The Host's Position
The palette names what a host can do; this page names where the host stands while doing it. The organizing variable is routing centrality — the fraction of the conversation's turns that pass through you. Seven positions, from every turn to almost none.
The seven positions
| Position | What routes through you | Sounds like | Dominant groups |
|---|---|---|---|
| Examiner | Every turn — and you author its content. Guests answer you and only you. | "Did you know?" | Pressing, Sharpening |
| Hub-and-spoke | Every turn: host→A→host→B. Guests coexist without meeting. Where most panels sit by default, not by choice. | "Thank you. B, same question." | Steering |
| Referee | Guests address each other under rules you enforce: turns, clocks, right of reply. You author process, not content. | "Dana first, then Sam. Thirty seconds." | The Table, Steering |
| Conductor | Guests talk freely; you touch every third or fourth turn, only to shape. | "That's Dana's point wearing different clothes — do you two agree?" | Weaving, The Table |
| Catalyst | You start threads and withdraw; re-enter when a thread dies or someone needs protecting. Ten minutes without a turn is success. | "A, tell them about the ferry." — then nothing. | Yielding, Registers |
| Architect | The hosting happened before anyone spoke: guest list, seating, framing, the opening question. Live duties reduce to launch and safety. | "I invited you two partly for this question." | Yielding (The Setup), Care; the Dossier and Planner do the real work |
| Witness | Nearly nothing. Attention itself is the intervention; rare turns, mostly care. | "Go on." — or held eye contact and silence. | Care, Letting Silence Work |
The second axis: peer-ness
Any position can be played neutral or as a participant with your own opinions and stakes. A participant-referee runs a debate while taking a side; a participant-witness holds the room while clearly having a view. Peer-ness buys energy and costs trust: guests calibrate what they say by whether you have a side. Decide it before the conversation, not during.
Moving along the spectrum
The natural arc of an evening descends: start hub-ish — strangers need routing — loosen to conductor as threads catch, end catalyst or witness once the table sustains itself. And it snaps back up on failure: a dominance problem pulls you to referee; a pile-on pulls you to examiner for one question; a dying thread pulls you back to catalyst ignition. Role rigidity is the underlying failure in most bad hosting — hub-and-spoke at a dinner party and catalyst in a debate are the same mistake in opposite directions.
The transitions each have moves. Downward: Cross-Pollinating and Sequencing break spokes into guest-to-guest edges; the Yielding group — Waving On, Asking the Table, Bouncing the Ball, The Setup, Stepping Back — keeps the floor from returning to you. Upward: Interrupting, The Inventory, Cooling are the re-entry kit.
Measuring it
Your share on the Table Timer is a rough centrality meter: an examiner reads 40% and up, a conductor under 20%, a catalyst under 10%. The History of Hosting clips are position studies — each profile there carries a position tag; watch one clip counting how many turns route through the host.
Companion page: The Size of the Table — table size sets which positions are even available; the catalyst and witness only truly exist at four to six. Practice: deal a hand from the Yielding group in Palette Draw before a real table, and check the eye-lines at minute thirty.