There are some conventions and traditions we follow in CAP when it comes to leadership. But we haven't clarified all the leadership roles recently, and I'm not sure everyone is on the same page. In this post I will explicitly state the main parts of the CAP leadership structure, and I'll propose some new leadership roles that I think have been kinda "emerging" naturally anyway.
CAP Head Administrator
aka "Head of the CAP Project"
That's me, DougJustDoug, and I have been in this position ever since the CAP project was formally organized and partnered with Smogon. I covered the history of the project and my role in great detail in the CAP Leadership Compendium, and I won't repeat it here. As Head of the Project, I see my job mainly to oversee CAP operations and help shape overall project organization and direction. I am mostly concerned with policies, broad trends in activity, and general adherance to the CAP Mission Statement. I act as the final authority in any disputes that escalate above other CAP leaders. I interact with Smogon Senior Staff and represent the CAP Project in matters related to Smogon as a whole.
CAP Head Moderator
Currently Birkal. This has never been an official position in the past. But oftentimes in the past, there have been CAP Mods that have been more active or involved than others, and we all kinda deferred to these mods when things needed to get done. At various times in the past, I'd say people like Deck Knight, Rising_Dusk, tennisace, etc. could have been called "CAP Head Mod" according to the above definition. By designating a single person as head moderator, I don't want to minimize any mod's current or past contributions. All CAP Mods have always had a great deal of authority and leeway to get things done, and they will continue to have the same privileges and control in the future.
There are many duties generally assigned to the "CAP Moderators" as a collective group, and I want it to be the responsibility of the Head Moderator to ensure the moderation team gets those things done. This does not mean the Head Moderator is "the boss" of the other mods, it means the Head Moderator is the coordinator and spokesperson for the mods as a collective group. The CAP moderation team currently works very well together, and this assignment of a single head moderator is not a reaction to any cooperation problems or poor teamwork. I just want to establish a clear communication and coordination point for the project to interact with "the mods" as a collective group when necessary.
CAP Moderators
The heart of the CAP leadership structure. Currently Deck Knight, Wyverii, Birkal, capefeather, Elevator Music, and Theorymon.
CAP Moderators are responsible for oversight of all CAP project operations and to ensure all CAP participants follow CAP rules and project principles. For day-to-day operations, the decisions of moderators are final. CAP Moderators are expected to collaborate with other moderators as necessary, and should know when and how to work with others. CAP moderators are given very broad powers in all aspects of the CAP project -- they moderate the forum, they are SOPs on the #cap IRC channel, they have elevated privileges on the CAP battle server, and they edit and maintain content on the CAP subsite.
If you are interested in becoming a CAP mod someday or you are curious how moderators are selected in CAP, then I have included a long description of the position, selection process, and qualifications below in hide tags. Feel free to skip it, I'm including it because it hasn't been written down before and I get questions on it from time to time.
There are two new positions I'd like to create within the CAP project, and I'd like your feedback on the positions. Do not use this thread to discuss potential candidates, let's just discuss the positions themselves.
Proposal: Analysis Coordinator
(title suggestions welcome)
When it comes to getting analyses for our new pokemon put onsite, we tend to stumble here. I'd like to select a person to be in charge of making sure CAP analyses get written and edited to proper C&C standards and put up onsite. The holder of this position could potentially get a Community Contributor badge, if they don't have one already. Familiarity with C&C is the big requirement that comes to mind. We typically count on CAP mods to oversee this sort of thing, but I'd rather have this be a special leadership position in CAP. This person doesn't have to actually write the analyses themselves, but they need to be responsible for ensuring they get done.
Proposal: Formal IRC Ops
Yes, we have IRC sops, aops, hops, and voice on the #cap channel. But we really don't have a formal structure for it. I want to change that. I think #cap has the possibility of filling the void left ever since the CAP Shoddy Server went defunct. Many of us already hang out on #cap frequently, and we don't really have a problem with behavior or anything like that. But I think we could build a better real-time community in #cap, if we had a more meritorious ops hierarchy there.
I don't have specific proposals, but my inclination is to separate the CAP forum leadership from the IRC leadership structure. For example, if there are CAP mods that don't hang out on IRC very often, then perhaps we should give them AOPs or HOps or maybe even just voice to denote their level of real "leadership" in the channel. I remember when Smogon did that on #pokemon, and I think it was a good thing for the channel (keep in mind, I was one of the people that lost ops in that channel when that happened!) I'm not saying we need to de-op any mods (all the mods get on IRC regularly) -- I'm just saying we don't need to assume that every CAP mod is automatically given SOPs on #cap, if they aren't going to join the channel often.
The bigger thing is that I'd like to have at least one SOp on #cap that is NOT a forum mod. I'd like some people who see #cap leadership as their primary leadership contribution to the CAP project. These people would actively build standards for the channel, and they would have SOps that allow them to keep the access list up to date with everyone that deserves various access levels.
The #cap channel is a great part of the CAP project and it is a hotbed of activity when we are building a new pokemon. More CAP stuff gets decided on #cap than most people realize. Let's formalize the leadership structure there, and let's formally acknowledge the contributions of those people that make the #cap channel a cool place to hang out.
In this thread, I'd like some suggestions for how we could apply a better leadership structure to #cap -- presumably from those of you on the PRC that are active in the #cap channel.
CAP Head Administrator
aka "Head of the CAP Project"
That's me, DougJustDoug, and I have been in this position ever since the CAP project was formally organized and partnered with Smogon. I covered the history of the project and my role in great detail in the CAP Leadership Compendium, and I won't repeat it here. As Head of the Project, I see my job mainly to oversee CAP operations and help shape overall project organization and direction. I am mostly concerned with policies, broad trends in activity, and general adherance to the CAP Mission Statement. I act as the final authority in any disputes that escalate above other CAP leaders. I interact with Smogon Senior Staff and represent the CAP Project in matters related to Smogon as a whole.
CAP Head Moderator
Currently Birkal. This has never been an official position in the past. But oftentimes in the past, there have been CAP Mods that have been more active or involved than others, and we all kinda deferred to these mods when things needed to get done. At various times in the past, I'd say people like Deck Knight, Rising_Dusk, tennisace, etc. could have been called "CAP Head Mod" according to the above definition. By designating a single person as head moderator, I don't want to minimize any mod's current or past contributions. All CAP Mods have always had a great deal of authority and leeway to get things done, and they will continue to have the same privileges and control in the future.
There are many duties generally assigned to the "CAP Moderators" as a collective group, and I want it to be the responsibility of the Head Moderator to ensure the moderation team gets those things done. This does not mean the Head Moderator is "the boss" of the other mods, it means the Head Moderator is the coordinator and spokesperson for the mods as a collective group. The CAP moderation team currently works very well together, and this assignment of a single head moderator is not a reaction to any cooperation problems or poor teamwork. I just want to establish a clear communication and coordination point for the project to interact with "the mods" as a collective group when necessary.
CAP Moderators
The heart of the CAP leadership structure. Currently Deck Knight, Wyverii, Birkal, capefeather, Elevator Music, and Theorymon.
CAP Moderators are responsible for oversight of all CAP project operations and to ensure all CAP participants follow CAP rules and project principles. For day-to-day operations, the decisions of moderators are final. CAP Moderators are expected to collaborate with other moderators as necessary, and should know when and how to work with others. CAP moderators are given very broad powers in all aspects of the CAP project -- they moderate the forum, they are SOPs on the #cap IRC channel, they have elevated privileges on the CAP battle server, and they edit and maintain content on the CAP subsite.
If you are interested in becoming a CAP mod someday or you are curious how moderators are selected in CAP, then I have included a long description of the position, selection process, and qualifications below in hide tags. Feel free to skip it, I'm including it because it hasn't been written down before and I get questions on it from time to time.
CAP Moderator is not a "reward" position for being a hard worker or star contributor to CAP, nor is CAP Moderator an honorary title conferred to someone simply because they have a long history on the CAP project. Under no circumstances should anyone ask to be a CAP Moderator.
New CAP Moderators are typically nominated and discussed by other existing CAP Moderators in private. If the candidate is generally agreed by the mods, the candidate is presented to the CAP Head Administrator, if the head admin is not already involved in the discussion. If everyone is in agreement, then we follow the formal Smogon process for promoting moderators. The Smogon promotion process should not initiate a CAP moderator promotion, it simply finalizes it.
For any project participants interested in becoming a mod, the primary qualification is GOOD JUDGEMENT and the ability to RESOLVE PROBLEMS. Deep knowledge of the CAP project and the ability to work well with the other moderators is also a must-have requirement for any potential mod.
Too many people focus on the power and punishment aspect of being a moderator. They think being a mod is all about deleting posts and infracting users. That is NOT something we actively look for in potential mods. If you think you are mod material because you think you would be great at meting out punishment to rules violators, you are way off track. Doling out punishment is certainly part of the job in being a moderator, and yes, some people just don't have the backbone to deal with rulebreakers. They try to be too nice to everyone, and just won't do what has to be done in certain cases. So yes, it's possible you may not be "mod material" if you are overly concerned with being everyone's friend, even when you need to be the "mean mod" at times. But this is not typically a big problem with moderators, and we never actively seek out people to be moderators because they are capable of punishing others.
Are you frequently involved in disputes or arguments in CAP? That's generally not a good thing, if you want to be a mod. It doesn't really matter if you are "right" or "wrong" in these disputes. As a mod, you'll be asked to help prevent disputes and resolve them. If you are frequently in the middle of the fray, regardless of the merits of your position, we probably think of you as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Good level-headed leaders can get into disagreements, but they know how to prevent them from becoming all-out wars.
Many people don't understand the difference between being a good active CAP project member and being a potential CAP moderator. Believe it or not, there is a difference. It's a subtle difference, but a very important one. Active participants frequently point out problems and critique others -- and that's great. We need that on the CAP project. But if you want to be mod someday, you need to help come up with SOLUTIONS to problems. Yes, identifying a problem is the first step to solving it. But it's not too difficult to see things that need to be fixed. Moderators get an avalanche of complaints and problems thrown at them. The key is coming up with workable solutions to the problems.
When I say "come up with solutions" -- I'm not referring to comments on solutions proposed by others. Yes, it's great to give feedback to new ideas proposed to solve problems. That's the best way to refine ideas and improve them. But the real gold mine in problem solving is CREATING new ideas from scratch and presenting them to others in a way that allows us all to collaborate to refine it into a solution. If you are the type of person that is typically REACTIVE in problem solving (you point out problems and comment on proposed solutions) -- you are a valuable asset to the community. In fact, I really want you to be part of the Policy Review Committee. But, if you want to be a mod, you need to take the next step and be PROACTIVE -- proposing solutions and getting others on board in support of them.
Pro tip: It's a lot harder than it looks.
It's not too hard to identify problems. It's not too hard to propose solutions. But very rarely do problems have obvious, clean solutions that are universally supported by everyone. So in almost all cases, the proposed solutions will be met with criticism and people will point out all sorts of holes in the proposed solution. Good leaders know how to work with others, continue to propose improvements, make concessions at times to accommodate concerns, hold firm at times without alienating collaborators, and generally navigate the difficult process of group problem solving. If you can do that, and have a proven track record, then you are the type of person we want to be part of the CAP moderation team.
New CAP Moderators are typically nominated and discussed by other existing CAP Moderators in private. If the candidate is generally agreed by the mods, the candidate is presented to the CAP Head Administrator, if the head admin is not already involved in the discussion. If everyone is in agreement, then we follow the formal Smogon process for promoting moderators. The Smogon promotion process should not initiate a CAP moderator promotion, it simply finalizes it.
For any project participants interested in becoming a mod, the primary qualification is GOOD JUDGEMENT and the ability to RESOLVE PROBLEMS. Deep knowledge of the CAP project and the ability to work well with the other moderators is also a must-have requirement for any potential mod.
Too many people focus on the power and punishment aspect of being a moderator. They think being a mod is all about deleting posts and infracting users. That is NOT something we actively look for in potential mods. If you think you are mod material because you think you would be great at meting out punishment to rules violators, you are way off track. Doling out punishment is certainly part of the job in being a moderator, and yes, some people just don't have the backbone to deal with rulebreakers. They try to be too nice to everyone, and just won't do what has to be done in certain cases. So yes, it's possible you may not be "mod material" if you are overly concerned with being everyone's friend, even when you need to be the "mean mod" at times. But this is not typically a big problem with moderators, and we never actively seek out people to be moderators because they are capable of punishing others.
Are you frequently involved in disputes or arguments in CAP? That's generally not a good thing, if you want to be a mod. It doesn't really matter if you are "right" or "wrong" in these disputes. As a mod, you'll be asked to help prevent disputes and resolve them. If you are frequently in the middle of the fray, regardless of the merits of your position, we probably think of you as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Good level-headed leaders can get into disagreements, but they know how to prevent them from becoming all-out wars.
Many people don't understand the difference between being a good active CAP project member and being a potential CAP moderator. Believe it or not, there is a difference. It's a subtle difference, but a very important one. Active participants frequently point out problems and critique others -- and that's great. We need that on the CAP project. But if you want to be mod someday, you need to help come up with SOLUTIONS to problems. Yes, identifying a problem is the first step to solving it. But it's not too difficult to see things that need to be fixed. Moderators get an avalanche of complaints and problems thrown at them. The key is coming up with workable solutions to the problems.
When I say "come up with solutions" -- I'm not referring to comments on solutions proposed by others. Yes, it's great to give feedback to new ideas proposed to solve problems. That's the best way to refine ideas and improve them. But the real gold mine in problem solving is CREATING new ideas from scratch and presenting them to others in a way that allows us all to collaborate to refine it into a solution. If you are the type of person that is typically REACTIVE in problem solving (you point out problems and comment on proposed solutions) -- you are a valuable asset to the community. In fact, I really want you to be part of the Policy Review Committee. But, if you want to be a mod, you need to take the next step and be PROACTIVE -- proposing solutions and getting others on board in support of them.
Pro tip: It's a lot harder than it looks.
It's not too hard to identify problems. It's not too hard to propose solutions. But very rarely do problems have obvious, clean solutions that are universally supported by everyone. So in almost all cases, the proposed solutions will be met with criticism and people will point out all sorts of holes in the proposed solution. Good leaders know how to work with others, continue to propose improvements, make concessions at times to accommodate concerns, hold firm at times without alienating collaborators, and generally navigate the difficult process of group problem solving. If you can do that, and have a proven track record, then you are the type of person we want to be part of the CAP moderation team.
There are two new positions I'd like to create within the CAP project, and I'd like your feedback on the positions. Do not use this thread to discuss potential candidates, let's just discuss the positions themselves.
Proposal: Analysis Coordinator
(title suggestions welcome)
When it comes to getting analyses for our new pokemon put onsite, we tend to stumble here. I'd like to select a person to be in charge of making sure CAP analyses get written and edited to proper C&C standards and put up onsite. The holder of this position could potentially get a Community Contributor badge, if they don't have one already. Familiarity with C&C is the big requirement that comes to mind. We typically count on CAP mods to oversee this sort of thing, but I'd rather have this be a special leadership position in CAP. This person doesn't have to actually write the analyses themselves, but they need to be responsible for ensuring they get done.
Proposal: Formal IRC Ops
Yes, we have IRC sops, aops, hops, and voice on the #cap channel. But we really don't have a formal structure for it. I want to change that. I think #cap has the possibility of filling the void left ever since the CAP Shoddy Server went defunct. Many of us already hang out on #cap frequently, and we don't really have a problem with behavior or anything like that. But I think we could build a better real-time community in #cap, if we had a more meritorious ops hierarchy there.
I don't have specific proposals, but my inclination is to separate the CAP forum leadership from the IRC leadership structure. For example, if there are CAP mods that don't hang out on IRC very often, then perhaps we should give them AOPs or HOps or maybe even just voice to denote their level of real "leadership" in the channel. I remember when Smogon did that on #pokemon, and I think it was a good thing for the channel (keep in mind, I was one of the people that lost ops in that channel when that happened!) I'm not saying we need to de-op any mods (all the mods get on IRC regularly) -- I'm just saying we don't need to assume that every CAP mod is automatically given SOPs on #cap, if they aren't going to join the channel often.
The bigger thing is that I'd like to have at least one SOp on #cap that is NOT a forum mod. I'd like some people who see #cap leadership as their primary leadership contribution to the CAP project. These people would actively build standards for the channel, and they would have SOps that allow them to keep the access list up to date with everyone that deserves various access levels.
The #cap channel is a great part of the CAP project and it is a hotbed of activity when we are building a new pokemon. More CAP stuff gets decided on #cap than most people realize. Let's formalize the leadership structure there, and let's formally acknowledge the contributions of those people that make the #cap channel a cool place to hang out.
In this thread, I'd like some suggestions for how we could apply a better leadership structure to #cap -- presumably from those of you on the PRC that are active in the #cap channel.