Admin Appreciation Month

[EricG1793]

Thank you, Gryphon. However I have read the board FAQ, and I think this is easy to tell. My signature is within the rules. I don't even have an avatar, so I don't waste space with that. And the majority of my posts are fifteen lines long or more. Now I said MAJORITY, so of course that means that there are some smallER posts around, and a couple one-liners. Especially in Philosophical Topics/Speeches and World Changing thread (ahem... both of which I started!).

I understand the one-liner rule. It annoys me to see them as well, and I stated before, I hardly make them. When I was new, and I wanted to say a point that was short, I made quite a few one-liners. However a month or two ago I deleted them all. Any one-liners you see from me now are from after I did that: one-liners that really can't be extended.

I've said this before, I know that the vast majority of us here have a few of them kicking around. Even Gigo, alla, wildflower, and anyone else who goes around pointing fingers at people who do one-liners, and break other rules.

And when have I ever ever questioned the authority of Garrett, Lee, or Kathy? I can think of once with Kathy, but that was about the new signature length rule- on my screen it appeared three, on non-wide screens it appeared four, and after minor confusion I changed it and it was fine.

[fred22]

Dude, your poll is messed up! I voted for May but it marked it as April. Can you fix it? Anywho, forums down for a whole month would be great. People should take a break from yw and then come back and have it be fresh.

[EricG1793]

It appears to be April, Fred, but on this site it's odd; the bar for the month is the bar _below_. So it's like this:

(January bar)
January
(February bar)
February
(March bar)
March
(April bar)
April
(May bar)
May

...And so on. You voted right. I already told spyells this earlier in this thread, but this explanation is better.

Also I agree with what you said; having the threads be shut down is probably the greatest way we can give the admins some rest and not have to worry about the forums. And we can use a break once in a year, like you say. Finally: someone who think the same way I do!

[Dragon Writer]

so, are we NOT having the month or are we? and i'm not saying that we shouldn't ALWAYS try to be extra careful....but the idea of occasionally focusing all our energies into making sure the mods don't have to clean up for us once in a while wouldn't be a good thing...(yes, we should do it always, but people DON'T always do that....so maybe occasionally we should remind ourselves we need to...or maybe we should just have a day we cheer our admins and remind them we really DO still appreciate the?)

[EricG1793]

Originally posted by young reader:
so, are we NOT having the month or are we? and i'm not saying that we shouldn't ALWAYS try to be extra careful....but the idea of occasionally focusing all our energies into making sure the mods don't have to clean up for us once in a while wouldn't be a good thing...(yes, we should do it always, but people DON'T always do that....so maybe occasionally we should remind ourselves we need to...or maybe we should just have a day we cheer our admins and remind them we really DO still appreciate the?)

I want to. Although the majority say that we should be careful all the time -which we generally are- and we don't need to do it, so I don't know.... And I highly doubt we can all agree on what we would do for the Admin Appreciation Month. So it seems kind of far-fetched to me, but if we can all agree when to do it, how to do it, and what exactly to do, it can happen. Again, the hard thing is to try and get everyone to agree on something.... *Sigh*

And I agree with what you say, too, that there should be an annual effort, when we all focus our efforts to not have the mods chase after us. But the problem with this is that, naturally, they'd still have to look around, look at everything, to make sure we're not doing bad things or unintentional mistakes. That's why shutting down the forums temporarily would be appropriate, and like it's been mentioned twice before, it'll make time for us all to do better things, like cleaning out the shed that's dreadfully disorganized (I've done that between yesterday and today, that's why I haven't been as active, which is an example of how to better use our time), or maybe writing that letter you've been meaning to write for so long, organize the kitchen cabinets, etc. All that stuff that needs to be done that's time consuming, but you'd rather be at Youngwizards, could be done.

[Dragon Writer]

shutting down the site has too many ramifications, and it isn't exactly practical...i don't think that's the way to go. i personally think just a month where we remind the admins that we really DO recognize what they do for us, and we're still thankful would be nice...

[Kathy Li]

Just speaking personally, but one small way you could help me out with my admin duties is to post any corrections, clarifications, updates, or holes for the FAQs into the FAQ discussion thread.

Bonus points if you write and format a new question (that's needed as part of the FAQ, mind ) as if it were part of the FAQ.

Many hands make light work. Help me build the suckers. And remember that when I first wrote the Board FAQ, I wasn't even a Senior Member, much less a mod or admin.

[EricG1793]

Well honestly, Kathy, you did such a good job with it that I don't even think it could be improved.... Although I'm sure that within ten minutes something'll come up that I'll want to talk about.

I don't really think we can start any more threads for newbies, because everything's already covered, really.

Although just a thought, what we could do is change the registration process to make the new members fully read the FAQ before they post or chat, before they can be fully registered. *Imagines the enormous decrease in confused newbies, and aggravation amongst the oldbies* (I don't consider myself either... I'm definitely no oldbie, but I don't think I'm a newbie, either. )

[Kathy Li]

I wouldn't wish a forced reading of the Board FAQ on anyone. That thing is HUGE. Although, maybe we should think of a rule where you don't yell at a newbie for doing one-liners/sig length/avatar size until they get past "New Member" (10 posts) status; and if you've seen that someone else has already yelled at the newbie, don't add to the pain by ganging up on them, just guide them to the FAQ.

Obviously, we've got a slight problem here with some folks not reading the Board FAQ or ToS. But forcing them to read the ToS before registering is already required, and that's the most important stuff.

Well honestly, Kathy, you did such a good job with it that I don't even think it could be improved.... Although I'm sure that within ten minutes something'll come up that I'll want to talk about.

I make my living as a technical writer. I can tell you right now--no book is ever so done that it can't be tweaked some more. FAQs in particular are living documents. I've just noticed a few holes myself looking them over, and done some more polishing and tweaking.

The hard part, actually, is trying not to overlap too much with the information at the YW.com site. Too easy to completely rebuild something like DD's "upcoming stuff" pages and whatnot. I'm not sure if I need to add a Book FAQ on "Theobroma."

[Sean L.]

[Kathy Li]

Sorry, Sean. I'm not a Wikipedia regular. You need Garrett to advise you. IMDb information isn't a great analog, since it's far more clearly defined.

But just a quick look around showed me that probably your first stop is the Wikipedia List of Policies.

[Dragon Writer]

*is embarresed to admit i've never actually read the faq* but i actually picked up on the rules (it's fairly easy when i got to see everyone being yelled for one liners, and not double posting seemed just common sense to try to avoid...though i did have a horrid time finding the edit button for a while) so i never really got yelled at for that..... maybe ONE of the things we can do rather then try and shut down the whole site, though, is just help other people correct their mistakes before the mods have to swoop down and do their job for us...true, we should always be aware of our own mistakes and try to fix it, but extending that awareness just a little bit to help out the mods wouldn't be a bad thing. :P
(personally, i'm stil for just reminding the mods once a month that we really DO appreciate them, and doing all the rest of this stuff the whole year!)

[EricG1793]

...Split the topic, split the topic, SPLIT THE TOPIC!!!

Wikipedia entries have next to nothing having to do with appreciating the Admins.

Although, Sean, I wouldn't put those spoilers in a Wikipedia entry, because the only reason, really, that someone would be reading that article is if they knew nothing about Youngwizards. And the only reason us fellow Youngwizards members would be reading it is to check your work.

[EricG1793]

So we're not doing this, then.

People so far AGAINST the month (or so it seems to me):

Gigo
alla
young reader
Tuttle

And these are "oldbies" so they seem to have more... well, they don't directly have power, but in a way, they do (think about it, don't give me any grief about me saying this).

Anybody else?

Or would other (new) members like to suggest something different that we can do, or support a past suggestion?

[Emi]

Well we have to decide on what month to do this. But I don't think that Admin Appreciation Month isn't a BAD idea. Maybe not shutting down the whole forums, but we can think of something else to do? But it's a good idea. I just can't think of anything on the top of my head!