Please vote: regular stand-down periods

[Octavia]

Please note: I'm aware that the voting system is less than ideal, but it's what we have until the appropriate hack can be found to remedy it. Thank-you for your understanding.


First of all, credit goes to Luis Garcia for coming up with the idea, and Dean for knocking it into a workable shape. The proposal is:

In order to help break down the barrier between staff and other members, staff commit to regular periods as members only, to get a different perspective on how TR works. This "rolling holiday" system of three months on, one month off is implemented as follows.

The staff are divided into four groups: A,B,C, and D. Each existing member of staff is put into one of those groups. The groups don't all have to be the same size, but we just make sure that the mods of each particular forum are spread out into different groups, as are the admins.

At the start of each month one group goes off and one comes on in simple rotation:

In January, Group A come on and Group B go off.
In February, Group B come on and Group C go off.
In March, Group C come on and Group D go off.
In April, Group D come on and Group A go off.
In May, Group A come on and Group B go off.
In June, Group B come on and Group C go off.
In July, Group C come on and Group D go off.
In August, Group D come on and Group A go off.
In September, Group A come on and Group B go off.
In October, Group B come on and Group C go off.
In November, Group C come on and Group D go off.
In December, Group D come on and Group A go off.


I suggest that we begin this at the beginning of June. That will give us all a month - if we work hard - to iron out all the kinks in how TR is run, so that Group C can go off without leaving anyone in the lurch.

[Matty]

sure. i thought it was a good idea from the offset, and the details seem to be petty fail safe to me.

[Christina]

I voted yes also. It's a good idea and will help with burnout as well as getting the view from the other side.

[ravenscape]

yesyesyes!

[RBH]

I voted yes. By June we'll badly need a vacation and the competition will be about who gets it first.

[Arctish]

I voted yes. The proposal looks good. I suspect it will need tweaking when we get bigger and/or have to deal with unexpected absences among the staff but this is a good foundation.

[Jet Black]

I'll take June. I won't be here for most of it anyway as I have a conference early in the month and some other really important stuff later on in the month, and not being an admin for that month would suit me nicely, because you'd effectively be without me anyway :)

[Jet Black]

I've just had it pointed out to me (fairly) that this shouldn't really be an excuse to plan around holidays (note that I wish I were on holidays, but it will be th least holidayish time of the year for me), so if people object to the above then fair enough, not only will I get my three months this year but there will have to be extra cover in June, because I won't have time for administration.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Yes indeedy.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Given my future absence for the stand-down, I'll write up a Rat Ring Moderator's handbook at some point. It'll specify how I managed the formal debate/discussion forums when I was at IIDB so that way my replacement can take over in a smooth transition.

A co-mod will be useful when transitions happen too. No rush though -- things will likely be quiet in the Rat Ring for a while until TR grows some more.

[Octavia]

Rex and I will be in Group C as the mentoring programme requires, so no other admin can go in there, considering that JB is also in that group.

[Pendaric]

I'm not really fussed what group I get put in, but I am on holiday for a week in July anyway.

[Octavia]

^You can be in D then, Pendaric. :)

[Christina]

I'm not a forum mod so there's no coverage issue and I can go in whatever group that you want. I can do treasurer stuff by PM and don't need staff forum access for that.

[dug_down_deep]

I think it kind of goes against the intent of this policy to be demodded when you're going on vacation, since we're supposed to get an idea of what it's supposed to be like to be a non-mod member. Just saying.

[Octavia]

Good point. I didn't think of that. Scratch Pendaric from D, then! :p

[ravenscape]

I don't think a few days off should affect the schedule. One week out of five?

[dug_down_deep]

Never mind. I wasn't really focusing on Pendaric, I was just duplicating a point already made by JB. Didn't see it. :o