User:Raidarr

About me
I am an AVID technician, a special role for the people who are running critical aspects of the wiki.

What I do
AVID Technicians do not run the community, and they take actions at the request of or in compliment to the Bureaucrats.

Things I/we do are:
 * Deal with background technical issues when they arise
 * Take emergency actions needed to keep AVID stable, or help with local tasks if the bureaucrats aren't available
 * Advise the AVID staff and offer a bigger picture perspective, + help them realize new ideas

Specifically, I fund the wiki's hosting. I'm not the owner, I just pay the bill. Nobody 'owns' AVID but if you have to ask, it's a shared responsibility between the Technicians (trusted users who are running critical aspects of the wiki) and Bureaucrats (running the community itself with support from other staff and of course the goodwill of the users).

Other technicians include:
 * CosmicAlpha: owner of the WikiForge service, where AVID is hosted. He smacks bugs, develops features and keeps the lights on behind the scenes.
 * Agent: Assistant on the WikiForge service and provider of the avid.wiki domain name. He also smacks bugs and works on features, and keeps our pretty URL instead of the gnarly avid.wikiforge.net.

I do not run the community: please consider if a moderator, administrator or bureaucrat are needed in that order. I am also not the ideal technician if AVID is having server troubles or a bug; the other Technicians are more, shall we say, technical. We aren't a supercouncil that can override bans, make community decisions or close RfCs although we may inform the bureaucrats if certain ideas cannot or should not be implemented. If you feel an issue has not been resolved properly, we'll reach out and get the scoop and staff may alter its decision. If the staff are being too autocratic, ie tyrants or suppressing discussion, we'll have a word with them as this is all ultimately for the AVID community.

Note that troubleshooting for AVID specifically should go through AVID and not necessarily official WikiForge contact, such as the WikiForge discord server. Further, bug reports on support.wikiforge.net should be made by bureaucrats and not regular users.

We're all happy to help, but I'm afraid we are busy people and may not have the most timely responses. We tend to direct people to the community staff first and issues will reach us if we are needed.

How did this happen
I became aware of AVID acting as a Steward for Miraheze, the second host of the AVID community long after migration from WikiFoundry, the first host, and before the rename from Closing Logos Group. However I was only really present after 9/9, the transfer of power to the community staff we have today. I investigated account abuse and slowly began to participate as a commenter on RfCs and advising the staff.

I had a falling out with the Miraheze platform, and shortly after that Miraheze had a bumpy restructure. During that restructure AVID decided it wanted to move. I made the offer to sponsor the wiki's move to an independent host so it could be more free, enjoy better features and able to make migrations in the future not beholden to centralized wiki farms. That is how we entered the arrangement AVID has today.

Other activities
You may find me in other archiving related communities and lurking in linux community circles. I'm also in gaming circles that don't overlap much with AVID's scope.

Contact
You can find me via talk page, user board, or through the official AVID Discord server.

What happens if I'm gone
Not a bad question. I don't expect to fall out or disappear from the internet but things happen. In that case, an arrangement with CA and Agent should be possible either to make AVID solvent enough to continue on WikiForge or transfer it to the free WikiTide service. Conversely if WikiForge has issues and a migration is needed again, I'll do what I can to sponsor a truly independent host. These are worst case scenarios but some thought should be given towards them to allow AVID to be a more resilient community.

Projects, goals stuff
I wish to help AVID be three things: resilient, transparent, and free. Anything I do will be working towards these purposes. I will never push for ads or support predatory methods to keep the wiki running, but donations to offset cost are always appreciated and in time I hope to see AVID become more independent so it can financially hold up itself without being beholden to anyone. I will sometimes make suggestions or take steps to ensure AVID is cost effective, right now I'm looking into ways to make storage more effective. I'd greatly appreciate it if people were stingy in their image uploads: keep them as small as possible while still useful, avoid uploading unnecessary files, clean up files that don't serve a purpose. Finally I am an advocate of being transparent, and if people have concerns of tyranny or question actions taken by staff, feel free to reach out to me and I will see what is needed to clear up the issue. Note that I neither have nor want the power to simply overrule staff decisions. Any actions I take should compliment, not contradict what the staff are doing, and what the staff do should always be what is needed for the community.

I'll take steps from time to time to make sure AVID is backed up, has emergency plans and remains stable. Over time I hope to also ensure AVID is more independently managed.