9 replies to this topic

[FltAdml. Wolf]

Over the next few days, I'll be releasing information to the Captains and the Fleet about the results of the Survey we completed last week. The first part of that is responding to the question on the survey “If you were Admiral Wolf, what's the one thing you would change about our community?”

Thank you to everyone who responded. I appreciate that you took the time to offer some thoughts about the things you'd like to see!

I’m going to respond to each, letting you know how we can move forward on it, or why it’s not possible. Note that I am paraphrasing the responses (re-writing them) so that your text doesn't appear directly in the thread. As I said on the survey, we're anonymizing the responses as much as possible. So your suggestion may be below, even if not exactly in the words you posted it.

Please feel free to respond to this thread!

There should be a fleet-wide Standard Operating Procedure so that promotions, ship splits, etc., all follow a set of rules for fairness across the fleet. I waited months for my first promotion because the CO held beliefs contrary to other COs about what each person needed before advancing.

Well, we already do have a Standard Operating Procedure when it comes to promotions -- the Promotion Guide. But beyond that, our group’s Constitution specifically states that it’s up to the CO of each ship to decide exactly when someone is ready for promotion.

I heard this criticism a lot in the responses about how promotion expectations were wildly divergent among ships in the fleet. I hope that our Promotion Guide is starting to rein that in some, but I would encourage people to talk frankly with their Commanding Officers if they feel that they’re being treated unfairly.

When it comes to thinks like ship splits, we do have an “institutional knowledge” type of SOP, where we try and follow a standard set of procedures. However, we don’t codify these things too closely because most of the time, they require us to be flexible and treat each case as its own, based on what we’ve done in the past and what we know as the best way to go. Too much rule-making is just as bad as too little.

A “voice comms” system.

I’m not entirely sure what this means, but I’m guessing a way for fleet members to communicate via a group chat line or something like that?

There are a few options for this:

• Skype: members can use Skype to connect via voice one-to-one.
• Google+ Hangouts: members wanting a more interactive experience than OOC chats via our chat room can create a Google+ Hangout. More information found here: http://support.googl...&answer=1215273
• Ventrilo: I can look into setting up a Ventrilo server. Ventrilo is sort of like IRC for voice. Once we start a server, members download a program to connect to the server. They can create their own “rooms” and anyone in the room can speak to each other using their computer’s microphone and speakers.

I’m only going to try and set up the Ventrilo thing if it’s something a lot of people would be interested in. Maybe I’ll start a poll to see who’s interested?

Allow Enlisted / Warrant officers

There's no reason why you can't already play an Enlisted or Warrant officer. Per the Constitution of the group, everyone has to hold an OOC rank that conforms to the Commissioned Officer structure, however, our fleet rosters do allow Enlisted/Warrant ranks.

That being said, the demand for such ranks are so low (we've tried them in the past) that we don't offer it as an option up-front to members. However, if you'd like to play someone in one of these ranks, talk with your CO. If they tell you it's not allowed, point them to this thread

Some academy graduates seem to be coming to ships without the understanding of how to properly sim. For example, just copying other people's sims and barely filling in their own information.

We have noticed, on the Training Team, that many people who sim well in training often end up "clamming up" once they get to the ship, perhaps because they're overwhelmed and unsure of how exactly to fit in. I would say that it's very rare that someone slips through the training program unable to sim at a quality level, but what they do once they get on the ship might be a different story.

Nonetheless, we'll make an effort to re-center our Training Operations Team on this, and ensure that they're only passing cadets through training who demonstrate basic competency.

Could we find actors to voice some of the stories that our crews create and sell them?

This sounds exciting, but a huge undertaking. I could see it becoming something like "We're Alive" the Zombie Podcast. If it's something that you're interested in, are you interested in heading up the project? This kind of stuff only becomes a reality when someone makes it their passion and finds a way to make it happen!

We cannot, however, sell anything for the purpose of creating financial gain. Because we play in someone else's universe (Gene Roddenberry's, owned by Paramount), we're at the mercy of them to continue writing assuming that we don't try and profit from their copyrighted works. We raise donations to keep the group running, but those are held in their own bank account and only utilized for things like domain names and this forum software.

A representative of StarBase 118 should attend the annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas. You have to go where the fans are.

Agreed! You can donate the cost of the convention tickets (~$210 for 3 days and/or $400 for a vendor table with entry just to the vendor room) + hotel ($287 Fri-Mon) + airfare ($523) equaling $1,020 on our donation page. I'll cover my own food costs

Segregate simmers into "newer" and "experienced" ships, so that new simmers can get acquainted with group rules and simming styles.

I don't believe this is aligned with the spirit of our organization. We use the training program as a way of quickly acclimating members to the group, and while it's not always a perfect system, we do have in place systems that allow applicants to the re-trained if they aren't able to grasp our simming style on the first go-round. But either way, it's very important to the community that we bring members into the circle as quickly as possible to make them feel welcomed and accepted.

Allow members the ability to make their own species faster than they can now.

The current process for creating a new species is actually a function of our Constitution. It requires that all new, playable species be approved by the Captains Council. This requirement is in place so that species are properly vetted to ensure that there's a reasonable expectation of appropriate game-play. We don't want a lot of new Q-like species introduced into the group.

[FltAdml. Wolf]

Embrace the "alternate universe" of SB118, like we did recently with the introduction of Bajor into the Federation.

The Non-Canon Encyclopedia area of the wiki was set up for this purpose, but I'm afraid it hasn't ever caught on.

I believe this is more of a suggestion for each ship's Captain than myself. We do a yearly "Summer Blockbuster" where we try and get as many ships as possible interacting, but I received MANY suggestions that there wasn't enough interaction between the ships in the last round.

Basically, I'd recommend that you talk to your FO and CO about how you can help make this happen. Because many COs look to their crews for help developing the plot, it's really up to everyone in the group to help facilitate our alternate story-line, and ensure that it's growing.

I'll definitely think on this as well, and if anyone has suggestions on this, please feel free to create a new thread to talk about them, or PM/email me.

Larger crews

and then...

Smaller crews

Crew size is determined by a few different things, and it's a bit of an art more than science for us. First, it's dependent on how many simmers we have coming through training. When we receive a lot of applications, ships get larger. When times are tough, ships get smaller as fewer new ensigns are assigned and more people go on LOAs or retire from the group.

Our optimal ship size is 12. Based on some reading I've done, I believe this works well for group interaction, and we try and hit this number whenever possible. However, as I said above, it's an art, not a science. Sometimes we don't have a command candidate ready to open a new ship, or we don't have enough people in the fleet to warrant a new ship, even if crew sizes are larger than our optimal 12.

The thinking toward keeping ships at around 12 is that it ensure that no particular department on a ship gets overloaded. Once you get 3 people to any duty post, newer members in those duty posts find it hard to integrate themselves and find things to do on their own.

Fewer PNPCs

and...

Encourage more PNPCs

I think this is really a person preference that needs to be calibrated within a ship. Certainly, there can be times that PNPCs can overwhelm others with rampant sub-plots, but I don't think it would do justice to anyone for me to make any kind of blanket decree about the need for fewer PNPCs. As with above, if you feel like it's becoming an issue that's infringing upon your sims, talk to you CO about it! Ask how you can find a suitable compromise.

Rotation of senior officers to avoid cliques that become hard for new members to break into

It's interesting that a member of our fleet is suggesting something akin to a forced transfer carousel between ships.

I believe that crews form a sort of "cartilage" after a long period of crew stability. Members reach a real zen moment with each other where it's all just very natural to them. But I also believe that this can become dangerous to the long-term stability of the crew. It becomes difficult for new members to find a way in, and writers stop challenging themselves. The story lines become predictable and familiar.

Much to the chagrin of the Captains in the fleet, I think breaking down these bonds is good for the simmers on a ship. Shuffling crew, splitting a ship, those things help freshen the atmosphere and force everyone to re-learn what simming is about. It creates those new challenges that make everyone's simming even more tight and emotional. It's painful but healthy, in a way.

So I agree that we need to shuffle crew from time-to-time, but that's why I believe the method of starting new ships that we've gone back to -- after having stopped doing it for a long time -- where we form new ships from crew transferred from around the fleet, is the best way to keep every ship healthy. It's dependent on the willingness of our members, though, to participate in this process.

It feels like people can only advance up to staff ranks based on how much time they can allot to the group instead of their talent or enthusiasm.

Hmm... I think this applies, but only to a certain point. Yes, being a staff member does require a new level of time commitment that may not have been applicable at lower ranks. But I also think many people over-estimate the time commitment. Administrative efforts add, in my opinion (though I think everyone should ask their CO about their opinion of this), maybe 20% more time to your overall simming habit.

The flip-side to this answer is that to a certain extent we encourage this increased time commitment. Staff members of the organization are the keepers of the flame -- guiding, facilitating, leading. We need people who have the time and passion, both, to create an enjoyable experience for others.

[FltAdml. Wolf]

The expectation is that people who sim well and do OOC work will be favored for promotions, but I've seen people who do the bare minimum get promoted just as fast as those who are doing above the expected amount.

I hope this is the exception more than the rule. Without any particular evidence of this, it's hard for me to comment too much, but I would say that if you feel like your promotions are not occurring at an appropriate pace in comparison to others who are doing less quality work than you, the first person to talk to is your CO to ask about the expectations and what may be holding you back. Perhaps they just don't know the work that you're doing.

That said, if you feel like there's an unanswered difference in the pace of promotion between two people, one of which is far more deserving, then my door is always open to have a discussion about it. [email protected]

We need a "Veteran Affairs" committee for those long-term simmers who aren't on the command track, but still remain with the organization.

Suggester: would you be interested in heading this committee? I'm very interested in hearing more about how this would work, and how it could benefit our long-term members. Please PM or email me to discuss this more.

How about an interactive tutorial on writing better?

We do have the tutorials library, and the Writers Workshop news category, which is based on improving people's skills.

As for something interactive, as with above -- Suggester: are you willing to take this on as a project? Very interested in hearing more details. Please PM or email me to discuss this more.

Allow a narrative style ship.

Ah, that old bone of contention! We don't disallow narrative style ships by our nature or rules. However, I am concerned about how this would work with our training program, which is based entirely on the script format that all of our ships currently use. How would we train people for both, without creating confusion or enmity if we're not able to post someone on the narrative-style ship?

I'm just not sure there's a good answer here. I've actually thought about this quite a bit recently, in a discussion with another group about joining forces (it didn't pan out). They were narrative-style, we're script-style, and I questioned whether we should consider switching formats or finding a way to mesh. But I think it's an all-or-nothing situation, and I'm not sure whether that's something the fleet is up for. A bit like changing from the Imperial system to Metric -- it's a big deal.

I'm open to the discussion about this, though. Perhaps the CC will talk about this sometime in the next few months and consider some possible options.

Integrate simming into the forums so that sims are accessible via the forums instead of on another third party website like Yahoo! Groups. This will also ensure that anyone who visits our forums before becoming a member doesn't get the impression that our ships aren't active.

On that last note, I've added a forum only visible to non-registered visitors that displays the following message:

Our ships sim via email, not via these forums. The ship forums you see below are just for our members to get to know each other and talk Out Of Character. If you'd like to read sims from each list, click the "Email List" link below each main forum.

On the other point -- I think about this VERY often, and it's an extremely difficult problem to solve. The issue is that the major forum software doesn't have a bridge between email and the forums -- you can, for example, have people receive notifications when a new post is created, but there's no way to respond to a thread via email, or to post to the forums via email. So we can't, for example, set up an email address that pulls sims onto the forums.

Yahoo! Groups also doesn't provide full-text RSS feeds (their feeds are truncated to the first paragraph or so), so we can't even just have the RSS feeds from each group post onto the forums.

If you have any thoughts on a solution to this, please PM or email me. I'm very interested in making this happen, but as of yet I have not found a workable solution.

[FltAdml. Wolf]

Less emphasis on quantity versus quality. If someone just adds one line to someone else's sim, that shouldn't be counted as a new sim.

You're absolutely right, that shouldn't be counted as a sim. And if you see that happening, please email your CO or FO and ask them if it's being taken care of.

There are limitations to what we can do -- this is a game, after all -- but we strive to move people toward quality writing. We have a minimum average sim count over three months of 100 required for any ship with over 10 people. Ships that sim faster do so of their own accord. Beyond the 100 sims minimum, the emphasis is supposed to be on quality.

Make the workings of the EC and CC more transparent to the fleet as a whole.

I've heard this on-and-off over the course of our 16+ year history, and I'm just not convinced that transparency of the CC and EC helps the process any. We've experimented some with greater transparency -- years ago, admittedly -- and it ended up creating a very stressful and unproductive environment for everyone involved. Basically: too many cooks spoils the broth.

Our group has developed in such a way that it allows those at lower ranks to simply enjoy the simming community, while those are interested in leadership progress into staff positions that allow them to help guide the community's path.

But our group also has a structure that makes it something like a business or military organization. The staff decides who proceeds up the ranks, and that does require a modicum of confidentiality and privacy at many levels near the top of the organizations.

That being said, I'm open to more developed suggestions. If you have a case to make, I'd suggest you open a discussion here and be thorough about your reasoning and evidence of why this is necessary, how it would work, and what the consequences would be.

Recruit more new officers

I assure you, we're always working on this! If you'd like to help us with this effort, join the Publicity Team to learn about the simple things you can do to recruit.

More ship options -- larger and smaller ships, and more stations.

Adding more ships requires more people, so as with above, I'd recommend joining the Publicity Team to help us bring new members into the group who can expand our member base and help us open more ships and bases.

But more specifically, the ships we have in the fleet are a reflection of their Commanding Officers. Each CO gets to pick their own ship class (with some restrictions for newer COs).

Stations are sort of a "pet project" that require a special kind of CO, and it's not really something we have too much control over. StarBase 118 is our primary station, of course, and we try and keep that staffed at all times. Duronis II Colony Embassy was a project of the membership to develop the concept, and it was then adopted by RAdml. Rocar who took it on as his command.

I'm not sure that we could add another station to the group before adding another few ships, though. We allow members to decline to be posted on the Embassy or SB118, and about 1/2 of our members choose that option to decline.

Edited by FltAdml. Wolf, 07 March 2012 - 09:08 PM.
Fixed Embassy/Colony. Brain is fried after responding to so many suggestions!

[FltAdml. Wolf]

An avatar creator so that everyone can have an image of their character.

I wish we had the technological resources for this! Unfortunately, we don't have the kind of money that would be required to hire a contractor to create one, and unless someone steps up to volunteer, I don't know that anyone in the group has the time or capability to create such a thing.

However, we do have The Image Collective, which can take a picture of almost anyone you'd like and put them in a StarFleet uniform.

You could also download Star Trek Online for free and use their character creator!

Make fewer allowances for disruptive ship members who cause continuous problems.

We try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, whenever possible, and allow people to "redeem" themselves. However, I agree that anyone who continually causes a problem should be removed in a timely fashion.

If you know of someone who is causing an issue that isn't immediately apparent to your CO, please be sure to notify them. We have a fairly good handle on what happens in the group, but we can't know everything, and your help is much appreciated in ensuring that we have the best information necessary to make a decision about how to handle someone causing a problem for other simmers.

Make the monthly ship summaries more comprehensive.

The brief length of monthly ship summaries is actually by design. Before we had a word-count limit in place, some ship summaries were coming in like small novellas. While I recognize that the ship summaries are entertaining reading, and hence more is better, we actually use those summaries for record-keeping and assessing how a ship is performing, so it's important that they maintain a necessary brevity so that the Executive Council isn't slogging through ship reports all month

Bring back the cool forum themes.

Any suggestions? You can find the Invision Marketplace here. If you let me know one you'd like (you can PM me with the URL of the specific skin), and as long as it's free and well designed, I can probably install it pretty easily.

Allow members to anonymously report problems with their CO or FO.

You can already do this on our General Contact Form found here. Just create a new email account with a free provider like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and put that in the email box on the form.

Create a designated mentor position for both new members and veteran members. This person could help facilitate participation on the forums and handle IC issues.

Many ships in the fleet already have a mentor program, where experienced members of the crew introduce new members to the game once they're posted on their ship. For experienced members, the CO and FO are your designated mentor!

[FltAdml. Wolf]

Increase the quality of sims / there's a disparity in the fact that some people are simming very well, while some others are simming very poorly and not being asked to improve.

The writer of this suggestion included quite a long missive about this issue. Apologies for not being able to sum up each point, but I wanted to keep this as neutral as possible so as not to give away any identities.

There is a limit to what we can do for folks. Sometimes it means working with someone to increase their sim quality, over a long period with slow incremental changes that eventually lead to changes. Other times, there's just nothing we can do to fix someone's quality.

The bottom line is that the only real consequence we have is to simply remove someone who isn't performing and is dragging the crew down. But this is at the discretion of the Captain, and not something the EC can necessarily regulate.

Nonetheless, my recommendation is to show your Captain that they have support for increasing the quality of simming on the ship. Your CO may be concerned that removing a long-term poor simmer will create anger among the crew or will be seen as unfair. If you talk to your CO about the fact that a poor simmer is dragging your sims down, as well as everyone else, this may give them the support and encouragement they need. Of course, it may be that your CO has a good reason for keeping this member on the crew and doesn't take your suggestion that something be done, but opening that line of communication is always the critical first step.

I think we all share the burden of increasing the quality of sims within a ship. And if you feel like you're doing your part, but the rest of the crew isn't, then perhaps it's time to consider transfer to a new vessel.

[FltAdml. Wolf]

There were a few responses that I got a couple people saying the same thing. They are as follows:

More ship-to-ship interaction

Heard, loud and clear. I will talk to the Captains Council about this and we'll work on it.

More fleet-wide events

Chats are back. Beyond that, please step up and propose something! You can suggest them in the General Discussions forum, PM me, or email me to talk more about them.

Allow R-rated content.

Thank you for speaking up, but this is not going to happen. We're strictly PG-13 rated, and that's here-to-stay. Consider creative ways you can work within these boundaries to create compelling stories!

Use Nova/SMS for ship management

I looked into it. Biggest difficulty is scalability for the fleet. Nova doesn't have the option of bringing ships together under one installation, but instead you have to do a separate install for each ship, which makes 8x the upgrades and maintenance.

In addition, there's no ability to draw together our fleet rosters for a single personnel roster like the one we current have, and which is used with behind-the-scenes features to help us manage fleet vacancies.

The only discernible benefit to this system seems to be a more organized and regimented profile/bio system, and the ability to manage awards via this system. I don't know -- I question whether it's worth the work. Feel free to convince me

[FltAdml. Wolf]

I also want to add that 33 people said a variation on "change nothing" / "I love this place" / "Everything's great the way it is." Thanks for that, everyone!

[Sinda Essen]

Very interesting and informative, thank you Admiral.

It's interesting how many suggestions were made where the solution is actually already in place. Some of them I was not aware of. I think I'll be taking myself off on a tour of the website to see what else I may have overlooked/forgotten about.

[Danny Wilde]

I'll admit that even as I filled in my survey, I could almost hear someone say "We already do this..." or "We have this instead..." but I agree with Hutch, most of it I wasn't aware of.

I will also state that I have no quarrels with the admin of the group at all, but I try to be constructive

Also, the next Poll of the Week should be how much money Wolfie should take to Vegas with him. For the roulette tables, obv.