Staff Members: Election by Senior Members and Above
 

I have noticed that many of the choices that were made for coding and design teams are not great. The reason is, many of these newly elected members are not even advanced coders / designers, many of them have released at most one or two works with a total of no more than 10 installs. Knowing some of them in person, I have enough basis to state with confidence that many of these members are in no way qualified for their positions based on their experience (not speaking about work).

That is disturbing. I am sure that most of us don't want this site to be run by a bunch of newbies. I alone could name plently of members who would be much more qualified for coding and design positions than those individuals that were chosen.

Do not get my intentions wrong - I do not wish to be neither on a coding nor on a design team at this time, but what do you think about reverting staff changes and having members nominate those who members consider to be worthy as well as denominate those who members consider to be not? I am sure that would increase the overall progress and make this community a lot stronger, and I'm really hoping that this won't get deleted without reasonable amount of prior discussion.

Agreed. I believe i mentioned this in another thread. No offense to anyone. However, i'm just trying to figure out what everyone's "vote" is based on.

New Staff members were NOT only picked because of their coding abilities or any one single reason. Many reasons were taken into account and everyone was looked at very closely before they were picked for any one team. I stand by every one of the coding team nominations and they will stay in their positions.

Just because they don't have work released here doesn't mean they lack design/coding skills.

Believe it or not, this is an honest question. So you can add someone to the designing or coding team regardless of ability, just if they're a good person?

No what he meant to say from what I understand is that there are other factors besides his or her coding/designing abilities as to if he or she will get on staff.

I would not do this on a forum I ran, and I would not expect those who run this one to do it either.

--don

You have missed a part of my post. Let me quote:
I understand the position of the staff on this, but my post was directed mostly at non-staff. I am only asking staff members to hear out what non-staff members will say. You can always respond with a final decision afterwards. Thanks.

As for other factors for election, can these factors be made public so that we can discuss them?

If you ensure your own safety and create a seperate group of staff that can be elected or brought down, I don't see why not.

Anthony, what makes you totally quailfied to make judgements on other peoples skills? Are you some master coder who knows 10 coding languages and has several degrees and 8+ years of expeicing in not only school but real world work?

Thank you, Dan. At least someone read my entire post. ;)

Psionic Vision
Master Coder

I could have Master coder by releasing some insanely popular two line hack as well if It got 2000 installs.

I don't think you got far enough in Zachery's post gio.

ahaha! Now that's funny!

And most members here, who are also Admins of their own sites as well as others, wouldn't do it that way either, if they were to be totally honest.

Sorry, but i had to make that other post. Anyways, it doesn't take someone with 10 different coding languages and degrees to be able to determine the difference between someone who can and cannot code. Just like it doesn't take a designer to realized something that someone coded wasn't to attractive.

Yet another way of saying "Your usertitles mean nothing" :p Thanks Zach! Also, take a look at his profile. The most popular hack (invites system) is far more than 2 lines. Anyways, i don't want to cause a debate. I just considered that post to be completely irrelevant.

First of all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Second, it takes more than designing or coding ability to make a good Mod. I am a testimony to that, if you really think about it.

But Gio you've already started the debate when you mentioned the master coder title.

The staff here will take this idea into consideration when the environment on this site is a little more stabilized. It would do more harm than good to implement this at this time and to roll back staff changes just as everyone is getting up to speed with their new assignments. Such governance by committee would add weeks, if not months, to the planned changes.

Good point. But any coder (regardless of level) should be able to determine whether or not one can code as a matter of relating. Then again, perhaps that's just my opinion as a coder.

That was a simple joke Dan. If anyone took it offensive, sorry :p

Stabilized meaning less debate or more organized? Also, no need to take out all of the staff now. How about just doing it for future staff? Someone nominates someone, the person who's nominated can give a speech as to why he or she will be good for the job? In the end, the staff effects the community more than other staff members, does it not? Also, thanks for the consideration :p It is appreciated.

I am! ;)

Not that it matters, I just felt a burning need to say that. It would have been more funny if the question had actually been posed to me. :D

I did over simplify things, apologies. Titles do mean something, you did have to work hard or long to create most hacks that will be useful and popular to the general majority. And one hack wouldn't get you master coder regardless :).

My point was what qualifications do most people have to really judge others work? I know from personal experience that everyone on the designers team is very good at what they do. I know Brad, KA, and Andy are very well skilled, and I'm very sure Brad would not have put an amateur into a team lead position. I've seen that Princeton is a fairly well accomplished designer. Since design of HTML/css is my area thats the only one I'll comment on. But please keep in mind that we wouldn't have brought anyone onto the team if we didn't think they could do the work. Everyone improves if you give them time. We all had to start somewhere.

Although I may not know 10 coding languages, I know those languages which comprise vBulletin, namely PHP, XML, XHTML and Javascript better than certain other individuals who were picked, and my age and/or level of education has nothing to do with it. Also, none of my popular hacks are comprised of two lines of code, most of them actually contain 100s. I never say anything unless I'm 100% sure about it, and that applies to this thread too.

That, however, has nothing to do with my first post: let me point out for the third time that I am only asking for other members' opinon, and I am not claiming that anything should be done just becase I want it. I could have claimed that I am a master coder when I joined this site, but I chose to not hide who I am. There is no reason why you should be attacking me in person for that, esspecially since you seem to become so nervous when YOU (admins / moderators) are personally attacked. I am hoping that you'll undestand without me having to quote Wayne's post for you.

Maybe it would be more correct to say that admins would not do that because they are not totally honest.

EDIT:
Hmm, more posts since I wrote this.

Thank you for the post. That is the kind of reply I wanted to hear from a staff member.

Thank you for understanding Zach :p Also, it is true that everyone starts somewhere, but is the staff a good place to start really?

Okay. Then I'll give you mine.

Teams are not made of all stars. Look at sports for an example. A coding team is similar. You need a star, maybe two, and then a bunch of supporting players. Too many stars will only clash with each other.

A typical rl coding team consists of one Senior Developer, or Technical Lead, two to three mid level developers, and one jr. developer.

And, as important as skill is, ability to work together and enjoy each others company is just as important.

You can see myself as a skilled coder and you know it, I think my release record proves that.
As for improving with time, I honestly don't think recruiting people who need an improve at a time when quick changes are needed is such a good iea.

Yes, but will we as members interacting with them, enjoy their company? I think that is what is important.


Boofo is a good example of a good staff member, the other could use some tuning on their people skills.....

Anthony, I can honestly say I've never used one of your modifications or took extensive time to review your code.

Hence, why i said

Thank you for honesty, Zachery, I really appreciate it. Well... I don't think you can ask me how good my experience is or whether I am in a position to judge others if you are not even familiar with any of my hacks... At least, before asking, I would do some basic preliminary research. Just in case you are interested, I could tell you what to look at so as not to spend extra time.

I can just say without making anything up that one of the highest members of the coding team has asked me for coding help a number of times on something so basic that it made me wonder about this whole issue in the first place. I am not sure whether I should post the details... So for now, I won't.

It would be more-correct to say that they don't do it because, in the long run, communities that try it tend to self-destruct.

As somebody who has been managing online communities since before you were born (the software for the first forum I managed was written in FORTRAN), I have heard the arguement you are making innumerable times. "We (whatever group the person identifies with) are the ones who are important here, without us this community would disappear, we should be in charge, you should do what we want." Its not true. Life doesn't work that way.

--don

Zachery, I find some of your early posts a little condescending. I think Anthony has a valid point. Certainly some of the members of the newly appointed design team are not what I'd deem good designers. Anyone can pick up a copy of photoshop and add some drop shadows, bevels, strokes and whatnot.

I don't mean to pick on you Kerry-Anne, because I do feel you are a positive addition to the staff, just in the wrong section. However, judging from what I have seen of your work, you are no way near qualified to be put in the design team.

To set the record straight, yes, I have come to you on a few occasions, but not as many as you would like to believe. I have come to others, too, as you can tell by the jokes going around about coders hiding from me. ;)

It's no big secret that I have come to you or many others here for advice and help in coding. I don't have the skills in coding yet as a lot of you younger ones here do. Remember, as you get older, things aren't as easy to grasp in the learning area as they once were. I'm learning all the time as well all are.

Does my lack of complete coding skills interfere with my Moderation duties here? I don't think it has, although I'm sure there are those that would argue that point. ;)

Regardless of how long you've been dealing with forums (and do not take offense to this), you cannot treat this the same because the case is different. And no one is saying we should be in charge, so please look carefully before posting. What is obvious and has been said is that members should be able to vote for staff since the staff will directly effect members most, which i'm sure you should know as someone who has been managing online communities for such a long time.

Your honesty is appreciated, and well said :p

Not to put you down or anything boofo (you know i love you and have no problem with you :p). But if you admit to not being as skilled as some of the other coders, then why are you the team leader? Or why aren't some of those people on the team? And your lack of coding skills does not effect your moderation. However, do you not thing that it effects your position as the coding team leader?

I'm curious, do you run your forums that way ? are your staff "elected" by members ?

I can tell you that they are not on any site I'm involved with, and I expect it's not the case on 95%+ sites. The sites owners decide who they have on their staff.