant to the joint statement argument, LadyKatie notes that the Anti-Harassment Team engages in very thorough research "because we don't want to miss a single detail."

ROUNDERHOUSE notes that as the argument has died down and one participant has left the site, this conversation should be over and no action should be taken unless there is further problematic engagement in the thread. Dexanote agrees.

"I feel like discussing a user in detail in recap is a little mean, especially since its focused on somebody who quit," LadyKatie says. OptimisticLucio replies: "That’s correct, but ignoring it when this kind of incident indirectly led to the existence of the recap team feels wrong." Moose feels a more pertinent issue is that these conversations do not address "the very real awful shit directed at admins & others."

ROUNDERHOUSE wants to know at what point someone's expressions of anger or mistrust can be considered a crossing of the Rule 0 (Don't be a dick) line. Moose and ROUNDERHOUSE briefly discuss ROUNDERHOUSE's aggressive behaviour, and whether he has done "damage" to the functionality of staff. Moose feels he has, but does not wish to see him become a "scapegoat" for the toxic environment admins have failed to prevent. Moose "sasses" ROUNDERHOUSE, who says it will go in the recap. He's only partially correct.

This conversation took place over approximately two hours within a larger conversation.

Recap: The question of the volatility of the SCP Declassified Discord server comes up. SCPD staff and members point out that said volatility was typically confined to the meta-scp-discussion channel, which was created to discuss issues with the wiki and its community and therefore often featured elevated and emotional rhetoric. TheDeadlyMoose feels they saw things (out of context) which felt like harassment, and J Dune asks to be sent this evidence (as he is an SCPD moderator). Moose agrees, but also feels they should visit SCPD to acquire better context. PlaguePJP and Dune welcome this. Prometheus notes that the Recap team wouldn't exist without meta-scp-discussion. ROUNDERHOUSE notes that complaints about staffchat leaks lacking context and painting it as a place of harassment are ironic, as staffchat has done precisely this to SCPD. Dune encourages anyone with information on harassment in SCPD to come to him. Calibold suggests that while SCPD's atmosphere has been improved, he senses a general desire to pretend that all problems have been dealt with. This thread lingers for a while; Moose agrees, but cautions against overgeneralizing the SCPD membership. Calibold agrees with this, but does not feel the overall question has been resolved.

This conversation took place over approximately two hours within a larger conversation.

Recap: Athenodora attempts to ping all staff while bringing up a series of tweets from djkaktus made 4 weeks earlier regarding the recent handover of SkipIRC, and mentions that they still upset her. She states that as she was the one who got the ball rolling on the handover,⁵ she believes she has every reason to be upset at the suggestion that she has been "unwittingly aiding and abetting a conspiracy", and asks "everyone from the new generation of staff" whether they believe there is truly a conspiracy from senior staff to nullify the changes brought on by the new generation. hungrypossum, being a perceived member of the new generation, questions why senior staff would willingly harm their public image, and then explicitly states that he does not believe there is a conspiracy. However, he does believe that "faulty communication takes time to correct, and humans are prone to mistakes." GremlinGroup does not understand the question, asking whether Athenodora wants to "talk to newer staff to see if they agree with the non-staff user who's already been warned about their comments." Siddartha Alonne states he does not believe there is a conspiracy, and Optimistic Lucio suggests that the tweets are not claiming a conspiracy from what he can tell, and that they are moreso an accusation of nepotism.

Athenodora responds to GremlinGroup, saying she wanted to get direct feedback from newer staff to get where the comment is coming from, and whether there is any merit to it that she cannot see due to her own biases, then repeats a point she made earlier regarding her being the one to initiate the handover. Lucio states that he does not believe the miscommunication was made intentionally, but that he would not assume conspiracy level malice from djkaktus. GremlinGroup's "official" (sic) response is that "[he is] not djkaktus and didn't make that statement." CaptainKirby states he is not going to answer the question out of annoyance from a mass ping, and that he is not new generation staff, but that he does not believe asking people whether they believe in a conspiracy is a productive way to start a conversation. Pighead states that the "fuckups we made in the past have already been documented," that she refuses to believe in a conspiracy, and that the tweets in question are "big words and nothing else." Athenodora responds to Lucio by stating that the tweets "[do] draw a connection between the IRC changeover and intent to 'nullify the changes being promoted by a new generation of staff' (to quote from the tweet)," believing that this implies meaningful intent rather than only suggesting unintentional nepotism. She also asks how she could have worded her question better in order to received an unbiased response.

Lucio responds that he sees how Athenodora is reading it, but agrees with Kirby that the conversation doesn't really go anywhere beyond people stating that they do/don't believe in a conspiracy, but Athenodora disagrees, stating that she cannot poll a non-representative sample and "call it a day." Ocuin believes that the wording was not the only problem, and that the mass ping itself nullified any potentially constructive discussion. Kirby states he does not have advice, as it is not his job to word Athenodora's question for her, and that he skimmed the tweet and her question and determined it was not productive. Pighead agrees, stating that the tweet itself is just an angry tweet and small in the grander scheme of the wiki. GremlinGroup mentions that djkaktus was already warned by AHT for such messages only a month prior. Others continue to agree that the mass ping was not useful. Athenodora asks GremlinGroup if the AHT warning includes this tweet, and GremlinGroup responds that neither of them are on AHT and thus cannot properly answer that question. Lucio states that if Athenodora wants to have a productive discussion about djkaktus's rhetoric, she should speak to a select few rather than calling more than half of staff to the stand at the same time. Cyvstvi states that she should let djkaktus blow off as much steam as he wants, as it is ultimately pointless, and asks that the channel not be mass pings other than in an absolute emergency. ManyMeats confirms that the tweets in question happened a full week prior to djkaktus receiving his AHT warning. Athenodora apologizes for the mass ping, but defends her use of the mass ping due to not wanting to just poll a few people to get one response that does not represent the thoughts of others. Lucio argues that “polling 40 at once will lead to 0 answers and 6 arguments” so it would be better to poll a bunch of individuals instead. Athenodora responds that this would sounds like she is setting up a conspiracy herself.

ManyMeats states that “a broad, wide challenge of an opinion expressed by someone who isn't in this server isn't going to prompt much discussion”, djkaktus isn’t actually accusing anyone of conspiracy, and that nobody cited djkaktus’ tweet as a reputable source to spark a conversation agreeing with him. ManyMeats then advises that athenodora make a broad offer for staff to give her opinions on an individual basis which she can later bring up as a larger discussion once she has some data. ManyMeats then adds an administrative voice (sic) in regards to the mass ping that each team ping should be used in moments where immediate or quick action is needed.

Athenodora responds to ManyMeats that the challenge was to an opinion “purported to be representing and defending the interests of the "new generation of staff" against alleged willful attempts to attack said interests.” She then argues that, assuming “the AHT warning to djkaktus rests on the assumption that he was acting in good faith”, she believes that “if the "new generation of staff" itself doesn't think that there are willful attempts to "nullify the changes being promoted by a new generation of staff"”, djkaktus wouldn’t make this statement in good faith. Therefore, in her opinion, it would be appropriate to “[establish] whether or not the new generation of staff does think that there are willful attempts to nullify the changes they promote.” Lucio responds by again pointing out that this opinion is being purported by someone not in staffchat and that nobody present is knowledgeable about the AHT warning issued to djkaktus because no AHT members are present. ManyMeats adds that nobody in staffchat can outline djkaktus’ motivations or reasons for his approach. ManyMeats also identifies that they are on AHT but would not be willing to reveal the details of the internal discussion leading to the AHT warning and instead points to the text of the warning that is available already.

Athenodora asks ManyMeats why staff can discuss disc and nondisc matters in staffchat but not AHT matters. ManyMeats outlines how, in this case, staff cannot identify if djkaktus’ tweet is about a single person or an actual group of 15 people refered to as “the new generation” and that only djkaktus can speak to that. Manymeats then explains that “Kaktus is and was welcomed to use his voice to criticize and examine the policies and positions that staff takes when he uses that voice to promote consideration and accountability (or anything else obviously responsible to do)” and that djkaktus has not crossed the line since his warning. Athenodora repeats her perspective that “the AHT warning, per its own words, is predicated on the premise that "The Anti-Harassment Team does not believe you are acting in bad faith" - i.e. a belief about motivations” and that “whether this premise is correct is relevant to whether the AHT warning is an acceptable resolution for the situation, and I should bring it up no further, or whether AHT made the wrong call here.” ManyMeats responds that what Athenodora is saying is a different discussion from that of if staff broadly believe in a conspiracy. ManyMeats then explains that the cited tweet from djkaktus used to spark this discussion was “obviously available to use at the time we issued our warning, and [AHT] still issued it with the phrasing and word choice [they] did,” which included the interpretation that djkaktus’ actions were not in bad faith after “many weeks reviewing actions taken, attempting to ascribe or ascertain intent, and calibrating [their] response.”

Athenodora responds to ManyMeats stating that it is her belief that “if there is a non-negligible number of new staffers believe that or something similar to that, then it makes sense for someone in djkaktus' position to come to the point of stating that as unqualified fact in good faith: he talked to his sources and took his sources' words as fact, and honestly reported what he's been told” and that “if there's no one among the new generation of staff who thinks this way, then djkaktus can rightfully be charged with at best negligence in not fact-checking his assumptions before stating them as facts, and at worst with defamation done in bad faith.“ Lucio claims that, if Athendora's concerns are of defamation, djkaktus has significantly more incriminating messages (which likely were taken into account by AHT), and so it was an odd example to use. ManyMeats adds that “Even if [Athenodora is] 100% right, I am unclear where it is the duty of any portion of staff, let alone AHT, to "charge users with negligence in not fact-checking"” when “people say wrong things all the time”, the cited tweet did not identify any individuals directly, and was instead directed at a “broad body made for the purposes of criticism.” Athenodora responds by explaining that her “ill-advised stunt above was done to fact-check [her] assumptions and gather evidence, to see whether [she] should be protesting against AHT's approach/at the warning AHT gave on grounds of it being mistaken or not.”

Modulum adds to the discussion that, in his perspective, “the actual issue isn't about whether to charge djkaktus with defamation or not it seems like we're more concerned about the appearance of internal conflict from the outside” which Lucio responds to by pointing out that this will continue to be an issue “until AHT and Disc regain public trust” – which AHT is making progress towards but disc “will take time. Especially since [the November 2020 incident].”

Twenty minutes later, Athenodora responds to modulum clarifying that she does “care about whether or not to charge djkaktus with defamation”, doesn’t “give a damn about whether the view on the outside sees other people on staff disagreeing with me or not - after all, people disagree with me all the time”, but does care “about upsetting people with the mass ping though.” Modulum thanks Athenodora for sharing her perspective and explains that djkaktus’ tweet felt to him “like such a non-accusation that [he] didn't realize people even remembered it.” Athenodora states that she remembered the tweet because she was “the person who called in Kufat in in the first place” so it was directly about her and, as a result, she couldn’t filter it out along with other SCP stuff that isn’t her business.

Athenodora then pings ManyMeats and asks how she might “protest” the ruling by AHT and “sue for a different outcome” if she believes that AHT’s warning was a mistake. ManyMeats responds by informing her that her inquiry has been noticed and that AHT will get back to her. Athenodora replies by stating that her inquiry is not purely hypothetical and that she does “fully intend to challenge AHT’s ruling here.” She then outlines her belief that the responses to her initial question “[seem] to support [her] suspicion” that djkaktus’ actions were not done in good faith and that, unless people from the “new generation of staff” speak up and agree with djkaktus, she will continue to believe that there is no indication that djkaktus was acting in good faith. GremlinGroup states his belief that Athenodora is unable to assume faith on djkaktus’ behalf, adds that AHT had blocked djkaktus’ ability to back up his claims, and ROUNDERHOUSE asks how “other staff agreeing with him or not agreeing with him” changes Athenodora’s “issue that djkaktus is saying these things without factual backing”

Athenodora responds to ROUNDERHOUSE by stating that “if there is a non-negligible number of new staffers believe that or something similar to that, then it makes sense for someone in djkaktus' position to come to the point of stating that as unqualified fact in good faith: he talked to his sources and took his sources' words as fact, and honestly reported what he's been told” and that “If there's no one among the new generation of staff who thinks this way, then djkaktus can rightfully be charged with at best negligence in not fact-checking his assumptions before stating them as facts, and at worst with defamation done in bad faith.” She then replies to GremlinGroup by pointing out how there was a week between the tweet and the AHT warning where djkaktus could have elaborated but chose not to. ROUNDERHOUSE argues that there is “no way for [staff] to actually confirm [kaktus’ intentions]” and that he “wouldn't fault any of these theoretical sources for not repeating those opinions in here after an emotionally charged request by you, and if they don't exist djkaktus can just say they exist and you're forced to either believe him or say he's lying because… they didn't telll staff that they think there's a conspiracy on staff when you asked.” ROUNDERHOUSE then states that he agrees with what ManyMeats had said earlier about the tweet not identifying any individual persons and is “a broad criticism of 'senior staff' which we've established is allowed + being wrong is not against the rules.” GremlinGroup agrees with ROUNDERHOUSE that djkaktus’ backing up of the claims is irrelevant no matter how much time he had to do so because the wiki does not have “any rules that allow people to be "charged" with "negligence" or "defamation".” Zyn posts a "General poke for deep breaths and such", reminds staffers to stay hydrated, and hopes they eat something tasty. GremlinGroup is "four parallel universes ahead"; he has already eaten some cake.

Vivarium joins the conversation by adding that “it would be in everyone's best interest to take a step back, and realize that the vast majority of people here don't actually believe that there is a conspiracy and that djkaktus' tweet is not even that much of a concern. If policy was actively being blocked by old staff, we wouldn't have the vast majority of the changes that have taken place so far. Like for real, the fact recap team exists and is widely considered to be an excellent team proves that alone” to which Recap member GremlinGroup adds by pointing out that recap team is “horrible” and “should not be respected.” ROUNDERHOUSE adds that a “conspiracy insinuates a very specific kind of secret, intentional, pre-planned and organized operation with collusion and shit” and points out that he had previously been accused of conspiracy so is aware of the weight and that falsely saying a conspiracy is occurring “is not against the rules or something that’s in our scope to punish.” Pedagon adds that “pointing out systemic issues =/= believing in a conspiracy. The whole critique people like me (let’s hear it for the new generation woot woot) have is that the hierarchy puts certain belief systems at the top without much to hold them accountable. This is true and has been changed through opening things up to more people. It’s ridiculous to try to frame this as a matter of individuals rather than the system that just empowers people to do what they think is right but may not be ideal.”

Athenodora responds to ROUNDERHOUSE by stating that he may be right, but she is “skeptical at the idea that these theoretical sources would be disinclined to speak up, now or earlier” when people in staffchat have felt free to express their controversial views on other policies and discussion topics. Vivarium states that they don’t actually believe djkaktus has sources telling him these things and that his statement is more likely a “reactionary statement from a not well informed view point.” ROUNDERHOUSE replies to Athenodora stating that he doubts staff with these opinions “would be so inclined after [she] masspinged all of staff with a loaded question and then pivoted into saying [she was] going to litigate AHT's ruling” because she put them on the defensive from the start – shooting her own point in the foot. ManyMeats and Vivarium request the conversation be moved to another channel. GremlinGroup states that there isn’t much point because the ping of everyone occurred within the current channel. GremlinGroup then provides a link to a different channel where the discussion had continued.

The discussion continued in a different channel of staff chat with Lucio explaining to Athenodora that “even if such opinions were present, they would be disinclined to present themselves by how you essentially put them on the spot by calling them conspiratorial assholes and pinging half of staff.” Athenodora responds to ROUNDERHOUSE and Lucio by explaining her observations that people are not too intimidated to speak up and that “it ultimately doesn't matter how obnoxious or not [her] questioning was.” Lucio disagrees and states that the level of how obnoxious he question is matters in determining if people will want to respond and ROUNDERHOUSE argues that anyone who might have spoken up would have been dissuaded the moment she brought up AHT. Siddartha, Lucio, and Edna all agree that they believe the tweet from djkaktus isn’t even an issue or big deal in the first place. ROUNDERHOUSE then adds that people would especially not speak up to answer Athenodora’s question because she “established that to some degree those sources are responsible for [kaktus’] statement” and argues that the present issue isn’t about djkaktus’ statement as much as it is about if assuming a conspiracy exists is rule-breaking.

The conversation then devolves into a discussion of the value of the argument and discussion from the start. ROUNDERHOUSE argues Athenodora’s argument is circular and GremlinGroup argues that the people present in the discussion cannot possibly answer Athenodora’s question. CityToast then states that “this kind of intra-staff discord is exactly the kind of thing djkaktus enjoys sparking, and given the fact that this chat is very leaky, it is likely he will read and enjoy what is going on here”, which Lucio agrees with. Edna adds to CityToast’s point that “someone probably will put this on the leaks twitter at this point”, which Lucio points out as a non-issue because it will be made public through this recap. GremlinGroup then asks if there is a point to the current discussion or are people now just “making character statements about a user who's already been contacted by AHT?” Vivarium, Lucio, and CityToast all agree that there is no value in continuing the discussion and begin discussing Darjeeling tea after Riemann admits to loving it.

Athenodora continues the discussion by stating that she has contacted AHT about her belief that they made a wrong call and has asked for clarification on the procedure to making a complaint about the outcome of the AHT case. GremlinGroup, Lucio, Vivarium, and Riemann all ask rhetorically why Athenodora has continued to talk about the AHT case and ask again for the conversation to be dropped. Athenodora answers this question by stating that her beliefs are based on her perception of staff opinions that she had attempted to gather in this conversation but that she is not asking for further staff action beyond the actions she had already made. CityToast provides the history of darjeeling tea bootleggers which Riemann, GremlinGroup, Lucio, and Edna think is really cool.
This discussion took around three hours.

Recap: Rounderhouse notes that a week has passed since this announcement, and asks whether operational Wiki staff have been invited to the Disciplinary team’s discord. After aismallard is pinged, she notes that she saw this reminder, and mentioned it within the Disc server. Twenty minutes later, the invite for OS+ is provided in a secure location.
This discussion took around twenty minutes.

Recap: thedeadlymoose begins a new thread in the staff discord, in order to answer questions about the Disciplinary Team’s process for disciplinary measures against staff members, as well as the Admin Fiat and its relevance to staff discipline. They note that these topics are being investigated by Site Admins and the Disc team, which is causing delays for the process of censuring Dexanote and Mann. They also note that they intend to post updates on this process within the thread.

stormfallen recalls that he suggested admin fiats be publicly listed, and that it may have been “lost on the ruckus.” He quotes his post on the charter rewrite/review thread saying as much. Moose notes that admins have “all but confirmed this internally”, but that it is not ready for live use. Moose also notes that the wiki’s Admins won’t be posting “parts of the current charter that we’re ignoring through admin fiat”, and that this is further out. They note that a log of Fiats with admin reviews is planned, and that this would be at least accessible to all staff members in the staff discord. They also state that they’re proposing that any staff member be able to request a review of Fiat, performed by admins, with a set deadline for a response and explanation. They note that this is popular among admins, but that this is all to be confirmed. Moose notes that this is relevant, as Dexanote’s censure may be due to “a misuse of [undeclared] admin Fiat”.

Hexick asks whether there have been any plans to implement checks and balances for Admin Fiat. Moose responds, saying that the plan is to make the existing checks clearer, and to add new checks that logically need to exist. They state that Fiats “shouldn’t exist without at minimum staff being able to force an explanation from other admins.” Hexick notes that the current checks and balances are “vague and hard to follow”, and Moose requests elaboration, as this may help the development of future policy. Hexick states that the “review” portion of fiats, to determine whether the fiat is abusive, could be expanded upon. Moose responds, saying they have a “half-finished bulleted list.”

ROUNDERHOUSE asks why the process, a “continuous, long-term, and possible indefinite process” is taking place “when censure discussions, already delayed for 11 months, supposed to begin.” Moose states that there has been no one with the time to do this since 2017. They note that they’ve been “driving” the process of investigating the current Fiat policy, stating that “just having me available on the daily speeds up admin processes by literal months”, and state that they consider this their fault. ROUNDERHOUSE says he doesn’t understand why this couldn’t be done after the current censures have been discussed. Moose states that Dexanote and Mann cannot be censured without proper reasoning, unless it’s “because people are real upset”, stating that this is no way to work, despite Dexanote explicitly preferring this reasoning. ROUNDERHOUSE wants to know what, in the current disciplinary process, is preventing this reasoning from being decided. Moose states that the event is too confused, and “all current staff” lack knowledge about the existing staff disciplinary process. They state that “barely any staff have ever been disciplined because Disc & most admins don’t understand” the process. They also note that their goal is to finish this disciplinary / fiat review within a week, and to then compose censure threads for Dexanote and Mann. However, they recognise this may be unfeasible, and state that aismallard has put up a deadline of 2 weeks.

After ROUNDERHOUSE stated he’d be more comfortable with a timeline, Moose requests elaboration, noting that he’s “rightfully unhappy with the 11 month delay with no sufficient explanation”. He notes that, after a year’s wait, he can wait 2 weeks, but that he wants the timeline for the people (not on staff) who have “been clamouring” for the censure. He states that he’s happy to wait for 2 weeks, so long as Moose’s promise for “periodic updates that movement is being made” is kept up.

aismallard opines that, now that the Disciplinary team’s discord (known as disc-ord) is open for OS+ staff, “the improved transparency will help people see we’re working on it”, and that it isn’t being buried by some conspiracy. ROUNDERHOUSE requests whether the discussion is happening in the sections of disc-ord that non-Disciplinary moderators can see, and gee0765 (a moderator) states that they aren’t. ROUNDERHOUSE believes this is “markedly worse” than the discussion being fully behind closed doors. aismallard states that the Disc team want to move the discussion, and ROUNDERHOUSE says he’ll wait for that.

ROUNDERHOUSE says that the optics of the censure delay, after the censure has just gained traction, are not good. He recognises that the intent is to allow the censure to occur smoothly and properly, but that the optics of this delay are not easy to overcome. Moose responds to ROUNDERHOUSE’s point with the belief that “working with optics is why we’re in this mess.” They think that periodic updates are necessary for accountability, and that they feel this way because the 11-month delay was ended by their discovery of “actual censure grounds” (suggesting that Dexanote’s behaviour in the [05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14129317/ November 2020 incident] was unannounced, improper fiat). They note that the non-staff that ROUNDERHOUSE said were “clamouring” for the censure of Dex and Mann should be acknowledged, but that this is dependent on why they are “clamouring”, and state that they may be able to talk to these people if they join SCPD. Moose clarifies their previous statement, saying that an “obsession with optics” was something that led to pressure on many “shitty decisions from Disc & Admins for years”. They don’t deny that optics are important, but they say they don’t want optics placed over ethics or accountability. ROUNDERHOUSE says he is only asking this because he wants to know what to say when people ask him about the process, and he and moose agree that the periodic updates will be a positive form of accountability; ROUNDERHOUSE notes that the updates will be substantial things he can point to as progress, and that the people he’s referring to are not unreasonable. Moose agrees, saying that questions from non-staff can be passed on into this thread if ROUNDERHOUSE so chooses.
This section of the recap took around two hours.

A day later, moose sends a quick message saying there’s been “not a ton of progress” due to all the admins being busy.

On the 29th, Moose posts a 2.5k word essay of the term “purview” and its relevancy to the topics of the thread. They state that, for the SCP Wiki’s staff, the phrases “purview” and “responsibility” have been merged. They believe these terms are “very different”. They state that purview is shared by anyone with a stake in an aspect of the site, while responsibility is assigned to a small group of people who are held accountable for acting on the issue. They state that having purview for a topic means that a staff member can act in relation to it, but that no one can make them do it, or hold them accountable for it. Put broadly, staff have the purview to propose site-wide policies, but only admins or specific teams are responsible for proposing policy that is good for the health of the site. They say that even this may be too generous, and that they would prefer to narrow it down to assigning projects to individual admins and team captains.

Having clarified the basic definition of purview with regards to the SCP Wiki, moose begins to explain why they believe it is relevant to the topic of the thread - the possible censure of DrEverettMann and Dexanote, and the Staff Disciplinary Process as a whole.

Dexanote, during the second Disciplinary thread for Cerastes, made the following statements, which Moose believes are expansions of the Disciplinary team’s purview:

Normally this is not a disciplinary issue at this level. However, multiple users, while reviewing Cerastes’ drafts, directly told him that he was using Magnus’ story elements, as described above.

As this is a Disciplinary thread, Disc team will have the final say, and is expected to approach as evenly and fairly as possible.

They state that these expansions of purview were unreviewed by other admins, were not backed up by other admins, and that they may even be considered to be “abuse of admin Fiat”. They also note that the team developing the case for censure is also considering charging Dexanote with “abuse of position by poor judgement” for behaviour in the [05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-13868187/ first Disciplinary thread for Cerastes], for presenting “pretty much just Magnus argument w/o doing his due diligence”. They state that, while the investigation is ongoing, they believe it is obvious that some form of censure is merited⁶.

Moose goes on to clarify the issue surrounding the motivation of the misuse or abuse of admin Fiat. While they state that the abuse should be punished regardless of the motivation, Moose also clarifies that Dexanote “tried to explain himself, but… had personal life shit to deal with and, honestly wrote a rushed explanation”. They say that it is Dexanote’s responsibility to fix this, but that they will try to explain their understanding of his motivation to allow him to “save his energy” to apologise for the November 2020 incident, “which he accidentally cut from his rushed statement”, and to revise his statement for errors.

Moose proceeded to explain their interpretation of Dexanotes motivation during the November 2020 incident. This took around 1k words. Moose has informed staff and recap, over a week later, that this aspect of their thread contained severe misinformation. Recap team has been informed that a release of Moose’s misinformed statements could lead to harassment, and as a result the summary of this has been expunged from the recap.

They explain that purview is granted or rescinded by Admin Fiat, backed either by “staff acclamation”, or concern about abuse of power.⁷ It can also be granted by a Staff Vote on 05. Moose notes that staff members cannot add to purview directly, but must use one of these routes. Moose explains that “staff acclamation” is not sufficient without Admin Fiat, because no one would be accountable for the decision of “all or most staff”. They state that this is a necessary downside to the Fiat power - an admin must be accountable to the power’s consequences. This encourages the use of a staff-wide vote in place of such Fiat.

Thedeadlymoose notes that “staff acclamation” is an unwritten policy, but that Fiat is written. This means that only the Admin who used Fiat to ratify the acclamation could be held accountable, while no other staff could. The end result of this is that Admins are always accountable for major changes that occur without an 05 vote, and may be punished if the action or its consequences were negative. They add that this does exclude unforeseen consequences or conduct issues by non-admin staff members.

The next topic thedeadlymoose covers is that of Team Power & Purview, and how this is created, changed, or taken away. They begin by explaining that purview is first provided upon the creation of a team; a single admin uses Fiat, which will be reviewed by available admins before the action is taken. They note that, as of yet, the requirement for this review to be performed before the Fiat is unwritten. The phrase “Group Fiat” is similarly unwritten, which means that this is unenforceable unless the SCP Wiki’s site undergoes a major or minor change as a result of the Group Fiat. The use of Fiat is, however, subject to determination of abuse⁸ based on these unwritten rules if the abuse was determined to be:

• grievous
• intentional
• extremely foolish
• any of the above

They clarify that this means that non-admin staff are protected from accusations of abuse based on unwritten rules, while admins (having greater power) have greater vulnerability to this discipline. This fact has led to the Disciplinary team needing to assess the disc policy in order to continue with the ongoing censure process.

Moose then states that, in order to avoid any abuse of the Fiat power when expanding or contracting purview, the following requirements (as explained here) must be fulfilled:

• The team requests a new permission or ability,
• The team is determined to have abused a permission, or
• A situation arises that requires attention, and administration determines that this team is best suited for dealing with the situation.

Moose summarises that, in this case, the use of Admin Fiat is done to “cut red tape”, and that otherwise all team power changes would have to be done on 05. They state that Admin Fiat, overall, exists to cut red tape, or add it in the case of power abuse or community harm. They also acknowledge that this particular point has not been written down.

Moose moves on to discuss how the removal of purview or power is purposefully more difficult. The team must be investigated; if they have abused a permission, or are unsuited to have purview, they may experience a removal of purview. Moose states that administrators must “deliberately, carefully, and with deliberate explicit intent” remove purview from the team. Without doing so, they are not permitted to use Fiat to remove purview. They are still subject to review by other admins, and to accountability to all of staff. They state that this is in place to ensure Admins do not abuse their power to reduce the power of a team when they are personally unhappy with its work.

To summarise, Moose states that a single admin cannot add power to any team without approval from other admins, or with an 05 staff vote. They explain that this is precisely what Dexanote did by extending the purview of the Disciplinary team.

Thedeadlymoose then goes on a “BONUS SIDE TANGENT”, explaining that it is rare for any team to have sole purview over any topic. They provide the example of the Disciplinary team sharing power with Admins, but state that the Anti-Harassment Team is “one of the only big exceptions”; they state (from the position of a member of AHT) that a common question within the team is whether a case is better handled by the Disc team or by no one, rather than AHT.

Moose provides a further example of purview expansion; they explain that the Tech Team was given sole purview over tags after “edit wars” between staff members and Aelanna (the captain of the Tech Team at this point). They explain that the Admins of the time explicitly removed the purview over tags from themselves, giving it only to Tech. Tech maintains purview over tags, and can share it at will. Expansions of this purview can be performed with an all-staff vote, or by the Admin Team or Tech Team. As a result, admins cannot create or alter tags, even with Fiat, without Tech approval. They also note that Admin Fiats cannot be private without any specific reason. This is done because the Site Staff need to be able to hold Admins accountable for their fiats. A private Fiat, particularly one made without the knowledge or permission of other Admins or AHT, would be an abuse of power.

Noting that they are finished explaining purview and its relevance, Moose takes a step back and welcomes questions.
Moose’s discussion of purview takes around an hour, containing roughly 2.5k words.

aismallard thanks moose for their work, then mentions Riemann’s suggestion that a rigorous and public log of Fiat uses be kept. She suggests an 05 thread which would cover the Fiat’s action, the Admin who used it, and its review. She identifies an issue, that people forget to update the log, or don’t identify the action as Admin Fiat, but states she believes this can be mitigated. With this said, she asks people for thoughts on the suggestion, and asks how historical issues with staff authority can be avoided. stormfallen notes that he also suggested this idea. thedeadlymoose responds, saying the Admins are in favour of a discord channel (open to all staff) and are considering an 05 thread to log.

Stormfallen asks about “staff acclimation by admin fiat”, and how it works alongside this quote from the staff charter:

Staff may create voting threads in the Voting Threads section of the Migration and Policy Discussion subforum. This is optional and to be used in the event that a consensus cannot be clearly reached on a given topic.

Moose states that staff can always put a vote up, “no matter what”, with no Fiat needed. In response to stormfallen’s follow-up question, asking what the purpose of acclimation is, Moose states it establishes a lack of Fiat abuse in the eyes of staff. stormfallen later notes that his question was answered and that he misinterpreted.

Moose goes on to explain that previous decisions (such as giving Disc broad secrecy powers) are not abuses of Fiat, as they are supposed by staff acclamation. Similarly, allowing Disc to ban people based on “gut feelings” was an abuse of power by all staff, by staff acclamation. Moose then clarifies that Dexanote did not gain acclamation for his use of Fiat during November 2020.

Moose states that “Fiat powers have become deeply unclear to admins and they're afraid to use them, rightly, but… too afraid” - Admins should be able to use Fiat without acclamation, but the number of situations where this is not abuse is small. Moose states that Admins haven’t been using Fiat much, even when it would be accompanied by acclamation, which has led to an excess of “red tape”, due to this fear.

Riemann notes that recent uses of Admin Fiat have been controversial, and Moose agrees. Riemann then states they don’t believe this indicates that Admins are “afraid” of using Fiat, and shortly after states that they don’t mean for this statement to appear broad or accusatory. Moose says they feel that not all admins are afraid of using Fiat, but those who use it use it in narrow situations they understand (or feel they understand).
This portion of discussion takes place over 20 minutes.

Optimistic Lucio takes issue with Moose’s statement, that Dexanote used Fiat without even knowing he was using it. Lucio believes that this was a misuse of power, but that labelling it as a Fiat when it was not explicitly stated as such by Dexanote “legitimises” actions taken in the past. Moose states that calling something a Fiat doesn’t make it more or less legitimate.

Lucio also takes issue with the idea that all of staff abused their power by allowing Disc to ban based on “gut feelings”, as he believes staff “assumed that was what was allowed”, rather than agreeing to it. He shares his personal experience of joining staff and assuming that legislation existed allowing the current behaviour of staff to occur. Moose responds, clarifying that Disc was intentionally granted the power by Acclamation a long time ago, and that they agree that Lucio’s experience is why change needs to be made.
This portion of the discussion occurred over roughly 5 hours.

gee responds to Moose, stating that a line in the site charter allows for disciplinary action against staff for "behaviour unbecoming of a staff member", and so does allow disc to ban based on "gut feeling. Moose clarifies that they were referring to disciplinary actions against non-staff, to which gee responds that rule zero ('Don't be a dick) achieves the same thing. Moose agrees.

GremlinGroup tells moose that their daily updates are enormous, and thinks they should be posted to 05command instead of remaining within staffchat. This message receives six 'This' reacts from other staff. He says that the content of the announcements is not suitable for the quick discussions had in staffchat, and that as it is taking place within a thread the visibility is limited. Lucio says that information such as the explanation of purview should be visible to all staff, as allowing it to be lost in a discord backlog would cause the same issues the explanation was intended to fix. Moose responds to GremlinGroup's request, saying that everything discussed will be on 05 at some point. They respond to Lucio too, clarifying that what had been posted in staffchat was only a first draft.

GremlinGroup responds to moose, reiterating that he believes the discussion taking place should be happening on 05 instead of discord, and that by discussing topics in discord "you have no transparency or you have the illusion of transparency post-discussion". Athenodora compares moose's initial post to recap drafts brought past staff before being posted, and GremlinGroup replies that the discussion that had been taking place did not accurately represent that. He brings up the fact that moose initially presented the thread as a Q&A, and that the updates being discussed are of interest to all members of the community. HarryBlank and Cyvstvi agree that the discussion should be taking place on 05, with the latter saying that the discussion consisted of people repeating themselves without engaging the community, and that this behaviour had caused increased tensions in the past.

Athenodora responds to GremlinGroup's point about the lack of visibility of Threads, saying that moose had been drawing attention to the conversation in the main discussion channel. GremlinGroup says that this has only caused 'at least two' additional people to join the discussion. Athenodora thinks that moose created the thread to iron out kinks and get basic feedback on a post, before moving it to 05. moose responds to GremlinGroup's request to move to 05, saying that the points that had been made are not in support of moving the discussion entirely. They then explain their motive for posting first drafts in staffchat, stating that they were trying to avoid "a giant wall of text 05 thread that no one reads except us", and that they hoped that the thread could have been a "more efficient discussion with more room for participation from others". They also say that several staff members had requested the process be as transparent as possible.

aismallard says that she believes the argument in favour of moving to 05 is that it is inherently transparent, and that nothing would need to be ported over if discussions began there. moose asks what participants in the thread would want to happen regarding updates. They tell aismallard that they do not want to put first drafts on 05 as it could cause public confusion, and that 05 updates would be very slow and very short. They explain that many of the drafts have policies or explanations that affect other drafts, and that they need to remain in draft form until all are finished. They say that posting the drafts in a thread accessible by all staff instead of within more exclusive private staff chats was what others had requested. (edited)

Athenodora suggests that a post in the announcements channel of the server could help bring more staff to the thread. moose is unconvinced that the thread is serving its intended purpose, but says they will consider the suggestion. They elaborate on the intended purposes, saying that the thread was meant to discuss policy with staff concerned about policy issues, explain why Dexanote's censure was delayed for so long, plug holes in first drafts to avoid 05 threads becoming circular arguments and nitpicking, and to provide proof that progress was being made. They explain that requests to move the discussion to 05 mean admins cannot fulfil any of the listed points, as they aren't ready to put anything on 05, and that they have been placed into a trap, as they must either post rushed updates or post nothing at all and face "Doom". GremlinGroup responds, saying they're unsure why staff are getting drafts of daily updates, and that he believes he disagrees with moose on the purpose of a staff chat and a staff forum and neither will change each other's mind.

ROUNDERHOUSE says that he believes the idea that 05command is only for fully polished and already approved statements inhibits its use as a place for live statements and discussions, with the latter ending up happening in discord. He says that discord is not suited for this type of discussion, and that he is unsure why admins are okay with junior staff seeing these drafts, but not the users who would benefit most from seeing them. Athenodora responds, saying that she sees the logic in avoiding contradictions and misunderstandings in statements before they are posted onto 05, as they aren't useful if the community struggles to understand them. Limeyy says that they would rather a post which is hard to understand than no post at all. ROUNDERHOUSE agrees with Athenodora in that he thinks avoiding contradictions and misunderstandings is ideal, but thinks there are ways to do this while also having the discussion on 05.

Captain Kirby says that there is too much upscroll for anyone newly joining the conversation to be able to catch up, and agrees with other staff's suggestion that the discussion moves to 05command. He says that he doesn't understand why people see going to 05 with imperfect policy as a bad thing, as policy is meant to be discussed on 05 before voting anyway. ROUNDERHOUSE adds that it is far easier to read and respond to 05 posts, and that the discussion would end up on 05 through recaps anyway. Kirby tells ROUNDER that the discussion should be posted to 05 to avoid making work for recaps. ROUNDER tells kirby that he is on Recap team, and calls him a "moron". moose says that they typically use discord for lectures and essays, so have a different view to people whose main activity on the platform is talking to friends. ROUNDERHOUSE responds to moose's previous message about a trap being constructed, saying that while people want the discussion on 05 they would choose updates on discord over no updates at all. Pedagon agrees with ROUNDER regarding the difficulty of drafting on discord, and says that the discussion would be perfect on 05 if the post clarified that it was a work-in-progress.

Kirby tells moose that their discussion style (responding to every message posted in order) is something which is far easier to work with on forums compared to discord, as it ends up with multiple similar points being discussed at once in the same channel. moose tells ROUNDER that he often makes very harsh and specific critique to posts on 05, along with many other participants in the discussion. They are concerned that posting rough drafts to 05 would lead to posters feeling harassed due to this, and they say that they have received harassment due to posts on 05 in the past.

DrBleep responds to ROUNDER calling Kirby a moron, saying that resorting to personal attacks is unnecessary. ROUNDER responds, clarifying that Kirby is a friend of his, and that he believed this was well-known enough that he could get away with calling him a moron. Kirby also responds, saying that he would have mentioned if he had felt personally attacked by being referred to as a moron. Pedagon responds to moose's post about harassment concerns, asking what would need to change before moose is more comfortable with discussions occurring on 05. moose responds, and is unsure of what exactly would solve the issue. They explain that their original plan was to compose policies in a small group, and post to 05 when this group had checked for errors, but that this led to people thinking no work was being done and accusations that admins were trying to let Dexanote avoid censure. They say that this method would only work if they were given more time, and people assumed that progress was being made behind the scenes. They say that they understand people's difficulties in responding to messages on discord. They also reply to Kirby's earlier point about their discussion style, saying that they had a similar experience discussing on 05 in the Joint Statement re: Miscommunication and On Censure as they do in discord.

Athenodora raises a concern she has about discussions being posted to 05. She says that past mainsite mirror discussions for controversial 05 threads have been chaotic, and is unsure if staff has the manpower to handle a chaotic thread at the same time as the 05 discussion. moose says that they don't think more manpower is needed, as they have zero intention to post their unfinished drafts on 05. They mention that they used to do it frequently, but were asked to stop because their first drafts tend to be extremely long. ROUNDERHOUSE responds to moose's comment about his harsh posts on 05, stating that it "is a fair and valid concern", but that he is not the only person commenting on 05 threads and would not be one of the people benefiting from the discussion being more accessible. He says that moose's messages give off the impression that they are concerned about posting on 05 because of "how opposition will engage with it", or that ROUNDER would "use it as a platform or something", but thinks the same behaviour would occur in discord. He then says that the opposition is mostly about whether the record is permanent or not, as discord threads archive after 24 hours of inactivity, and that avoiding 05 to avoid the risk of a permanent negative record is inappropriate.

Kirby responds to moose's message regarding having a similar experience on 05 and discord, saying that while they may have a similar experience, other staff and users have an easier time interacting on 05command. moose responds, explaining that they were talking about their point of view because they had been told their original message describing it was difficult to understand. Kirby says that moose replied to the wrong message, as they had responded to the message directly talking about how moose's messaging style was better suited for 05, and that due to how discord is set up they may not have understood that that point was separate to other points made. He mentions that this is another reason why discord is not ideal for long and complex discussions. Moose responds, saying that they would like to use whatever method makes others' lives easier.

Pedagon suggests to moose that they make occasional small updates in staffchat, so that staff know that things are being worked on, but that all big discussions with more details occur on 05. He gives an example of how these could work. Kirby says that these short updates could also occur on 05. ROUNDERHOUSE says that he feels bad, as he'd initially been pro-updates because he was expecting shorter summaries instead of extended drafts. He mentions that he does appreciate the "(limited) transparency" . moose replies, saying that they'd been trying to make rounder happy, as they see him as a friend and a leader of his "side". They say that they should have asked what was wanted in terms of updates, instead of going with what they would have wanted personally. ROUNDERHOUSE admits that he is not respected enough to be a leader. moose says that the transparency isn't limited, as they had this conversation in general staffchat instead of admin or disc chat, to which ROUNDER responds that it is limited by being in staffchat at all. They express disappointment at the lack of engagement by most staff. Kirby says that threads are terrible for engagement, and moose mentions that they have never used threads before and had had them recommended to them for the discussion, but was now aware that they were not ideal for the job. They say they're trying to figure out what the correct move is, and mention that ordinarily they would go to 05.

Pedagon says that while he appreciates the transparency, discord policy talk wears him out and that he hopes it is clear why 05 should be the default place for extended conversations which do not require privacy to occur. In a second paragraph, he responds to one of moose's concerns regarding cluttering 05 threads with several responses, suggesting that people could post without official responses for 2-3 days, similar to the Town Hall threads. ROUNDER agrees with dagon's first paragraph. moose says that they are not comfortable with 05 unless there's a longer waiting period before things are posted, and that they have not seen it being effective in early stages of discussion. ROUNDER responds to this, saying that he thinks it comes down to a difference in how he and moose approach discord as a medium. He is unsure how to bridge this gap.

moose responds to Pedagon's earlier suggestion of shorter summaries, saying that while it's a reasonable suggestion they are unsure if they would be able to write brief summaries, as they find it much easier to write walls of text. They say that they would go to staffchat to avoid accidentally posting walls of text on 05, and to avoid discussion being derailed by addressing nitpicks. aismallard asks if putting walls of text in collapsibles on 05 would help. moose does not think it would. Athenodora asks if key posts could be pinned in the thread. moose says they could be, but they are planning to move away from use of the thread to attempt Pedagon's suggestion.

moose says that Pedagon's statement that discord discussion is more tiring than other forms is useful, as they were not aware this was a common problem. They think the suggestion of no responses for a certain period of time is interesting in theory, but are worried that staff may make "personal attacks and questions on an integrity that, if allowed to stand without response for a few days, can settle in as established fact". ROUNDER asks if any other admins or disc members could assist in cutting down statements to avoid them becoming too long. moose is unsure, and says that they haven't found anyone who could as most are absent or overloaded, and that they have knowledge that other admins don't due to how long they have been on staff. aismallard asks if moose would be comfortable having a discussion on 05, in which they would be able to post walls of text. moose says that they are not currently comfortable with that, but that this may change in the future. They say that they have learned to expect personal attacks and accusations of malice on 05, which wastes discussion time, and that while it's similar in staffchat they can plan for a specific audience.

A few hours later, moose responds to Pedagon's summary suggestion again, saying that they think it sounds like the most doable approach and will attempt it. They ask if Dagon or anyone else has additional details they wish to add, and express their appreciation to Dagon for offering the suggestion.

Recap: Prometheus begins a new thread introducing their three nominees for Recap Team; ROUNDERHOUSE, Calibri_Bold, and Cyvstvi. These three users were nominated to be added to Recap due to expressing a want to become involved, recommendations from other users, and the need for more manpower to assist in the team’s workings. Prometheus invites staff members to offer opinions and concerns on these three new members. Edna Granbo expresses concerns regarding how ROUNDERHOUSE’s nomination may be viewed by non-staff users, with hungrypossum mentioning the then-recent censure discussion thread for why said people may dislike the promotion. Prom replies that similar concerns were raised in adcap, and states that whilst ROUNDER's appointment may be controversial, it would be a net negative to the team to not include him. Additionally, if ROUNDER allows his biases to present themselves within recaps, he would be removed from the team - as with any other member. Vivarium chimes in that they trust Prom to take care of Recap and endorses the nominations. Pedagon expresses dismay that ROUNDER had to make a statement of impartiability, expressing that users should be more trusting of the internal bias-checking.

Athenodora suggests placing the new candidates on a "trial period" for the next month to see if the three new users can perform their jobs correctly. Pedagon, Edna, and possum argue that that’s what the role of JS is for and that it would be unfair to discriminate between different teams in this manner.

Discussion spirals into questions regarding the size of the recap roster, as it presently had thirteen members doing work for the recap team. Pedagon claims that only six members were actively involved in recapping, with two members pulling most of the team's weight. Vivarium suggests cutting down “dead weight” from the team, as it helped with workload organization in MAST.

gee asks why this process is necessary to add members to the Recap Team, as any other team can simply just add more members. Edna argues this is due to how public recaps are, with Vivarium adding that it is similar to the process of adding members to MAST. Joreth asks why so many recap members are necessary, to which Prometheum responds with an image of a concerningly large list of topics that needed to be recapped, with multiple team members adding that this is a roundabout request to “please use O5 [more].” Prom also adds that Pedagon’s comment regarding the team roster is correct, and that only a handful have been consistently recapping, which they do not blame them for as “it’s tough and real life comes first.” Vivarium tells Prom to not be afraid to remove inactive members from the team, to which they respond that they’ll be talking to inactive members soon.

Gee repeats that longer discussions should be primarily on O5command rather than staffchat, with Joreth echoing their statements. Pedagon adds that real life issues have left no free time to recap, and jokingly suggests a policy proposal to move all conversations longer than 2 hours to O5command. Vivarium says that they and WhiteGuard will soon present a proposal that will lead to a “big” conversation, and clarify said conversation will occur on O5command.

Prometheum asks, once again, if there are any major concerns regarding the three proposed team members. Mombun echoes that recap members going through a separate JS process feels odd, with a few more members agreeing. Vivarium argues that this is because recap team’s actions affect every staff member, unlike IO or MAST which are self-contained. Pedagon asks will this process apply to other inter-staff or “holistic” teams, to which Viv “hopes so.” Gee claims that this statement implies staff members don’t use the site, since any modification to the site would affect all staff members. Vivarium claims that by that logic all teams should seek approval from all staffers to add JS. Gee states his argument is that recap shouldn’t ask for approval, but Vivarium believes that all Junior Staff should be approved by general staff.⁹

Calibold asks if the JS nomination thread will have a mainsite mirror. Pedagon instead suggests having a running recruitment thread where all teams be recommended/volunteered to. This motion receives general support, and Prometheus states they will work on it.

This conversation took place over 5 hours.

Recap: thedeadlymoose brings a question to StaffChat, asking how people would answer the question “Who do I have to get approval from to make Official Staff Changes to the SCP wiki?” As an example, they bring up recent changes to navigation onsite. stormfallen says he brings it up with the relevant team captain, or the relevant head of a sub team. gee0765 agrees, saying this is likely to be how most staff answer. stormfallen extends his answer, saying if no captains or subteam-heads were available, he’d talk to mods and admins. gee0765 says that for a general proposal, they’d bring it up on 05command, citing their unarchival proposal as an example. stormfallen adds that he’d trust all members of licensing and tech to either know the answer to a question, or know who to ask that will know.
This conversation took about ten minutes.

gee0765 brings up a section in the site charter which states that Reserve staff members may not hold the position of captaincy, then points to SoullessSingularity, who is listed as Site Crit Captain despite being declared reserve. Gee proposes to make Limeyy Captain and Riemann Vice Captain, as they're both listed as Temporary Captain and Temporary Vice Captain, respectively. Limeyy notes that as ManyMeats is also listed as Temporary Captain, they don’t mind whether they’ll be captain or Meats, but that one of the two should occur nonetheless. ManyMeats adds that Soulless has not officially been declared in reserve status, and that this change should be done by the admins, which Meats forwards to admin chat. In response, stormfallen posts a link to Soulless going on reserve until further notice.
This conversation takes place over roughly 6 hours.

After the discussion of SoullessSingularity’s reserve status, WhiteGuard brings up the topic of Site Crit's continued existence, stating that previous attempts to reinvigorate the team never impacted the community, and that the proposed changes for Site Crit turn it into a wholly separate team than its predecessor. He proposes removing the team wholesale, and reintroducing it once the new team is ready to go. Limeyy claims in response that Site Crit shouldn't be dissolved, since they still have primary purview over the #thecritters IRC chat, they keep an eye out for problematic mainsite critique, and they'd be useful for the upcoming critique initiatives. Limeyy claims that such an action would be unnecessary bureaucracy, and would require redistribution of Site Crit's current tasks.
Limeyy summarizes that the pros of such an action would be good optics (stating that they don’t agree, but that some people may find the existence of an inactive team dishonest), temporarily solving the captaincy problem without properly addressing the core issue, and reducing the number of requests for help Site Crit members get by mainsite members. Whiteguard asks if Limeyy actually saw Site Critters deal with problematic critique, as he's already seen general staffers do the same. Limeyy replies that they did, and that it's currently Site Crit's jurisdiction. They also add that this will likely be the least disruptive change after dissolving.

TawnyOwlJones adds that MomBun Staffposted on a number of posts containing problematic critique before taking a break, and while general staff could take on the responsibility, it sees it as needless. Limeyy adds that Site Crit could simply remove all unnecessary staffers from the team and reorganize the structure, but that it seems incredibly pointless in light of PWRD¹⁰. Whiteguard claims that since he's seen regular staffers staffpost throughout his entire tenure, most of Site Crit's responsibilities are either only going to be relevant in the future, or handled by other teams. He believes that Site Crit's current primary focus is controlling an IRC channel, and adds that the team failed to reach its own standards in multiple avenues: the team does not respond to every posted article, it is not maintaining How To Write an SCP, it does not assist Rewrite Team, criticism violations and poor on-site critique are handled by non-site crit staff, and the team seems to not be updating and proposing changes to documentation.

Taking the most recent Site Crit 05 post (the PWRD proposal, which links to a draft listing Site Crit’s current responsibilities), he also claims that the only things the team handles are on the IRC channel. Whiteguard states that calling Site Crit an actual team is dishonest, and that the team's responsibilities should at the very least be removed until the team does do said responsibilities.
stormfallen responds to WG saying he personally has not seen Site Crit assisting new users in the IRC chat, but that he may have skimmed past it. Bleep responds to Limeyy's previous IRC claim, saying that Forum Crit and Site Crit share IRC purview. Limeyy says the conversation feels like needless bureaucracy, and that it is not a major enough issue to warrant removing and reinstating the team later on. They also state that Site Crit is in de-facto charge of the IRC channel, which Bleep states is her fault. Gee agrees with Limeyy, saying dissolving the team would amount to a month of needless 05 threads, to which Limeyy asks if there is a protocol for dissolving a team. Naepic responds that they'd put it to vote. Whiteguard opines that it is unprofessional to sign up to do something, and reap all the benefits while doing none of the hard work. He claims if PWRD was around the corner he would not mind the wait, yet the time it has taken to come out makes him skeptical, and asks why a roster update is viewed as more important than updating the team's responsibilities. WG adds that it is not needlessly bureaucratic to honestly reevaluate what staff does, and that keeping a dishonest hub is lying to the users who stumble upon it.

In response, TawnyOwlJones asks what does WhiteGuard proposes to do with Site Crit staffers who handle the IRC, as demoting them all would leave Tawny as the only active critter in the chat. It preemptively states that non-staffers are not doing critique in the channel to such an extent where the team could be removed and the channel would keep working. It also claims that the majority of people doing Site Crit's responsibilities are Site Critters, plus Hex and stormfallen. Tawny's opinion is that the main problem with the team’s concept is a lack of teaching people how to critique published works, with the solution being incentivizing both staffers and non-staffers to engage in site critique.
stormfallen assumes that IRC crit would be folded into forum crit, and Tawny says that would still leave three critters total. Fallen clarifies they meant to add the remaining team members to forum crit. Limeyy responds to Tawny’s earlier message, stating that teaching people to critique and engaging existing users to do so is part of the PWRD plan, and adds that they have no intention of dissolving Site Crit for the time being. If people disagree, Limeyy says they can put it up to vote on 05. stormfallen asks why staff have two separate critique teams with one of them being arbitrarily assigned live chat duties, to which Tawny responds saying the two teams should remain separate, with Limeyy adding that live crit would become a third team in the future.

stormfallen suggests having one critique team with multiple sections for the different areas of critique, and Limeyy says that first they need to fix the existing teams’ functionality. Gee0765 and Limeyy say that major restructuring should only happen after more radical changes have been made to the community's avenues for critique. Tawny asks for clarification on the last statement, and Limeyy mentions knowing at least 5 experienced reviewers who expressed interest in assisting in staff-led critique. Tawny is concerned at how 5 more reviewers would help with the whole community, and Limeyy agrees it would be a rough start, but is confident they could get more authors to do critique in the future. TheDeadlyMoose enters the discussion¹¹. They respond to Limeyy’s belief that dissolving Site Crit would beneedless bureaucracy, asking if Site Crit’s continued existence doesn’t count as “needless bureaucracy” itself. They add that they intended to suggest a merging with Forum Crit, but that the admin team has all of its time and mental resources dedicated to handling Dex and Disc. Limeyy says that as he said prior, Site Crit and Forum Crit are two different skills, and that Site Crit continues to serve a role on site and in policy. Moose responds to Limeyy’s statement that they wouldn’t, as captain, dissolve Site Crit.

Moose states that captains don’t have a right to dissolve their team regardless, and only a full staff vote can dissolve one. Calibold jokingly adds a suggestion to dissolve the Licensing team. Moose says that, as the person who created the team, they were wrong in their initial arguments for it, saying not much ever came out of Site Crit. Limeyy says their plans for Site Crit will be “very different” to previous iterations, noting that they’re happy to explain their plans to Moose if asked “at some point that isn’t 4:30am.” Moose continues, stating they know Site Crit hasn’t done anything in years, to which Limeyy responds that the original envisioning for Site Crit was indeed doomed to fail, but it has since grown to do things other than critique on the site. Moose disagrees, saying Site Crit wasn’t doomed from the beginning, since forum crit did the same successfully, and asks what Site Crit has been doing. Limeyy responds with a list of responsibilities; IRC chat crit, dealing with problematic critique, and eventually being responsible for future avenues for crit.
Moose says that dead teams need to be removed since the team structure is built so people always have a job, since if they don’t they can just coast on forever while only occasionally voting on promotions.
TheDeadlyMoose notes that most staff are in agreement that addressing problems with the Disciplinary team are a priority, and says WhiteGuard can bring this concern up to 05command for discussion, or wait until the admin team is free to do so. They opine that this will not happen until the current “issues with Dex & Mann” (discussed in the “Censure” recaps of this post) have been clearly and publicly resolved.

Limeyy says that they do have a version of site crit reform written and approved, but think it needs to be done to take into account long term sustainability. Due to university responsibilities, it’s been taking them time, but they want to do it right rather than fast.
This discussion took roughly 7 hours.

• Autumn Promotions
• October Features
• Navigational Redesign
• Guide Hub Changes
• Discussion on djkaktus’ Statement on Staffchat Leaks & AHT Warning
• Comprehensive Guide Hub Refresh
• Swamp Critter Roster Archival
• Tag Request Thread Rework
• Navigational Redesign Thread Goes Live
• Disciplinary Vice-Captain
• Intro Instructions Thread
• Feedback Splash Re-Working
• 001 Proposal Page Rework
• Posting Individual Art Pages
• Promotions Suspension and Communication
• Working Groups
• Staffchat’s September Recap Review
• Commisions / Donations Policy
• Relieving Zyn’s Workload
• Wikidot’s Broken Search Function
• Frequently Asked Questions Remake
• Censure
• SkipIRC Harassment Policy
• No-Team Staff and Promotion Changes
• Plagiarism and Metaphysician Discussion
• Changes to Disciplinary Chat Access
• Deletion Rules
• User-Curated Lists
• Staffwide Jira Board
• Quorum Lowering
• Censure Delay
• Assigning Mod Permissions to JS and OS
• Anti-Harassment and Disciplinary Action on Public Figures
• Tech Recruitment
• Past Administrators
• Volatile Comments on Joint Statement
• SCPD’s Atmosphere
• djkaktus Tweet Concerns
• OS Access to Disciplinary Discord
• Staff Disciplinary Process & Fiat Questions
• Adding New Recap Members
• Staff Approval Question
• SoullessSingularity’s Reserve Status
• Dissolving Site Crit Team
• Locking the Recent Posts Forum Thread

Recap: DrBleep announces the new staff promotions for October. In lieu of interviews with each staff member, staff are told they have a week to contact the staff who are up for promotion and ask any questions they have directly.

The following Junior Staff were put up for Operational Staff positions:

• Edna Granbo
• FabledTiefling
• Tawnyowljones
• HarryBlank
• Estrella Yoshte

The following Operational Staff were put up for Moderator:

• DrAkimoto¹
• Joreth
• Uncertainty Crossing
• Vivarium
• pr0m37h3um

On the 8th, DrBleep announces the promotions thread is live:
05 link: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14219973/

On the 20th of October, all promotions had the required votes and thus were successful.

This announcement was a single message.

Recap: A discussion in SCPD's Meta channel about October's featured articles (specifically; User Curated Lists, Curated Tale Series, and the Groups of Interest Hub Page) is ported over to staffchat by Pedagon. Zyn clarifies that these feature selections were done (in the absence of any contest-winners or crit flights) as a way to show an October-related uptick in new SCP readers some lesser-known curation pages of the site, highlighting ways for them to find good articles to read. The discussion then surrounds whether this (agreed-upon as good) target is best served by the feature boxes. It is suggested that the links to the User-Curated Lists, the Curated Tale Series, and the Groups of Interest Hub Page are included in separate locations on the front-page. Zyn agrees with this, and begins the process of selecting articles to feature, noting that the change will take place on Sunday, as she'd like to leave the current links up for the first saturday of "Spoopy month". The features are changed, and the banner is added, on October 4th.
This discussion took place in around 50 minutes.
It is of note that this recap was partially written in staffchat with Zyn's assistance, as it was then ported to SCPD's Meta channel as a statement on the discussion.

Recap: Optimistic Lucio states that the Navigation team has been working on a redesign for the wiki’s side- and top-bar. He links a mockup of the new design, and opens a thread for complaints, questions, or any other comments. The link to the Groups of Interest (GoI) Hub was originally removed in the redesign, however staff agree that it is important, and Lucio adds it back. LemonBee12 believes that tabs that were included in the “Background” tab, including the MTF Hub and the Object Classes Guide, the Personnel Dossier, and the Secure Facilities Page should not be removed, due to their usefulness as an introduction to the shared setting of the Wiki. Calibold disagrees, stating he finds they give the wrong impression to new readers, who may put too much weight on learning these aspects of the site. However, he thinks that the Universe tab, with its links to the GoI Hub and the Canons Hub, should stay. LemonBee12 points out that these links are still present in the newly-proposed sidebar.

Optimistic Lucio states that he believes that cutting down the number of links in the side- and top-bar reduces the possibility of choice-paralysis for newer users who may be intimidated. He uses the number of INT sites (branches of the SCP Wiki written in other languages) as an example. EstrellaYoshte points out that INT branches are featured predominantly on the front page, where they have “cool logos and stuff”. aismallard notes that having a sidebar with “a gazillion links” is not a normal design, whether users on the wiki are used to it or not. EstrellaYoshte says she will establish the “no-sidebar coalition”, which Optimistic Lucio calls “the only good proposal”.
This discussion took around 3 hours.

Three days later (2021/10/06), Optimistic Lucio posts a link to his proposal for the Navigational Redesign, which is then ported to the #announcements channel of StaffChat. stormfallen notes that the sidebar feels too short, with too much empty space below it. Calibold assumes this empty space will be filled by the translation module, which links users to translations of the article they’re reading. He also postulates the idea that the module could “hover directly in the center of your screen”, an idea which YossiPossi supports. stormfallen suggests that the module should “[burst] out of your screen and [embed] itself directly in your frontal lobe”. stormbreath clarifies that the new translation module will not do this.

Mainsite Mirror of Discussion Thread: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-14218286/
This discussion took two hours.

Recap: A staff member posts a link to a tweet by site author djkaktus, who states he has received a warning from the Wiki's Anti-Harassment Team for posting about "perceived injustices within the staff structure and disciplinary system". Members of AHT claim the statement misrepresents the team's warning to djkaktus, and LadyKatie states she will discuss the possibility of publishing that warning with other AHT members. The topic then turns to the fact that AHT bans are made public, but AHT warnings are not. Eventually, YossiPossi announces that the AHT warning was related only to djkaktus' statements accompanying his Staffchat leaks. Yossi also states that djkaktus is free to release a screenshot of the warning he sent, which he does. LadyKatie and gee agree that Yossi's clarification of djkaktus' warning should be publicised in a more open space than SCPD's #meta-scp-discussion channel, and LadyKatie states that AHT are working on porting it to 05command. This port is completed, and the log of the warning is posted to the AHT Log of Bans.
This discussion takes around an hour to conclude.
A few hours later, a question from SCPD is ported to staffchat. Kufat (the owner of SkipIRC) has made a statement that those leaking private conversations will be banned from the SkipIRC network. The user from SCPD asks what the Wiki's staff's stance on this is. LadyKatie states that Wiki Staff have no ability to prevent Kufat from doing so, as they do not own the IRC network that hosts the official SCP Wiki chat.
While not discussed within Staffchat, it is of note that Kufat released a follow-up statement a few hours later.

Recap: The timer for the Navigational Redesign (recapped above) expires on the 13th of October. After the thread expires, OptimisticLucio notes that the feedback given will be incorporated and the team proposing this motion will bring it to the attention of Internet Outreach-run social media accounts. It is predicted this stage will last three days, before a five day vote. Lucio reports "enthusiastic support" from off-site communities, and a vote is created (and announced by Lucio and Vivarium) on the 16th, to end on the 21st.

Voting Thread: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14228526/

On the 21st, the timer ends on MAST's Navigational Redesign and it's published to the wiki. Due to an oversight, the redesign creates visual glitches on mobile devices, and isn't updated at all on some pages of the site. Stormfallen relays these concerns to staffchat, with Limeyy confirming them. Optimistic Lucio shows confusion on how the bugs came to be, while EstrellaYoshte creates a fix which is soon ported to the wiki.

After this fix to the redesign has gone live, Edna Granbo asks where the "recent edits" and "recent changes" links are. She clarifies that these links are important to her work as a staff member, and to the work of other staff and non-staff on the lookout for vandalism and other changes. It is pointed out that the sidebar on the staff site still features these links. Optimistic Lucio suggests merging these two links into one location on the sidebar, making them accessible without taking up space. Edna suggests that the changes to the sidebar should be reverted, and the discussion be reopened. While she believes that the level of discussion between staff members was not sufficient as it took place during promotions, Optimistic Lucio and gee0765 argue that the changes were discussed and popular on 05command, main site, in the official IRC, and in off-site communities like /r/SCP, and /r/SCPD’s discord.

stormfallen suggests providing a place for comments and bug-reports to be posted². In the meantime, Edna suggests creating a thread in the staff discord to discuss suggested changes to the redesign, which Lucio creates. Edna believes that lists of author and art pages, the IRC, and changes and edits should all be linked in the sidebar. Optimistic Lucio suggests that a number of these suggested features would only ever be used once by each user; those who sign up to the IRC will use their own clients to log in later, and those who join the site will never click that link again. Edna suggests the inclusion of the “Under 30” list, as well as the User Curated Lists, to the sidebar, as a way to suggest newer or under-read articles to readers. Lucio agrees that this could be useful.

The next day, EstrellaYoshte requests that Optimistic Lucio create a list of the pages that are no longer easily-accessible, having been removed from the sidebar. Of these 10 links, Lucio & Estrella agree to bringing back Under-read & Under-rated, and Recent Changes, merging Recent Changes & Edits and Shortest, Newest, & Top pages, as well as large-scale rewrite to the Contact Staff page.
This topic occurred over a couple of days.

Recap: stormfallen asks why the Introductions Instructions Thread is not locked, as it being open only leads to improper use of the thread, meaning Zyn has to correct users and point them in the right direction. Edna Granbo espouses the belief that users were at fault for not reading the post, and that this was not enough to warrant locking the thread. The possibility of an overall change in how Introductions are handled is briefly suggested. Both this and the topic at large are not discussed beyond this point, no conclusion is reached and the thread remains unlocked.
This conversation lasts five minutes.

Recap: MomBun suggests reworking the "This page doesn't exist yet!" splash which comes up when users attempt to create a new page, as there have been many articles posted recently which have clearly not gone through the critique process. JacobConwell, HarryBlank and Edna Granbo do not believe altered text would be more likely to attract a new user's attention. Croquembouche asks whether the existing coldpost situation is really a problem. Athenodora suggests creating a striking visual, like the "I WANT YOU FOR U.S. ARMY" poster, to grab attention; MomBun notes that the community now has sufficient artistic resources to make this a possibility. Croquembouche notes that any image should not be explicitly American. He also suggests making the instructions more explicit, particularly as the phrasing begins with "This page doesn't exist" which does not prime users to expect advice on getting critique below. HarryBlank suggests changing that text to "Are you trying to create this page?" Croquembouche further suggests that if the image route is taken, it should involve an explicitly SCP character. TheMightyMcB suggests Lord Blackwood. LadyKatie notes that -INT has done something similar, and suggests the idea has merit.

Conwell doesn't think coldposts are a serious enough issue to justify spending time on this issue, minus ensuring that new users are not treated poorly. Pedagon agrees, since experienced authors coldposting will encourage the practice more than any edits to the page will quell; he suggests it's more important to streamline the crit process.
This conversation took place over approximately five hours but with long breaks in between messages.

Recap: Rounderhouse presents a rework of the 001 Proposals page, which presents all proposals in a random order, rather than a chronological one. There is a positive response to the idea of a randomized list. Rounderhouse acknowledges that this may make adding new 001 Proposals more difficult. He also notes that it has been suggested that new 001 Proposals be given a separate space on the page, before being added into the general group. There is general agreement that this "spotlight" would be good, but disagreement over whether it would be better to provide this "spotlight" for a set length of time, or just until the next 001 is posted. GremlinGroup is in favour of the former, while Vivarium & Rounderhouse are in favour of the latter.
This discussion took roughly 1.5 hours.

On the 13th of October, Rounderhouse states in StaffChat that discussion of this proposal had been taken back into the Tech Team Discord,³ and that his suggestion would prevent 001 Proposals being summon by their title by bots like Crom. He states he is going to contact SMLT about finding a way around this issue by storing title data in another way.

On the 16th, Rounderhouse returns, stating that the page is finalised and will be up shortly, once SMLT (developer of the Crom discord bot) states that it works. The change is enacted by Tech on the 19th of October.
ROUNDERHOUSE’s announcements were short messages.

Recap: A user posts a singular piece of art, and responds poorly to the Wiki community downvoting the page. After this user's reaction is Staffposted, the conversation shifts to the recent change to Art-posting guidelines, which allow for the posting of a single image, rather than requiring three high-quality images for an Artist Page. In particular, the focus is on whether the page clearly mandates that all art pages (both artist hubs and solo works) be posted under the "art:" category. While it is recognised that the page already tells users to do this for all such pages, UncertaintyCrossing resolves to edit the guide for clarity.
This conversation takes an hour to resolve. UncertaintyCrossing makes the aforementioned edit on the 26th of October after a reminder by a member of the Recap team.

Recap: ROUNDERHOUSE asks for an update on the promotions freeze on 05command. Bleep describes what happened in a statement:

• Admins operate under the impression that Yossi put forth Aki's nomination on his own, due to miscommuncation (addressed later). However, both IO Co-Captains — Yossi and LadyKatie — had put forth Akimoto's nomination.
• Agreement is reached that admins should bring this to Yossi's attention, with the intent of discovering if Yossi knew of or could find context that would mitigate this "red flag" issue.
• No one brings the issue to Yossi's attention. This results in Bleep asking admin chat on the night promotions are supposed to go up if this has been addressed, if Yossi and by proxy, Akimoto, have been talked to about this issue, though a conversation with Akimoto is not directly stated to be needed. Moose chimes in kicking the issue further, and picks Mallard to hold this conversation with Yossi. Admins, including Moose, are unaware that LadyKatie should be contacted as well. Bleep clarifies that promos are ready to go, but that she is willing to hold off.
• Aismallard holds a voice chat discussion with Yossi. Feeling time pressured, Aismallard conveys the concerns to Yossi in a way that implies the admins want their promo removed. Yossi interprets this as the admins collectively vetoing the nomination, and assents. No conversation is had with Akimoto before assenting.
• Aismallard relays the assent to admins, who interpret the screenshot as Yossi withdrawing Akimoto's candidacy, and Bleep removes their segment from the promotions thread. She posts the promotion thread believing that this is the course of action that all parties assented to.
• Akimoto messages Yossi asking why his promo has been removed from the promo thread. Yossi, believing Akimoto's candidacy to have been vetoed outright by the admins, relays as much to Akimoto. Akimoto then states their intent to resign.
• Yossi relays these facts to Aismallard, who relays them to admin chat. Admins' initial impression is that Akimoto chose to resign rather than address admin concerns. Admins neglect to request full logs, and are unaware that Akimoto was not given any chance to address admin concerns. Yossi is unaware that admins wished Akimoto to have this opportunity.
• Several admins state that they would have rather this be resolved by vote, with the issues out in the open, running in contrast to the language used in the initial discussions. Bleep expresses frustration at the lack of communication of what the Admins wanted to occur, and the lack of communication in general.
• The next morning, Lily brings the issue to a head. It becomes patently clear that Akimoto's behavior had been well and truly aboveboard from multiple testaments of staffers who worked with them. It becomes even more clear that there was a complete breakdown in communication, from failing to talk to Akimoto, to miscommunications about what the admins wanted to do, to a complete lack of follow through.

To clarify my entire stance, I had, and still am, in many ways very frustrated with how this happened.

• Admins are unable to outright veto/pull a promotion candidate. Even as captain of MAST, I do not have the ability to outright reject a promotion candidate. Only a captain is able to do so, and only by withdrawing the nomination.
• Speaking as an individual, the initial conversation brought up concerns that I thought should be addressed. I wanted a conversation in private between Akimoto's captains an Admin as well as Akimoto himself to discuss this issue, how he had improved, and whether our concerns were unfounded or not. None of this happened, leading to a perceived time crunch for promos to move forward.
• I was willing to delay promos as long as needed in order for proper conversation to occur, but no desire to hold off other than my own was expressed.
• I have stopped promos completely as I recognize how dirty Akimoto was done. For them to continue I wish for a direct conversation with Akimoto to happen, in which discussion about their previous work occurs, and Admins extend a full apology, and I personally will add them to promos.
• Lady Katie was at no point informed of what was happening. This is partially as she wasn't listed in the google form as having submitted Akimoto's promotion advocation, and partially due to Moose being under the impression that Yossi was the only captain of IO, but it is clear she should have been addressed in this process as she is Yossi's co-captain. She was not consulted at any point on the night promotions were posted, and she did not find out about the withdrawal and Akimoto's resignation until the next day. This was wrong on multiple levels, as LadyKatie is the co-captain of IO.
• No admin was assigned responsibility to follow through with Akimoto and his captains. In some ways, this responsibility might have fallen to me, but given my IRL activity, and the fact that this was the third time that Akimoto's promotion was blocked, with no evaluation of whether or not those pieces in the past were representative of current Akimoto, I feel like this was a systemic and communication issue. Admins are actively discussing how we can address this systemic issue, and suggestions are welcome.

Stormfallen questions why “Admin A”’s identity is redacted. Bleep clarifies that this was done to not attract any possible negative attention towards this admin for making the initial complaint.

OptimisticLucio initiates a conversation about communication between staff. ROUNDERHOUSE questions whether administrators are cognizant of these communication issues. Lucio states that staff communication issues will not be solved through closed-door discussion. Dexanote clarifies that he was not involved in the Akimoto situation, and states that it would be best to let LadyKatie, Akimoto’s captain, speak to the latter before the chat moves on to the wider topic of miscommunication. This is disregarded, as Lucio asserts that conversations about both topics can be held simultaneously. Dexanote disagrees. LadyKatie agrees with Dexanote’s disagreement, as Akimoto being hurt takes precedence.

ROUNDERHOUSE suggests moving this discussion to 05command, then criticizes Bleep’s statement further. He claims it paints a picture of administrators passing blame from one another without acknowledgement of systemic communication issues within the staff structure. He feels the statement does not properly accept blame. gee0765 asks why the statement was brought to staffchat if discussion cannot be held. Katie states that discussion is not being forbidden, but that "more pressing issues" must be addressed before moving into a policy discussion. GremlinGroup feels that the statement should not have been brought to staffchat if Akimoto had not been talked to first. He also feels that it is unreasonable to post a large summary statement and then ask for the chat to not discuss it.

ROUNDERHOUSE adds that Akimoto should have been spoken to before the promotions thread went online. Katie acknowledges that this didn’t happen, and is now attempting to fix the issue (which she was unaware of before it was directly presented to her). Rounder reclarifies, saying that Akimoto should have been spoken to when Modern_Erasmus blocked him. Dexanote is aware of this. Stormfallen evokes the proverb that “the best time to plant a tree is always yesterday. The second best time is now.” Lucio states that he feels delaying this conversation to address other issues that should have already been addressed is unnecessary.

While the above is occuring, Yossipossi appears and accepts partial blame for the situation, as they were not as resistant to what happened as they should have been. Lucio states that Yossi is not the only one at fault. aismallard agrees with Yossi, stating she should have also pushed back instead of going forward. Dexanote asks that the people responsible for this situation have time to resolve it before discussion continues. ROUNDERHOUSE objects, stating that the mentality of pushing things aside with the assumption that others will take care of them is what got staff into this situation in the first place. He points out that discussing the issue is not preventing someone from talking to Akimoto. LadyKatie states that the discussion will be picked up, and that she was ignored, as Akimoto was on her team and Katie was not informed of these events as they were happening.

Dexanote states that AdCap has been discussing the problem for the past three days. gee0765 states that is reflective of a larger issue, where discussion does not leave admin chat until the "last minute." Dexanote states that the conversation is out of adminchat now, and that he wants Katie to be able to do her job before discussion is picked up. Rounder asks Dexanote if the situation was unable to be discussed in adminchat over the past three days, or if the conversation had been ongoing over the weekend, which would indicate that all conversation in adminchat concluded the situation was decided and ready for staffchat. Dexanote states that it was ongoing over the weekend, and the conclusion was to let team captains speak to Akimoto and then focus on action going forward.

Dexanote feels that continuing the conversation before LadyKatie is done would not be useful, as active discussion tends to leave things and people "behind." He clarifies that he will not be stopping the conversation. Lucio and Dexanote briefly argue about whether Dexanote had already attempted to do so. Dexanote states that at this time the conversation can only consist of discussion related to how people "dropped the ball," as he feels policy discussion should not continue at this time. ROUNDERHOUSE states that to get results out of the communications conversation, it must be held in staffchat and not in adminchat. Dexanote agrees, stating that he wants to hold the conversation the right way.

EstrellaYoshte appears and personally requests that everyone involved in this discussion refrain from continuing for a period of time, as keeping up with the conversation at this point is becoming daunting, as multiple users are talking at the same time. Six hours of uninterrupted conversation would follow this message.

ROUNDERHOUSE expresses the concern that while discussion is stopped in staffchat, it is continuing in AdCap. He adds that Bleep's statement should be posted to 05command as soon as Akimoto responds. aismallard admits that she did go to AdCap, but should not have, and ports a message originally posted there stating that she feels staff should be allowed to discuss the statement. Furthermore, aismallard wishes that staff as a whole should contribute feedback to the statement. Zyn agrees. gee specifically agrees that statement-crafting should take place in staffchat. Limeyy feels the statement, being a timeline of events without opinion, is already complete and ready to be ported.

DrBleep is hesitant to port the statement this soon, as she believes rushing is what got staff into this situation in the first place. Riemann asks ROUNDERHOUSE if his issue is with the statement, the events that transpired, or both. Rounder clarifies he takes issue with the entirety of the situation, and that the statement deflects individual blame. aismallard asks ROUNDERHOUSE who should accept blame and apologize. He states that the situation was rushed, as Akimoto was never communicated with during the three weeks between when issues were first raised and October 11th. aismallard acknowledges that there were miscommunication issues on the administrator side, and that the lack of followup with Akimoto was a major issue. Lucio and ROUNDERHOUSE express discontent that the conversation was moved to AdCap, and feels that discussion should have taken place on 05command. gee asks why staffers retreat to AdCap, and not the sensitive staff discussion channel. aismallard answers that it is possibly because AdCap has been around longer, and staffers have a certain familiarity with it. ROUNDERHOUSE agrees that AdCap users may not ask themselves whether a conversation belongs there, and he questions why reforms have not changed this behavior. LilyFlower appears and states that she was the first to bring the situation to AdCap, and did so because she feels it is the fastest way to get the attention of captains and admins.

ROUNDERHOUSE states that admin and captain attention being restricted to AdCap is part of the problem. Limeyy agrees, and has personally experienced having to resort to adcap as a means of getting attention. Zyn feels that re-establishing the purposes of the various channels may be needed, allowing staffers to assign availability accordingly. gee suggests that moving AdCap’s position in the server channel listing would help, as its position may encourage this behavior out of convenience. ROUNDERHOUSE and Lucio disagree. aismallard reveals the server’s channel structure, which is as follows:

[Business channels]
[Casual channels]
[Adcap channels]
(business, then casual)
[Admin channels]
(business, then casual)

ROUNDERHOUSE feels the existence of an adcap-casual channel is unnecessary. CuteGirl agrees with Rounder’s point, but not his tone, as it would make people automatically defensive. aismallard asks Cutegirl how she would propose the topic be talked about. ROUNDERHOUSE, in response to aismallard, states he would like 05command to be used. ManyMeats states that channels can be difficult to keep up with, which may result in miscommunication. ROUNDERHOUSE restates that if the statement was ready to be ported to staffchat, it should be ready to be ported to 05. Meats and Lily agree. Lily would prefer if it were ported sooner rather than later. She states that ideally, the statement will be posted on 05 as soon as Katie speaks with Akimoto. Rounder asks aismallard if there was discussion in AdCap between the statement being posted in staffchat and aismallard’s earlier statement that she had posted in AdCap. aismallard states there was discussion about the heated tone of the conversation, followed by Limeyy saying that the statement will need to go on 05command soon.

ManyMeats shows a draft of new rules for AdCap. The channel should be used "First to inform other members of AdCap about matters requiring their attention, but that generally do not require general staff discussion. Second, to coordinate planned actions between teams, administration, or a combination of both. And third, to coordinate and plan for regular AdCap meetings." Once issues are determined to need discussion, they will then be ported to "public" staffchat channels. ROUNDERHOUSE feels this will not prevent the members of AdCap from conducting all their business there; gee also doesn't think it helps, since it means only Adcap members can move topics from the AdCap channel. Meats feels it's an improvement, and that when a conversation is being held in AdCap which should not be held there, the users involved should be "called out." The proper venue for said callouts is determined to be the #staff-discussion channel.

gee immediately invokes this suggestion by stating that the conversation presently occurring in AdCap should be occuring in #staff-questions. ROUNDERHOUSE wagers his final donut that someone in AdCap has been complaining about this very discussion within the past hour. Members of AdCap briefly dispute, investigate, then confirm this.

ROUNDERHOUSE feels the statement about miscommunication merely lays blame on aismallard and YossiPossi for other people's communications problems. He forcefully proposes that once LadyKatie has spoken to Akimoto, staff hold themselves accountable on 05command in a visible discussion. Zyn notes that she finds forum conversations more comfortable. ROUNDERHOUSE notes that he'd prefer to move ahead on this immedately, since the issue has progressed far beyond the topic of Akimoto's promotion, but he will accede to the wishes of the majority. Limeyy agrees, stating "akimoto is the symptom, not the cause." ROUNDERHOUSE expands on this, stating that AdCap have almost certainly made many more mistakes which have not received this level of visibility.

gee reiterates that AdCap is holding a conversation which should be occurring in the "public" channels. Limeyy notes that said conversation regards "the formation of a communications team to give one or more admins the responsibility personally of preventing something like this happening again." They note that one contributory factor to these issues is apparently admin overwork; they have recommended relieving admins of some duties to combat this.

TheDeadlyMoose notes that they are heading the proposal for the "intrastaff issues team" and did not expect to see it discussed until it was ready for discussion. They nevertheless prepare to answer questions and present the proposal to staffchat.

ROUNDERHOUSE opines that spreading the workload across more people will reduce the possibility of one person's problems causing problems for the entire site, particularly if things aren't automatically sequestered into the least-public channels where most staff can't help with them.

aismallard and Prometheus have now moved the AdCap conversation to staffchat. The issue of effectively contacting staff members and determining who has what responsibility is raised; ROUNDERHOUSE suggests using the Jira task management software. aismallard supports this idea, particularly if it can prevent the creation of more bureaucracy. stormfallen points out that many people avoid staffchat proper because of the volume of messages. gee and ROUNDERHOUSE note that this is a reason, but not a justification; ROUNDERHOUSE suggests the proper solution is to move most discussions to 05command. There is a brief discussion about the manpower required to use Jira for this purpose.

ROUNDERHOUSE feels like Moose's team proposal "adds bloat." Moose feels ROUNDER is speaking with authority on a topic he can't know anything about yet, as the proposal has not been revealed; they feel their proposal is the best way forward, as nobody else has suggested anything, but welcome other suggestions. They ask whether ROUNDERHOUSE would rather wait until the proposal is ready to discuss it, or get answers to questions now and receive the proposal later. gee would prefer to discuss the finished proposal. ROUNDERHOUSE wants his questions to affect the proposal as it is drafted. He also opines that the proposal will be dead on arrival. Moose notes that ROUNDERHOUSE lacks the context to provide pertinent feedback at this point. They also suggest that he is "trying to — in bad faith — convince this chat that a proposal is DOA with no context and before seeing it" in order to force people to engage with him outside of AdCap, which ironically is an argument in favour of AdCap, since such behaviour would not be possible there. ROUNDERHOUSE notes that Limeyy had to ping Moose to get the proposal conversation out of AdCap; Moose says it wasn't in AdCap at all, but personal messages. Corvus confirms. ROUNDERHOUSE points out that miscommunications of this sort are emblematic of the existing problem.

aismallard has been setting the Jira board up. Its functionality is discussed briefly.

Moose refuses to characterize the previous incident as "miscommunication," telling ROUNDERHOUSE that he has been scuttling a proposal, acting in bad faith with users who are acting in good faith, and "saying dickish things about other staff members." ROUNDERHOUSE rejects these assertions and notes he has been merely voicing his opinions: "I'm not breaking down doors. I'm talking." Moose notes they are being blunt with ROUNDERHOUSE out of respect (he later returns the sentiment), and emphasizes that his approach is harming the viability of the proposal whether he means it to or not. Riemann suggests this is a good time to pause discussion of the proposal until there is something solid to discuss. gee agrees that the proposal conversation should be left for later, but the staff restructuring one should not.

ROUNDERHOUSE feels his approach has contributed to more substantive staff action, and represents a move away from an earlier climate where junior staff were discouraged from discussing things with their superiors. Moose is not sure this climate ever prevailed, but is pleased it does not currently exist. They emphasize that mistreating others in these conversations, however, is a problem. They also think approaches like the one ROUNDERHOUSE takes have caused serious problems in the past, preventing the sort of action he sees them enabling. Furthermore, Moose feels that while the admins have adjusted their behaviour (or left), ROUNDERHOUSE remains combative. ROUNDERHOUSE does not feel he has been mean, and claims that he has been treated in a similar manner and that everyone must step up if they want a higher standard of behaviour; Moose counters that other staff members "experiencing misery" due to ROUNDERHOUSE's approach is obvious to anyone looking, and he is either not looking or justifying it. Stormfallen feels that ROUNDERHOUSE cannot be the judge of the effects of his actions. YossiPossi notes the tenor of the room and suggests a break, and EdnaGranbo characterizes the conversation as an argument which should be taken elsewhere. Moose, ROUNDERHOUSE, gee, Limeyy and Bleep disagree, feeling it is an on-topic discussion and a productive one.

Moose notes that the prevailing sentiment that staff are allowed to be rude to each other is a problem. Limeyy and ROUNDERHOUSE agree, though ROUNDERHOUSE feels that "most of the staff who were dicks aren't around anymore." Moose has been emphasizing that much of this difficulty must be fixed by the admins; gee is not happy with admins dealing with the issue themselves. Pedagon notes that, to date, the job has not been done; he also notes that admin-level self-policing will likely not resolve the issue, and that reform attempts from below that level are in danger of being halted by said admins. ROUNDERHOUSE does not trust the promotions process to generate trustworthy admins, or members of the Disciplinary Team. Moose feels admins will do the relevant work, and admins who won't should be subject to no-confidence votes. Pedagon states that if admins wish to enact change, they should be discussing it in "public" or even actually public locations like 05command.

A message required for context, replied to by Moose and gee, was deleted.

ROUNDERHOUSE feels admins naturally tend to conduct self-policing behind closed doors "so as to not project an outward image of a divided house. this is effective, but is catastrophic for accountability." Again he feels the solution is more intensive use of 05command.

By this point TheDeadlyMoose is responding to comments made in the upscroll. They will continue to do this for the rest of the night, on an increasingly-long delay.

Moose responds to gee’s statement that inter-staff interactions cannot be adjudicated as acceptable or not by a small, specific group of staff with agreement and adds that decisions like this should be based on a set of specific behavioural standards. Moose then explains that they have relevant experience to write up a proposal of these standards and invites others to help on a voluntary basis, adding that they believe it is the job of admins to propose these standards but staff should not rely on only admins to put them together. Bleep and gee both react positively to this proposal by giving it a thumbs up. gee then adds that he would not join this initiative because his thoughts “don't go into any detail beyond 'stop the disc blackbox making all decisions'.” ROUNDERHOUSE agrees with gee and states that this is because “we can't fairly make suggestions because people won't even tell us what's broken” and that any solution coming from outside disc team is missing context and results in the solutions being shot down with no further information. gee states that this is part of the problem of addressing the current process where "'you make a report and it disappears'." Moose confirms that gee is specifically saying this is a problem with Disc and proposes that a new, admin-run body would need to be created to deal with the argument that Disc shouldn’t determining appropriate interstaff behaviour beyond censure. ROUNDERHOUSE argues that it isn’t possible to tackle Disc/Admin/Anti-Harassment Team problems independently because these groups are composed of largely the same people. gee states that he does not believe a new, distinct body should be formed for this purpose.

ROUNDERHOUSE states that people tend to prefer using Discord to 05command because Discord is easier, but argues that staff should not be choosing the easier option over the better option. stormfallen states that returning staffchat to IRC would get people to use 05 more often. Moose states that they choose not to use 05 because they don’t want to receive harassment and they don’t have anything new to post on 05 as a new proposal/discussion. Moose then also points out the speed of the present conversations in Discord as being difficult to keep up with. Moose explains to stormfallen that they stopped using IRC due to the lack of a reply feature, and stormfallen clarifies that they were mostly joking but do believe that the move to use Discord instead of 05 was due to the former being more conducive to long discussions.

Moose responds to ROUNDERHOUSE’s statement that it is difficult for initiatives limiting the power of higher staff to pass; they point to their experience that proposals attempting this have been of low quality and poorly thought through.

Moose responds to Pedagon comment that if higher staff wanted to actually change they would be discussing issues in view of all staff or on 05 with agreement, but adds that this is presently difficult for multiple reasons. They then state that their proposal is presently missing a solution for this and invite staff to provide suggestions. They add that they believe it is the job of admins to handle this problem, and that the planned IntraStaff Issues Team will assign an admin to take responsibility for ensuring conversations move appropriately. Pedagon agrees with Moose that this should be the job of admins but he does not currently trust the admins to do it (citing admin not truly being an administrative role, admins needing to choose to give themselves more work when acting in this way, and high-level staff being friends with one another). He then points to prior discussions where he had proposed automatic Non-Discplinary Record threads for reports of moderator staff and above, and making promotions above moderator based on doing administrative duties primarily. He argues that adjudication of staff should not be solely arbitrated by peers and left off 05. Moose later responds to Pedagon’s statement — that he agrees that it should be the job of admins to bring conversations to semipublic spaces — by stating that it is the job of admins, whether they are trusted to do it or not. Moose then invites people to give suggestions to fix this problem because they had not heard the prior suggestions before.

aismallard asks if it would be possible for discussing interstaff issues to be a full staff responsibility where a complaint is made, a statement is made by the accuser, the accused gives a defence, and a thread is made for people to discuss whether it was problematic or not. ROUNDERHOUSE feels that this is the same thing as a Vote of No Confidence. aismallard disagrees with this because Votes of No Confidence are big actions which will happen infrequently. stormfallen states that they were under the impression that the Rule 0 guidelines put in place would have staff make interstaff complaints semi-publicly (within staffchat) and is surprised that this hasn’t been the case. aismallard clarifies that their process would be for when someone gets heated and acts dickishly, and then a conversation occurs afterwards to resolve it through an apology or whatever else is deemed necessary. aismallard responds to stormfallen that they feel the enforcement of Rule 0 has been inconsistent, and gee agrees. ROUNDERHOUSE expresses that he would feel uncomfortable making a public complaint because of fear of retribution and the complaint being discussed improperly in AdCap. Because of this, he states that he prefers to take complaints to individual members. Limeyy outlines two issues with making Rule 0 complaints semipublic: 1) it is not possible to submit a disciplinary complaint anonymously, and 2) complaints including restricted information above a certain level of staff cannot be made in the semipublic spaces. stormfallen responds with the hope that situations brought up semipublicly could be dealt with internally before requiring the Disciplinary Team's involvement. Then, if this does not occur, Disc could do a writeup of whatever can be shared, get it approved by the accuser, and post the complaint on 05. ROUNDERHOUSE argues that internal resolutions are inappropriate because they lead anyone who was not directly involved to feel that the report was buried; he points to a complaint he himself made as evidence of being left in the dark even with multiple requests for updates, eventually assuming the complaint had been dismissed. Limeyy argues similarly based on knowledge of "at least 3 other people" who submitted overlapping complaints of the same issue.

Moose responds to gee’s statement that nobody can be unbiased and that, because of this, we reduce bias by not having "a small group of old staff" deciding the acceptability of language by expressing agreement with the idea but not that it is what is currently happening. Moose argues that Disc is essentially taking Rule 0 cues from staff as a body, that Rule 0 should have never needed to be applied to staff, that Disc was never equipped to adjudicate staff violations of Rule 0, and that Disc should be for censure of staff. ROUNDERHOUSE points out that the last censures never occurred. Bleep questions if this refers to gee’s censures and ROUNDERHOUSE and stormfallen clarify that ROUNDERHOUSE meant Dexanote and DrEverettMann’s censures (even though gee’s censure was technically after). gee challenges Moose’s statement that Rule 0 is being treated appropriately by Disc by pointing out how staff outside of disc know little about its inner workings and that Disc is composed of a small group of like-minded individuals who are making interpretations together. gee then summarizes his stance as being that disc should not be the ones making decisions surrounding interstaff interactions. Moose later responds to gee’s assertion by noting that it is an unfair and inaccurate assumption of bad faith. gee responds that it is not an assumption of bad faith, and that any group of largely like-minded staff would end up with similar problems.

Moose responds to Pedagon’s statement that there is a gap in the trust of admins to make calls limiting their own power and that admins should call for changes publicly on 05 for the whole staff body to discuss so that nothing is ignored or gamed, by stating that it is not currently possible for admins to call for changes in public. Moose also adds that admin-level changes require an admin to be assigned as the project lead but opens up the possibility of creating a system that has admins generate proposals on high-priority topics which are then brought up for staff discussion. Moose then responds to Pedagon’s statement that discussions should all be on 05 by arguing that this still relies on an assignment of responsibility and often involves too much text for people to engage with.

ROUNDERHOUSE returns to the earlier conversation around how reforming Disc and Admin is challenging because those outside of Disc/Admin are not able to make changes, and once inside it is difficult to see the problems from the outside. Limeyy agrees that it is difficult to make suggestions to disc or admins because the "blackbox" keeps those on the outside from knowing what goes on inside and adds that they choose not to make suggestions to these groups because they aren’t aware of what is going on inside them. Moose later responds to ROUNDERHOUSE by stating that it is an assessment based on an assumption of facts not in evidence. Moose then states that this phenomenon, however, is why they were convinced to use AdCap less. ROUNDERHOUSE explains that his perspective is formed by his own experiences and what he has seen of other staff getting stonewalled and that this is going to be his perspective until shown evidence otherwise.

Moose responds to gee stating that he would not join this initiative because his thoughts "don't go into any detail beyond 'stop the disc blackbox making all decisions'" by suggesting gee make suggestions of how to address the blackbox, ask for more full reports on Disc reasoning, and create a venue to express concerns with the process. gee states that he has had bad experiences when asking for more transparency in the past.

Moose responds to ROUNDERHOUSE’s complaint that addressing Disc is hindered by missing context by stating that they have provided information about Disc’s process and this context has been met with mockery and dismissal. ROUNDERHOUSE responds by stating that he has never seen a Disc log or admin chat and that he has never met any logs with dismissal and mockery. He then points out that it is coming up on a year since the November 2020 incident and that the resulting censures have yet to be applied, despite the admin team’s size doubling. He points out that this fact has coloured many peoples’ views on how Disc handles interstaff conflict, without anything being done to change that view – and later adds that other events have worked to further prove it.

ROUNDERHOUSE returns to this later as the first priority in addressing the issues of Disc and admins because the open wound of the censures is a major source of damage to staff's public image. Pedagon agrees and adds that the incomplete censures are pointed to as evidence of staff being untrustworthy.

stormfallen expresses confusion over StaffChat Rule 0⁴ violation complaints not being reported semi-publicly. Moose responds to this point with exasperation, arguing that StaffChat's Rule 0 should be replaced by ‘be excellent to each other’ with a body other than Disc enforcing it. stormfallen asks if someone could put a proposal for this together and MomBun adds that the rules in general should be reworked.Moose explains that this would fall under the purview of the in-the-works InterStaff Issues Team eventually. stormfallen asks for clarification on whether this would entail a rework of Rule 0 to be affirmative rather than restrictive, or if it would be a full rework of Rule 0, which has apparently not been working.

Moose responds to ROUNDERHOUSE’s statement about being uncomfortable making semipublic complaints about interstaff issues by expressing confusion due to ROUNDERHOUSE previously being very vocal with complaints. ROUNDERHOUSE explains that the difference now is that, as JS, he can be demoted without a thread. gee adds that there is a difference between disagreeing with peers in staffchat and submitting a report to a team which often contains the person being reported. aismallard clarifies to Moose that an earlier statement by ROUNDERHOUSE that reports "disappear" refers to reports being looked over and declined pursuit of further action without being made public – making them seem to have disappeared. gee and ROUNDERHOUSE confirm this is what they mean. aismallard adds that they understand why people are upset with this process and agree that it should probably change, possibly as Moose suggested by moving the issue away from Disc.

Moose responds to ROUNDERHOUSE’s complaint that the censures of Dexanote and Mann never occurred by pointing to Dexanote’s public statement and the fact that nothing has changed as a result of this statement. ROUNDERHOUSE explains that the public explanation was insufficient and that nothing changing is a part of the problem.

ManyMeats states that they would rather reports not need to be made privately and that there should be an anonymous place for complaints to be submitted by staff which would then become an incident for Disc to see, acknowledge, reply to, and close. gee says the issue with this approach is that it is still handled by Disc.

Moose leaves the discussion temporarily and a brief discussion of the September Recap occurs. During this time, ROUNDERHOUSE posts an image of an “ideal staffchat” where #admins, #adcap, #sensitive-staff-discussion, and #staff-discussion all filter into one common #staff-casual. Limeyy calls this "based" and gee confirms that this "ideal staffchat" is the same as current staffchat but with fewer casual channels. Moose later asks if this was a joke.

Moose returns and begins replying to earlier messages again. They respond to gee’s statement that he has had bad experiences with asking for more transparency by noting that, in their experience, conversations around transparency have been borderline cruel with neither party offering solutions – choosing instead to defend their original positions.

Moose responds to ROUNDERHOUSE’s complaint that the censures resulting from the November 2020 incident never occurred by asking if any other censures have occurred recently at all. gee responds that he was censured in either June or July. Moose also expresses suspicion that there is confusion around Disc, AHT and admins being a single group, leading to issues in this conversation, and expresses belief that the censures of Dexanote and Mann are nothing more than an extra public acknowledgement of and apology for fucking up. Moose believes that accelerating the censure process would solve no problems beyond sating calls for blood, and further that all arguments for this have been personal. They then clarify that they believe there should be resolution to this issue and invite arguments for why this is the root cause of many issues beyond just being anger towards Dexanote. ROUNDERHOUSE clarifies that the three groups are not the same but have a large overlap, that the censure is not just an acknowledgement of fucking up but is an acknowledgement of allowing an admin/Disc member to abuse their power for a personal grudge, and that a desire for accountability and accepting mistakes being equated with looking for blood is what has led to staff’s unwillingness to enact certain changes. Moose later responds to ROUNDERHOUSE by arguing that Dexanote has already him made an “acknowledgement that Admins and Disc fucked up and allowed an admin/disc member to abuse their power for a personal grudge” which counts as making an accountability and apology approach. Moose therefore accuses ROUNDERHOUSE of acting in bad faith. ROUNDERHOUSE later replies to explain that statements of accountability and saying sorry are not sufficient for the scale of the November 2020 incident, and that action is required for people to have faith that the acknowledgement of wrongdoing is genuine. He adds that censure is just a gesture, but one that should be made because the ones experiencing that gesture are the ones who committed wrongdoing. Calibold adds that people are looking for more than just an acknowledgement and apology because they want to know that Disc isn’t willing to let things slide and that action will be taken in situations like this one.

Moose responds to Pedagon’s comment that the open censures are the source of much distrust in staff by stating they have not seen this; they ask for him to elaborate. Pedagon elaborates by explaining how the open censures are often the first point brought up when someone asks why people don’t trust staff, and adds the anecdotal experience that it was the first thing he was told about when first getting involved in site politics as an explanation of why people were angry towards staff and why upper staff were painted as abusive of power and unaccountable to anyone. He then adds that, in his experience, the fact that nothing actionable has come from the censures has undercut every improvement to staff’s image due to showing how “no matter what has improved there is still no way to hold certain people accountable or enforce rules on certain positions.” Limeyy, Cyvstvi, and ROUNDERHOUSE all support this comment by reacting to it positively. Moose later replies to Pedagon, expressing appreciation for the clarification and confusion for why the incident has coloured staff in this way. Moose outlines how, from their perspective, admins demanded accountability from Magnus, Magnus immediately left administration, and Dexanote and Mann offered to fall on their swords for not doing due diligence (which was a censure, as the only viable disciplinary action towards staff). These censures were then delayed because they were both required for staff projects, only Magnus' was a clear case of abuse of power, Dexanote posted a massive apology and that the censure would be “toothless because of [REDACTED AS I'M NOT ALLOWED TO SAY THIS EVEN THOUGH I WANT TO]”⁵. Pedagon states his belief that open censures “show how no matter what has improved there is still no way to hold certain people accountable or enforce rules on certain positions”. Moose suggests that this is the case for all positions on staff, save for removing them from staff.

CuteGirl states her belief that Magnus did not act maliciously at all and that it is frustrating to see Magnus painted as an SCP bogeyman for screwing up during a point of high stress. Calibold expresses difficulty with seeing Magnus’ actions as not malicious or, at the very least, willfully negligent considering the context and his behaviour before, during, and since the event. CuteGirl questions what Calibold means by current behaviour which leads him to believe that Magnus’ actions were malicious, and later explains that she believes Magnus genuinely believed there was a valid case for plagiarism.

Moose replies to ROUNDERHOUSE’s criticism of Disc, AHT, and admins being an oval of overlap by pointing out that all admins are on Disc unless they choose not to be, AHT is not a default like Disc is, and that team overlap is not a bad thing. ROUNDERHOUSE responds to this by questioning whether Moose doesn’t see the problem of having the people with power acting as the ones adjudicating whether or not said power has been abused. Moose later responds by asking for ROUNDERHOUSE to provide evidence that the people adjudicating were actually the ones who carried out the abuse of power.

Moose responds to stormfallen’s inquiry about the purpose of changing Rule 0 by stating their belief that the Rule 0 wording is ineffective without defining what is “dickish,” making it reasonable, and enforcing it evenly – each of which has not been done according to Moose. They also add that they view Rule 0 as being a result of being ban-happy towards new people when they do the same things a veteran user does.

Moose explains that they believe Disc was never intended to moderate conversations, and that making them enforce Rule 0 puts them in the role of chat moderation.

Moose responds to ManyMeats’ suggestion for an anonymous process of submitting complaints to Disc by expressing confusion why there isn’t already such a process of anonymous as there is for AHT. Dexanote explains that this is because reports rely on PMs and people not saying who they are to be considered anonymous. ManyMeats adds that AHT doesn’t truly take anonymous reports because people on AHT take reports and then report them to the team as anonymized, so the initial report is not anonymous. Cyvstvi argues that AHT and Disc should have similar levels of transparency in order to resolve the issues brought up by Pedagon around trust in staff. Gee, ROUNDERHOUSE, and Pedagon each disagree because AHT has a reason for being in a blackbox due to user safety. Cyvstvi clarifies that they meant that users should be able to similarly report issues to Disc and AHT anonymously. Yossi adds that AHT has made steps towards being as transparent as possible while still being reasonable. Limeyy expresses being impressed by the strides made by AHT to correct past wrongs.

Moose responds to Gee’s assertion that his censure was after Dex and Mann’s by stating that his censure came before discussions of the others. gee clarifies that the discussion of his censure came before but his actual censure occurred after, due to the Harmony situation. Gee then points out that the censures being proposed led to Magnus’ resignation, which also came before his censure. CuteGirl later states that it is possible that Magnus just retired anyway, and that the possibility of censure may have not been related. Moose responds to gee by clarifying that they were meant to be discussed before gee’s censure but the discussion did not reach a conclusion before gee’s censure, and that Dexanote and Mann were the primary advocates for their own censures. Moose then explains how, as someone who does not participate in Disc and whose role is to advise admins overall, they advised Dexanote to recuse himself, not self-censure, and allow for Disc to assess the situation for him. Disc then assessed that they could not censure due to general confusion, and because Dexanote was receiving personal abuse.

Cyvstvi responds to an earlier message from Moose that admins are automatically members of Disc and can choose to opt out by stating that Disc should not be opt-out for the highest levels of staff and should instead act as a tribunal. He then adds that Disc members should have limited terms, and that the highest levels of staff should not have complete control over acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. He then clarifies that this is not because this has been abused, but is because it could be abused.

Gee summarizes his perspective on adjudicating interstaff issues as being against the creation of a new formal team (because formal teams can lead to bias in favour of whatever is the dominant opinion of the members), transparency is essential (Discord can be useful for very minor things, but discussions should otherwise be done on 05), and staff should have a way to report issues anonymously (to avoid discomfort with reporting staff ranked higher than themselves).

Moose adds to an earlier statement by ROUNDERHOUSE that the Vice-Captain of Disc believes the current Disc process is flawed by adding that Dexanote has said similar things in the past. ROUNDERHOUSE asks where this has been said, and Dexanote later states that it was not in staffchat because he has taken lots of complaints and issues out of his own initiative. He then adds that it is apparent that Disc cant be responsible for non-disciplinary stuff, and interstaff issues are not a disciplinary issue.

Moose asks for clarification of an earlier statement from Cyvstvi about treating "both groups" equally. Cyvstvi clarifies that they meant staff and users, because there is an assumption that staff receive privileges due to their positions and, whether this is true or not, the fact that this belief exists is an issue. Moose later responds to a message from Cyvstvi about concerns with Disc having the highest power on the site and determining what is and is not acceptable by stating that Disc has never had this ability. Moose then states that “Disc has specifically the power to determine whether rules established by the community have been broken, how, and why” and states that this is why a rotating tribunal would not work. GremlinGroup points out that Disc also has the power to determine whether an appeal appears apologetic enough or not.

Moose feels that "Formal teams do not automatically lead to bias in favour of whatever the prevailing staff opinion is on the team." While they agree on the need for transparency and anonymous reporting to the Disciplinary Team, they ask for a further explanation of gee's overall position. gee explains that the issue pertains solely to the Disciplinary Team due to the subjectivity of the rules involved, and their vagueness; he believes that Disc is a small closed group which is largely on the same page, which does not reflect how all staff might interpret the same rules. Dexanote argues that "some appeals need to be denied" and that Disc is required to follow the site's rules strictly. GremlinGroup notes that his sole point was that Disc is able to subjectively judge the sincerity of appeals. Croquembouche adds that the lack of formalized delegation chains can cause issues like the recent problem with DrAkimoto's promotion. gee feels that the fact that a small, closed discussion failed to handle an issue properly is an argument for having such discussions on a larger scale.

GremlinGroup remains fixated on appeals as the most pertinent issue, feeling the tone and approach is typically negative and puts far too much unfair onus on the appealer. Dexanote offers a breakdown of how the Disciplinary server works. Cyvstvi wants greater transparency from Disc, noting that it has been proven that the existing system is vulnerable to abuse. gee suggests that staff "pull [intra] staff issues out of disc somehow" and make Disc's Discord server visible to all staff. Moose agrees that Disc should reform to reduce their blackbox nature, but rhetorically asks "why would [Disc] want to be less blackbox, when they have been approached in massively shitty ways'' which is answered when gee0765 opines: "because they shouldn't be acting to protect themselves, they should be acting to make the site a better place." Moose feels the Anti-Harrassment Team is not at issue since it has made steps toward transparency. gee agrees. DrBleep wants to know what reforms gee wants specifically. gee doesn't know, as he lacks context to to the lack of transparency with the Disciplinary Team. LadyKatie explains that disciplinary matters happen at two speeds: extremely fast for obvious issues, and extremely slowly for things which need careful consideration. Cyvstvi would like a clear justification for the Disciplinary Team being kept separate from the rest of staff.

Due to TheDeadlyMoose's habit of responding to every substantive post on a significant delay, a parellel conversation has been taking place about the November 2020. Moose regrets that DrMagnus left staff instead of "choosing to hear admins out on why it was wrong of him to do what he did," but notes that since this nevertheless occurred, it would be out of line to press him on the issue. Moose also does not make much distinction between accepting censure and issuing a statement of accountability, though they agree that taking the censure would be a good gesture — for Dexanote. They feel Mann being censured "would hold Mann to an unreasonable standard." ROUNDERHOUSE feels the distinction is very large from an optics standpoint; it makes it clear the issue has been taken seriously. He also takes issue with Moose's statement that evidence needs to be presented for why the Disciplinary Team needs to make amends, as he does not feel personal dissatisfaction requires evidence, being inherently subjective.

CuteGirl feels that Magnus has been aggressive in his defense because of the long-term nature of his experience, what she calls being "low-key harassed." ROUNDERHOUSE feels no harassment has taken place, merely calling-out. CuteGirl also feels that if Magnus was facing censure and resigned, that does not constitute avoiding responsibility, but suggests that if the censure is that important, it should be performed. JackalRelated feels the retirement was definitely an evasion of responsibility. CuteGirl wants to know if the interested parties think Magnus should be banned. gee does not, but he also doesn't want constant protestations of Magnus' innocence in staffchat. The question of whether stress in one's personal life, or believing oneself to be in the right, justify one's actions is bandied about briefly.

Moose expresses frustration that they have not received evidence that censuring Dexanote is a high priority outside of the views of "a few JS and non-staff." They say they haven't seen evidence that censure would actually resolve the issues these users have with the Wiki's staff. Furthermore, they suggest that this group of "people who feel severe grievances towards staff" would not be satisfied moving onto another complaint. This statement is accompanied with recognition that such complaints will also be valid.

Moose does not presently see speedily censuring Dex as a top priority, and asks why ROUNDERHOUSE believes it's a top priority. ROUNDERHOUSE states that Moose is assuming bad faith that people are looking for things to get mad over. Further, ROUNDERHOUSE feels that Moose not seeing this as a top priority is because Moose is out of touch with the present authorbase, and that this authorbase sees the censure as a priority.

Moose takes issue with the idea that Magnus was not harassed; they say that he has been harassed, and called out for misjudgements during his tenure on Site Staff. They also state their belief that he was not "harassed in the sense that AHT would step in". CuteGirl claims that Magnus is afraid of being downvote brigaded if he posts. ROUNDERHOUSE points out that this is not evidence of anything; JackalRelated notes that the importance of evidence appears to vary from topic to topic in staffchat. Dexanote asks whether djkaktus complaining about Magnus "by name for months" is not considered harassment. Moose notes that censuring a non-staff member, as Magnus is now, would be overreach. Croquembouche asks whether the Magnus topic is advancing this conversation; though most parties feel engaged on the topic, it is generally admitted that it is not. gee suggests that it is only useful as an entrée to discussing what reforms would prevent a similar issue from again arising.

LadyKatie announces that DrAkimoto has rejoined staff. stormfallen asks if promotions will be resumed and an O5 post made. DrBleep says she will reopen promotions tomorrow.

Moose feels that ROUNDERHOUSE has not addressed their points properly. ROUNDERHOUSE feels that Moose is reluctant to admit that these issues might be larger than they presently appear. He suggests that a poll of SCPD would set this right. Athenodora offers to do the same in #site19, and ROUNDERHOUSE says he doesn’t care if she does. Later, Athenodora notes, anecdotally, that she has seen no such sentiment of wanting Magnus censured during regular discussion in the IRC. She further states that, as far as she can tell, the recent IRC network ownership changeover has not significantly affected the composition of #site19's membership and would not compromise the validity of a poll of #site19's members.

Cyvstvi wants the Anti-Harassment Policy added to the Site Rules page.

Calibold notes the perception that the staff leak charge was added to the November 2020 thread to "pad it out" when the plagiarism charge fell through. Moose takes extreme exception to this assertion.

GremlinGroup obliquely suggests moving the conversation to 05command. LadyKatie agrees, but wants a statement prepared in advance to give the community proper context.

ROUNDERHOUSE feels like participating in this conversation has already secretly earmarked him for demotion. gee agrees that this is a worry, which again would be eased if Disc was viewable. MomBun agrees as well, adding that such viewership should be limited to staff at the Operator level and above. gee feels all staff should be present but would settle for OS+. (Moose will much later note that they are opposed to demoting staff members for bringing up issues.)

ROUNDERHOUSE feels that DrAkimoto's return to staff means the topic should be moved to 05command now. Dexanote says that moving the conversation there to slow it down was his intention with the November 2020 case, and "Look at where that ended up." ROUNDERHOUSE disagrees: "No, the Cerastes thread was a series of fuckups by Disc members and doubling down on them." LadyKatie proposes "we move all major discussions like this to O5. If we'd done that sooner, we'd have a statement. And it'd be easier to keep logs of everything."

It is generally agreed that the conversation has been a fast-paced impenetrable mass of confusion thus far. Many of the recappers agree, in private. "I think this exemplifies why I don't like bringing a lot of things in here," DrBleep says. GremlinGroup takes issue, assuming this statement refers to the diversity of staff opinions as a negative. Bleep clarifies that she doesn't like bringing up topics in staffchat because of the multitude of overlapping conversations. GremlinGroup feels that these long and complex discussions are rather the result of not bringing things to staffchat when they should be. ROUNDERHOUSE asserts that AdCap being easier is not an excuse for "Avoiding hard conversations because they will result in long, drawn-out and admittedly confusing discussions."

The topic of harassment in SCPD has been broached occasionally throughout these conversational threads. J Dune notes that these issues are typically raised in reference to the meta-scp-discussion channel, which is now under stricter moderation. He encourages approaching the moderation team.

gee intends to make a formal query to Disc about why all staff cannot view their proceedings.

GremlinGroup says that using AdCap to make final decisions, rather than initial deliberations, "ends up with a façade of transparency."

Athenodora asks for a break, and Dexanote orders a ten-minute pause. It doesn't work out, particularly as Moose is still time-travelling. They suggest asking Disc to explain the blackbox situation on 05command. A moment later they rejoin everyone else in the present, and apologize for violating the stop order. When the pause ends, Dune agrees with Moose's idea. GremlinGroup reminds staff that the September recap is up for review; reminded of the Recap team, DrBleep expresses her sympathies and presciently notes "This is going to be hell." The conversation briefly turns to how much it probably sucks to be on Recap.
Moose catches up with GremlinGroup's comment on Bleep's desire to avoid the use of staffchat, and ROUNDERHOUSE's characterization of it as "noxious," and terms it "deeply fucked up." GremlinGroup takes issue with this.
stormfallen summarizes the action items from this difficult day:
1. Get an 05 statement about the whole Akimoto clusterfuck
2. Restart promos
3. Discussion about why Disc chat should or shouldn't be visible to general staff
4. Discussion about staff-wide Jira
5. Resuming discussion about censure for Dex and Mann
6. Discussion about who should handle inter/intra-staff issues, and how they should be reported.
He later adds:
7. Discuss how to better format these long conversations so that people who aren't around/can't follow along as easily can still know what happened
8. Draft proposal to reword Rule Zero
He volunteers for the last item.

GremlinGroup clarifies the comments Moose took issue with: "Staff users at every level were sharing their thoughts on multiple issues that had come to head, or had been otherwise brought up, during the discussion. Within this context, Bleep’s message read as one regretting the fact that the conversation was happening at all. Their later statement, that they don’t bring up “unpolished topics” didn’t exactly help in this regard." This perception was only altered by additional context given after he made his comments. (Moose eventually reaches this point and apologizes for the distress caused.) Calibold also wishes to clarify: he does not think Disc engaged in a conspiracy against Cerastes, but he does think they mishandled the issue very badly and kept it going past the point where it should have ended.

LadyKatie points out that it can be difficult to follow these long, detailed, fast conversations — particularly for neurodivergent staff members. Athenodora agrees. Cyvstvi suggests introducing slowmode. HarryBlank reiterates the value of switching to 05command for more deliberate conversation without so much repetition and "increasing volume." LadyKatie agrees that the repetition is unproductive and near-deafening. Dexanote believes the biggest problem is remaining on topic. Cyvstvi suggests that the tone of these debates represents genuinely-held feelings, but could stand improvement. LadyKatie underlines the harmful mental effects of said tone and the difficulties inherent in changing it. Prometheus thinks much of the adversarial nature of the conversation results from staff having nearly-completed discussions suddenly dropped on them.

Dexanote suggests limiting these discussions "to those most essential, plus some extra. Generally for policy stuff Everyone™️ doesn't need to be consulted. Things like tonight need to Stay On Topic to actually get stuff done, otherwise you have people struck by the emotional weight and not meaning."

The conversation has largely abated, leaving TheDeadlyMoose to respond to posts made over one hour ago. They call out ROUNDERHOUSE for insulting and inappropriate tone; he responds that he's become frustrated with never getting "a straight response." Speaking to stormfallen one hour in the past, Moose feels that their (Moose's) willingness to remain in the conversation indefinitely contributed to its length. This continued presence was an expression of their willingess to hear issues and work through them, in response to the needs expressed by staff and the userbase.

Moose responds to something HarryBlank said while he was engaged in recapping "events from seven hours ago," and he nearly dies in fright.

Cyvstvi outlines what they believe to be the merits of 05command and Discord: "Discord, like the name implies, allows us to air our grievances between one another in a more private setting. We can debate one another and argue like the ordinary humans we are. O5 allows us to post our thoughts clearly and cohesively as a team, whilst debates might occur and tensions may flare, we're far more likely to be civil in the public eye."

The remainder of the conversation consists of minor business and reminiscences.

stormfallen responds to Dexanote's suggestion to limit the number of discussion participants. He believes focus groups are a good approach, and suggests a schema for putting them in place. Croquembouche makes some suggestions for making sure such an approach works well, and suggests that a thread be opened to discuss it. This leads into the Focus Groups recap.