Ask the staff? (and friends)

I love asking questions?

For years, I wanted to do an "ask McSmeag to explain staff stuff" thing but I never found an appropriate venue.

I always thought BZPower members deserved to have casual communication with the staff, and to hear the rationale behind the way the site operates, but it wasn't something that could ever be done on BZPower, because of the administration's mandate about "dissent in the ranks" and such - there was never a lot of leeway for a staff member to objectively talk about the rules and ordinance, and express publicly what he/she thought worked and what didn't.  But without that sort of individualized objectivity, I don't think this sort of Q&A would be of any value.  It would just be indistinguishable from the Reference Desk and the general perception of the staff as a single-minded monolith.

While I was on staff, I really tried to cultivate a more personal and casual relationship with folks on the site, with varying degrees of success and failure (often crashing and burning because my busy schedule made me disappear for swaths of time).  I'm not really sure what the outcome of my attempts were, overall (I guess that's for the members to judge?), and I never wound up finding a venue to do a little "fireside chat" with members, like I wanted.

If you can find a venue, I'd be happy to participate.  Naturally, I'll participate if it's on BZPower too, but I'm not sure how much good it could necessarily accomplish here, at least not without some policy changes first. 

EDIT: PS that picture is really great but the subject is just a PUNK. Pfft. PFFFT. She a punk.

I love both of you, but you guys are not the "you guys" I was asking! You're both participants!

I'll say yes for them! Does that still count??

um WHOA ray, SPOILERS

I love both of you, but you guys are not the "you guys" I was asking! You're both participants!

I love both of you, but you guys are not the "you guys" I was asking! You're both participants!

I may have more insight into it than some, but I'd hardly call myself a participant.

Also, I checked your entry like five times yesterday and no one else had commented, so I felt bad.

Well, maybe involuntary participant is the right word?