Post made by SCP Administrator “Sorts” on the evening of 15 January 2013.

We’re not paying ourselves enough to be bureaucrats is a thread posted to the SCP Wiki Staff’s discussion forum,^[1]https://archive.ph/ssDAw 05command, protesting the recently adopted charter. The post was written by Sorts, an Administrator who was himself a containment fiction pioneer who is responsible for the modern conceptualization of anomalous memes.

When the SCP Wiki was originally founded, it was possible to make edits anonymously without a WikiDot account. After the HAGGAR vandalism spree, membership was restricted by WikiDot membership and as such metrics such as the Karma meter became visible representative abstraction of a user’s activity level. Membership to the site itself has since been restricted further, first by essay applications and then a password, and now a pass-phrase. As the membership was so restricted by the staff, they became the arbiters of who could and couldn’t participate in the main community hub for SCP. As this space gained more prestige, they began expanding their functions to regulate and control more aspects of the writing process, taking responsibility for the critique forum and the overall quality of the site’s product began mattering more than anything else.

The SCP Site Charter is the rules of conduct and guiding document of the Senior Staff. It has the rules on what they can and cannot do and describes their powers and functions. This is the document being protested by Sorts in the post, as he states it as being an unnecessary imposition on the way which staff functions. In the subsequent thread, he is blown off and the charter is implemented over his objection.

Text Transcription of The Post

Noble and hardworking thedeadlymoose went to bring the notion of letting staff call stops on out of control conversations to a formal pre-vote today, now that the pre-pre-vote discussion period had trickled on to an end and everyone stopped thinking about the idea again.

It’s not that hard. It shouldn’t be that hard.

Way back in the day these threads happened: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-550038/definitions-discussion http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-552669/vote-thread-re:rules-of-voting

Then this happened: http://05command.wikidot.com/site-charter

I know no one is getting to this point after actually reading all of those links. And anyone who stopped to read all of that above is doing it wrong. We’re doing something wrong. The actual charter page was just made yesterday, by the way, when folks with memories recalled that it happened as a result of those monstrous votes. That’s how critically important it is to our day to day lives.

I abstained from that clusterfuck when it happened because I was too distracted to mount a determined defense against anything that had that many sections and subsections. I know this entire undertaking was done with the best of intentions and to avoid any possible confusion. So in the spirit of that intent I humbly ask that we throw all that crap out the window and get on with our lives.

Let’s be flexible and responsive and get some shit done. If an idea comes up and the majority of responses approve of it or disapprove of it, let’s go ahead and implement that idea1. Because I am pretty sure staff is already starting to call stops on conversations and we already talked that out and agreed it was a good thing without actually following this charter.

(Footnote) 1. But what constitutes an Idea? How long should a Thought exist before it becomes an Idea? What is Exist? What is Truth? Does a man who dreams of being a butterfly get to claim the Otherkin Bonus on his Saving Throws? PLEASE STOP READING THIS FOOTNOTE