Forum Moderation & Leadership Changes for 2025
Hello forum friends and welcome to the final announcement that I am going to post! (More on that in a bit.)
New Moderators
First, thank you to all of you who offered to volunteer your time to support our community as a moderator. The mod team considered all of the applicants and every single applicant would be a great addition to the team.
The moderation team is excited to welcome both @Slink and @tradegood to the team. They will be joining the team effective immediately.
This brings the size of the moderation team up to 4. Their addition also adds better global time zone coverage for our global community and fresh perspectives to the leadership team.
New Expanded Roles
Next, we are excited to announce that @captain has agreed to step into the role of Lead Moderator. As you are all aware, Captain has done an excellent job keeping a pulse on the overall forum community. He’ll be stepping up to lead the volunteer moderation team and will set strategy for the forum’s moderation needs.
Our other continuing moderator @tom is also going to step into additional leadership as our “Administrative Moderator”. Tom will be provide Administrator-level backup for Shane. Tom was instrumental in making the transition from Flarium to Discourse go smoothly from our member’s perspective, and we’re delighted for him to have more influence over our community’s technical strategy.
Both of these changes are effective immediately.
Outgoing Moderator
As has been forshadowed in this post, my other posts on the forums, and in the forum’s Moderator Expecations in the FAQ, I will be stepping down as Lead Moderator. Effective immediately, I’ll be stepping back from the day-to-day leadership of the moderation team (which will be in Captain’s capable hands) and will be focusing on ensuring a smooth transition to the 2025 cohort. I’ll be relinquishing forum Moderator and Administrator permissions no later than January 1, 2025.
The other members of the mod team encouraged me to post something personal, and I’m going to do that (later) in the “What Am I Up To” thread.
In the context of this announcement, I’d like to thank everyone for the support that the community has shown me for the last nearly two years. When I stepped into the moderator position, I inherited a bit of a leadership vacuum with the previous moderator stepping down abruptly without a continuity plan. I’m extremly proud of what I helped accomplish within this community:
- Strengthened our community’s culture by creating and ratifying a Community code of Conduct
- Strengthened our community’s leadership standards by creating and ratifying Moderation Guidelines and Expectations
- Ensured continuity of operations and leadership by creating and implementing rotating moderation leadership cohorts and onboarding new team members twice
Finally, a special thank you to @exodus for trusting me to be a steward of the community that we all love so much.
I’m going to continue as an active member of the Insert Credit community and look forward to participating with you all for a long time.