Speaking as one Euro-monk that is popping in here now and then during my working hours and more, I do see a need for more editors in my timezone. However, I might be fooled, or not sufficiently informed. Feel free to set things straight.

As I said yesterday when the question "how often do you see a call for editors when noone is about" came up in the CB, I'd say that is on average one to three times per week. It isn't like someone has posted lots of pr0n links or anything that often, but something that would be good if it was fixed quite soon. It may even be so simple as something frontpaged really needing a <readmore> tag. Waiting 4-6 hours for that seems unnecessary, and if it wasn't an issue, then the readmore tag wouldn't be needed at all?

What I mean by that, is when someone is requesting something they feel is urgent in the CB, and we can't see no editor about, and apparently none of the is at least reading the CB. It may involve cases where someone has posted something that breaks a page, or posted something accidently etc.

Of course, the editors may well be there, but if so they are not fixing the problem, and they don't let anyone know "I'm here" either which could calm some people down.

Last example I know was when SOPW broke badly two or three days ago, so noone could post. There was quite some upset people then, that wanted to ask questions. I am still not sure if it actually was a post that broke it, maybe it was something in the engine. It is hard to tell for really sure unless you can examine the posts more closely, but I think this might have been something else.

Point is, if it was a post that broke it, no editor was around. At least not that any of us saw, and more importantly, no editor, even if they was there, and took a look, bother to say so. I think an editor would have, so I conclude that there was noone about. Then again, this is only guesswork.

Situations like these are not that rare. Maybe they can wait for 4-6 hours, but for the people who want to use the site the upcoming 4-6 hours, it might be a big deal. It sure sounds like it is a big deal to them in the CB. And that should probably be listened to.

I can't help but get the feeling that this is maybe a territorial issue. Not from the US-monks side, really, but rather from already editors. I am not sure this is altogether a good thing. Although, someone against called this a "political" issue yesterday in the CB, as if it was some kind of US against Europe issue. Which I don't think it is, or should be. I would be just as satisfied with people from anywhere, just as long as they are around at the times needed. Do we need it 24/7? Maybe not. I can't see why it would hurt, though?

However, what I do understand is this: It must be really tough to find people you can trust with this kind of business, that has both the skills needed and are trustworthy to not go on an editing havoc. So if that is the case, just say so: "We can't find anyone suitable". I'd understand that.

I don't think that the editorial staff is swamped though, as asked above. I don't think they are doing a bad job, rather the opposite. I think they are fixing all things that needs fixing... eventually. In my time zone, that may well be after more than a working day. I have also noted that during US hours, this kinds of requests are extremely rare, probably because those cases gets fixed almost before anyone has the time to complain. Or maybe it is that US posters makes less mistakes, I am not sure. ;-) Either way, I can understand why the US people hasn't seen this.

To sum it up, this question arises time and again, time and again during Euro hours, and while it may not be a big problem, people seems to have the feeling it is. All I would ask is that the people in charge, or the editors themselves (the latter, preferably, I think) just took some time to think about this. Some people (including me) feels it would be great to cover the time zones a bit better. I hope we deserve a discussion about it at least. :)