The 'Shroom talk:Issue 153/Director Election

Election Process
This page is where members of the community may make nominations and vote for candidates to direct The 'Shroom for the next year. The rules for the election process may be viewed on the election rules article.

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Hello, readers, writers, and staff members of The 'Shroom. I am and I would like to announce that myself and  are entering into this election as candidates for the positions of Director and Sub-Director of The 'Shroom for the 2020 term.

Over the past year, The 'Shroom has continued to refine itself as a project. Building off of the work of Super Mario Bros. and Meta Knight, the Directors of the past term — Raregold, Geeky, Superchao, and Smasher — have overseen a number of projects which have resulted in, but are not limited to, the overhaul of the sign-up page to reflect a more flexible vision of The 'Shroom interested in new ideas and sections tailored to a wide variety of interests, a rework of the Staff Section of the Month process to encourage more engagement in the process, and a successful job in the massive milestone issue 150 with a special staff collaboration to tie it together. Indeed, 2019 was a year of refinement for The 'Shroom.

While we will, of course, strive to continue refining this community project, we have no plans to press for major changes to The 'Shroom in 2020. Any issues which need addressed or opportunities for improvements that come to our attention, we will address, but there are no glaring changes which we feel the paper needs at this time. With that in mind, we'd like to make 2020 a year of maintenance and increasing engagement. We aim to maintain the level of quality The 'Shroom has reached and maintain the routines and pieces of the paper currently in place. Rather than try to take The 'Shroom to new heights by making it bigger and more prestigious with new projects and new directions, we want to begin expanding within the framework we have. To do that, of course, we need more writers. It may be true that the forums see less activity than they once did, that perhaps the Mindless Junk board isn't the hub of discussion, and that more talking happens on various Discord servers and on other platforms, but the community remains vibrant and active. The 'Shroom has long been a focal point of community activity, a project which community members can productively contribute to. As many who have written for The 'Shroom can attest, the paper is a great way to feel like you're adding to the community, to get your name out in front of your fellow community members, and to read a variety of sections which can lead to conversations between writers. Schedule constraints and varying interests mean that not everyone in this community can write for The 'Shroom or wants to write for The 'Shroom, but our core goal for this term is to get more community members involved in this project. We'd like to see more community members either begin writing for The 'Shroom or return to writing for The 'Shroom so that it can continue to effectively do what it has always done - that is, foster a sense of community, serve as a creative outlet, and encourage more interactions between members of this community. That's why our goal and theme for 2020 is one of increasing engagement with The 'Shroom.

Of course, we do not expect you to simply take our word that we are the right choices to trust with The 'Shroom in 2020. Please, allow us to lay out our case for why we feel we can lead the paper through the upcoming year and to explain our plans in detail. We'll begin with a brief discussion of why be believe we are qualified to lead this project, move on to our tentative schedule for next year's term, and end with additional plans and areas of emphasis we have in mind.

Qualifications and Previous Experience

Hooded Pitohui

Hello, I'm Hooded Pitohui, current Strategy Wing Director, though you may also know me as the fellow who has rambled on too much about poisonous birds, birds that are facultative hemophages, and birds that may purposefully set fire to an area. I've been around the community in earnest since 2017, and I have used that time to get involved in a number of community projects.


 * I am the current Strategy Wing Director for The 'Shroom, having served in the position since September of 2018. Through the position, I have gained a great deal of experience working as part of The 'Shroom staff, from putting together a team's page to working on internal staff projects.
 * I have written extensively for The 'Shroom, writing for a variety of teams and contributing some special sections. I currently write Mario's Boombox on a bi-monthly schedule in Palette Swap, Rising Sun Reviews on a volunteer-based schedule in Critic Corner, and 'Shroom Recap in Pipe Plaza. The latter section has helped me to gain perspective on The 'Shroom's history and development, a perspective which influences my thoughts on the future direction of The 'Shroom by alerting me to both what has aided the paper and where missteps have occurred.
 * I served on the 9th Poll Committee and the 2019 Awards Committee, gaining experience in both of these community projects.
 * I organized and co-hosted the Awards Killing Game III on the forum with Roserade, Lakituthequick, and Geeky.
 * Finally, I have already gained some experience with the most basic duties of Directorship this term, assisting Superchao with uploading pieces of a few issues by request and, more significantly, putting the Community Awards Dossier together for 2019.

With the experience I've gained and the time I've spent working with other members of The 'Shroom staff and other prominent members of this community, I feel confident that I can successfully lead The 'Shroom through the 2020 term. Of course, I will not be doing so alone, and I am thankful to have a partner I know I can work so well with professionally and who complements me with his personality and focuses. I will let Roserade introduce himself and speak to his qualifications on his own, though. I will say, however, that through our work with Awards KG III, we have been able to develop a working relationship that has allowed us to effectively organize and lead large-scale projects together.

Roserade

Greetings, beautiful readers! My name is Rose, and I'm here to formally introduce myself and my qualifications as I run for the Sub-Director position. You may know my interests to be activities such as writing poetry or studying tarot, but another big interest for me is this community. I first joined the Mario Boards when I was nine — eight years ago now! — and while I took a long hiatus somewhere in the middle, this community and the people I engaged with were endearing enough for me to return. I've been back on the forums in full activity since 2016, and I've loved every minute of it. Being able to contribute to the happenings and large events of this community really speaks to me, and I hope that Pitohui and I can continue to bolster The 'Shroom as a fantastic monument to our community.

Obviously, anybody fit to run The 'Shroom is going to need their set of qualifications, and thankfully, I've experienced enough both inside and outside of this community that I feel I have those qualifications in place.


 * Pitohui and I both joined The 'Shroom at the same time, so I've been serving as the current Fun Stuff Director since September of 2018. Like Pito has said for himself, I have learned a lot about working as a part of The 'Shroom staff, such as how all to upload sections, or how to contribute to larger staff events.
 * I served on the 8th Poll Committee as a normal member, and the 9th Poll Committee as the Vice Chairperson. This year, as part of the 10th Poll Committee, I am actively serving as Vice Chairperson again, and have learned two skills I'd consider essential for the role of 'Shroom Sub-Director: organizing team coordinations, and picking up on responsibility, should something happen to our Chairperson.
 * I served on the 2019 Awards Committee, and have written for The 'Shroom for a few occasions with my section, Challenger Approaching!
 * I have hosted several different community events, including a number of Mafia games. Most notably, I co-hosted the Awards Killing Game III alongside Pitohui, Lakituthequick, and Geeky.
 * Finally, while qualifications outside of this community can be hard to verify, I would like to add that I've taken several leadership and editorial responsibilities within my physical life. Among these responsibilities, I've served as a primary editor for my school's literary magazine three times.

With these qualifications in mind, I do feel I strongly incorporate the responsibility and experience befitting a Sub-Director. But this is not at all a solo job, and I would like to emphasize that I have full faith in Pitohui's abilities as your potential Director. His organization, follow-through, and communication skills are incredible, and I truly believe that he would run The 'Shroom beautifully, even if only on his own. But because we're being elected as a duo, I would like to add that the two of us have connected as colleagues working on projects, but also personally as individuals. I feel that the two of us have bonded significantly, and it has allowed us to establish a system of honest and earnest communication with one another, which was exemplified in those moments of panic when hosting a Killing Game (it really is so much work). With this in mind, I have no doubt the two of us could run this ship thoroughly, responsibly, and responsively to each other.

That's all from me. Thank you all so much for reading, and please look ahead to our schedule and other thoughts below!

Schedule

The following is our proposed, tentative schedule for The 'Shroom in the 2020 term:


 * January - Issue 154 - Special Issue: MCD-Themed, Select and Announce New Fake News Director, Transition Issue
 * February - Issue 155 - New Fake News Director Begins Directing Fake News
 * March - Issue 156
 * April - Issue 157
 * May - Issue 158
 * June - Issue 159 - Poll Chairperson Election
 * July - Issue 160 - Special Issue: Theme TBA
 * August - Issue 161
 * September - Issue 162 - Poll Committee Presents Awards Analysis
 * October - Issue 163
 * November - Issue 164 - Awards Director Election
 * December - Issue 165 - Special Holiday Issue: The Shroob, Director Election
 * January 2021 - Issue 166 - Transition Issue

Many of the events listed on our schedule are events which happen every year, such as the various elections and the publication of Awards Analysis, so we'd like to draw your attention to the three special issues we are proposing. We've just come off issue 150 a few months ago, and we just had issue 153 with its Donkey Kong theme, but, with the milestone MCD will hit by directing his 100th edition of Fake News in issue 154, it would be criminal to not celebrate him with the issue. We'd like to see MCD themes wherever possible, and, of course, we hope that a multitude of writers will flex their creative muscles and contribute a special section to Fake News. This issue falls on an odd occasion, being the transition issue, so, in fairness, we would not be the Directing team for the issue. This election won't end but hours before the issue releases, after all. However, we still plan to contribute to this special issue as we can as Staff members and writers.

With the string of special issues and themed issues we'll have had by the end of January, we feel it would be best to give everyone a rest by sticking to regular issues from February through June. To break up the middle portion of the year and to keep with The 'Shroom's tradition of having a special (Awards) issue in the summer, however, we plan to make issue 160 a special issue, with the theme to be announced so we have at least one surprise up our sleeve. This would fall right in the midst of Awards season, when everyone has their focus on the community for ongoing tournaments and many have relatively free schedules. As we intend for the December issue to be our big special issue, with more intensive work, we're aiming to make issue 160 a lighter special issue, in the style of the themed issues which have developed over the past few years. Rather than focus on massive projects and trying to go as large as possible with this issue, we'll focus on encouraging writers to theme their sections and encourage some special one-time submissions. By doing this, we'll deliver the summer special issue without taxing and burning out users who are needed to work on Awards presentations around this time.

We expect our August issue to be a tad smaller and slower as everyone recovers from Awards, as it generally has been in the past, and we'll again slow down with a string of regular issues. For our holiday issue, which has traditionally been a special issue, we have received a wonderful suggestion from a reader which we fully support. We would like to convert issue 165 into The Shroob, asking our writers to "Shroobify" their sections and finding every possible way to turn our paper into one more befitting those evil alien mushrooms which seem to have a counterpart for everything in the Mushroom Kingdom. It's only fitting they'd have a counterpart to our paper, one which we can showcase, if only for a single issue. This is the issue which we want to make a big event. It won't be on the scale of milestone issues like issue 100 or issue 150, but we will be reaching out to both staff members and writers early to have a few special projects prepared for this issue. We're aiming to have a staff meeting in late September or early October so that we can generate ideas and set out goals for this issue early, and begin reaching out to writers and organizing projects in mid-October, to avoid any last-minute time crunches. We'll have the large special features of the issue prepared by the release of November's issue, to be held until December, and anyone who wants to contribute further will still have the usual work period to come up with extra additions.

After the holiday issue, we will focus on the transition issue that will be issue 166, aiming to handle it however is best based on the results of the next Director Election.

Miscellaneous Policies and Plans

We've explained our most important plans in detail in our proposed schedule, but there are a few more goals we have in our quest to increase engagement with The 'Shroom. We'd like to elaborate on a few of the things we would most like to do in this term.


 * We want to focus on direct outreach as a means of attracting new writers to The 'Shroom. We feel very strongly that it would be to The 'Shroom's benefit and to the community's benefit if we were to convince more community members to take an interest in The 'Shroom and to join the project. To that end, we've prepared a shortlist of people we want to (or have already begun to) reach out to and personally encourage to join The 'Shroom as writers. We both pay close attention to this community through its various outlets, and we try to learn what people are interested in and what skills they have. We'd like to see community members write new sections tailored to their passions and their skills. It may sound simple to say "we want new writers", but we want to emphasize our mission to reach out directly to potential writers. As Anton can tell you from wrangling Awards presentations or Superchao can tell you from his experience gathering votes for Mach Speed Mayhem, a little direct shilling can go a long way in getting people to actually move from considering something to doing something.
 * We hope that this will help to expand some of the smaller teams, as well. Fake News and Palette Swap, in particular, are teams we would like to attract new writers to. Considering that these are teams focused on creativity and introductory coverage of art and music, there are plenty of opportunities for sections appealing to a wide variety of interests, short sections, even. Of course, we single these teams out as ones we would like to bolster, but the truth is that this applies to every one of our teams just as well. A section need not be long to be good, and long-gone are the days when this paper was only about Mario.
 * We also want more writers who feel invested in the continued success of this project so that, in the long-term, we can begin training and encouraging future staff members. Those with experience on The 'Shroom, a drive to see the project succeed, and interest in taking on more responsibility within the project are the people The 'Shroom will need to have around over the long-haul; they will be the people who apply to fill staff positions, including those of team Directors. The wider we cast our net of writers, the more likely we'll encourage more people to invest themselves more deeply into the project. In other words, we want to create a fertile crop of experienced writers from which The 'Shroom can draw staff members in the future.
 * We want to create more opportunities to incorporate multimedia content in The 'Shroom. In the past, we've had music focused sections with actual music downloads from Stooben Rooben, and, more recently, Koops has shifted to a video-based section in Strategy Wing. While we have no desire to move The 'Shroom away from its identity as a newspaper, we want potential writers to feel comfortable incorporating visual art, videos, music, and media beyond writing. Every new medium presents its own challenges and pieces to consider (for example, if external hosting is used a video section, how do we ensure it is properly archived in case that external host ever stops functioning?), but we would like writers to know we are willing to find solutions to these challenges and that they should not hesitate to apply with new ideas. Some folks are more comfortable with writing, but, with the wide variety of skills and interests in this community, it should be little surprise that there are potential writers who would be more interested in submitting multimedia sections.
 * Finally, we want to consider and explore opportunities for writers and readers to have direct interactions with one another, and bring at least one of these opportunities to fruition. We want to ensure The 'Shroom fosters a sense of community, and, just as Awards tournaments and forum games do, we want The 'Shroom to connect people who may otherwise never speak to one another and to launch new conversations. In the past, 'Shroom-affiliated games like Mafia or the Killing Game have been a tool for getting writers and readers alike talking to one another, and, even further back in the past (as one can see in issue LVII, issue LXXXI, and issue LXIX), chat parties and staggered uploads of special issues served a similar goal. While a staggered release might not work as well today, we would like to see The 'Shroom host an event of some form which will give its writers and readers a chance to talk, get to know each other, and perhaps form friendships they otherwise would not. We want to get people talking to each other, even if that starts only by talking about their sections.

In Closing

With that, we've made our case for the direction we think The 'Shroom should take in 2020 and why we feel we can successfully guide it in that direction. We are, of course, happy to answer questions, elaborate on anything we've discussed here, and interested in hearing what you have to say. It's the community that makes this project possible, and we want to hear from those of you who have a stake in this project. If you have concerns, proposals, or ideas you think we should hear, reach out to us!

Whatever the results of this election, we hope to see The 'Shroom through a prosperous 2020 from whatever position we are able. The 'Shroom has a decade of great things ahead of it, so long as there continues to be an interested team of community members willing to keep it going. Director and Sub-Director or not, we are determined to do all we can to attract more community members (back) to The 'Shroom and ensure that the project has a long life ahead of it.

Votes

 * 1) As the outgoing director, I throw my full support behind Pitohui and Roserade. I am confident they'd be the best choice possible to lead the 'Shroom in the year to come, and I can't wait to see how well they do it!
 * 2) I am not the best person to judge their qualifications for this position as I am not experienced on writing and managing The 'shroom, but as a KG3 player, they were amazing hosts who keep the entire game in control and maintain the quality of the game for everyone's experience. I do like to read interviews and some fun stories, so I'd vote for Pitohui & Roserade. I want good monthly issues.

Debates
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