Growing the Elf Community

Hello Elves,

I have remained fairly silent for some time and part of that has been because Elf Max has been doing so much work on the site. But the bigger reason is because I have been working on a larger project:

What to do about the elf community.

This project we call SantaTrackers.net is now nine years old. Can you believe it?

It was started out of an effort to grow talent – elves! – away from the North Pole with the simple mission to track Santa for Santa.

It has been very successful in that mission.

We never intended to build the elf community that we have going for us here. But the idea of an elf community is that we could not only have a place where non-North Pole elves could gather and talk but we could also turn them into North Pole elves someday.

Elf Crash Murphy is an example of an elf who wasn’t born at the North Pole becoming an elf at the North Pole and holding an important elf job.

We want that opportunity for more believers out there.

But we have run into some challenges and many of you have seen those things.

By opening “elfdom” to the world we don’t always get serious believers. Many come here not to work but to only have fun.

There’s nothing wrong with having fun. Santa is a serious believer in fun. That’s why he is Santa.

Santa is also a serious believer in serious work. That is also why he is Santa.

You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it and everyone here has seen it: elves come and go, some unable to focus or others who come here just to cause trouble.

Over the past nine years we have tried a lot of things to grow the elf community. But we have not grown as much as Santa would like because not many elves stay or last in our little community here.

We have rules, and they break them. We try to train them but they don’t stick with it. We ask them to act as elves should and they just don’t do it.

Before we head into another season of new elves I am asking for any ideas you might have in meeting these challenges. Don’t be afraid to share anything that is on your mind.

Santa has asked me to come up with a new process for approving new elves at SantaTrackers.net and I wanted to see what you elves thought about that.

Please comment below or on the Elf Wall.

Thank you.

About this Elf: Elf Moe

For years Elf Moe was an anchor in the Shipping Department at the North Pole. That's a tough job. It entails making sure that the right names get on the right packages before Santa delivers them. Not a lot of people want that job because it is so detailed. Moe did it for years. That's why Elf Moe now has the job he does: Elf Moe works in the North Pole Complaint Department. If someone want to complain about anything, Moe's the guy to see. He has a very difficult job.