Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Summary:

A wall of text on why we should clean house a bit before promoting more staff

Staff Accountability - A Proposal

(account deleted) 16 Sep 2014 19:33

A relevant point from an unrelated proposal currently under discussion elsewhere on O5:

■There is a tendency for us to promote and then ignore. Effectively, if you're not doing anything or not active, it doesn't matter so much. This is an oversight of both the site and the chat. Inactivity should be addressed by removal from Operator Status.

We are planning on the next round of promotions at the end of the month, and applications for new staff members are being actively solicited on the wiki. New blood is healthy for the management of the wiki, and the prospect of promotion is a helpful incentive to encourage participation in the work of maintaining the site.

However, before we head to the next round of promotions, I would like to note the following two points:

• As TroyL mentioned above, we have an issue with "promote and forget"
• We have a lot of staff at the moment, and if the next round of promotions is like the last, we will have a lot more

We have over fifty officially "active" staff members, and yet the issue that there are not enough people available to carry out necessary site functions seems to keep cropping up.

As an example from my perspective, we have a fourteen-member team responsible for providing experienced feedback in the Drafts forum. Zyn has done a yeoman's job in overseeing this team, however a big chunk of its membership has not posted anything anywhere in the wiki forums in the last couple of months, let alone provided draft critiques. This has led to a situation where we tell new members to shop their work on the forums, only to be met by bad advice from other newbies or just plain silence. I suspect that there are similar problems among the teams in meeting mission goals, despite the availability of what should be enough people to do so.

I propose, then, that we carry out an internal performance review before we appoint the next round of staff. The various team captains, who should be pretty familiar with who's active and who's not, should prepare a list of folks to be moved to inactive status based on contributions to the wiki in their various appointed roles. The admins (who should probably also provide their own input in the review stage) could then act to deactivate accordingly.

This would help keep the management structure from becoming too unwieldy; we frequently make decisions with the participation of a very small proportion of the official pool of staff members, and if we need to do something big, it would be helpful to do so without having to repeatedly pester fifty or more people who are only kind of around.

This would also help to reinforce the idea that an appointment to staff is an assignment of real responsibility, as opposed to a social recognition that one is now an official Lifetime Member of the Site Cool Kid's Club. We need a little more accountability in this process, and I feel that this is a way to introduce that, while allowing previously-vetted staff members to easily come back in an official capacity once they start contributing again.

Essentially, I think that throwing ever-more bodies at the management problems of the wiki, without some sort of management of ourselves once people get tapped to serve, has caused problems and will cause many more problems down the road. Thoughts?

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Adam Smascher 16 Sep 2014 20:33

As an example from my perspective, we have a fourteen-member team responsible for providing experienced feedback in the Drafts forum. Zyn has done a yeoman's job in overseeing this team, however a big chunk of its membership has not posted anything anywhere in the wiki forums in the last couple of months, let alone provided draft critiques. This has led to a situation where we tell new members to shop their work on the forums, only to be met by bad advice from other newbies or just plain silence.

Funny, that this was the exact thing we were trying to remedy by appointing a draft review team. Funny, also, how the people who adhered to their responsibilities under the team seem to be the ones who didn't need responsibilities to compel them to do it to begin with. And as for those of the review team who have stopped participating, are they totally inactive on the site, or have they simply stopped reviewing users' drafts? If they're totally inactive, they could have life stuff to deal with. There's no reason they couldn't jump right back into giving feedback on drafts, if they wished, on their return, so there doesn't seem to be any good reason to strip them of the position, there.

That said, and my point here being, a designated "review team" doesn't seem to actually serve any purpose. People will review drafts and provide feedback as they will, team member or no. Requiring it of people is only going to make it a burden, and probably burn them out. You have to remember, this is a hobby. Everyone's here because they enjoy it. You take the joy out of it and make it a slog, you're going to see much higher attrition rates of staff, I think, and not actually address the issue at all.

Maybe you could avoid the attrition if you cycled people through on tours of duty, as it were. Maybe a week, maybe two, and extended the responsibility to all of staff when they get cycled in that way, not just a small team of a dozen people. Kinda like jury duty. Seems more fair and more in line with what we're actually trying to do, there. But it's crazy to go full job mode on this stuff with performance reviews based on arbitrarily delineated productivity goals, seeing as no one is getting anything out of it but terror and happy thoughts, and that ends up being kind of a shitty way to run anything but a factory, and we're definitely not that.

So, for the review/critique/whatever it's called team at least, cycle them through from the rest of active staff, week long tours probably best, understanding that people don't need to be on any critique team to give critique.

I mean, hell, I don't even work here any more.

Last edited on 16 Sep 2014 20:42 by Adam Smascher Show more

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Zyn 16 Sep 2014 21:07

Agreed with Adam. Usually if I can, I'll post feedback in forums and chat myself (or in PMs… I get a fair number of PM requests for critique, actually :/) and only wave things around in chat if I feel that they merit immediate attention. I've never contacted members of my team on an individual basis and assigned them shifts that they're required to carry out.

I can get behind a cycling of responsibilities (like rotating chores, lol). Maybe a sign-up sheet or something in a sandbox, and staff need to be available for giving feedback (not immediately, but with a reliable response of about a day) at least some weeks in a month or else they'll be removed from active staff?

Thing is though, like Adam said, I don't want this to become a burden. Requiring anything from people with busy IRL lives is something that I'm iffy on, but it's tough to pinpoint what's asking too much, given that circumstances can change.

I've been shouldering more of the load than usual because my classes haven't started yet, but once college kicks up, I'm definitely not going to be around as often. Please to be getting more active staff.

Last edited on 16 Sep 2014 21:32 by Zyn Show more

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

(account deleted) 16 Sep 2014 22:58

Funny, that this was the exact thing we were trying to remedy by appointing a draft review team. Funny, also, how the people who adhered to their responsibilities under the team seem to be the ones who didn't need responsibilities to compel them to do it to begin with.

Sounds like you have issues with the idea of there being a team structure. Seems to me like that's a decided issue already, but if you'd like to discuss that, I'm open to discussion on that as a separate point. I'm operating with the assumption that radically re-overhauling that structure is not currently on the table.

And as for those of the review team who have stopped participating, are they totally inactive on the site, or have they simply stopped reviewing users' drafts?

Well, as I said in my original post, there are users who have posted literally nothing for one month, two month stretches. In some cases it's even longer if you exclude a one-or-two post day of activity.

There's no reason they couldn't jump right back into giving feedback on drafts, if they wished, on their return, so there doesn't seem to be any good reason to strip them of the position, there.

My proposal allows for that. Note that I say "moved to inactive" rather than "firing into the sun". There is no reason someone couldn't step right back into their role once they start being active again. I personally don't see much harm in acknowledging reality.

That said, and my point here being, a designated "review team" doesn't seem to actually serve any purpose.

Okay. Take it up with the creators of that team and the accompanying structure.

You have to remember, this is a hobby. Everyone's here because they enjoy it. You take the joy out of it and make it a slog, you're going to see much higher attrition rates of staff, I think, and not actually address the issue at all.

I guess we differ fundamentally on what constitutes a "slog" here. I kind of think that maybe doing some portion of the duties that a staff member agreed to take on isn't unreasonable. I'm not asking to deport people to gulags here. Just, you know, something more than nothing might be an improvement.

Maybe you could avoid the attrition if you cycled people through on tours of duty, as it were. Maybe a week, maybe two, and extended the responsibility to all of staff when they get cycled in that way, not just a small team of a dozen people. Kinda like jury duty. Seems more fair and more in line with what we're actually trying to do, there.

That's not a bad plan at all. If the higher-ups prioritize critique in particular as an area of need, that seems like a pretty cool way to do it.

But it's crazy to go full job mode on this stuff with performance reviews based on arbitrarily delineated productivity goals

The term "performance review" scares people, I know, but there's nothing saying it has to be anything more than a team captain looking at their roster, going "hey, this person's been gone from the wiki for like three months," and recommending an inactive designation and assigning a replacement if they need it. Again, I don't think that's a hugely unreasonable thing to expect of someone who's accepted a leadership role.

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Adam Smascher 17 Sep 2014 01:57

Sounds like you have issues with the idea of there being a team structure… I'm operating with the assumption that radically re-overhauling that structure is not currently on the table.

I can see how it might sound that way. I don't think that, though, and we won't get anywhere if we get wrapped up in what might or might not be nothing more than someone's feelings on a subject. Especially when they've not even been presented in full, but it just sounds like they might kind of be there. That said, if you're not willing to address problems to the depth that may be requisite, you're not actually addressing problems. Two ways to do it, right and again.

The part that needs be taken notice of is that the assaying of responsibilities for review of drafts in particular is not doing what was intended. That is as it is, no matter what unspoken issues I might have with "the idea of team structure." My point is that the people who will take it upon themselves to review these drafts will do it regardless of any assigned responsibility, and if it's made about "accountability" when nobody is actually fucking up to have anything to account for, it becomes not a labor of love but a thankless chore. That grinds people down, whatever was intended.

You don't have to take my word on any of this, and you don't have to line-by-line me, so long as you get my general point. I've seen the burnout happen, and it sucks to watch. In any case, you should listen to Zyn.

For that matter, you could also talk to Troy, or Bright, or others I'm sure, about what happens when people feel as though they need to be Atlas.

Again, I don't think that's a hugely unreasonable thing to expect of someone who's accepted a leadership role.

Gotta keep perspective, here. At the end of the day, we're just a bunch of writers on the internet, here because we want to be. Don't make that harder than it has to be.

Edit: I don't mean to sound dismissive, and there's no spite in anything I'm saying. I realize that it might sound that way, though, and I apologize if that's the case. The point that I'm trying to make is that we're only human, and what we mean to do isn't exactly what happens. And it sucks, to see enjoyment poisoned because people think that just enjoying something isn't enough. So take care you don't heap obligations and duties on people when it isn't necessary, and if you must, be reasonable about how it's done. Quotas have no place here.

Last edited on 17 Sep 2014 02:28 by Adam Smascher Show more

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

RJB_R 16 Sep 2014 19:36

We'd need impartial people to do the auditing, to avoid anyone giving people they like an easy time about it.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

(account deleted) 16 Sep 2014 20:13

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "impersonal."

I can't claim to intimately know all of my fellow team leaders, but I have the impression that the people who have been entrusted with the position have enough integrity to place the welfare of the site over the feelings of internet friends. And, if not that, at least have their like of an inactive team member counterbalanced by the frustration of having dead weight on a team.

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

RJB_R 16 Sep 2014 21:18

Well, I've had the problem of people who like me holding back in being critical of me, and some of those people have been team captains. I assume at least some other people who would be reviewed might have the same issue.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Eskobar 16 Sep 2014 19:49

I'm all for this generally. And I'm someone who's been much less active as staff over the last few weeks or so due to IRL concerns (student teaching taking all of my time), so I understand this process might frown at me specifically. But as long as there's a middle ground between "excellent staff member" and "BURN THEM", something like "your team needs you to be doing X more, can you please provide?" I'm cool with that. For example, I'm a member of five teams and captain of one, and the ones that far and away need the most of my time are Licencing and the Critiques. I'm pretty good about licensing, but my critique activity has dropped significantly. I'd be all for hearing from the relevant team captains about specifically, given the limited amount of time I have, what I should be prioritizing above other matters. And I'd say the same can go for other teams and staff members; figure out who needs what the most based on what we're lacking in the most (Kalinin's example being draft critique, which I don't think anyone can argue with).

Basically: yes, all of this, with the caveat that we should focus on "seeing if staff members can increase activity" rather than "fire them". Not that I don't support putting staff members on inactive if they're, y'know, inactive, but I'd like to see some mercy for those of us in the IRL-gotcha-by-the-cloaca situation.

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

(account deleted) 16 Sep 2014 20:09

I support the "needs improvement" option for the less-active idea, as this is part of what's happening to me as well. Also, I am extremely pro-"apportioning people based on what teams need."

Last edited on 16 Sep 2014 20:19 by (account deleted) Show more

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

weizhong 16 Sep 2014 22:04

I essentially agree with the contents of Eskobear's post up above, and I think that a lot of staff simply need a good kick in the rear to remind themselves to do something. I'm certainly in no place to point fingers at people myself, given how my wiki level has dropped due to college applications, general senior year shenanigans, and other assorted things, and I think that none of us should be immune to this.

Perhaps we should go through the teams and evaluate if people should be dropped back in their team involvement, so that they could focus more on areas that they can work on. I'd like to see a system where we have more staff, but staff who are more specialized in their subject area that they can do a lot of stuff on, if we do promote more staff.

One thing that I do think we need more of, however, is specific goals for teams. It's no secret that the CC Project has stalled lately due to a very nebulous end goal and assorted issues with lack of motivation. Other teams have a general "Do this kind of thing" without being very specific as to what they need to do in terms of goals. Though I can only speak intimately from teams that I'm on, I can definitely see that other teams suffer from a similar issue of lack of a tangible goal.

So I want to suggest that team leaders set out measurable goals for their teams to increase accountability. For example, perhaps the Draft Critique Team leader says that each member of the team should review at least 3-4 drafts a week, or a Technical Team member should tag 4-5 a week. I understand that some teams (Licensing comes to mind) would not be able to do something like this, but having specific goals gives people something to work towards, and also combats the general feeling of "I'll do something eventually."

EDIT: Due to Gaffney threatening to fuck me up, I have to clarify that the Licensing Team can't exactly set goals for a week-they're wholly dependent on what others create, and there may not be a certain number of situations requiring licensing work in a given week.

Last edited on 16 Sep 2014 23:28 by weizhong Show more

Revised Proposal

(account deleted) 16 Sep 2014 23:06

Adam Smascher, Eskobar, and Weizhong raise pretty good points. So, to account for that feedback, I've revised my proposal (new stuff in bold):

I propose, then, that we carry out an internal performance review before we appoint the next round of staff. The various team captains, who should be pretty familiar with who's active and who's not, should prepare a list of folks to be moved to inactive status based on contributions to the wiki in their various appointed roles take a quick look at their rosters and ping people to ask if they've got time to address any outstanding issues in their area, while also seeing if anyone's gone inactive. The admins (who should probably also provide their own input in the review stage) could then act to deactivate accordingly. The admins should also work with team captains to see who needs help, and if reassignments are necessary to address issues facing the site.

Separately, the admins should explore the idea of a rotating "critique crew" for drafts, who would be tasked with doing a certain amount of reviews per week (something reasonable like 3-4, but subject to debate) before rotating out.

Last edited on 16 Sep 2014 23:08 by (account deleted) Show more

Re: Revised Proposal

Devereaux 16 Sep 2014 23:52

The critique crew won't work for a few reasons. Firstly, you can never really tell when life is going to get in the way. If you're signed up to give a bunch of critiques in a week, then life throws you something that you have to go inactive for a little to deal with, then you better deal with life first. Secondly, having 'shifts' makes this seem even more like a job, even though it should be a hobby. The feeling of being expected to work shifts of an unpaid job will just cause reviewers to burn out faster. After all, people shouldn't be on the critique team if the don't want to give critiques. That makes staff duties feel like slog, when this should be something you're doing because your enjoying it. If staff members no longer want to do any staff work, then there are plenty of people who would be entirely eager to replace them.

Last edited on 16 Sep 2014 23:55 by Devereaux Show more

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

marslifeform 17 Sep 2014 16:26

I like the general idea of "performance review" type of things just to make sure that the staff members are at least partly doing the job they've been assigned to, but there are a few points I would disagree with.

Now, I'm kind of speaking as a staff member at probably the lower end of the "activity spectrum" at most, and I understand that. In fact, basically all I do is go into the Drafts & Critiques forum when I can and check out if there are any drafts in need of immediate attention. However, if it weren't for my position and my knowledge that, as someone with that position, I'm supposed to a) set an example for the other users and b) be able and willing to give users feedback, I probably would have stopped posting a long time ago, given that I personally am busy being in some sort of leadership position in two clubs, as well as attending my classes, being the mascot for my school, and somehow balancing it with my social life. I do feel obligated to give critiques because of my staff position, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Anyway, I digress.

I don't like "rotational shifts" for my team, at least, as on any given day I have no idea how busy I'll be with homework or other responsibilities. I do, however, think that the "certain # of reviews written per week" rule could be useful if implemented. If I'm not (at least semi-regularly) trying to write up good critiques and glance over the forums once in a while, why would I be on staff for that specifically?

Another thing I've noticed (and maybe this is irrelevant) is that this discussion seems to be revolving around Drafts & Critiques. I probably wouldn't bring this up if there hadn't been specific discussion of rules used to qualify "active" members on staff, but there were and so I am. Only two other teams have been brought up, and I wonder if that should be discussed here as well. Or should we just let the team captains decide individually what the criteria are?

In short, yes, I think there should be some review process of who is and is not active staff, no, I don't think that teams should be handled on rotational shifts.

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Eskobar 17 Sep 2014 19:49

Another thing I've noticed (and maybe this is irrelevant) is that this discussion seems to be revolving around Drafts & Critiques.

The issue is that Forum Critique and Community Outreach (responses to intro threads) are pretty straightforwardly the two areas that are least covered compared to what the site needs or what our expectations demand. Disciplinary, for instance, is super covered; all staff members make sure that people stepping out of line are addressed, and have been doing so very well to date; no change is needed there. Same with Licensing or Harassment or (arguably) Site Critique, which gets assistance from users and is just as much about policing comments as actually making them.

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Vincent_Redgrave 17 Sep 2014 20:10

How will this proposal affect IO's operation and performance? How will we be judged there?

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

Bryx 19 Sep 2014 03:10

I'll add in general agreement for a staff activity review, but there does need to be room for some subjectivity in the review process. And those affected should definitely have some time to work on their issues without the threat of imminent demotion/movement to the inactive roster. Like Deveraux said a few days ago, this site is a hobby, not a job. It is obviously a hobby we all feel passionately about, enough to feel obligated to put a great deal of time and effort into it. However, it is still a hobby, and as such it should be secondary to any real life concerns or issues. I know that my activity on the wiki has dropped immensely over the past few months as I prepared for college, and then arrived at college to find that I could only access the site from my nook. Call me selfish for looking at it this way, but I don't want to be warned that my duties as staff may be dropped completely just as I'm starting to pick them up again.

If this system is put in place, I feel that the measurement of activity should be more complex than just, "what recent posts and edits has this person made that is relevant to their team." There are members of staff whose responsibilities lie outside of the wiki together, by election or assignment. It might be harder to judge their activity.

Re: Staff Accountability - A Proposal

(account deleted) 19 Sep 2014 04:43

I think people are not actually reading what I've proposed, and are leaping to "OMG it's NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES for staff!!1!" conclusions.

• Read what I've actually posted, and understand it's a recommendation. From a junior staff member, no less.
• I'm asking that the team captains review what's going on. I'm not proposing that people be cast into the fiery orb if they haven't hit the Magical Number of Posts Threshold.
• For some people, yes, that may mean inactive status. Notice that it's "inactive status", not "booted from staff". Notice how I specifically cite the notion of people returning to active status once they're active again.
• I'm sympathetic to the "real life" thing. Trust me, I probably juggle just as much as any of you. Thing is, I'm not asking anyone to make this a job. I just think that doing something, from time to time, is probably a reasonable expectation of someone who accepted a staff gig. There are staff members who have had literally zero presence on the wiki for months. Inactive status is merely recognizing reality in those cases. This is mostly what I have in mind when I think of this issue.
• Also, the whole "leaving the review to the team captains" thing is supposed to account for those who spend a lot of time in extra-wiki capacities such as licensing, internet outreach, etc.

No one's talking about a purge, here.