The site staff structure is based on the concept of "teams." Teams consist of appointed users who are in charge of particular aspects of the SCP Foundation's on- and off-site interactions. In addition, a team of Ambassadors comprised primarily of members from the SCP Foundation's sister sites also exists to be an advisory board for the site.
Each team is directed by a team captain. A team captain can be any member of site staff who has been determined to be the most capable leader for the team. The team captain is responsible for ensuring that the team remains on task. Administrators can and will remove the captains of teams that are not performing their duties. Despite this, it is perfectly understandable that someone could have real-life issues, be spread too thin, or simply be found to not be a good fit for the position. A team captain's removal does not imply a blacklisting from future positions or promotions.
The team captains and members have special responsibilities and powers based on their teams. The capabilities and permissions of an individual team are determined by administrators at the inception of that team. Capabilities and permissions will be added or removed if:
- 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.
This staff structure is designed to streamline our functions into an efficient content/skill-based system. Doing so allows us to distance ourselves from the arbitrary levels of structure imposed by Wikidot.
Staff Levels:
- Adjunct Staff - An Adjunct Staffer is an individual who manages a specific responsibility for the site, but is not generally active regarding staff work.
- Junior Staff – A Junior Staff member is someone who has been selected from the community to perform duties for a specific staff team(s). Junior Staff are reviewed periodically. A full description of Junior Staff guidelines can be found here.
- Operational Staff – An Operational Staff member is someone found to have been a useful and positive worker during their Junior Staff trial.
- Administrators – The Administrators are responsible for several tasks, including the banning of abusive members, accepting of new members to the site, and determining site policy. A set of “go-to” administrators are appointed as a liaison for each team. Often, these "go-to" administrators will be on hand to help out, help motivate, or pick up the loose ends on certain tasks.
Universal Staff Powers:
There are certain powers which all staff above the level of Junior Staff have, as noted here:
- Making Staff Posts: They are allowed to make a post with the title of "Staff Post -", followed by either "Open" (if discussion is allowed or useful) or "Closed" (when discussion is not relevant or useful.) It is a method of calling attention to themselves, making themselves heard, and ensuring that people realize they are staff.
- Calling Stops: A subset of the "Staff Posts" power is the ability to call stops to disruptive conversations. Note that such stops can be rolled back if Disciplinary Team members or Administrators believe the called stop was inappropriate.
- Voting on Deletion Posts: They can vote for or against the deletion of a page.
Additional powers granted to staff may be added as necessary.
Operational Staff can be given the Moderator role on Wikidot, enabling them to delete or rename pages, lock and unlock pages, and edit locked pages. These Mod Tools are only given to staff members who need these permissions for their role, and can be trusted with these capabilities.
Special Access:
- Select former administrators:
Dr Gears and
Quikngruvn, as established by fiat.
Staff Teams
This is the list of Ongoing Staff Teams.
The first point of contact for any team is either the Primary Administrative Contact, the Team Captain, or both unless otherwise stated in the team's hub.
- Ambassador Team
- Responsibilities: This team facilitates communication between the English SCP Wiki and the International SCP Wikis and settles any issues which may arise that involve INT branches. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Keeping an open and friendly line of communication with the International SCP Wikis.
- Resolving conflicts between the branches, and act as a mediator in other conflicts if asked.
- Handling inter-branch conflicts between users.
- Handling inter-branch disciplinary issues.
- Working with unofficial branches to help them reach the requirements necessary to become official.
- Voting on new official branches.
- Maintaining and managing activities and information pertaining to the SCP Wiki's INT Hub.
- Anti-Harassment Team
- Responsibilities: This team handles and counteracts harassment cases between users. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Investigating and dealing with harassment issues on the main site or IRC.
- Working with administrators, moderators, and chat operators to deal with issues, receiving complaints, and recommending courses of action when necessary.
- Acting as primary contacts for harassment complaints on both the main site and IRC.
- Maintaining the Anti-Harassment Policy.
- Community Outreach Team
- Responsibilities: This team handles communication between staff and the on-site community and addresses and responds to site issues as a whole. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Responding to newbie introduction threads.
- Being available to answer questions in #site17.
- Writing news for the front page.
- Keeping an active dossier of contest ideas.
- Maintaining the FAQ and the Guide to Newbies pages.
- Maintaining other guides.
- Investigating, suggesting, and executing projects to improve the site's creative environment.
- This includes suggestions for raising the profile of underappreciated or rarely done content (stuff that people don't read, and stuff that people are afraid to write).
- Suggesting articles for administrators to feature on the front page.
- Performing author outreach and running IRC Seminars.
- Conducting polls, gathering site, and subcommunity feedback, and performing research and outreach to gauge the interests of the community.
- Operating art contests, recognizing and addressing image plagiarism, encouraging offsite artists into the community and posting onsite, and bridging the gap between artists and authors within the community.
- Critique Team
- Responsibilities: This team is concerned with providing critique on the Ideas and Drafts Critique Forums, Offical Discord writing channels, the IRC #thecritters channel, and on articles posted to the mainsite. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Responding to requests for critique in the various critique spaces.
- Taking initiative in providing critique on forum or discord threads where the author is having difficulty finding responses.
- Assisting authors with seeking feedback in critique spaces.
- Responding to queries relevant to the team.
- Addressing misleading, vague, vehement, or otherwise problematic feedback.
- Reporting continued criticism policy violations to the respective moderation/disciplinary team for the platform it occurs on.
- Moderating the Official Discord writing and critique channels.
- Moderating the IRC #thecritters channel.
- Moderating the Writing Help forums:
- Responding to queries in the Questions Desk and Research and Resources forums.
- Moderating the Ideas Critique forum:
- Ensuring that all concept threads follow the required reading template.
- Moderating the Drafts Critique forum:
- Ensuring that sandbox links are used, and full draft text is not posted to the forums.
- Ensuring that first-time authors provide evidence of greenlights upon seeking draft critique.
- Ensuring the forums and Discord channels are free of repeat threads and spam.
- Discussion/formation of policy with regards to the critique systems.
- Proposing changes to existing guides or policy as necessary, such as the Criticism Policy.
- Curation Team
- Responsibilities: This team handles and facilitates the curation, custodianship, and other maintenance for articles within the SCP wiki. The responsibilities of the team are split into sub-teams, each with their own purview, as follows:
- Adult Content Curation:
- Identifying adult themes and content in articles.
- Applying the Adult Splash component on the page.
- Anonymous Articles:
- Approving, managing and coordinating the posting of anonymized articles.
- Maintaining a privatized and secure record of the submitted anonymous articles.
- Collaborative Pages:
- Ensuring that all collaborative teams have a custodian.
- Assist in transitioning custodianship between users, or from an author to wiki staff.
- Maintains, moderates and edits entries made on Collaborative Pages that are under the team's custodianship.
- Collections:
- Creating and maintaining groupings of works on the wiki ('Collections'), based on content or thematic elements.
- Guide Updating:
- Maintaining, updating and facilitating rewrites and reworks of official Staff/Wiki Guides.
- Image Replacement:
- Replacing images for old articles, where the image does not adhere to the license, with thematically similar images that are licensing compliant.
- Rewrite:
- Maintains the list of articles available to rewrite, for works listed by authorial request;
- Authorizing SCP Wiki members for rewriting an eligible work, and serving as their point of contact throughout the process.
- Reviewing submitted rewrites, and determining if the rewrite was successful, and faithful to the original source material.
- Coordinating and assisting with the posting process for successful rewrites, and the archival process for rewritten articles.
- Adult Content Curation:
- Disciplinary Team
- Responsibilities: This team ensures site behavior standards are met and enforced, punishes offending users, and prevents disruptive individuals from engaging with the site further. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Stopping disruptive conversations that occur on the forums.
- Editing inflaming or offensive posts to prevent harm to users.
- Delivering warnings to members who break rules.
- Reporting bannable offenses to the administration.
- Voting on and contributing to disciplinary discussions.
- Maintaining the Site Rules, with assistance of the administration.
- Discord Team
- Responsibilities: This team handles and maintains the official SCP Foundation Discord (henceforth "the Discord"). Additionally, it is tasked with cultivating a safe environment for both non-site and site users to discuss the SCP Foundation and its content. More specifically, their responsibilities are:
- Cultivating an environment of creativity and inclusivity on the Discord.
- Staffing and creating infrastructure for the Discord.
- Moderating and enforcing proper behavioral standards on the Discord.
- Using the Discord to communicate important events to the community (in conjunction with the Internet Outreach Team and Community Outreach Team).
- Working closely with the Site Criticism Team to maintain live critique areas and provide assistance to their goals on the Discord.
- Internet Outreach Team
- Responsibilities: This team handles and communicates with off-site communities and the wider SCP fandom, conveys important events to casual fans, and assists new members in learning more about the Wiki. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Managing official social media channels and public relations for the off-site community.
- Establishing and cultivating links with outside spinoff communities and fanbases.
- Inviting members of spinoff communities and fanbases to join the site, and helping them acclimate.
- Helping the community accommodate these new members and the material they might bring (such as fanart, SCP readings, games, drawings, and other creative endeavors).
- Maintaining communication and good relations with international sites.
- Proposing and executing other methods of raising the profile of the SCP Foundation elsewhere on the Internet.
- Licensing Team
- Responsibilities: This team handles and ensures that copyright standards are upheld across the Wiki and its community, determines if content is stolen or plagiarized, and guarantees that all used media are attributed correctly and legally. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Establishing the legality of images and texts used on the Wiki as a whole.
- Searching for license violations elsewhere on the Internet.
- Sending messages requesting license fixes or take-downs as appropriate.
- Being available & knowledgeable enough to answer questions on Creative Commons licensing, both to other staff and ordinary users.
- Maintenance and Ancillary Staff Team
- Responsibilities: This team (abbreviated as MAST) maintains and updates the site in order to ensure proper functionality, carry out quality control, and implement elements to improve navigation. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Ensuring deletions are performed.
- Tagging of new pages. (The Tech Team will maintain responsibility for the creation of tags.)
- Maintaining staff information pages and guides, especially those that list staff members, and updating them when necessary.
- Maintaining and moderating collaboration pages. (This is a joint responsibility with the Rewrite Team.)
- Implementing large-scale navigation or discovery projects.
- Checking staff activity levels after each promotion vote and marking staff as inactive when needed.
- Cleaning the sandbox site of vandalism, spam, or offensive content.
- Creating and maintaining Collections, groupings of works based on content or thematic elements.
- Aiding other Staff Teams with large scale projects or undertakings which they may not have the staffpower to complete.
- Technical Team
- Responsibilities: This team implements and maintains the technical assets of the site, implements new features, fixes any issues that arise, and reports any site-wide bugs to Wikidot. More specifically, the team's responsibilities are:
- Maintaining technical aspects of the site (such as the site template and core site components).
- Providing and/or implementing software expertise and assistance to other teams when necessary (such as contests and components).
- Fixing bugs on the site or contacting Wikidot about major issues that may arise.
- Running tech-related operations, such as site tools (e.g. Helen Bot) and the creation/deletion of tags (implementation of tags is the responsibility of MAST).
- Determining and implementing policy on technical aspects of the Wiki.
Active Member: Active in the day-to-day running of the site. This means that you…
- …as an administrator: ban/revoke people as needed, run applications, and participate in policy discussions, especially those related to teams you are a member of. Active administrators can vote on measures and perform administrative fiats when necessary.
- …as an OS with mod tools: work on your team for its goals, run deletions when necessary, and participate in policy discussions, especially those related to teams you are a member of. Active moderators can vote on policy issues and be team captains.
- …as an operational staff member: work to further your team's goals, vote on deletions when necessary, and participate in policy discussions, especially those related to teams you are a member of. Active operational staff can vote on policy issues.
Reserve Member: Semi-active or partially active in the day-to-day running of the site. This means that you…
- …as an administrator: ban/revoke when requested to do so, work on applications when requested to do so, and participate in policy discussions which are relevant to your content knowledge or vision of the site. Reserve administrators can vote on measures, when their knowledge or ability allows them to do so, but cannot perform administrative fiats except in the case of emergencies (to prevent damage to the site or correct a serious problem which requires admin access).
- …as an operational staff member: aid their team as needed/requested and participate in policy discussions when needed. Reserve operational staff can vote on measures, when their knowledge or ability allows them to do so.
Note that moving to Reserve means relinquishing mod tools. Those that do will still be eligible for more tools if they return to "Active"
Inactive Member: Not active in the running of the site, except perhaps tangentially. This means that you…
- …as an administrator: ban/revoke only in the most extreme circumstances, when literally no one else is available, or in dire emergencies only. Inactive administrators cannot vote on measures, and cannot perform administrative fiats except in the case of emergencies (to prevent damage to the site or correct a serious problem which requires admin access).
- …as an operational staff member: aid their team when possible. Inactive operational staff cannot vote on measure.
Note that moving Inactive means relinquishing mod tools. Those that do will still be eligible for more tools if they return to "Active"
Requesting a Vote:
Since we do not want to have to track down all the Reserve Staff each time we do a vote, we instead simply increase the total number of possible voting staff to see if we achieve a quorum. So, if we had twenty active staff, and two reservists weighed in, then the total number of votes is 22 and quorum moves from 11 to 12.
Reserve staff who don't have the necessary content knowledge or desire to voice an opinion should recuse themselves from votings (by simply not voting or deferring in a post if asked to vote).
Moving to and from Reserve:
Most people can move to reserve without any problem, simply by announcing that they're doing so.
Someone who has been on Reserve without being at least somewhat active should be automatically moved to Inactive and the staff list modified.
Moving from Reserve back to Active is similarly painless. "I'm back."
Keep in mind that a team captain can recommend that you be moved from Active or Reserve to Inactive if you're not actually around anyway. Getting back from Inactive usually requires that you do a little work as a show of good faith.
What Do Reserve Staff Do Exactly?:
That's up to the Team Captains. A reserve member of the Crit Teams might be asked to cover a much smaller number of articles than normal. A reserve member of Licensing might be asked to hand off Amazon to someone else, but keep checking another site. Team Captains should make a small guide which Reserve Staff can easily follow to make sure they're still participating and don't get automatically moved to Inactive for not actually doing anything.
Relevant policies:
Staff Activity Tiers
How do I join a team?
You ask. If the team captain(s) and the administration see a need, you can be added to a team.
How do I leave a team?
Speak to your team captain(s). They will report that you have left the team. If this makes you a member of very few teams, your staff status may be reviewed. Despite this, a special dispensation will be made for cases of outside responsibilities.
Is team captain the only position in charge of a team?
The responsibility for a team’s goals lies with the team captain(s). However, many team captains still create a formal ranking structure within their team.
What is a “go-to” administrator?
Your “go-to” administrators are whom you contact with issues, problems, changes, requests, or anything else along these lines. They have been appointed to that position to help your team function and to regularly check in with team captains to see how things are going. Each team has a primary contact listed; however, all administrators listed can also act in a given situation.
What if none of the “go-to” administrators are around?
If it is an emergency, you can contact one of the unlisted administrators. However, administrators will not involve themselves with others' realms of responsibility except under extreme circumstances.
How do I become a team captain?
If you have an idea for a new team that would perform a good/useful/essential function, tell us. There’s a good chance that you may end up in charge of it. Additionally, if you perform your job well, it may be determined that you are the person contributing the most. In this case, you may be given the leadership position.
How do I stop being a team captain?
Speak to your “go-to” administrator. Stepping down from leadership doesn’t necessitate leaving the team, but if you want to, we understand. If you are not comfortable telling us the reason for stepping down, we understand that too.