Sedgistan wrote:As per my post above, the "player -> Tech Modling -> Admin" route I think is not going to happen again. The "player -> Mod -> Tech Modling -> Admin" route sounds much more realistic to me, and where I would suggest people focus their thoughts. If know you someone with the technical skills and interest in helping the site, nominate them. Sure, some might not be suitable for Mod for various reasons, personality included, but bear in mind there's a wide range of personalities on the mod team already.
Alright then, if you insist. There's a few players off the top of my head who would make both good mods and good technical assistants. That being said, they may still reject on the grounds that they don't want to be moderators, and I still think you guys should consider an official pathway.
As for financials, NationStates is a big site with very minimal advertisements and no subscription features or anything like that. I could see it being possible to hire a consultant to help out occasionally, but we're a relatively small and very weird group of players, and the much larger group of gameside players who answer issues and write factbooks and such seems to be growing. Therefore, I don't think we're Max's priority even if we're the most vocal.