Hi folks ! So I’m having a bit of a Flare Up with my carpal tunnel, so I apologize that these are more in bullets instead of my normal prose. I’m posting it now because I needed for my own time management to get this done in advance of some deadlines for class early next week. I might fiddle around with some answers between now and then, so consider this a … working post until it closes on Monday (:

god my formatting got messed up when i transfered from gdocs im simply going to cry

Why would you like to be the Offsite Manager?
For all of its troubles and conflicts, Classic is my home, and I genuinely want nothing more than to see the site stabilize and try to recover from the last two months. As much as I joke about haunting the site for the last ten to fifteen years like a ghost no one can get rid of, I am on this site because I genuinely love it. Classic has been a fundamental part of more than half of my life, and I want to do anything in my power to ensure that the community grows/thrives. I think Offsite Manager has a critical role in the continuation of the community in that they are responsible for advertising/recruiting. I genuinely believe that I could succeed in the role. I want to do whatever I possibly can to make sure Classic sticks around, and I believe that accepting this position would allow me to do that (although, to clarify, one does not have to be an admin to be able to help keep Classic going, and non-admins and non-staff play a fundamental part in the continuation of the community).

What skills do you have that could help in this role?
- Former admin in two different positions, Activity and Communications
- Teamwork ability guided by my personal philosophy on conflict, which I link to below
- Consistently one of the most active staff members, except for certain weeks of the year that coincide with my finals (If anyone doesn’t want to just take my word for that, which is valid, I can provide a chart that tracks my activity over the last year.)
- I try to communicate my upcoming absences as much as possible
- I have significant project management experience, both on Classic and in real life
     - Admining, leading eighty seven times (I think it’s actually 14 or 15), and then 
       I’m a PhD student in the real world
- Willingness to learn (I pride myself on generally being quick to pick things up)


What ideas do you have to make this role more approachable in the future?
- Clear delineation of role of OM: The more folks know the purpose, the more likely they are to engage
- Once role is clearly understood, produce survey or thread that asks users what they would like to see come out of the role
- I'm very interested in producing a survey or thread or something to see what other users think about the position and what they would like to see done with it
        - What do others think should be OM’s focus ? What can the OM do to facilitate connection between main site and offsite Classic ? How can we get more users involved in stuff like advertising ?
- In general, I have an open door policy, especially when I’m in an admin position. I want to field hard questions and figure out how to address needs/concerns folks have. I’d make it clear that my inbox was always open to suggestions/questions/etc.
- Create a presence throughout the site by responding to discussion/chat threads, roleplaying throughout the site, getting to know as many folks as possible so that people can trust me enough to come to me when there is something that I can do for them.

What short term goals do you have in this role?
- Offsite team creation, three [e] four positions in the past and this feels like a fair number
       - Tryouts to see who would be interested in the position
       - Work together to delineate tasks between the team
- Immediately check in on all affiliations, familiarize myself with the process of affiliation/advertisements, etc. I want to be frank with you all, the position will require me to do a lot of learning, especially at the beginning.

What long term goals do you have in this role?
- Enhancing advertisement efforts and making the affiliation system more robust
- Integrate social media more?
       - Updates on Instagram for example? Things like OTMs / site updates could be
       put on there, as well as more fun things like warrior cat fact of the week or
       something. Member or character spotlights could also be fun (users could sign
       up for them or could be those who win char/user otm)
      - I’ve been told that Facebook has an active warrior community?
      - Basically use social media as much as possible to create traffic to the site
- Discord-based community bonding evenings once (twice?) a month
      - In the past, that had looked like coding nights, but as the coding server gets
      shifted around, I think it could be a joint project between entertainment
      and offsite to do like game nights or something
- If the Revamp site does move more over to LM territory, assist LM in any non-coding Revamp site project


How do you handle conflict?
I approach conflict as evenly as possible, which means that I do my absolute best not to have knee-jerk reactions to anything. Of course, I am human, so this is imperfect. However, I am guided by a philosophy that I outline in my manifesto, which I will link here as well in case you are curious about the full document. To summarize that document, I legitimately believe that the following principles:
- Commitment to sympathetic reading: We must assume the best intentions of those who disagree with us, must assume we all want Classic to thrive even when our definitions of how to go about that thriving are different.
- Commitment to gathering all information: I refuse to enter a conflict before I fully understand at least the premises on all sides of an issue. Before I speak on a proposal, I make a point to clarify anything that I do not immediately understand.
- Commitment to not responding in anger / a place of bad will. I know myself well enough to know when I have spoken my piece or when I need to take a step back from a situation.
- Commitment to trust/working as a team: Regardless of whether or not I agree with my peers, I trust that we are all playing for the same team.
- Commitment to open communication: We need to be open and honest with each other for this to work
- Commitment to nonviolence: The core tenant of my philosophy of conflict is that first, do no harm. Although sometimes I produce unintentional harm, I refuse to say/do anything from a position of anything but goodwill


What plans do you have to help Classic grow?
- Increase site population through advertisement / affiliations with other sites (i have absolutely no idea how to set it up but i thought the cross over we did with that other site last year was kinda fun)
- Help to facilitate community within the site as much as possible

What attracts you to Classic and how can you encourage more of it?
- Community: Classic has been the community that I have been a part of for more of my life than not. I’ve loved to get to know folks, make cool plots, and engage with other like minded individuals. I think that once we all set our differences aside, the community has always been strong and powerful.
      - Facilitate relationships with more folks/follow introduction threads/etc,
        enhance community building in offsite communities
- Creativity: Y’all consistently astound me with your ability to come up with creative ideas and solutions to problems that we face (as well as just like really great writing and compelling arcs)
      - Emphasis open communication & encourage ideas from all levels