Communities Manager at the OpenSSL Foundation | Jon Quixote
An abbreviated timeline of the last year of my life:| Jon Quixote
The Exit series are escape-rooms-in-a-box featuring riddles that must be completed under time pressure. Nothing prevents solo play, but, like an escape room, they are designed for a small group of friends who bring different ways of thinking. It’s also a single-play-only game since players will literally spoil the puzzles.| Jon Quixote
(Originally published on meta Stack Exchange by Jon Ericson.)| Jon Quixote
Below is a guide I wrote for new employees at Stack Overflow to help them avoid having a bad time moderating the sites. This is an early draft so it might not reflect what Stack Overflow uses internally now. The principles, however, remain relevant for each new organization I have been a part of. --- How to use your new superpowers. When community managers, developers, and other employees need “administrative access” to one of our sites, we give them similar privileges as moderators chose...| Jon Quixote
Today I imported posts I’d written for the Stack Overflow blog onto my blog. Most of them are end-of-year review posts so I’ve been thinking about how that job changed from how it started.1 By the time I left Stack Overflow, it was clear the company had experienced mission creep and “[helping] coders help each other become better coders by sharing their knowledge with one another” was no longer the top priority. In the new year I will start work at OpenSSL, which has a very clear miss...| Jon Quixote
Every goal has a sequence swirling beneath it like the vortex of a whirlpool.—“Sequences” by Patrick F. McManus It started when I noticed the “A” key on my keyboard turned temperamental. Well, it really started before that because I noticed I was misspelling a lot of words, which could be caused by any number of problems: stress not getting enough rest boredom at work old age But then I discovered that the “A” key on my keyboard only fired every other time I pressed it. For year...| Jon Quixote
Calvin and Hobbes was designed to be a comic strip and that’s all I want it to be. It’s the one place where everything works the way I intend it to.—Bill Watterson. The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book To cut the to chase: I’m not planning on updating this blog for a bit. If you want to read what I’m writing now, I recommend visiting: The Civitas Community where I write about community building. Meta Jon where I write about topics that I’m interested in with no particular ...| Jon Quixote
With such a simple concept, it’s hard to believe Codenames isn’t a refined version of an older parlor game.1 Each team selects a spymaster who knows the codename of each team’s agents as they are laid out in a grid on the table. Then the spymasters take turns sending a single word clue and how many cards their team should guess. The first team to have all of their target agents revealed (without guessing the assassin) wins the round. Frequently teams select another spymaster and play ag...| Jon Quixote
Last year I got to know Discourse by moving a community to the platform. Having left that job, I feel a sense of withdrawal. So I decided to start my own Discourse server. But since I’m unemployed (and don’t have a solid use for it just yet), I sought out a way to host for free.1 Obviously there is a caveat lector: you get what you pay↩︎| Jon Quixote
Originally published on Board Game Geek.| Jon Quixote
If you sat down to design a game about Jack and the Beanstalk, it seems inevitable that it’ll be an asymmetric contest between quick and nimble Jack (from an unrelated nursery rhyme) and the powerful and ponderous giant. If it must be a tableau manipulation game as well there’s no doubt the end result will be something along the lines of The Blood of an Englishman.| Jon Quixote
During my first week at OpenSSL, I’ve been learning more about the organizational structure. A question has gnawed at me since I first learned about the job: Why was the Foundation split off from the Corporation? I can read about the decision, but as an outsider I don’t really have the background needed to truly understand how OpenSSL got here.| Jon Quixote
An abbreviated timeline of the last year of my life:| Jon Quixote
Last year, I wrote I was joining College Confidential. Well, it seems I’m once again leaving a job I love. My last day at CC is March 19. This is the first time, however, I’ve left a job without knowing what I’ll do next. Unfairly perhaps, things tend to work out for me. It doesn’t hurt that I’m married to a talented and dedicated nurse who can support our family by taking on more shifts while I’m job hunting. In addition, I’m confident someone will be able to appreciate and aff...| Jon Quixote
It’s still early, but I’m working on a service that I think will combine the best parts of mailing lists with the simplicity Facebook/Slack/etc. Even better, I think I can offer this service at no cost to smaller groups. If you’d like to help me test this idea, please visit Build Civitas, which is in very early beta.| Jon Quixote
Currently there are 2½ viable desktop operating systems (OS) for personal computers:| Jon Quixote
I think one of the great new plagues of the 21st century is people who believe they have the answer in a paragraph—who believe that they can conjure an explanation for how we should do governance and how we should array our society that will apply to every single problem and in every single circumstance to which we find ourselves. You show me somebody who is certain that the liberal or conservative or libertarian or Marxist or free-market capitalistic mode is going to solve every problem an...| Jon Quixote
