As many of you may recall, a flood of AMA posts a while back (more than 20 AMA's in a single evening) resulted in us mods asking that you fellow members of Oppo temporarily suspend posting AMAs while we discussed the best way to handle them. The secret brotherhood of the Stonecutters Oppo mods conferred, and at the end I offered to write up a piece on our suggested policy for future AMAs. Then... I got distracted by work, conflicts in Oppo, bad music, and other such business, and ultimately I forgot. That's on me and I apologize. Fortunately a new crop of AMA posts has kicked my ass into gear. So here we go.
AMAs can be awesome. We have an interesting cross-section of members here on Oppo, from all different ages, nations, and walks of life. There's stories to be told, questions to be answered, and advice to be given. That said, too many AMAs in too short of a time span can hurt everyone involved. If a large number of people post AMAs in a narrow time span the result is fewer questions asked of each Oppo with an AMA post up, because few people are going to go into every single post and ask questions, and those people who are only going to ask questions in one or two of the AMA posts are going to be divided among the ten (or however many) AMAs that have been created.
Here are some tips to help get the most out of AMAs on Oppo:
• If you see someone else has posted an AMA recently (say, within the last few hours) hold off on posting one of your own. Posting shortly after someone else has will just mean fewer questions for the both of you.
• To make it easier to keep track of how recently an AMA has been posted, and to help people find your AMA, I suggest using a common tag. Perhaps something like AMA (I know that's an insane and outlandish tag suggestion, just go with me on this).
• If you want to post an AMA, be courteous and use the tag and/or search to see when the last post was, don't just go posting without checking.
• When writing your AMA post be sure to provide some introductory info about yourself. Mentioning things like your home state/country, your age, your hobbies, and/or your area of work provides a good starting point for those who know little about you but are interested in asking questions. Just posting a photo and saying something like "I'm bored, AMA" is weak songwriting weak AMA-writing.
• The "don't be a dick" rule definitely applies when asking questions (or responding to questions) in an AMA. Friendly ribbing and shenanigans are ok. Using it as an opportunity to harass someone you don't get along with is not.
• For now we intend to let you self-police regarding the timing and frequency of AMA posts. We've explained the benefits of stretching them out, and it's our opinion that two or three per day is the ideal number, but we will not actively police this unless it looks like they're getting completely out of control again.
Beyond that we only ask that you have fun and be reasonable. If you have any questions feel free to let me or any of the other mods know.