Esperion: I haven’t seen their work so I will abstain.

Locke: Powerhouse with image replacement. Support.

Synthpanda: Support. Trustworthy and hardworking.

Ari: Full support.

we should only ever hold such promotion in abeyance if there are realistic, actionable room for improvement. given everyone above, it is clear its not locke's capability as productive staff, but their strong stance on certain aspects of site culture and policies. in my opinion, this is not an actionable starting point that we can simply hold over someone for a year and expect concrete, cite-able mindset change — and to be frank, we shouldn't anyway.

Esperion has been a force in all staff tasks that he's devoted himself to, and while I would like to see him contribute more to discussion when he has contributed it has been worthwhile. Support.

S D Locke I echo Lord's concerns. We recently had a conversation in the Adult Content Curation channel that was derailed by talk of just deleting the article instead of splashing it. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it worries me about a tendency to want to police the site morally and overstep staff powers. I haven't yet decided how heavily this weighs on my decision. Undecided.

AriadnesThread is a force for good in the community. She saw a need for change in the Discord team and pursued making that change a reality - a responsibility that should have been taken up by the leadership of the team and admins. I can not stress enough how valuable that ability to be the change is. Ari's interactions with the community and other staff members are fair and measured. In the few times that I've seen Ari take a position completely on impulse she's been willing to re-examine it and either double down if she's correct or back down if she wasn't. That's admirable and something we can all strive to be better about. Support.

As for the other people who are up for promotion, I've seen first-hand how efficient Celeste Etoile is at licensing work, and I echo everything that's been said here about how great of a candidate AriadnesThread is for admin. I encourage everyone who can vote for the both of them to do so.

I am a little baffled here that the argument for or against receiving mod tools (just as much from Ermin) are being brought up during an unrelated promotion.

Do I have to remind people of why the current mod-tools system takes the form that it has? Locke has a strong sense of morals and has in the past asked for forgiveness over permission (see the porting of WDB translations onto the -EN Wiki); Can you honestly say, 100%, that you would be absolutely certain Locke wouldn't use mod tools to unilaterally delete Bright's author page, 001 proposal, and 1004? This would be irreversible. To be clear I'm not making a moral judgment here because such a deletion would arguably be right, but it cannot and should not be the unilateral decision of a rogue moderator. And to be clear I'm not saying Locke would do such a thing — I'm saying I can't be absolutely, totally sure that Locke wouldn't given past behavior — especially since it would be a lot less tedious than starting an 05command.wikidot.com discussion about deleting said pages and waiting a month or two for a not-necessarily-favorable consensus to form — and I'm not going to vote in favor of that risk for the sake of convenience.

noting that I added this response after Harry(an admin)'s comment below, so any echos in that are of my earlier post.

Locke has been pretty much single-handedly pushing the image-replacement agenda, to the point where I sometimes hesitate to even call it a "team." Image replacement requires a lot of effort and a lot of skills, of which Locke somehow possesses and uses to their fullest degree, and is slowed only by her lack of mod tools to do the uploading and editing she needs to.

As such I whole-heartedly believe this promotion, and by extension Locke's mod tools, have been long overdue. Support.

Esperion: Support, generally trust moderation decisions made.

S D Locke: Locke is wonderful free thinker and brings many new and necessary ideas to the SCP Wiki on top of their staff work. For example, during the -ES pride logo drama, Locke was instrumental in organizing and executing a petition from authors to request an end to translations (link is to statement demonstrating co-leadership status, couldn't find another). While we've had our disagreements in the past I think Locke should be more free to speak on 05 on the things that really matter. However, I believe Locke has a tendency to ask for forgiveness over permission, and sometimes the embrace of out-of-the-box thinking means violating rules and mores — specifically, during the aforementioned -ES pride logo disagreements I believe Locke started attempting to post translated versions of When Day Breaks as offsets of the primary When Day Breaks page on the English Wiki — and for that reason my support is entirely contingent on Locke not being ever put up for mod tools so that they will absolutely have to go through the onerous bureaucracy of SCP for their more radical ideas instead of having unilateral implementation ability.

SynthPanda_: Support, generally trust as community member, doesn't seem power hungry or hubristic.

AriadnesThread: Full support on both personal and staff level.

Locke and Panda I have similar opinions about, that being while I haven't personally interacted with them very much, I have seen that they consistently do important work for the site. I support them as well.

I've interacted with Ari before and seen their work on Discord, and I don't think I have much more to say that hasn't already been said here. Very consistently level-headed and helpful. Full Support.

AriadnesThread: Ari is a powerhouse when it comes to the discord team, she's been an amazing team captain. I fully agree with everything said for the reasoning. I think she'd be an outstanding addition to the admin team. We wouldn't be where we are in the discord team without her, she's great at making sure everyone has a say in important discussions and keeping things down-to-earth. Support a million times over.

No opposition to the rest, just don't know em much.

Esperion: From what I've seen, Esperion is has been very active on MAST updating and I have seen good things from him on the 19mod team. Here, I'd also suggest more engagement with staff discussion, but I am also willing to support.

AriadnesThread: Ari will probably kill me for saying nice things about her, but I think she's one of the most valuable members of this community. She shows endless kindness and patience in difficult circumstances and has been essential in the discord team restructuring. She's a great leader and a kind presence here. I trust her balanced view and nuance, and I think that we're all better off with her as an admin.
The only advice I would have is: accept that you're really good at what you do and you are very much appreciated.

I am not familiar enough with the work of SynthPanda and Celeste Etoile, but I do trust Nico's opinion as a member of licensing, which means I see no reason to oppose. I would second it on seeing more activity from them in staff discussion.

I absolutely love Ari, she is an incredibly kind person that I feel comfortable going to my issues with regarding discord if I have questions or something. I think she definitely deserves Admin. Full support.

Celeste and Panda have both been great on licensing. I don't know much about the in depth of their work, but I've seen them around.

Who I mainly wanted to comment on is Ari. Ari is a fantastic member of staff. She's kind and sweet, does her job well, I really appreciate her. It surprises me it took her so long to move up in the ranks. She runs the discord spectacularly. I truly think she would make a great leader.

I think she's done a wonderful job since joining staff, whenever I see her seems to be very on top of it in Disc, on the Discord Team and on 05updating, was glad to see her organize the whole Discord Team reform and see her become captain of the Discord Team. She's got a good disposition, is reliable and seems to do well in a leadership position. I'm sure she'll make a great admin.

As Nico and Ariadne mentioned, and as I'm sure others will, there have been several periods where I haven't had the energy to devote to staff things, but that should be behind me, now. 2023 was a *really* rough year for me, and when I initially joined the licensing team, I hoped my life was finally settling down. That wasn't the case, and I'm grateful to my team members and captain for their patience with me.

Now, things are looking a lot more stable, and I'm excited to be a more active part of staff. I've been spearheading the 4.0 image crawl for awhile now, and I'd like to be more active with it. We also need to figure out a good way to organize and crawl through the non-mainlist pages, and I'm sure that some of y'all in other teams can help with that. I've also tried to stay up to date with staff issues and read through the discussions on O5command, even though I haven't posted. When I didn't have much energy, it was easy to just focus on the 4.0 stuff (goodness knows we still have plenty of mainlist articles) so now I want to work on expanding my contributions, figuring out how I can be a better member of the licensing team, and interacting more with staff as a whole.

I'm very grateful for the nomination, and am grateful to have my contributions recognized like this. If promoted, I will def be mindful of the demands and expectations of being an operational staff member, but I'm looking forward to being a bigger part of staff this year, regardless!

Esperion - As Espy's captain/subcaptain, I admittedly consider them a friend but I also believe I am in a prime position to speak of how strongly I support their promotion! Espy is detail focused, which is critically important for MAST work but also works very well in the fast paced, often unusual moderation space that is 19cord.

Locke & Panda - I am grouping both these people together because they're in the unique position of having staff positions I don't fully understand and yet understand are vitally important to the health of the site. I also find them both (in fun, different) ways to be excellent community members, and strongly support their promotions as well.

Ari - Please don't make me say anything nice about myself. I'll probably die. Dagon asked me to comment on myself, so I'm going to and promise to not die. I appreciate the level of trust that is being shown by even offering this role to me by the community, but I agree that it's important to explain why I accepted in the first place. Since joining staff almost two years ago, I've not only found a community that I deeply enjoy but one that is determined to keep this place welcoming and safe for members but also to learn from the past as much as possible. Those are qualities that I respect in any community, but in an online group they're truly special. I've been fortunate that the skills that I've developed over my many, many years on this blue marble we call Earth are helpful, and I look forward to continuing to help the wiki grow not only in membership but in quality as we continue to house some of the most creative and frankly inspiring content on the Internet.

We might be a silly group of writers and artists trying to spook each other a lil' bit, but I am deeply proud to be here. It would be my honor to be able to continue to help in any way that I can, and I also promise to not accidentally put the entire discord server on slowmode ever again.

S D Locke: Since joining Curations a little bit ago I have seen all the work that Locke does for image replacement. I would venture to say that most to all of the threads in that channel were from them, and there are a lot of both resolved and unresolved threads that they've compilied. I'm honestly surprised they aren't OS already with all the work they've done up to this point. support

Ari: Congrats on the adminship nomination, Ari! Ari has been one of the most active members of staff in 19cord for aslong as I've been in the server, and I usually see her online at most times of the day. In terms of moderation, Ari is incredibly levelheaded, allowing time for moderators of different viewpoints and perspectives to make sure they are arriving at the best possible decision for user experience in the server. I know there are times where you can be incredibly hard on yourself, Ari, but I do believe you deserve this promotion. You are the right person for this job, and I know you will do great! support

Celeste Etoile

Esperion is quick to update O5 and keeps the staff list in good shape. im also familiar with them for their work on 19cord, and i would say they do a good job of moderating the space. support.

S D Locke has been working hard behind the scenes to replace a lot of the older articles iconic images with cc compliant ones. this takes the form of scouring the internet, communicating with artists, and in some cases, applying their photoshop skills. because of the wikis settings, only the creators of pages are permitted to upload files to them, and given how locke's work involves replacing files, this means they have to upload them, so i think they are a good candidate for mod tools. support.

SynthPanda_ full disclosure; panda is my friend. that being said, she is a very effective and productive member of licensing who works through the large backlog of _image tagged articles. much like celese etoile, i also want to see her be more vocal in staff discussions, but i am willing to support her promotion.

AriadnesThread full disclosure; ari is my friend and world of warcraft guild master. ari is the sweetest, most kindest person i have ever met and does a phenomenal job keeping the discord running. she brings experience, wisdom, and a nuanced voice of reason to the team that is completely unparalleled. im not as familiar with her disciplinary work, but i know she responds to disc threads and voices her opinion in a just fashion when i have been unfortunate enough to become entangled in a disc thread. i think she would bring a lot to the admin team, so i am going to say i fully support her.

Mainsite Mirror

See Promotions-Policy for how promotions are to be handled.

This discussion is open to all staff. Please feel free to leave your thoughts. This is NOT a voting post.

Rules and Decorum:

This thread exists to allow commentary and criticism on candidates as candidates. All comments should be addressing one of the following:

• Concern or support for a candidate's ability to perform their duties after promotion.
• Concern or support for a candidate's character only in so far as it will affect their ability to perform their duties or their standing as staff.

What is not allowed in this thread:

• General complaints that you don't like a candidate for reasons that would not effect their ability to perform their duties.
• Comments that contain neither concern nor support for any candidate. A totally neutral stance does not need commented.
• Vehemence, rudeness, and incivility. While this is a place to post concerns, it is not a place to attack candidates.

Replies to comments are allowed but not required. Any user may respond to any concerns or support, including the candidate in question. All of the same rules apply to replies.

Staff will be monitoring this thread and will issue orders to stop discussion only if they have passed into unproductive vehemence. Staff will remove any comments that are extremely rule-breaking.

This discussion will be open for two weeks. After which time it will move to a staff vote.

Operational Staff Candidates:

Below is a group of suggestions regarding Junior Staff who Team Captains have nominated to be voted upwards to Operational Staff. Please read the commentary provided in order to help your judgement regarding these staff.

Junior Staff Member:	Celeste Etoile
Captain/Team:	Licensing (Naepic)
Why:	Celeste Etoile has done large amounts of work on our CC 4.0 cataloguing project and essentially headed the Images subteam for some time now. They have shown great promise by taking initiative and successfully managing limited resources.
Optional areas of improvement:	N/A
Junior Staff Member:	Esperion
Captain/Team:	MAST (Deadly Bread & torcsandantlers)
Why:	Espy is a consistent, exceptional staff member with a great eye for detail and fantastic skillset for improving processes to keep information as up to date as possible. They're also a great asset on Discord moderation, and I look forward to seeing them grow into other areas where their attention and innovation will be a great help.
Optional areas of improvement:	Don't be afraid to suggest better processes or methods for keeping information up to date or policy improvements! You have great ideas.
Junior Staff Member:	S D Locke
Captain/Team:	Curations (Riemann)
Why:	Locke has been the driving force behind the Curation team initiative to replace non-compliant images. Not only are they coordinating across people and teams to source new images, but they've also put a significant amount of work into creating new ones. If we want a website that is fully CC compliant, Locke is our person. Come on. Vote. Do it.
Optional areas of improvement:	N/A
Junior Staff Member:	SynthPanda_
Captain/Team:	Licensing (Naepic)
Why:	SynthPanda has been a consistently helpful member of licensing. Her significant contributions to clearing the massive backlog of _image tagged works and our CC 4.0 cataloguing project demonstrate her hardworking spirit.
Optional areas of improvement:	N/A

Administrator Candidates:

Below is a suggestion regarding an Operational Staff member who the Administrator Team has nominated to be voted upwards to Administrator. Please read the commentary provided in order to help your judgement regarding these staff.

Staff Member:	AriadnesThread
Captain/Team:	Admin Team
Why:	In her short time with us, Ari has proven herself to be nothing short of exceptional. She was handed the reins of the Discord team following an upheaval in their structure which she has navigated with ease. Her work in reforming and rebuilding this team has been exceptional, and has resulted in the official SCP discord being one of the best managed and most active offsite spaces. Beyond that, she has remained a consistent voice in policy discussions, offering a unique viewpoint that keeps the userbase in mind. The admin team is in need of this voice, and as such we've elected to put her forth for promotion to site administrator.
Optional areas of improvement:	N/A