The MusicBrainz Style Leader has a really hard job — this position requires people to to have a thick skin, a deep understanding of MusicBrainz and the patience of a saint. Its a really challenging job! And because of this, people burn out fast and generally abandon their jobs after a while. This has been the pattern for many years for us and its been very frustrating. And now its has happened again: Brian, the Style Leader up til today, has not been responding to me. I’ve not heard anything from him in weeks.
In an effort to try and break out of this cycle, I am going start a new experiment: Make the Style Leader a paid position.
While we have some money in the bank, its not massive amounts of money and the pay for this position reflects just that. Its not a whole lot of money, but I am hoping its enough money to offset the pain of being the Style Leader and will keep the Style Leader engaged over a longer period. With that in mind, I am proud to announce that Nikki will be our next Style Leader and our first paid Style Leader.
Nikki has been tasked to ensure that the style process moves along and is properly documented. Her goal is to drive consensus among the brainerz who participate in the important Style process and to keep proposals on track. Once a proposal’s RFC/RFV periods are up, its Nikki’s job to ensure that the proposal is acted upon by the appropriate people. She should also help to keep the style process evolving as the MusicBrainz style needs evolve.
Thank you for all your hard work Brian! I look forward to working with you more closely Nikki!
BTW: Warp will still be involved in helping Nikki lead the style process, but his focus is on NGS for the time being. We’re very much dedicated to staying focused on delivering NGS as soon as we can.
MetaBrainz Blog 
Welcome, Nikki!
Great news.
Congrats Nikki; it’s a tough job, and does indeed need a tough skin. Sorry to have been so difficult to reach of late; as I’d mentioned in IRC and (briefly) on the list, I’m out of contact for the most part for a little while, due to an ongoing massive overload at work at the same time as planning my upcoming wedding. 😛 We’ve just finished 2 of the big projects, so hopefully things will slow down enough that I can get a bit more involved again (and catch up on 2 months worth of barely read email).
Great news, Nikki is definitely the right one for the job! 🙂 Happy arguing! Ummm, I mean negotiating
Congratulations, Nikki, and good luck 🙂
Congrats, Nikki –
That you’ve been able to stick around for as long as you have is a testament to your commitment to MBz; I am confident you’ll be a great StyleDudette^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Leader. Especially with the NGS coming on-line there will definitely be plenty of work to be done, and I think that Robert has made a good choice in selecting you, and furthermore in making this a paid position. Just don’t spend it all on Green&Black’s 🙂
Yes, welcome to this new and hard task Nikki. I hope you are in for a very, very long time and will enjoy it as much as you can.
WOW !
Congratulations to Nikki, the most stylish MB editor !