I don't currently plan to jump in and say "this is what we're gonna do" because I'm not yet sure what the correct answer here is. As many of you know, this is a question many of us have been pondering for a long, long time.
I am very concerned about spreading staff and users too thin by splintering #site19 further. Soulless, Aelanna, Waxx, Bright, and any number of other users have made this point in the past: too many channels is a bad thing. I would personally modify that to be: Too many general channels is a bad thing. Channels like #Area14, #ethicscommittee, #scpguntalk, even #site17 have found success by specializing in a specific type of thing. Critique is very general and a key function of the site; that's not a specialized side chat, that's splitting 19 in two. (Not necessarily a bad thing, but not something done lightly.)
(Side note: 17 is different because it primarily serves as a help channel. I'd actually considering making it a backup critique channel if it started to happen naturally anyway — IE people using it to seek staff critique — but that hasn't occurred and seems unlikely to without deliberate action.)
To make this work, I think, the following would have to happen:
- It should have the same owner as 19 (currently me but applying to future successors as well) and the same operators as 19 (there could be extra ops potentially).
- We'd likely need to boot all drafts to that room (or to that room + an alternative like Area14, explaining the choices, which could get confusing for newbies).
- We'd need to find some way of ensuring the critiquing population is large enough in the room and that critique actually occurs.
#2 concerns me and #3 concerns me to an extreme degree.
Side note: It is straight up not going to be acceptable to make #Area14 the primary critique channel for many reasons which others have already covered and other reasons as well which they haven't. It does come down to Echo being in charge and making the rules — but even if Echo gave me ownership and made literally every change I required, I still would see that as a bad idea. #Area14 is already good as it is, a provider of in-depth technically focused critique for those who can stand a higher degree of harshness. I don't think trying to remake that into a general critique room would result in anything good — it would either (A) cause a ton of drama, or (B) neuter the room entirely. (Or, hell, (C) — both.) Directing to 14 as one of several critique rooms could be okay but that returns to the issue Aelanna points out.
Honestly I'd be dismissing this out of hand if it wasn't for the fact that I agree that the following are things:
- Stopping conversations to get drafts read make lots of people unhappy (including the ops doing the enforcing) and that's legit.
- Drafts still commonly get ignored in 19 despite ops stopping conversations to focus on drafts.
- 19 is very much less than ideal for getting critiqued despite the key advantage of having many people theoretically available to critique.
One thing Roget mentioned to me in a PM that I want to repeat is that people often see giving critique as a punishment or something they're forced to do. Few people see it as a good thing or a rewarding thing or a mark of status. Roget isn't the only person to point this out to me and I agree it's an issue.
Important Note: As I told some people before my laptop unceremoniously died, I plan to remove +R and the registration requirement from #site19. (Tentatively.) This may require getting Aelanna or bluesoul or another tech type to set up a chat bot (with +o, even if the maintainer is not an op) to manage a larger banlist. It would also involve restoring the Mibbit app to the chat guide. I still plan to implement this at some point soonish after my laptop gets repaired, unless someone reveals to me the fundamental wrongness of this plan, which hasn't happened yet. ("Soonish" - between 2 weeks and 2 months from now, I think.)
This is relevant to this discussion, though, because it may very likely act as "opening the floodgates". So… if you think critique gets drowned out now… well, it's not going to get any better without a change in how we operate, and it is very likely to get at least a bit worse.
As a final note, if operator (or operator + staff) consensus ultimately says we do this thing, it is incredibly likely that we do this thing, but at minimum we need to discuss this more first. Also more suggestions (including from non-ops) are welcome.