Welcome New Mafia Listmod: Aristophanes

[zoraster]

Please welcome back Aristophanes to the list moderator team. Ari has shown a lot of personal growth and has continued to contribute to the site since he was last on the team. We know Ari can do a great job on the team, and we're excited to have him back!

Aristophanes will be taking over the Micro Queue from Isis. Isis will take over the Open Queue from T-Bone. T-Bone will take over the Large Theme Queue.

Permissions, etc. will probably take a few days to go through as we make sure everything is in place.

[zoraster]

I appreciate the feedback, Nacho and LLD.

Just to be clear: I am ultimately the person who makes the call on staffing decisions. I do so primarily with the advice of the relevant moderators (listmods in this case) and secondarily other staff people, but the decisions are mine. So to the extent it is a mistake, that's my mistake and not others'. I'll take blame for almost any other failings of the site, but in those cases it's usually less direct responsibility than staffing where I make the call directly. So I'd encourage people to place their ire or disappointment toward me and not others.

Ari addressed our concerns internally directly and responsibly, and obviously I have had no other reports or inklings similar to the behavior that I removed him for in the past. Still, I have a lot to think about, and I'm certainly fallible.

[zoraster]

Ari has been removed from being a listmod. After hearing from quite a few people, I see I've made a mistake with this posting, and while the instinct to double down and defend someone who I respect as much as Ari is strong, I realize that overall it is the correct response. I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to contact me or post here. While Ari answered our concerns convincingly and has otherwise shown a great deal of growth, I appreciate that this is an instance where internal understanding is insufficient. Most of the time I am willing to let people be upset about staffing choices when I think the staffing choices serve the site best, but in this case I don't think that's appropriate.

I owe several people/groups of people apologies:

1. Aristophanes himself, first and foremost. Ari has so far as I know done nothing to deserve this since his original removal except love the site and do a lion's share of work. I owe him an apology on two counts: first, subjecting him to this scrutiny that I should have anticipated (outside of the staff's scrutiny) by accepting him for the role and secondly for removing him from a role for reasons that I should have given more credence before. I just want to make it clear as much as I can that Ari is not being removed for anything he has done since he was removed before but largely because of my own mistakes.

2. The staff. Being someone on the staff hasn't always been easy, but I hope as the admin to provide as much stability and clarity as I can in my decision making. I didn't achieve that here. The removal of Ari will be hurtful to many on my team, and I shouldn't have put them in a spot where that was the case.

3. All the people who have provided feedback both here and privately. For many, it's not easy to speak up. I appreciate the largely constructive way it's been approached, but you shouldn't have been put into a position where you needed to do so.

In the coming days, we'll hopefully return with one of the several very strong candidates we had previously. I hope whoever it is will be made to feel welcome.