Here be dragons

candidacy.md

Plop!

This is my written candidacy to become a Room Owner.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what I am going to write here. A waffle recipe?

I suppose the big thing is Why? The only true answer is: Because I care, and I believe I can make a difference.

I know most of the regulars of the room, sometimes personally. Same goes for ROs. I'm not easily offended by anything, anywhere. Anytime I do a mistake, I mobilize a huge chunk of my energy and my analysis capacities to understand the situation from multiple point of views and try to figure out if I can / how to fix it.

I am active in SOCVR, the Ministry, SOCVFinder, Charcoal HQ, MSO. My main activities are vtc'ing, flagging spam, and chatting. I often remind rules to regulars - "homework is a quality issue, not a scope one", "don't pile on", "don't moderate users" etc.

Over the year and a half that I have spent in the room, I have learned a huge lot. I now want my experience, knowledge of the room and its users, and kindness to not only help others as they already do but also to serve as example.

---

Eat your waffles with marmelade. Home-made. Or liquid caramel.

I've asked it before to tuna, and I ask you here again!

What are the actions that you would take when the room goes awry and the users start to jostle each other? On the aftermath of such an incident, How will you handle the users involved? Will you ostracize them completely?

_{As an aside, You were teh guy spereal who introduced me to SOCVR, I'd certainly like to see your name in italics whenever I meet you there. Best of Luck.}

What are the actions that you would take when the room goes awry and the users start to jostle each other?

Ask everyone to Be Nice (calm, sensible, understanding, etc). If that does not work, pull out the stick obviously. Warnings, trashing, kicks and the like are tools available to us when a stupid problem needs a stupid solution. Note that if the topic debated does not concern the room or its activities, I would simply remind everyone to Be Nice and tell them to take another room.

I think the difficult point in these matters is to quantify and take into account the sensibilities of everyone involved. This is already close to impossible in real life, so it simply cannot be done on teh Interwebz unless everyone stays calm and understanding. Should I feel that a discussion cannot reach a positive, constructive outcome, I would suggest coordinated action is taken on the RO part to (preferably gently) close it. I would probably also involve myself in further discussion with the various protagonists, but that would require consent from the rest of the team.

On the aftermath of such an incident, How will you handle the users involved?

I expect everyone to be responsible adults who can learn.
I'll just make a mental note to be on the lookout for future behaviour of that kind. This way we could discuss it between ROs and maybe figure out ways to chat a bit more on that subject with any user involved, in constructive ways.

Will you ostracize them completely?

No. What?

_{Was I? Wow, glad I did that =D}

Our room can be very powerful if used incorrectly. The most public form of that power is as a voting ring.

As a hypothetical: a user (non chat member) posts a meta answer about the closure of a post on Main. In this answer, the author gives the implication that our room is a voting ring. What do you do?

Can you explain which multiple points of view you would consider?

Simple (and explicitly open-ended) question: what is a room owner and what does that title imply in your opinion?

As a hypothetical: a user (non chat member) posts a meta answer about the closure of a post on Main. In this answer, the author gives the implication that our room is a voting ring. What do you do?

Discuss it with the rest of the RO team.

The most interesting thing to do in that case, for everyone involved, would be to ask for explanations in comments. If someone has valid concerns, backed by evidence, that (part of) our room is turning into a voting ring we'd want to know as quickly as possible to take action. If it's just an unbacked rant, there isn't much we can do.

Basically, be open and listening about this matter.

Can you explain which multiple points of view you would consider?

I suppose this is in the context of Bhargav's question above, that is a jostle. Hence I get to make a list!

• The "official" point of view, that is Be Nice;
• The "room" point of view, that is our policies (hopefully it coincides with the above);
• The protagonists point of view, that is the various sides of the jostle.

If it's about the Meta context of gunr's question, it's already explained above.

what is a room owner and what does that title imply in your opinion?

A Room Owner is a regular user who has been trusted with heavier room moderation tools than other users (kicks versus flags, for example). As such, they are an authority in everyday room regulation matters.

That title implies that one can be not only a voice among our community but can also have a final say (even if often temporarily so as we like discussing things) in matters that can't or shouldn't be discussed at a given time.

They also get to tend to the room with various scripts. And flirt with Closey.

this was edited once to clarify a sentence

What is your general availability in chat?

What is one thing that you would add to, change in, or remove from the current guidelines or FAQ?

What is your general availability in chat?

When my computer is on and I have some Internet, I'm in chat (even if only lurking).

Factually I am in chat for about 8 hours every day on week days and maybe 3 or 4 hours on weekends. This ranges from 9am to midnight local time.

What is one thing that you would add to, change in, or remove from the current guidelines or FAQ?

I'd try to shorten our FAQ. Rules 2 and 9 could be merged into a single "review request caster responsibility" principle, for example. However, this has nothing to do with being a Room Owner. I believe everyone has a voice (even if not a decisive one) in how the room should be managed, and I'm going to try to tackle the FAQ issue whichever outcome the election may have. It must go through Pull Requests and Peer Reviews.

Where's the upvote button, damnit?