I feel I should say something about all this, starting with my absence. It's partly due to decreasing free time, and partly due to increasing frustration. Most of my spare hours are allocated to reading/writing for college or pleasure, and the remainder spent socialising with *gasp* real people. Between my classmates and my girlfriend's, I now exist in a nexus of philosophers and literary critics, all of whom are huge nerds, and as such, drinking and talking IRL has never been so enjoyable. At the same time, it's very hard to motivate myself to come here, because as an admin, I'm supposed to, you know, do stuff. As a result, when I can't come here regularly, it feels like a huge pile of work is buliding up that I naughtily haven't done, and because I don't want to deal with it, I stay away.
That's the decreasing-free-time bit. It ties into the increasing-frustration bit, because it's even harder to motivate myself to come here and perform the sisyphean task of modding and defending FET when there's such an inescapable sense of stagnation. That, I will openly admit, is largely due to the 'Daniel Problem'. It's just extremely frustrating to answer so many constructive criticisms and suggestions by saying "Only Daniel can do that", which as we all know is mod-doublespeak for "Ain't gonna happen".
Now, I'm not criticising Daniel for not getting things done or being active enough around here. Daniel has a job (which funds this site), a relationship and a life. These things require time, and obviously have priority over FES. Indeed, I would be the most hypocritical of hypocrites if I took issue with that - I frequently drop off the radar for months because of real-world demands on my time. The difference is that when I vanish, Daniel or Jack can take up the slack admin-wise, and the other mods can take up the slack modding-wise. Simply put, when I am unable to carry out my duties as Supreme Forum Janitor, others can cover for me. However, if something on the site needs doing or fixing or improvng, only Daniel can do the job. So when he's gone, progress on that front grinds to a halt.
Let's take a simple example, like the forum banner/skin. It's ugly, and nobody (Daniel included) seems to like it. I know I couldn't put together a decent replacement, but I'm certain there are loads of people here who could come up with something awesome. It would be great if we could open it up to members and ask them to give it a try, and then upload and install the new theme. However, because Daniel is either unwilling or (as I suspect) unable to start such a project, we're left staring at the ugly original months after the upgrade. It would also be great if when a member put forward a constructive idea to improve the site, we could meet it with an enthusiasm grounded in the possibility of its realisation, instead of considering it with apathy or hyper-criticism borne of the clear futility of positive discussion. It's hard not to become despondent about the administrative situation when I see a cool, thought-out suggestion that I know is going absolutely nowhere.
The obvious solution, as I said to Daniel in the mod board, is very simple. Daniel needs to delegate technical and decision-making responsibility the same way he delegates moderating responsibility. In other words, he needs to let us make some decisions in his absence, and appoint a technical administrator so that we can actually act upon them. John is the obvious candidate for that post, or at least he was when I said all this three months ago. Since then, he has decided to leave, apparently due to what he sees as the declining atmosphere and culture of the forum. However, I can't help but feel that frustration at the site's administrative stasis is a significant factor in his decision to bow out. After all, he's happy to put his time into his new FE project, which I think says a lot about the potential he sees for furthering such initiatives here at .org. Moreover, I feel the sense of stagnation has been at least partly responsible for the bad vibe that has developed in the forum. I can't prove it or point to any evidence, but I definitely think it's a root cause.
Indeed, I feel like a case in point. Having politely (and at some length) made the above suggestions, which I felt to be both obvious and reasonable, I received no response from Daniel, even though he replied to the thread several days later. When the issue is so apparent, and attempts to address it are simply ignored, it becomes very hard to constantly play the apologist. Hence this rant of sorts.
I do want to make a couple of things clear. First of all, I enjoy chatting, debating and shooting the shit here for its own sake. I don't just come here to be an internet Nazi. For that reason, I've considered hanging up my admin boots, just so I won't be put-off coming here by all of the above, and can start enjoying FES properly. However, I'm still hopeful Daniel will do something to address the situation, perhaps over the holidays. So I wait, perhaps in vain, for a real solution.
Secondly, I still think Daniel should continue to be President, and that the idea of him stepping down has no real merit. Daniel has refounded and funded the society, and has worked hard to put meat on the bones of what was originally only a discussion forum. I just wish he'd loosen the reins and let others help out more. It would be good for everyone involved, and above all good for the Flat Earth Society.