It's freakin' cold. By this time next month, no doubt, I'll be wishing that it were as "cold" as it is today. Anyway, the season to be merry is coming up and this is your last chance to be someone's Secret Santa or gobble the turkey at mon table. It will also be that kind of party (photographic proof will be provided) so pay attention to the mashed potatoes, decadently crafted by yours truly. Anyway, business.
Features, creatures
We have not been idle. I'm sure that Oolong or DonJaime will (hint, hint) root log their achievements for the month.
The Gender Gap (second, revised edition)
Of course there was flak and fallout from last month's statement in this space that certain sorts of feminists scare me, and from the accompanying almost-but-not-entirely facetious reference to threats of emasculation. Not the first time that shooting from the hip has gotten me into trouble, oh well. What hilarity ensued was mostly the mother of my children laughing at the accusations of misogyny. I, on the other hand, because I promised to listen to anything put on the table at the beginning of my time as site admin, take this sort of talk a bit more seriously but still find the allegation a bit too ludicrous to even be offended by it, and so much less credible for being whispered behind my back. I could explain myself at length but I do not wish to bring my personal background and domestic life into the argument.
To those who would treat every issue as an adversarial one, I suggest more flexibility in the analysis of the environment. I don't think that E2 is a suitable candidate for applied conflict theory. Some interactionist readings will soothe your raging soul and might suggest a better approach to the issues of this particular community.
Is he ever going to go away?
Someone who recently ragequit demanded my public execution or at least dismissal from the staff. Now I really don't mean to say that l'etat, c'est moi but in some aspects the site's design (de facto, ex officio, and other Latin crap to go with the French) makes it just that so it's mostly for me to decide when I go. Anyway, my detractors may be pleased to know that I have not glued myself to the throne and do not plan to grow old on the job. Some time at the end of next summer my associates and I will evaluate the needs of the site, review our position and my performance in the context, see what other talent is available, and will decide whether a change at the top is desirable. I figure bones spent three years actively engaged, then another three years supervising, dann had three years, so I should draw a line of my own at three years and take it from there.
Saluting the tin-foil hat brigade
I was speaking with someone recently when they informed me that there was all sorts of E2-related traffic outside of E2. Now I find that quite normal. The deficiencies of our messaging system are well-known so I quite often use e-mail, IRC and AIM myself. Same person then went on to inform me that this had something to do with fears of surveillance by people unduly interested in what other people are saying on E2. This I found slightly amusing.
Seriously, WTF? Some of you people (in the "You People" sense) really are stuck in 2002. Only about half a dozen people have both the access and the skill to read messages and, as far as I know, not one of them has any motivation to do so. Had someone found motivation under the current regime you'd still be hearing the sound of them being fired. The days of the DARKLOG and such idiocies are over, for those who remember. Teh Management has better things to do than play secret police. We're really not interested in your private conversations, riveting as they may be. We have our own.
It *is* paranoia when nobody finds you interesting enough to persecute.
Staff changes
The patient's condition is stable. No hires, no fires. Not even a bag of gummi worms.
Editorial activity
Under the radar really, as usual. I have people for that! I approve of the accounting that some staff members give in their ed logs but do not require it since we don't do anonymous nukes and such anymore. Myself, I have little to confess to in terms of nukage. Everything I axed this month was at the author's request. I did my share of corrections to existing writeups, made some title changes, and shuffled around and relinked/auto-forwarded a few titles.
Göring is showing Hitler some new bombers. Hitler is very impressed.
"Amazing! We should have ten thousand of those!"
"But, mein Führer, surely you're not thinking of disarmament?!"
--German joke, 1938