Sir Tetris is also now a GPer!
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Grammar-Prose Team Queue: The World Is Yours
- Thread starter deetah
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so is missangelic!
wisteriapurple is now a GPer!
igiveuponaname has not given up on joining the team!
BrisingrDraconis is now a GPer!
autumn is back as leader, replacing me (I will still lead TFP). I don't love posts like this, but dropping a one-liner after over ten years in this position doesn't feel right either, so I'll say a few words.
Basically the reason why I first got involved in GP was a combination of a love for language and workings of texts plus a desire to help out with the site and see resources in good condition. All the leadership stuff kind of happened as collateral along the way; it was really just a matter of caring a lot plus having other people around who cared a lot about the same thing that I got along really well with and enjoyed hanging out with (shoutouts P Squared in particular) where you bring out the best in each other, and then if things pan out so that you're among the more prominent contributors, you care enough to develop a vision for what you want things to look like beyond just getting the work done, and the powers that be apparently like how you do things, then the leader spot is just kind of where you end up alongside said other people who care a lot.
That still does not mean that "leader" was ever really for me though; not that I didn't actually want it or ever regretted accepting of course but at heart I was, am, and always will be just some girl who likes language and playing with texts way too much for her own good, and all the administrative stuff is what you end up doing out of caring about things and a sense of wanting to give back to people who felt like you should be the one handling these things, but not what primarily drives you to do things around here. I have Opinions on what I've been like as "leader", but the point of this post should not be self-deprecation and of course I was still happy to do the things that I did, but yea I would be... confused if I'm primarily remembered for something other than my actual GP checks, and for things like maintaining communities I've always had to reassure myself that it's okay to have your co-leaders complement you.
Contribution habits like that don't last forever of course though and were definitely at least partly caused by one way or another the active team just not being so large in previous generations; more recent (relatively speaking.... again it's been over 10 years for me....) developments left us with a much larger team, and if at the same time you're also trying to have more hobbies than just Smogon plus have life changes to deal with and frankly being responsible for a lot of analyses getting to make the final step on-site does make for a lot of pressure sometimes, then it's not so bad when you have more people take that load off of you and are actually kind of supposed to let the new kids do the playing with texts thing. Still, while the bigger team and having more hobbies is of course a unilaterally good thing, for me it also meant that my leadership position morphed into more of that whole high-level administration / "behind the scenes" thing that is the way a lot of other people have treated this position over the years and I know some people also feel like a leader /should/ treat their position and specifically stay out of lower-level contribution but for all the reasons before has never really worked out for me. Once again, ultimately I'm a contributor not an executive. It actually makes for a weird dynamic where earlier you'd do all that administrative stuff then get to "reward" yourself with doing actual GP checks, but now that language / text geek girl is out of a job while the potentially stressful stuff stands--and that is not a positive way to spend your time and one of several things that have made for increasing mental blocks in my presence here in recent times.
There is a lot more going into this (which should not be surprising when it's been a while since I was truly consistent here) but it deals with personal stuff and all of that. So, to keep this to the point and make a long story short: I'm not done with contributing to this site, not even with GP checking, and the whole responsibility angle that has kept me in this position before loses a lot of its weight when it's now at the point where it's actually standing in the way of me helping out elsewhere. Things are now also at the point where I don't have to deal with intrusive thoughts about leaving anyone high and dry; the contribution and leadership teams are in great shape now, as I'm sure anyone can tell, and autumn of course has plenty of past experience and has already been a leader in all but name for quite a while now, as I'm sure anyone can also tell. Like I said, I'll also still be around and doing things in ways that properly prioritise "helping out" and don't make for stress--just, it might be a(nother) little bit first since I'm not really capable of casually dropping a post like this and moving on with my day lol.
There've been good and bad times and <insert ten other cliches here>, but yea this has always been a great place to channel my language geek side productively, not to mention with people I enjoy working together with, and I still hope I'll get to do that thing where Smogon turns out to be a life-changing chapter and channelling my language geek side productively as an irl career gets ever in the cards. Regardless one way or another this place should remain fruitful channelling grounds, just, yea, with less administrative stuff to go with it. Please remember me for the good times, I'll do the same.
best of luck
Basically the reason why I first got involved in GP was a combination of a love for language and workings of texts plus a desire to help out with the site and see resources in good condition. All the leadership stuff kind of happened as collateral along the way; it was really just a matter of caring a lot plus having other people around who cared a lot about the same thing that I got along really well with and enjoyed hanging out with (shoutouts P Squared in particular) where you bring out the best in each other, and then if things pan out so that you're among the more prominent contributors, you care enough to develop a vision for what you want things to look like beyond just getting the work done, and the powers that be apparently like how you do things, then the leader spot is just kind of where you end up alongside said other people who care a lot.
That still does not mean that "leader" was ever really for me though; not that I didn't actually want it or ever regretted accepting of course but at heart I was, am, and always will be just some girl who likes language and playing with texts way too much for her own good, and all the administrative stuff is what you end up doing out of caring about things and a sense of wanting to give back to people who felt like you should be the one handling these things, but not what primarily drives you to do things around here. I have Opinions on what I've been like as "leader", but the point of this post should not be self-deprecation and of course I was still happy to do the things that I did, but yea I would be... confused if I'm primarily remembered for something other than my actual GP checks, and for things like maintaining communities I've always had to reassure myself that it's okay to have your co-leaders complement you.
Contribution habits like that don't last forever of course though and were definitely at least partly caused by one way or another the active team just not being so large in previous generations; more recent (relatively speaking.... again it's been over 10 years for me....) developments left us with a much larger team, and if at the same time you're also trying to have more hobbies than just Smogon plus have life changes to deal with and frankly being responsible for a lot of analyses getting to make the final step on-site does make for a lot of pressure sometimes, then it's not so bad when you have more people take that load off of you and are actually kind of supposed to let the new kids do the playing with texts thing. Still, while the bigger team and having more hobbies is of course a unilaterally good thing, for me it also meant that my leadership position morphed into more of that whole high-level administration / "behind the scenes" thing that is the way a lot of other people have treated this position over the years and I know some people also feel like a leader /should/ treat their position and specifically stay out of lower-level contribution but for all the reasons before has never really worked out for me. Once again, ultimately I'm a contributor not an executive. It actually makes for a weird dynamic where earlier you'd do all that administrative stuff then get to "reward" yourself with doing actual GP checks, but now that language / text geek girl is out of a job while the potentially stressful stuff stands--and that is not a positive way to spend your time and one of several things that have made for increasing mental blocks in my presence here in recent times.
There is a lot more going into this (which should not be surprising when it's been a while since I was truly consistent here) but it deals with personal stuff and all of that. So, to keep this to the point and make a long story short: I'm not done with contributing to this site, not even with GP checking, and the whole responsibility angle that has kept me in this position before loses a lot of its weight when it's now at the point where it's actually standing in the way of me helping out elsewhere. Things are now also at the point where I don't have to deal with intrusive thoughts about leaving anyone high and dry; the contribution and leadership teams are in great shape now, as I'm sure anyone can tell, and autumn of course has plenty of past experience and has already been a leader in all but name for quite a while now, as I'm sure anyone can also tell. Like I said, I'll also still be around and doing things in ways that properly prioritise "helping out" and don't make for stress--just, it might be a(nother) little bit first since I'm not really capable of casually dropping a post like this and moving on with my day lol.
There've been good and bad times and <insert ten other cliches here>, but yea this has always been a great place to channel my language geek side productively, not to mention with people I enjoy working together with, and I still hope I'll get to do that thing where Smogon turns out to be a life-changing chapter and channelling my language geek side productively as an irl career gets ever in the cards. Regardless one way or another this place should remain fruitful channelling grounds, just, yea, with less administrative stuff to go with it. Please remember me for the good times, I'll do the same.
best of luck
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