[Raion]

So, I'm fully aware there's more than a handful of community users that don't care for me. This post isn't intended to change their minds, and was not done solely at the behest of those who hate me, but more for long-term sustainability of the site and its user base. 

I've appointed four prominent community members to take an equal stake in IRIX Network, effectively making it a five-way joint ownership venture. The people in question are:

Kaigan
Dexter1
Dodoid
Micrex22

Everyone on this list gets a 20% stake, which means I myself am left with a 20% stake. We are not forming an LLC or any other business to handle this at this time, read on.

Due to my own hesitancy in sharing ownership, we have plans to draw up a contract which the five of us will sign. The reasons for this are simple:

1. We will not be able to power struggle over the site, even if major differences over direction come up. No "voting people off the island" sort of thing. The only way a member can leave is by resignation of their own volition, not from pressure or votes by others.

2. We will be equally sharing administrative and bureaucratic decisions. This means that if you feel staff member A didn't treat you well, you have B-E to review the situation alongside. 

3. IRIX Network needs to have more than just fail safes to keep running in case something happens to me. 

The majority of the creative, day-to-day architecture and maintenance will continue to be carried out by me, and my role in the site won't be greatly diminished. IRIX Network does, in a manner of speaking, live and die with me. At least until something happens to me, like I dunno, I drop dead. It's important that we don't end up with another Nekochan situation, that's why assets will be transferred into a joint group. 

The contract does have its limitations, but in many ways it's mostly a symbolic community commitment to ensure that the best interests lie with you.

Now that the formal things are out of the way, my thoughts and feelings on this:

1. A lot of people are convinced IRIX Network is just myself and that I rule it with an iron fist. That hasn't really been my recollection of things, but it's a legitimate concern nonetheless. 

2. By decoupling myself from being the sole representative, people can better understand that my views may not necessarily correspond with other people on the site. 

3. Staff decisions have been, for a while, increasingly transparent.

At this point, people are probably wondering if I'm planning to ever step away. No. I built this site and did my best to carry us through the storms. I hope I don't sound too highly of myself here, but I do genuinely consider myself a bit of a parent figure towards the trying times we've had. What I mean by that is that I offered a relatively stable, healthy forum to cultivate the community and bring us more into the modern age, and that intention remains. There's a lot more I could say, but I'm proud of the community, not so much myself. I hope this is a step in the right direction.

[Dodoid]

Excited to take a greater role in administration in 2020! Hoping this can eventually resolve some of the concerns people have had with this site.

[kaigan]

I'm very glad to be able to help out IRIX Network in this capacity. It's my hope that these changes both make things easier for Raion and allow for swifter improvements and community responsiveness (not that I think Raion has done poorly in that regard by any measure -- it's just a lot for one person to do) going forward.

All past drama and disputes aside, I personally want to see this place be an inclusive, welcoming one for anyone interested in these wonderful old computers we love, the history of Silicon Graphics, and vintage computing in general. Disagreements about the best approaches for the community, for maintaining SGI hardware, and for maintaining/improving IRIX itself are going to happen. As long as those disagreements are constructive, I'm all for it. There's also nothing wrong with different people taking multiple approaches and seeing what works best as well.

I'll also add that none of us in the admin or moderation team are infallible. Mistakes can and will happen. Between all of us, we'll work to resolve them. That said, we'll try to make the forum rules as clear to understand as possible and ensure that any action taken for violations is reasonable. The same concept of fallibility applies for any opinions or advice we may offer on SGI gear or any other vintage system. Everyone in the community has different areas of expertise, levels of knowledge, and opinions about SGI and other vintage hardware.

Anyway, with my $0.02 out of the way, again, I'm very happy to be a part of this community and I'm here if you have any questions or concerns.