The 'Shroom:Issue XLVII/Director's Notes

Director's Notes

Hello, wonderful viewers of the paper. here, with my commentary on the first issue under my term as Director. I have a progress report to give out this month on behalf of the staff: I would like to let everybody know what has been going on since last month. So here we go, I suppose.

I would like to thank, , , , and any other members of the community that helped make the new 'Shroom namespace a possibility and ensuring that the transition from the "MarioWiki:" prefix to the "The 'Shroom:" prefix went as successfully as possible. This will be beneficial in making The 'Shroom more noticeable in the community as well as furthering the organization of the wiki, I am certain.

The Core Staff has been discussing the Section of the Month process that just about everybody has been patiently (or impatiently, for that matter) waiting to see. We have a general framework laid out that all of the staff has agreed upon. This is huge progress, considering the fact that no consensus or compromises could be made between the staff last year about how to carry this out (and debates about it dragged out for months). I am proud of the Core Staff for this giant leap forward (and this progress being made in just less than a month!), and I hope to bring more news about this in the following issues.

Also, I have brought up several candidates for affiliation with The 'Shroom. However, this is a more recent development, so there's not much else that can really be said on the topic for now. Just know that more discussion about this will take place between the staff, and that I hope to be able to bring more news about this in the March 2011 issue.

We have had a plentiful amount of applications for several sections of the paper. I am happy to say that all applications received and posted up in the staff board since I became Director are being considered or have already been considered; not one application has been ignored. So, for those who currently have a pending application: do not worry! We will try our best to finish reviewing your applications as soon as possible.

The newest development is that the Core Staff has started to consider ideas that we will present to the Awards Committee (which will likely start convening in early March) for 'Shroom Awards II! I am personally striving to make sure that we have ten creative, fresh award ideas to present. I will work closely with the staff in the following weeks on this specific topic to make sure that the ideas discussed will be able to benefit both the Awards Ceremony as well as The 'Shroom.

After we have thoroughly discussed the ideas for 'Shroom Awards II and have come to an agreement on what to present to the Awards Committee, we will start developing plans for May 2011 (Issue L). I want to make this an extremely fun and important issue for The 'Shroom, so expect quite a bit of news throughout the next few months. Some things I'd like to plan for this are some festivities, special sections, the first Feedback Survey of my Directorial term, and a few other things.

I am pleased with the work we've done for the February issue. Writer turn-out was great, and the Core Staff did a great job compiling the sections for their teams and everything. This is an awesome way to start off, and I hope it just keeps getting better and better as we go along. A "thank you" goes out to all of the writers that have done their part in making this issue good, as well as the Core Staff for working very hard this past month. Once again, I hope to have more news for everybody in the next issue, so be sure to read it when it comes out on Saturday, March 19th, 2011.

Until next month,

&mdash; 

Sub-director Notes
Having been promoted, I now have to actually contribute some notes every month, instead of just sporadically when I feel like it. This is not a rule, but I have received death threats about it. I figure I might as well comply for the sake of all the people who think that death threats actually apply to me.

I now do EXCITING NEW THINGS as Sub‐Director of the ’Shroom. In addition, the position of Editor in Chief has been abolished, which means I also get to do all the EXCITING OLD THINGS I did when that was my title. I do so many exciting things. I am like a swiss army knife; never wander into the wilderness without me.

At this point I wanted to include some less self aggrandizing news, but SMB has probably already said everything. I wrote this about a month in advance, so I have no idea what the news is, nor what SMB may or may not already have discussed. It’s sort of interesting on this first day of the new administration, actually. We have a lot of the energy and optimism derived from new people doing new things, and that is exciting. I’m hoping we can leverage that energy in the weeks and months ahead to bring a lot of fresh new ideas and improvements to the ’Shroom.

(You may find this next part hard to follow, if you are not very successful at suspending your disbelief. I sympathize. Unsuspendable disbelief is a terrible affliction to have to cope with.)

Because I am now the Sub‐Director of the ’Shroom, I am in Tucayo’s former office. This is a nice change, since my last office was in fact a cardboard box with a laptop in one of the break rooms. People kept spilling coffee on it, and then it would leak in on my computer and make it spaz out. Eventually the coffee machine broke down, but that turned out to be no better because my computer began suffering from caffeine withdrawal, preventing me from getting anything done. At that point I mostly spent my time throwing things out of the break room windows onto passers‐by on the street below.

Did you know that we stock our break room with pit vipers? Neither did I, until my computer stopped working.

Anyway, I am very optimistic about the year to come!