Foxy's Community Post #22 (Down but not out)
Published by Vulpine Script in the blog Blogsytail. Views: 624
To some, this will be the worst news I could give. To some, this may be a blessing (I certainly know one who thinks so). However, I've felt that now the time has come. As of October 31st, I'll be stepping down as Head Admin of Everypony.com. There are a number of reasons for this, so bear with me as I might drone on a bit.
When I first took a role on the staff, I did so because it was fun and let me give back to the community somewhat. As time went on, the site grew. Many came and left, and through it all, I tried my best to keep going. Sometimes it was hard, but I always had you guys in mind. Besides, it was fun, right? Well as time went on, it stopped being fun. It stopped being something I did for myself to give back and became something I was obligated to do. I became community manager because I wanted to hang out with you guys and help you when I could. When I became an admin, as time went on, I got less and less oppurtunity to do that. At times I'd get online, get what I needed to done and then went off to do something else feeling drained. I don't want this site to be that for me anymore. I want to have fun with you guys again, I don't want to see you all in terms of what I might have to moderate from you.
Secondly, I'm just not the right guy for this job. When I was first put in charge, I broke a close friends trust and almost lost him as a friend. I've made enemies of friends I wish I didn't, and I always find myself in a spot I don't want to be in, choosing who to slight in favour of another. Over these months, I see and hear things about whether I'm right for this role. Staff and members have left because of poor leadership. I've always felt I shouldn't be here, yet its the support of many that's kept me going this far. Now, I want what's best for the site, and for now that means I shouldn't be calling the shots.
Lastly, I just can't be putting as much effort into the site as I used to. Things are getting heavy with uni coming back and an increasing need for things like a job and such that I can't give my 100% to the site anymore. Maybe a time in the future I'll be able to, but for now, I simply can't manage it.
So what does that mean for me? I've decided I'm still going to remain on the staff, mostly as an advisory role as well as part of the community patrol. I'll represent Everypony at any event I go to and I'll still remain on the community patrol as that's what I want to do. I want to be here for you guys.
I'm not the only one stepping down. On the 31st, Flash is also stepping down from radio manager. Below is his reasons.
Why am I stepping down? Let me start by saying, I’ve had a great time on the staff but I feel that, during the last ~6 months, a lot has changed, some to the better, some to the worse. We’ve had a lot of good ideas but a good handful of bad ones too. Things got done, then revised, then brought back, rinse and repeat.
Some of you will remember the “staff evaluation” a few months back. After the results were clear, they were announced. Then suddenly things got changed back without anyone to know. It got done, no one got asked and we basically had to “deal with it.” Back in the days, our former admin Grey Knightmare, said “Guys, this is not a democracy, don’t like it? There’s the door.”
We respected that, because in some way.., we still all got to decide on important matters and were meant to give our input. That time, with our 3 admins, the rest of the staff weren’t asked at all. It was purely a decision they made even though some did not agree with it.
So lately, that “giving our input” has moved on to become more like “argue the living hay out of every little detail”. We’ve quite honestly lost the focus of what is and what is not the most important.
Now as the radio manager, I said to myself: “Chill, it’s a forum thing, it doesn’t affect you that much anyway.” Oh was I wrong. In the end, it caused a decision that has not been carried out yet. That decision was, to split the radio off of the main site, giving it its own set of rules and making it a bit more independent. I made that decision along with the admins and the radio staff. Now that I’m leaving my position, I’m not sure whether or not they will go through with it but I sincerely hope they do. The radio needs to be treated in a different way than the forums. It needs rules specifically made for it and the staff must be able to make decisions without interference from the forum side.
I feel I’m drifting off a little though, so back to topic. I’m leaving because I feel that, in the current situation, there is nothing I can do for the radio. I can bring up ideas, push the decisions we’ve already made, but I never see them actually happen. That combined with constant drama about “who’s trolled who, in what thread and why they should be infracted or banned for it” shows me that even the simplest decisions take too long to be made.
The site’s oldest members will remember what I did back in the early days of the radio.
“Oh you want to be a **** on the chat? Think about that in the next 24h while you’re banned.”
And that was it. There were no rules to tell me “You can ban this guy if he does that, for x hours.”
It was called common sense. And these days…we don’t use it enough.
With that said, Foxy and I will still be here for the bi-weekly Floxy show on the radio. We might act as some sort of advisors for certain parts of the site but other than that we will be busy raising our own projects.
~Flash
So if there's anything you'd like to bring up, anything you'd like me to do, anything you want to ask me as an admin and site leader, you have to the end of the month to do so.
Berry Punch, Zephyr and Mike406 will be the admins. Yetione will be the new leader for the Community Patrol. I trust these guys and know that they can do with the site what I couldn't.
And don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. Every week on Saturday, I'll still be typing these, so I look forward to posting about what actually goes on around here, like I should have from the beginning.
In other news, Tyro the Fox has started a tumblr for the Everypony Game! For those wanting to follow its progress, click here or the link below to check it out and follow!
http://epgdev.tumblr.com/
That's all from me,
Foxytail, soon to be former Head Admin.
P.S I'm going to be leaving a few gifts here and there around the site for you guys, let's see who finds them first~
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