A new episode of the Paddcast brings a 118Wiki roundtable Discussion, featuring Roshanara Rahman and Sky Blake with Lazarus Davis and James Colquhoun! And don’t miss the Captain’s Corner featuring Aron Kells (CO of the USS Thor) with German Galven.
Captain’s Corner: Capt. Roshanara Rahman
Each month, we interview a captain or first officer of the fleet to gain more insight on what it takes to command a ship and learn more about how each of these staff members found their way into these roles. Last month, we interviewed CO of the Constitution, Jalana Rajel.
According to our schedule, we should be interviewing a first officer this month. But instead, I’m talking to another commanding officer – Capt. Roshanara Rahman, captain of the new vessel Veritas – who has just been appointed as the Captain at Large. Lots of ground to cover here, so let’s get started!
WOLF: Congratulations on your appointment as the Captain at Large! Can you explain this role a bit to our newer members?
RAHMAN: The Captain at Large (CAL) is the sixth member of the Executive Council (EC), appointed to serve for one year as a representative of the Captains Council (CC) on the Executive Council. Thus, the Captain at Large is tasked with ensuring the interests of those captains not already on the EC are taken into consideration during EC discussions. Like the other five members of the Executive Council, the Captain at Large participates in discussions that mostly concern out-of-character (OOC) issues such as whether to commission a new ship, create or alter bylaws, rules, and regulations, and so forth. Unlike the other five members of the Executive Council, the Captain at Large only votes to break a tie among the other EC members’ votes. For instance, if two voted yes, two voted no, and one chose to abstain from voting, then the CAL’s vote would break the tie.
A lot of the CAL’s role and the EC’s role in general comes down to discussing the administration of the fleet and how to keep things running smoothly, helping our captains succeed in commanding their ships, and making the StarBase 118 simming experience enjoyable for our members.
I’d say to those wondering what the EC does is that it focuses on the “big picture” for the community and the issues the entire fleet faces. The EC itself doesn’t micromanage the individual ships in the fleet, since after all, the majority of EC members including myself are quite busy managing our own ships! Instead, the EC discusses fleet management and community development. How can we ensure our group continues to grow and prosper as the way people spend their time online continues to evolve from when the group was first founded over twenty-two years ago? What things have we been doing well that we should double down on? What things are we doing as a fleet that aren’t working or are actually causing things to be less fun? What things should we leave behind to history as we head into 2017 and beyond?
Since all of us, from the newest ensign to the fleet admiral, are volunteers, we are very aware of how precious the time and effort of our members are, so the EC is tasked with making sure ultimately that the fleet uses that volunteer effort appropriately and that the group stays true to its purpose of being an enjoyable role-playing game for Star Trek fans first and foremost.
Meet FNS Editor-in-Chief: Roshanara Rahman
This is part 2 of the two-part announcement of the Federation News Service launch as a semi-independent organization providing Star Trek content. For more information, see part 1.
Today, we’re talking with Roshanara Rahman – best known as Rich around the community – the First Officer of the Invicta, wiki admin extraordinaire, and the facilitator of our Federation News Service Team!
WOLF: Rich, the recent news of the launch of FNS onto its own website is incredibly exciting for UFOP: SB118 and for the simming community as a whole. Can you point us to the new site, and talk more about how it works?
RICH: Sure! The easiest way to get to the FNS’s new home is to point your browser to http://fns.news. We’ve also moved all of our FNS articles that were previously posted to the wiki onto the new site. Having the FNS on its own site allows us to build a website just like you’d see for any other news source out there, with stories divided into various categories such as arts & culture, science, politics, and more. The only difference of course is this news organization covers the 24th century!
Besides the more polished look, one of the greatest features of the new site is the “submit a news story” link right at the top. We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for anyone to contribute to the FNS. Even if you’ve never written in a “news report” style before, the form walks you through the process, pointing out where to add your headline, the lead (that ever important first sentence to grab the reader’s attention), and the rest of your story. You can even upload your own image to go with it!
Utopia Planitia Now Open
One of the community’s most prolific contributors, Rich, the writer behind Lt. Cmdr. Roshanara Rahman (and a suite of other characters!), has introduced us to the eminent Martian fleetworks. The Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards are a new resource that should be both an excellent resource for current writers and help to attract new members. Among other useful things, this resource lists ship types by function (cruisers, explorers, science ships, and so forth), explains the starship registry number scheme, and provides a historical database of Starfleet (and pre-Starfleet) starships. Says Rich, writing on the forums,
For a while now, we’ve had a lot of conflicting tech information spread across the various ship sections on the wiki given that much of it is sourced from outside. Some of the information is from Memory Alpha aka the “canon wiki” whereas other tidbits have come from fan sites and other RPGs. I think it’s time 118 has a database of its own. … We’re not trying to duplicate Memory Alpha: we’re trying to go beyond it.
It’s an ambitious project, but one that has already seen near-completion and is available for use! This is one more evolutionary step for the 118Wiki, which is already one of the finest and most comprehensive Star Trek wikis on the web. Our thanks and congratulations to Rich for the creation of this wonderful tool!
Take a look at Utopia Planitia on the 118Wiki and head over to the forums to see the full announcement!
