I’m delighted to announce that @Shawn has agreed to return and take up his old role of lead moderator! 
16 Likes
Thanks for the opportunity to come back and take some of the burden of managing the forums off your plate @dodger.
As many of you know I was the first volunteer community moderator here appointed by Zooko (back when ECC ran forum.z.cash) in 2016 and I later worked for ZF until 2022. During that time whenever acting as a mod I strived to be a neutral/moderate party who helps guide the conversations to keep them organized and ensure that everyone who decides to join here can see the best of what the Zcash community has to offer. We are groups of thinkers, developers, holders, miners, and privacy advocates who see something bigger in Zcash than just a ticker symbol. We want to see Zcash succeed which is why we choose to spend our most valuable asset here: our time.
When Jack asked me if I would be interested in coming back, I’ll admit that I declined at first. I resigned from daily moderation in 2022 due to the stress it had taken on my personal life and that I did not care for the overall tone of discordance between members of the ECC and ZF and I felt like Zcash had lost its way. I signed off the forums for over a year and have only begun participating again since Dec 2023 when I was excited about Zcash “Zebooting” and the new direction that Josh was steering the ECC. I asked Josh if there was any way I could help with his efforts and to my surprise he actually said yes. My contract with ECC ended last month. I enjoyed the time I had to work with the ECC team and see how they work to support Zcash.
This brings us to today and helping ZF to plan a way forward for the forums. The Zcash community has grown and this forum needs to continue to grow with it to meet the needs of our diverse ecosystem. I plan to make improvements in the following ways:
-
The overall look and feel of this forum can use a refresh, we will be booting into a new theme in the coming days that focuses on conversations first and categories second.
-
The intro header here is exactly as I left it over a year ago and contains many broken links and out of date information. I would like to re-design this with the help of our talented community so I plan on launching a “header contest” to see what our community can come up with. It needs be more useful for newcomers, have current and useful wallet and block explorer information, and links to communities outside this forum like Discord and Telegram, etc…
-
I have spoken with ZF about updating some of the forums CoC and Moderation policies to incorporate feedback I have heard from here and other channels. This will hopefully make the moderation process (and this forum’s tools) clearer and allow for more flexibility when dealing with brigading or trolling that doesn’t specifically violate the CoC.
-
I plan to update many of the forums categories which are out of date (Zbay for example) and add (Zashi for example). This will help make things easier to find. In addition many of the team members from ECC, ZF, ZCG have missing or incorrect titles which need to be updated so users know who they are interacting with.
-
I will also be more diligent and proactive about screening for the “like” bots and tech support scammers that are here to try and steal our users’ hard earned ZEC.
If I had to choose one sentence that I feel embodies the approach that I would like to take towards this next chapter in the forum it is “We should all consider each other as human beings, and we should respect each other” - Malala Yousafzai. Respect is a key ingredient toward continuing to build our community and building Zcash to be a tool for the greater good.
We have many users from all walks of life and it’s our job as a community to help them feel welcome and encouraged to participate in this facet of the Zcash ecosystem. Together we can help advance the fight for privacy and empower individuals with tools to help them consent to share information when and how they choose. Privacy is a fundamental human right.
34 Likes
this is absolutely fantastic news!
3 Likes
Welcome back @Shawn reading your post made me excited to be here, Zcash growing every day. This community need people with your vision it does help with direction within a community. Lots of good ideas moving forward welcome back.
3 Likes
Congratulations @Shawn ! 
2 Likes
Amazing, great to see you back in the hot seat Shawn! All the best with it.
2 Likes
I think some kind of AI chat-bot to solve the most common questions and filter out obvious spams could be useful. Not sure if there’s any out-of-the-box solution for Discourse, but from my experience this has helped a lot in Discord.
2 Likes
Good idea, I’ll look into it
2 Likes
Welcome back! Good news!
2 Likes