The 'Shroom talk:Issue 189/Director Election

__NONEWSECTIONLINK__ 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, contributors to The 'Shroom and members of the community at large! With issue 200 on the horizon this year, Waluigi Time and I would like to run in this election so we can draw upon our past experience with the paper and help guide The 'Shroom through 2023 all the way to this significant milestone.

Looking ahead at the rest of this year and into the earliest bit of 2024, we have three main goals we'd like to focus on this year. First and foremost, we intend to make issue 200 a priority, getting to work on it early in the year, keeping its moving pieces on schedule, attracting a massive number of submissions for it, and making it as memorable and celebratory as possible with special graphics, assets, extra features, and possibly games and events.

Secondly, we intend to take the opportunity presented by a milestone issue by refreshing the paper as we hit issue 200 and move beyond it. The 'Shroom will continue onwards, but the arrival of a milestone brings with it a chance to make large, long-term changes. We'll be looking at the paper's visuals and appearance, evaluating old traditions ranging from SOTM to the EotY Awards, asking Team Directors to consider any changes they may want introduced to their pages, and taking a long and hard look at the long-term sustainability of The 'Shroom. From the retitling of many Fake News staples in issue L to the replacement of Roman numerals in issue 100, milestone issues have paved the way for long-term changes large and small, so we'll focus on using issue 200 to close the book on one era of The 'Shroom and begin one with new baselines for presentation and sustainability.

As you read through our plans for the year, you might find them scarce on details, relative to the campaigns posted in the past few years. That's intentional, and it ties into our third goal, which is to guide and facilitate the development of issue 200 while ensuring there is room for discussion and for the staff and other members of the community to put ideas forward. We will, of course, keep a firm guiding hand in place to ensure work gets done in a timely and sustainable manner and to make sure discussions and updates stay organized, but we want the staff to have an active role shaping issue 200 with collective brainstorming, collaborative efforts, discussions, building off of projects already in motion and, yes, even some inevitable last-minute ideas that come.

Issue 200 will take center stage this year, but we'll continue to work to bring on writers, promote the efforts of our current writers, help our writers to grow and improve, and to keep The 'Shroom a welcoming community newspaper where members of the community can share what interests them!

Qualifications

In case you've not encountered us before, here's a brief introduction as to who we are and what we've done.

Hooded Pitohui

I'm Hooded Pitohui, current Strategy Wing Director for The 'Shroom and a previous 'Shroom Director. I've been around the community in earnest since 2017, and I've been a part of a few large community projects in my time. I have:


 * Directed The 'Shroom from January 18th, 2020 to January 15th, 2022
 * Served as Strategy Wing Director since September 2018
 * Written multiple sections for The 'Shroom
 * Served on the 9th Poll Committee, the 12th Poll Committee, and the Awards Committee from 2019 to 2022
 * Put the Community Awards Dossier together in 2019, 2020, and 2021
 * Served as Chairperson of the 11th Poll Committee, from July of 2020 to July of 2021

I've got the energy and the time to tackle one more year directing The 'Shroom, and I'm confident that I can continue to work with the paper's staff and the community at large to give this community tradition the celebration it deserves this year.

I know it's sentimental, but, personally speaking, I hope that issue 200 can be something that everyone in this community feels that they own a little part of. I want everybody to be able to let their ideas and interests shine in this issue, and to contribute something to this issue that they take pride in. This paper has made it to 200 issues because of this community's creativity and dedication to crafting sections, games, presentations, and more so that others could have joy and laugh together. Let's celebrate that. Let's see that everyone who has put that work in gets a little joy back, and that everyone who has had a little extra brightness in their lives thanks to this community put a little bit of that brightness into a collective effort they can look at fondly. I really hope all of us can come together this year to celebrate The 'Shroom and each other, and I'll do all I can to make doing so easier for all of you!

Waluigi Time

Waluigi Time here, your current ‘Shroom Director and Fake News Director! I started getting into the community side of things around here in 2020, and since then I have:


 * Directed The ‘Shroom from August 20th, 2022 to present
 * Sub-directed The 'Shroom from January 15th, 2022 to August 20th, 2022
 * Served as the Fake News Director since June 2022
 * Written multiple sections for The 'Shroom
 * Served on the 12th and 13th Poll Committees, and the Awards Committee for 2022
 * Served as an administrator of the Super Mario Wiki from August 24th, 2021 to present
 * Served as a patroller of the Super Mario Wiki from November 24th, 2020 to August 24th, 2021

I am more than happy to continue serving on the directing staff of The 'Shroom for another year, and to help Pitohui with keeping everything running smoothly in anticipation of this exciting milestone for the paper. I think that this is going to be a great celebration of the community, and whether we are the directing staff for this term or not, I look forward to seeing it through to completion. Hopefully with minimal interference from platypi.

Schedule

We've been heavy on the words so far, so let's summarize the proposed schedule for the year in a table! We'll go into some specifics down past this.

This is our proposed schedule for the 2023 term:

Looking at this calendar, you'll probably first notice the lack of a holiday special issue and a lack of a summer special issue. With issue 200 falling so close to December, it wouldn't make sense to try and have the usual-end-of-the year special and, in the process, to split our energy into two specials. We think it wise to put all of our energy for special issues into 200, leaving 201 as a small, more relaxed issue that will solidify the changes 200 introduces without creating a heavy workload.

Based on the feedback we've received, we think it's wisest to go into this year without a summer special issue locked into the schedule. We're not ruling out the possibility of adding a light theme of some kind with some relatively simple special backgrounds. We're not even totally ruling out the possibility of some kind of small event. However, let's not commit to that right this moment. We've seen in 2022 how making plans early in the year without knowing what the year will bring can result in ambitions creeping up and can make it difficult to scale back on what has already been committed. Let's evaluate where we are a couple months into the year and assess what's realistically possible based on everyone's workload for issue 200 and Awards preparations. We'll do what time and energy allows, but let's go in with a low baseline and build up so nobody has to break their back to make it happen.

There's two months this year where we're suggesting that the paper strays from its usual "third Saturday of the month" release schedule. We're proposing moving the October issue a week earlier, leaving a four-week gap between the September and October releases, so that we have a five week gap before issue 200. This will make the last-minute rush a little less chaotic for everyone and let us put on an extra coat of polish.

We're also proposing moving the December issue a week later. Even with issue 201 being a smaller issue, we think it would be wise to give everyone a little bit of extra time to decompress and recover from issue 200, and there's room in the calendar to push issue 201 back while still having four weeks before issue 202. Issue 201 still gets released before the holidays are in full-swing, as well.

You'll notice that four staff meetings dot the calendar this year. While the past few years have been light on staff meetings, we'd like to have a few more than usual this year to help keep issue 200 on track and to provide plenty of opportunities for ideas to emerge in staff discussions. We'd begin in February with a meeting primarily for brainstorming and presenting any and every idea members of the staff have. From there, we'll start narrowing down and refining those ideas and get the ball rolling to make them happen. By late April, we'll have the foundations set, we'll have what we can already in motion, and we'll all reconvene to finalize any ideas that still need to be finalized and to set firm deadlines and a firm order of completion for all of our projects. Work will proceed for two months, and in June, we'll reconvene again to evaluate the progress of everything, making sure that projects are on track and getting them back on track as needed. With an additional two months to work after that, we should be well set to have many of our graphics, games, events, and special features ready by the time issue 198 and 199 release. This will give us time for our final meeting in late September, where we evaluate everything we have prepared, evaluate the status of projects nearing completion, and open the floor up to any last-minute ideas that may emerge so we can work on them over two months, rather than, say, two weeks. It's likely that this meeting will also get into post-issue 200 plans, as well.

We'll be flexible about these meetings, and will adjust them based on our progress over this year.

Finally, you may notice that the Poll Chairperson Election is not scheduled for this year. Per this proposal, the next Poll Chairperson Election will be held in February of 2024.

Issue 200

We're almost done with this deluge of words, but there's a few specific points regarding issue 200 that we would like to highlight.


 * Prioritizing Collecting Sections We did just touch on planning games and events above, but, by and large, our priority for issue 200 is ensuring that it has plenty of sections. To that end, we're going to start asking for special contributions early in the year - starting no later than February, actually. We'll be reaching out to members of the community and asking them to consider submitting for issue 200 without demanding sections and taking people away from other projects. We'll provide suggestions or talk through ideas, and we'll offer to send them reminders during the parts of the year they think they might have time to write. We want everyone to have as broad a window to submit as possible, and we'll work with Meta Knight to allow people to submit for issue 200 at any time during the year, and to have their sections held for November.
 * Have Assets and Events Prepared In Advance With a project like this, it's inevitable that some last-minute ideas will come up. Rather than having to axe them entirely and rather than having to scramble to put finishing touches on the tentpole projects for issue 200, we will aim to have as much as possible finished not in the time between issue 199 and issue 200, but by the time issue 198 and 199 release. Having ideas planned out early in the year in place and ready to go a couple months in advance will create the space we need to build up last-minute ideas and extra flourishes people come up with.
 * Use Issue 200 to Refresh the Paper We touched upon this earlier, but, to cover it briefly again, we intend to use issue 200 to make lasting changes to the paper. We won't make changes for the sake of changes, but, rather, getting feedback from the staff on what unchallenged traditions and conventions we should update, on a potential all-around graphical update, and on long-term sustainability.
 * Acknowledge the Past Without Miring Ourselves in it We absolutely want to celebrate many of our long-time contributors and the era of the paper spanning from issue 100 to 200, but we're going to make sure those celebrations don't come at the expense of the present. We're not going to have this be a celebration of 2009 when there's a community to celebrate and propel forward in 2023!

Miscellaneous Plans and Policies


 * Continue working with the Awards Committee. As always, we'll be working closely with the Awards Committee, not only to produce the Community Awards Dossier and to promote Awards, but to align our schedules and plans so that community members have the time and energy to contribute to and take part in the Awards.
 * Emphasize Flexible Schedules We want to make a point of making potential writers more aware that we offer flexible writing schedules, and are willing to work with them to get them on schedules that work well for them and to accommodate them should they need temporary hiatuses.
 * Increase Writer Flexibility In addition, we've heard from a few writers and prospective writers that they would be more interested in writing regularly if they felt less bound to a single topic or concept and could instead easily shift their section(s) around without reapplying. While we need to balance this against keeping the quality of our sections up, we would like to look at ways to make this easier for writers, be it by encouraging more general sections (e.g., a general review section in CC that may review a movie one month and a book the next, or a PS short story section with different stories monthly) or through some other means we can come up with this year.

In Closing

This year, much of our focus will be on issue 200, and what the two of us want most is to make it a spectacle, a massive issue that all at once closes out one era of The 'Shroom, refreshes the paper to prepare it for a new era, acknowledges the dedication of our long-time contributors, celebrates the members of our community, brings everyone together on a project they can be proud to contribute to, provides everyone something to celebrate together, and, most of all, gives everyone an extra helping of joy towards the end of this year.

We want to see the paper continue on a steady course this year leading up to 200, attracting writers and new sections along the way, and to bring this year to a close with a festive bang. Whether we're elected or not, we'll be doing everything we can to make issue 200 something special and to keep the paper going along this year, and we hope you'll join us in that endeavor!

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