How many Elves would be too many?

[annemehr]

> Annemehr (before):
<snip>
> I'm wondering if there's any feasible way of adding "Temp Elves"
> during a really big surge like the one we had at the OoP release. 
>  They could be kept on only until post volume drops back to a "normal"
> level, and could be trained and used in only one certain aspect of
>  list management, if that's possible.  For instance, they could each 
> be assigned a block of time (e.g. midnight to noon on Mondays) to read
> every message on the list and send "gentle reminders" to those who
> stray too far from posting guidelines.>>

Kirstini:
> Speaking in my own capacity, although backed up with (two-month-old) 
> Elfly knowledge:
> We already do this. Every post on the list is read by the Elf 
> on "reading duty" on the day it was posted. What this means is that 
> we sign into the list on British time and have to read every post 
> written in 24 GMT hours on our reading day. All problem posts are 
> noted and flagged up on the Admin board, where a member of the Howler 
> team casts a second eye over them and sends out stern admonishments 
> to all de-moderated members whose posts contravene posting guidelines.
> Every member of the Admin Team does reading duty, usually once a 
> month.

Annemehr replies:
And Saitaina said pretty much the same thing, so I must not have been
clear in my original post. I *meant* for the "temporary elves" to take
over a task that the regular elves normally do, just to help them
through a major posting surge.

So you'd train the Temps to do this one task only -- and flagging the
problem posts of non-moderated members for the "real" elves to review
might be an option, and is very close to the example I came up with
before I knew exactly what you do.  I don't think it would take too
much training to do just this, either -- really, all that would be
needed is a very good understanding of the posting conventions of
HPfGU.  If the Temps do their job well, the Admin Team gets out of
reading duty during the crunch, but official Howlers are still sent by
the Howler team, and the Elves get a bit more time to concentrate on
moderating the posts of the newest group members and whatever else
they have on their plate.

Coming up with this idea, I was thinking about the discussion on OTC
back in August about the problems on the main list.  Many people
mentioned that there were a lot of posts that blatantly ignored list
rules, and the elves replied that these generally came from people off
moderated status and that the elves themselves were doing all they
could just to  take care of all the pendings.

So, any reason why "reading duty" couldn't be taken over by temporary
helpers during a posting surge to take part of the load off the
regular elves until the list calmed down again?

Annemehr