In post 0, AniX wrote:
Hello, users of Mafiascum!
As of this post,
zoraster is stepping down from the role of Adminstrator and I will be stepping up to fill that position. Over the next week or so, we’ll be working out the hard transfer of powers behind the scenes, so if you are reading this and my name isn’t red yet, that’s why!
If this is our first interaction, hello! If this is our 11,000th interaction, hello again!
I want to start by giving a shout-out to our outgoing Zor. Serving as a Listmod from 2013 and the admin since 2015, he has given a decade to the site and we’d be in much worse shape without his stoic leadership. He has done his service, now I hope he gets the free time to enjoy it! Make sure to thank him if you see him around!
Mafiascum has been a home to me for coming up on 20 years now. The site has seen me through virtually every aspect of my entire adult life: I joined when I hadn’t even finished puberty yet and now I’m a full grown adult licensed attorney. There have been times when I was less engaged with the site, checking the big threads every week or so to see what was happening. There was times when I was TOO engaged, refreshing my ego search every couple minutes. I’ve been a game design wunderkind, hurriedly drafting a mafia variant in AIM. Mafiascum was here for that, lovingly adopting it, and me, as its own. I’ve been a Mafia retiree, having quit withdrawn from playing the game before some users here were even born. Mafiascum has been here for that too, giving me a community of people who all came to play Mafia but stayed for all the other people who came to play. I’ve been a member of Mafiascum for longer than I was not a member (because it didn’t exist yet!) and that means something to me. This site means something to me. I am humbled to be given the steering wheel to guide it into its next era and I plan to hit the ground running.
While we've mostly ironed out all the kinks of our LONG-AWAITED upgrade (man, imagine if Zor let me ride in on a wave of shiny new site? I would have been a true hero.) there is still a lot that can be done regarding how the site is run or how it operates that we can tweak in little ways (or even some not so little ways) to make better. Specifics on those will come out as required, but right now I just want to give a few general statements on what my priorities will be as the New Administrator.
Transparency: I think the user base has never been more clear or more united on the need for the transparency from the moderator team and you can count me among those users. In my view, transparency starts from the top down and that is how I intend to serve. I hope I have demonstrated in my role as Discussion moderator over these past two years that transparency is something I highly value as well. If you appreciated or found helpful me serving as sort of the “Moderation Mouthpiece” over the past two years, you will be glad to hear I do not have any intention to stop in my new role. Obviously, I will not speak over the moderators. They will often have information or insight I do not and I will be entrusting them to have a wide degree of latitude to make decisions and reach conclusions and I will not speak for them on those decisions and those conclusions. But I will be reading threads and I will be posting in threads. If I see you ask a question and I can answer it, I will. If you have a question and want me to answer it, if you see me in a thread, ask me. If it is private, send me a PM. If you need me, the bookmark I have for this website is literally a search for my name, namedrop me and I’ll find it. This is your site, I’m just a person who works here. Having worked with the moderation team for the past two years now, I know they share the exact same values (although you’ll probably need to get their attention the old fashioned way).
In the weeks ahead, I plan to announce more direct methods for you to interact with me and the moderation team, including specifically periodic live Discord “town halls” where you can be heard and responded to by me in real time.
Safety: I think in the past few years, the site has really turned a corner on insuring that vulnerable populations are safe and protected on this site. We’ve gone from giving only nominal acknowledgment that vulnerable people have a place on Mafiascum to actually making sure they do. I want to continue that trend by shoring up existing protections and devising new ways to provide a welcoming and safe environment. To be sure, there is a lot more work to do on that front, but I and the rest of the moderation team are committed to doing so. LGBTIAQ+ users generally and trans users specifically, non-binary users plural systems, Users of color, disabled users, neurodiverse users, and every other power-minority group, each and every one is not simply welcome on the site, they are a CRITICAL part of the site without which the site would be worse off and potentially not exist at all. As a trans non-binary asexual who heads a diverse moderation team, we have skin the game when it comes to this issue. If you aren’t safe, chances are some of US aren’t safe. This site, beyond the games, beyond the discussion, is a community and the community is only as safe as it is for its most vulnerable member. That is the principle we as a moderation team will continue to move forward with. And if we flounder (or are currently floundering), I hope users will let us know how we can start swimming again.
Innovation: I don’t think it is any secret to anyone here that internet forums are not what they used to be. Interest is down across the board, even from just a few years ago, and it doesn’t seem likely it will reverse any time soon. That said, this site is a fantastic, unique place and it deserves to remain so for many more years yet. I am committed to exploring every possible route to revitalize the site and increase user acquisition, retention, and engagement. It will not be easy, we are fighting Web 3.0, but it is a fight worth having. Re-indexing GD was a good first step, but it was only a first step and in the coming weeks I will be exploring new options, both internally and externally, for slowing, freezing, and hopefully reversing the downward trend in site usage we’ve seen. The moderation team has some ideas that will be unveiled hopefully soon, but users should feel both free and encouraged to message me or any member of the moderation team if they have any ideas of their own. Reinvigorating a community is a community effort and I look forward to doing so with you.
This is, of course, not all-encompassing for the values of myself or the moderation team, but I hope it serves as a good indication to you all what sort of administration I intend to lead. I’m sorry if it seemed, at parts, a bit PR languagey: Unfortunately, the same principles of clarity I seek to apply uses the same language style as PR “specific language” used to seem to speak on something but not actually speak on it. I hope the impression I gave was the former. If it wasn’t, I trust those who know me know that among my virtues nobody would list “gladhander”. In any case, if this post makes you feel hopeful, I hope to live up to that hope. If it makes you feel cautious, I hope to prove your caution unnecessary. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of the next phase of Mafiascum with you.
And so, for the
second time, I present myself to you, Daniel “AniX” Anix, Mafiascum Administrator.
