Subject: Eh, slight problem.
Author:
Posted on: 2016-08-10 16:53:00 UTC

While I agree with what you say about it being everyone's responsibility to uphold the Constitution, I do think there's more to PGing than just knowing good writing from bad. Theoretically, everyone in the PPC should know that. It's why we're all here.

We were chosen rather than anyone else not just because we know a period from a hole in the ground, not just because of PPC knowledge, but also because people trust us to make fair judgements and not be jerks. At least, that's what I'm thinking about when it comes time to elect new PGs.

The fact is, we've earned the respect of the community, and whether you like it or not, that means they do look to us as examples of what to do and how to behave. You may have noticed that if we do things in our stories, other people tend to want to try them, too, yes? And you can bet that if we stopped respecting the Constitution ourselves, it wouldn't be long before everyone else stopped, too.

It may be, at least as far as you and I are concerned, that this has more to do with us as oldbies than us as PGs, but it's not a coincidence that the two often go together. It's not much good electing someone as PG if they're just going to wander off in a month or so, and you don't earn the trust of a community overnight anyway, so we've also picked people who have been around for awhile and look as though they'll be around a while more. It's all entangled together.

And furthermore, we don't deny permission solely based on writing skill, either. We block people who behave badly enough to hurt the community, too, because—as we're so fond of saying—we're a community first. We don't want people playing in our sandbox if we don't trust them not to pee in it. Therefore, we DO have to be judges of character and appropriateness. See above point about people trusting our fairness and good natures.

Now, whether that extends to dictating that we MUST moderate everything, everywhere, is another question. I think it's quite fair to say that's not what we signed up for, so we shouldn't be forced into broad moderation if we don't want to do it. Arguing that we're not qualified doesn't work for me, though.

~Neshomeh

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