TW Council - UPDATED w/ structure

[Jones]

speaking of people resenting anything tw related: try going into svs zone and say tw is great and you'll get bombarded with angry messages from 30+ year old dudes.

anyway, there was some rumour going on that the continuum client on trenchwars.org didn't include all zones when you downloaded it. that is probably something that needs to be fixed asap too.

[Crescent Seal]

nothing new here eph.

im voting for pee pee sock now.

[Ephemeral]

Qan,
Please remove me from the candidate list, I am no longer interested in being part of a council. I have lost faith that the council has any chance of improving TW.

Only in the last week have I been made aware that of the gap between those that control TW and those that control the billing server. It appears that there exists not only a lack of any influence but complete breakdown in any communications. For whatever reason(s) this important aspect of being able to control the future of TW is broken. Perhaps Demonic, M_M or beasty can speak to the reasons; it could be that this is simply a political thing, it could be that the Billing sys ops are ‘old school’ players from zones that really don’t give a shit/resent about TW, it could be things that I have no knowledge about.

But what does it matter? Bottom line is that the council is even further removed then I thought from being able to improve the zone in substantial ways.
eph

[qan]

The Candidate thread has been updated.

We now are guaranteed a full Council (+1 extra candidate who will not make it on Council). In other words, this light-duty position that could have a heavy impact on the zone will in fact be available. Thread here: http://forums.trenchwars.org/showthread.php?44424

To encourage more candidates to run, I've also opened up nominations for candidates. If you think someone should be on Council, but for whatever reason they're not running, feel free to nominate them. Multiple people can nominate the same person. Ideally you should give a quick few lines about why they'd be a good choice. They can then accept or reject the nomination (I'll talk to them in-game to see if they accept). Please don't nominate a huge list of players at once; every additional nomination will water down the others. Keep this in mind when choosing who you wish to nominate, if anyone.

I'm also happy to work with anyone without forum access or who has reservations about posting themselves to place a candidate post.

Last but not least, I'll be creating a way to sign up as a candidate via bot, all designed to make the process a little more accessible and palatable to those who have reservations about using TW Forums.

[Star Fox]

I nominate myself to be on this council as a non-staff, because I'm not staff. So stop asking. Thanks.

[Turban]

Heh,

these current applicants are looking absolutely stunning, truly a great mix of different kind of players and personalities. I'm hoping to see their transcendent knowledge and leadership to save this zone from its inevitable doom. They will surely give us an astonishing performance as the first elected Trench Wars Council.

[Izor]

Save your hero worship. That's a pleasant fantasy, but no, it wasn't all roses and puppies back in the day. First time I quit staff was under DoCk> and PL because of this exact issue -- big internet personalities wanted to swagger and strut and needed you to bow and scrape in the right way, practically beg, to get any work done. (Oh, thank you for letting me code for your zone!! Oh, wise master, I am so thankful! Please, master, let me code more for you! It would make me so happy!)

Rodge_Rabbit was fired for overstepping his boundaries under the Big Bosses (logging in as sysop with a bot name to do legitimate work that was being held back by sysops -- he didn't have sysop access because again, access levels are tied to zone responsibility, not necessity). At the time he was arguably the most productive member in all of staff. So please, don't drag out your apologist fantasies... we don't need to correct history, to pretend that DoCk> was magical, everyone loved him, and that all was well because we had a Glorious Leader.

It didn't go downhill after DoCk>. He was the one who set the stage.

Yes, there are policies that DoCk> put into place that I didnt agree with (pure pub being the most egregious). After he left those policies continued to spiral out of control under PL. I basically had no respect for PL the entire time he was sysop until after he left and it got even worse by a large margin. I cant speak from a staff perspective obviously but this is what I've noticed as a player. I don't have the same perspective as you have laid out above. Undoubtedly every leader has their flaws and I'm sure he did have some. Hopefully you can understand from a player's point of view that things were better then than now, largely due to policies and how changes were handled imo.

[Crescent Seal]

[Orthodoxy]

So here's a novel idea: Change it. You guys vested with responsibility need to check your egos at the door, sit down, and come up with revolutionary ideas worthy of your profound love for this game, your infinite wisdom of what needs to be done, and then pull in the people you need (should there be the need) to do it.

Alternatively, if you can't manage it, if the task is simply too big and the tail is really wagging the dog (which is what you're saying, basically), then maybe it's time to reexamine the nature of this alleged love you have for TW. Think about it. The politics, etc., is only maintained because you are the actors. Choose otherwise.

[qan]

DoCk> leaving started the decline and when PL finally stopped giving a shit it really went down fast.

Save your hero worship. That's a pleasant fantasy, but no, it wasn't all roses and puppies back in the day. First time I quit staff was under DoCk> and PL because of this exact issue -- big internet personalities wanted to swagger and strut and needed you to bow and scrape in the right way, practically beg, to get any work done. (Oh, thank you for letting me code for your zone!! Oh, wise master, I am so thankful! Please, master, let me code more for you! It would make me so happy!)

Rodge_Rabbit was fired for overstepping his boundaries under the Big Bosses (logging in as sysop with a bot name to do legitimate work that was being held back by sysops -- he didn't have sysop access because again, access levels are tied to zone responsibility, not necessity). At the time he was arguably the most productive member in all of staff. So please, don't drag out your apologist fantasies... we don't need to correct history, to pretend that DoCk> was magical, everyone loved him, and that all was well because we had a Glorious Leader.

It didn't go downhill after DoCk>. He was the one who set the stage.

[Izor]

I briefly skimmed over this thread cause kthx linked it to me but I just got a couple common sense things to add. Our game has been plagued by questionable staff hires that have been 'nice' and 'friendly' and/or suck up to staff/players to get elected (or the popular "females"). These players, once they have become staff have guided this game into what hindsight would prove to be a series of very unwise players. How would this council serve any better, as it is essentially a popularity contest all over again and the same sysops will be more or less in charge anyway? Strong leadership has been needed from the top down for a long time to bring reason to this game for quite a few years. DoCk> leaving started the decline and when PL finally stopped giving a shit it really went down fast. Some of the more reasonable players in our community have been saying things for a long time about what needs to change but largely we've been ignored until now where we can reference a decade of what would have been good advice.

Even if this council were to be successful, what is to say that it isn't too little too late? A lot of core players in this game have simply moved on. I feel like at this point no matter how much we fix the bad decisions of the past new players arent going to be attracted into a game with 4 active squads and a half-active pub. It's always going to be maintaining a game old players get back into for the nostalgia. Maybe I'm just a pessimist.

[roxxkatt]

Hold that hate in your heart. Let it build

[qan]

frankly, i'm a little disappointed in qan for agreeing to be part of this puppet show, regardless of how good he's made it look on paper. ultimately, the sysop puppeteers are going to promise the puppets that they'll have a say in how the show is run while continuing to pull every last string as they see fit.

Frankly I'm more than a little disappointed in ph for thinking sysop power is still has such a stranglehold on the zone. They're not idiots; they're not trying to run the zone into the ground. I don't know of any sysop who ever has actively tried to do this, consciously (but feel free to refresh my memory if this is the case). To be at the top in any power structure always results in some level of corruption, it's true. I've been happy to express my displeasure with this structure for many years, while realizing that throwing in the towel in response to it means you are fucking complicit.

I've given up on TW more times than I can count. It's always been the political that finally crushes me, that makes me lose faith not just in TW but in humanity in general. Be assured that my desire to see Council succeed stems directly from this -- and that many people feel similarly, on and off staff.

I'm not saying this is going to work like some sort of magic spell. That it will even work at all. But anyone who decides it's not worth trying because they've been beaten down too many times, and are just no longer willing to get off the floor ... well, I empathize with you, but I hardly have any pity. You're afraid to go down on a sinking ship, so you're happy to put a hole in it before it's left the harbor and wave goodbye to those who are at least willing to see it off on its maiden voyage.

There's a lot of bitterness over zone leadership; there've been a lot petty squabbles, vendettas, vengeance, Machiavellian plotting and scheming, traps laid and sprung, egos destroyed, internet reputations made and broken. People have been terrible to one another in this game, over and over again. But that shouldn't overshadow the fact that we give a damn about this game and this zone and the people who play it. Should it?

OK, fair enough. Don't run for Senate because someone on the opposition party is just... so mean. Hold that hate in your heart. Let it build; let it give you the concrete identity we all struggle to create.

Or, gather up your last bit of courage and run -- and have a chance to prove the strength of your ideas in as equal a footing as has yet been allowed. I'm not saying this is fair -- I think everyone with a brain can see there are elements that are still far from fair. But this is what we've got. And I'm just really... disappointed as all hell in some people who I otherwise respect quite a lot who are not even willing to try for fear of failing again. Please: get over yourself. Let's fail together. (And perhaps, even, succeed, in some small way. One small success on Council is enough to justify its existence.)

If Sysops veto something based on their own likes/dislikes of an idea, then the whole idea of the council is a waste of time. Should it happen I guarantee I'll be resigning from it.

Agreed, a thousand times agreed. It would be really helpful to have M_M to post here, who was present when the sysop veto was established, to explain a bit more the concept from a sysop's perspective. The idea is not to use vetoes in a political manner. Else the democratic mechanism is completely overridden.

I've worked for something like this for a very long time. We are on the cusp of doing something truly worthwhile. It will be struggle, but in that struggle is possibility. In that possibility is a movement of the zone toward something functional, something capable of adapting to the demands of competition with several million other online games ... at least, for a few more years.

I have no illusions about how poorly this might go. But I'll be damned if I'm not going to try. We have to try. There is no other option. If we can't make this work, I will be resigning not just as "head" of Council, but from staff, and will probably not be playing TW again. There will be very little left to try that's worth trying. And I will blame every one of you who were so capable, intelligent, knowledgeable ... but afraid to try -- but most of all, myself.

[Orthodoxy]

This thread isn't really helping either. Just more political wrangling, mud-slinging, and ego-massaging. Why run to play in the same litter box as has always been? Why vote for more of the same? More limitations on who can affect what. More people representing exactly whom? By what means are they accountable? Just looks like a shadow government, if even that.

[Morh]

You are not even going to get 9 people wanting to join the council, as it is looking right now. Even if two more wants to join, there will be no voting at all needed. Will they automatically be accepted as members? And what will happen if you do not even get 9 people, will you start the council with only 7 people on the player side and leave two spots open for anyone to join later on?

I were fairly certain from the start this would not work. And with all the thrashing going on it seems like this council wont even get of the ground before crashing and burning.