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  • Exalt
    replied
    Originally posted by Demonic View Post
    That said pick whoever you like, but don't start complaining when it turns into nothing but a waste of time and becomes non existent due to the wrong type of person holding a position on it.
    Demonic, while I believe you probably were (unofficially) adding me to your list of "bitter" players that shouldn't be added to the council (i cant say for sure since you didnt actually list my name, either for or against), what I can say is this last sentence is what I've been saying this entire time. The ONLY people I want to see on the council are people that will put personal feelings and biases aside, who will put their ego's in check, and who really, truly, unequivocally GIVE A SHIT about the betterment of the zone and of this entire council idea. We do NOT need anyone making a mockery of probably the best, most progressive staff idea I've seen in years. I agree that players like Spock! and Eph would be in this council, and I will vote for them. I added myself to the list with mostly no hope of actually making it due to me not being a popular player, but I DO actually care an I DO actually give a shit. Even if I cannot get in, I still want to make sure only the people that SHOULD be in this thing make it. Everyone down voted Spock! immediately due to saying "he's a newb" as if that is anything but counterproductive to this entire thing. Spock! has proven he gives a shit, he is a pure-pubber and therefore has a unique perspective on things, and I for one support him wholeheartedly as someone that I can already tell with do his best to make this thing work. I simply hope everyone else actually stops making jokes and a mockery of this thing, and they actually do the right thing and give this legitimacy and let it work.

    IF done right, this can be the best idea staff have had in a decade. I just simply hope it isn't one of those great ideas on PAPER like Socialism/Communism... which on paper seems like a utopia (everyone is equal!!!!) but in reality is a fucked up mess of shit that just made things worse by far.

    Leave a comment:


  • Exalt
    replied
    Originally posted by qan View Post
    Here's some clarification points:

    • No voting is going on right now. If you up/downvote someone in the candidate thread, it doesn't mean anything other than the usual forum upvote/downvote. Voting will take place using TWD logins. Before voting begins, members of the community who may not have TWD accounts will be encouraged to register.
    • You can't nominate anyone; they need to post themselves if they want to run.
    • Current staff members will have a vote. Here's why it should be this way (in my opinion). 98% of staff have no say in the running of this zone. None. Hell, some members of upper staff have only a tiny little say in how things get done. I'm lucky to be a coder and have a bit more leeway in terms of pushing changes on the dev level ... but I've never had much of an actual policy say in the 10+ on/off years I've been staff, in part because I've always been a coder. (To clarify what that means: if you have a non-policy role, i.e., are not "admin staff," the highest level you can reach is development sysop, meaning you mostly just have a say in matters of development, not policy. If you want to be an admin sysop, you generally seem to need to get there by taking on extra admin work, then getting promoted to upper staff, then getting put in charge of something that requires a lot of involvement such as Head Bang Op or Dean of Staff, and then waiting ever so long until a sysop role opens up for you, at which point you can happily retire and get in the way of everyone else doing their job below you, just like the people before you got in the way of your work. Then you get bored because there's no place further up to go -- you've "made it"; you're the King! -- and so you retire, leaving the job open for the next person to get in the way of everyone else trying to help the zone. It's nothing new; this was the case when I started on and DoCk> was at the top, doing very little but talking about his cat or his camera and getting people to laugh at his jokes. (Hi DoCk>! It doesn't mean I don't still like you!) It's what I like to think of as the Circle of Staff.) ....Anyhow. The reason that members of staff should have a vote is because most of them have no more say in how the zone is run than any other player. We might have staff elections to Council in the future, but at present, it's mostly department heads, or department heads at least choosing their (read: their department's) representatives. Staff need a vote because by and large, they have no say. And because staff are players of this game, too -- first and foremost, they should be players. I have far more loyalty to this zone as a whole than to staff.
    • I realize this may be a popularity contest. That's fine: those who are elected still have to serve on the Council. They'll need to use Robert's Rules like everyone else, which don't exactly tolerate windbags or people who want to make a mockery of a meeting. If members of the community want them on Council, they'll be on Council. Pretty much every other election in history is also a popularity contest. It's either a republic model as we have here (so-called "representative democracy"), an autocratic model (do what I say because I'm big!), or a democratic model (everyone can vote on everything -- requires a lot of supporting infrastructure to escape becoming total chaos). A republic is a good compromise between the two extremes of fascism and pure democracy; it's about the best we have at present, and we have an infrastructure to support it. (It's tried and true... just like autocracy. Democracy is the only one that hasn't actually been tried on a large scale, which in my opinion is, again, because of difficulties relating to infrastructure, mostly. And because many people seem to think that everyone but themselves is an idiot who doesn't deserve to speak. I guess I don't.)
    • Please keep the candidate thread free of discussion. I'll move this thread over to the Council subforum if you guys think that will make things easier.
    Thank you for taking the time to respond to my posts and clarifying things qan, even if I don't fully agree with everything. At least you took the time, and I appreciate it

    Leave a comment:


  • Demonic
    replied
    Originally posted by Ephemeral View Post
    Well, we have not talked much about transparency; this is an important aspect of making this work. It might be good to outline exactly what is going to get publically published in terms of votes and vetos. I support making this completely transparent, I think that every council vote should be publically published and any veto is publically published. Opinions?
    eph
    Absolutely I would say. I think any Veto's need to be published with a full description as to why and whom. Votes I guess is more complex, depending if Qan is looking at a ballot style or aye/nay style I guess. One we can publish who voted what, the other would just be numbers, but it does need to be as transparent as possible.

    Leave a comment:


  • Demonic
    replied
    Originally posted by the_paul View Post
    One of the very few reassuring things players can take from the staff aspect of this council is that M_M God is involved. When I was upperstaff, M_M was basically the only one that was worth anything up there. He was probably the only person you could disagree with, and rather than ban, silence, or power trip on you, M_M would take the time to track you down and listen to what you had to say. If M_M backs out and someone like Demonic adds another title to her collection of being the head honcho with this council thing, imo the entire thing should be scrapped.
    Hey lol, not nice :P

    To be honest, I cant say I have a huge amount of interest to run this and said so since day 1. These days im happy messing around with a few bans, fixing a few arena issues that crop up and to stay away from the standard bullshit you hear from so called vets who know best
    And for the record - the setting up of a council + the restructure of staff to give players more input was something I started working on 4 months ago while MM was away for a long time. So obviously adding more title's was my ultimate goal along with total control/dictatorship.

    To be honest what I find interesting is a fair few of people saying I want to be on council, don't even play the damn game/zone anymore. Comments like kthx added for his reason to join, attention seeking or what. But over the years I guess you watch reasonable good people turn into bitter fools who think they are something special by impressing a few 12yr old's on forum. If this is going to work you need to forget people like kthx, and focus on people who actively play the game, who haven't turned bitter BUT are still comfortable to speak out their beliefs. I think people like eph/spock are the exact type of people who should be working on this, who wont try to bully everyone else and consistently have the best interest of the zone as their agenda, not their own personal image.

    That said pick whoever you like, but don't start complaining when it turns into nothing but a waste of time and becomes non existent due to the wrong type of person holding a position on it.

    Leave a comment:


  • Ephemeral
    replied
    Well, we have not talked much about transparency; this is an important aspect of making this work. It might be good to outline exactly what is going to get publically published in terms of votes and vetos. I support making this completely transparent, I think that every council vote should be publically published and any veto is publically published. Opinions?
    eph

    Leave a comment:


  • the_paul
    replied
    One of the very few reassuring things players can take from the staff aspect of this council is that M_M God is involved. When I was upperstaff, M_M was basically the only one that was worth anything up there. He was probably the only person you could disagree with, and rather than ban, silence, or power trip on you, M_M would take the time to track you down and listen to what you had to say. If M_M backs out and someone like Demonic adds another title to her collection of being the head honcho with this council thing, imo the entire thing should be scrapped.

    Leave a comment:


  • qan
    replied
    Originally posted by Ephemeral View Post
    In excising a veto the person will be expending political capital. In other words, it will quickly become apparent that this person is blocking the council’s wishes. So while it may be true that veto's could become a problem I am thinking (hoping?) that it is not very likely.
    Also, wanted to say -- this is right in line with what the sysops are also thinking. Don't think that they don't want this to work. They do. And they know that every veto will send a clearer and clearer message that the Council is not working, and that the old dysfunctional way will continue. It's basically a safeguard. I don't know how much you guys trust staff promises (heh), but M_M in particular has said he has no intention of ever using it except in cases where the outcome of a Council motion would have a severe negative impact on the zone, in his eyes (and the eyes of another sysop) -- the extreme, outlying cases. I don't think you'll be seeing many "political" vetos, such as the ones US Presidents often make when the opposing party pushes through a bill.

    In exchange we have much more freedom to get things done in the Council itself. I think it's a good balance.

    Leave a comment:


  • Ephemeral
    replied
    Originally posted by qan View Post
    …To clarify what that means: if you have a non-policy role, i.e., are not "admin staff," the highest level you can reach is development sysop, meaning you mostly just have a say in matters of development, not policy. If you want to be an admin sysop, you generally seem to need to get there by taking on extra admin work, then getting promoted to upper staff, then getting put in charge of something that requires a lot of involvement such as Head Bang Op or Dean of Staff, and then waiting ever so long until a sysop role opens up for you, at which point you can happily retire and get in the way of everyone else doing their job below you, just like the people before you got in the way of your work. Then you get bored because there's no place further up to go -- you've "made it"; you're the King! -- and so you retire, leaving the job open for the next person to get in the way of everyone else trying to help the zone. It's nothing new; this was the case when I started on and DoCk> was at the top, doing very little but talking about his cat or his camera and getting people to laugh at his jokes. (Hi DoCk>! It doesn't mean I don't still like you!) It's what I like to think of as the Circle of Staff…
    I just can’t say enough how important is it for anyone who is interested in improving the zone to understand what Qan laid out above. This is the reason why staff structure needed so badly to be improved/changed. Previously staff was implicitly tied to the ‘permissions’ of the zone. You started as a ZH and slowly gained ‘powers’ as you climbed the ladder.

    Seems logical but it was really hurting the zone. What kind of personalities do you want to attract to staff; those that seek empowerment or those that cared about helping the zone? Additionally, having the ability to host an event or silence someone really isn’t the ‘power’ in the zone, the true power resides with the handful of people at top who make the decisions. At times this was not even reserved for specific titles (i.e. Dean or Sysop) but rather more of ‘who has influence’. Burn out, diffusion of responsibility, and the inability to support someone who wanted to help the zone without climbing that ladder were additional bad side effects of the old structure. Many, many good people have been chewed up and spit out in this system.

    Again, congrats to those who have been willing to put the best interest of the zone ahead of their own and make this council happen. IMO a few more steps still should be done but things are moving in the right direction.
    eph

    Leave a comment:


  • qan
    replied
    Originally posted by kthx View Post
    Qan> kthx's post in the signup thread doesn't look good, better delete it.
    See the forum PM I sent you. It was moved to this thread (along with other discussion posts) because I didn't think you were serious. Same with the second one you posted. I updated the candidate thread with this addition:

    • You don't have to answer the questions exactly as given, but answers that are essentially a middle finger to the community will also be moved to the discussion thread.


    If a few other people have a problem with this I'll move it back. But the point of the candidate thread is for people who don't know you very well to make an informed decision about whether or not they should vote for you. You're not giving anyone who doesn't know you anything to go on. Give us something at least.

    Leave a comment:


  • kthx
    replied
    Qan> pretty sure that staff won't abuse their powers to blackball bad ideas.
    Qan> kthx's post in the signup thread doesn't look good, better delete it.

    Leave a comment:


  • kthx
    replied
    So.. in a thread where you are trying to get player input to fix the zone, you delete a post by me that you didn't like seeing. Hypocritical as fuck. But im sure with nazi tactics like that sysops won't be blackballing tons of these changes that get voted in.

    That being said.

    In Game Name: Kthx
    Years Playing: Alot
    Objective: Completely control over the zone to fix it from the people who broke it or go fuck yourselves.

    #copy/pasted this time.

    Leave a comment:


  • qan
    replied
    Here's some clarification points:

    • No voting is going on right now. If you up/downvote someone in the candidate thread, it doesn't mean anything other than the usual forum upvote/downvote. Voting will take place using TWD logins. Before voting begins, members of the community who may not have TWD accounts will be encouraged to register.
    • You can't nominate anyone; they need to post themselves if they want to run.
    • Current staff members will have a vote. Here's why it should be this way (in my opinion). 98% of staff have no say in the running of this zone. None. Hell, some members of upper staff have only a tiny little say in how things get done. I'm lucky to be a coder and have a bit more leeway in terms of pushing changes on the dev level ... but I've never had much of an actual policy say in the 10+ on/off years I've been staff, in part because I've always been a coder. (To clarify what that means: if you have a non-policy role, i.e., are not "admin staff," the highest level you can reach is development sysop, meaning you mostly just have a say in matters of development, not policy. If you want to be an admin sysop, you generally seem to need to get there by taking on extra admin work, then getting promoted to upper staff, then getting put in charge of something that requires a lot of involvement such as Head Bang Op or Dean of Staff, and then waiting ever so long until a sysop role opens up for you, at which point you can happily retire and get in the way of everyone else doing their job below you, just like the people before you got in the way of your work. Then you get bored because there's no place further up to go -- you've "made it"; you're the King! -- and so you retire, leaving the job open for the next person to get in the way of everyone else trying to help the zone. It's nothing new; this was the case when I started on and DoCk> was at the top, doing very little but talking about his cat or his camera and getting people to laugh at his jokes. (Hi DoCk>! It doesn't mean I don't still like you!) It's what I like to think of as the Circle of Staff.) ....Anyhow. The reason that members of staff should have a vote is because most of them have no more say in how the zone is run than any other player. We might have staff elections to Council in the future, but at present, it's mostly department heads, or department heads at least choosing their (read: their department's) representatives. Staff need a vote because by and large, they have no say. And because staff are players of this game, too -- first and foremost, they should be players. I have far more loyalty to this zone as a whole than to staff.
    • I realize this may be a popularity contest. That's fine: those who are elected still have to serve on the Council. They'll need to use Robert's Rules like everyone else, which don't exactly tolerate windbags or people who want to make a mockery of a meeting. If members of the community want them on Council, they'll be on Council. Pretty much every other election in history is also a popularity contest. It's either a republic model as we have here (so-called "representative democracy"), an autocratic model (do what I say because I'm big!), or a democratic model (everyone can vote on everything -- requires a lot of supporting infrastructure to escape becoming total chaos). A republic is a good compromise between the two extremes of fascism and pure democracy; it's about the best we have at present, and we have an infrastructure to support it. (It's tried and true... just like autocracy. Democracy is the only one that hasn't actually been tried on a large scale, which in my opinion is, again, because of difficulties relating to infrastructure, mostly. And because many people seem to think that everyone but themselves is an idiot who doesn't deserve to speak. I guess I don't.)
    • Please keep the candidate thread free of discussion. I'll move this thread over to the Council subforum if you guys think that will make things easier.

    Leave a comment:


  • qan
    replied
    All discussion posts in Council candidate thread moved here.

    Leave a comment:


  • Ephemeral
    replied
    In excising a veto the person will be expending political capital. In other words, it will quickly become apparent that this person is blocking the council’s wishes. So while it may be true that veto's could become a problem I am thinking (hoping?) that it is not very likely.
    eph

    Leave a comment:


  • Exalt
    replied
    Originally posted by Shaddowknight View Post
    If this were all players, they would make 15 decisions, only to have sysops veto 18 of them, and make it pointless. They are working WITH the people in power, not against or being basically a "brainstorm council"
    Whose to say this wont happen anyways? A sysop can veto everyone just because, assuming any sysop is ever active and online anytime within the next decade to do so. When was the last time anyone has seen P_L in this game? You mine as well call Dock and PriitK up, if anyone still HAS their contact info, and you'd have a better chance of getting one of them active over half of sysops. C'mon now, if they were active, this idea probably wouldn't be happening right now.

    Beyond that, a brainstorm council sounds pretty close to what this is, and honestly, I don't see how that is entirely a bad thing. It also probably should be something that might possibly get something DONE in this game with a coordinated effort, assuming everyone that gets voted in actually gives a fuck and actively inspires to do a good job. That is also up in the air, and with this being a political/popularity contest, I doubt you'll have many great people coming in wanting to put in their time and effort into making the zone a better place. It's hard enough to find 10 people who all agree to play TWD or WBDUEL together these days, and those are popularity contests as well more or less. I don't see many people in here that give a fuck to be honest, and there are people that just throw their name in and say 'I don't actually give two shits, didn't read anything about this, and I'll never actually log in to participate, but vote for me" and I'm sure they will get upvoted.

    Meanwhile, you have a player like Spock!, who granted I've never heard of and probably nobody else really has either (I don't play public), but his post alone shows he gives a fuck what happens, he would be dedicated, and he cares. Then you have megaman89 downvoting people because they are "newbs" or because he wants to get a rise out of someone (me), rather than actually giving a fuck whatsoever. Add a player like him in and see how quickly this thing falls apart. Look at the dude's ego. He acts like he's fucking PriitK or something. It's pretty pathetic to be honest, and I feel sad for anyone that still gives a fuck about how they are perceived in this game (like thinking his activity in TWL makes a world of difference in this game) after we have ALL grown up (well, most of us anyways) and became adults.

    Shaddow I like you and think you have good ideas and good points, but I still stick to my thought process that staff shouldn't be involved in the voting process. I guess I can say that I also can argue for the opposite end like you are, in that even "I don't see why not, because it possibly wouldn't do a bit of harm" and honestly, maybe it wouldn't. If you have staff members that actually give a shit, then possibly it would do some good, but I'm strongly against going with the status quo of things, because we've had the same status quo since 1998 since Subspace became F2P. Staff needs things shaken up sometimes too just to get fresh ideas in. They need someone telling them to step their game up or to resign if they aren't going to be active and care.

    What I'm saying is this game has been slowly dying for years and years now, and nothing has really changed much the entire time. The best thing that has happened to Trenchwars in the last decade was.... TWLM? Since it's 2014, you can only go back to 2004. Before that, the best thing that truly changed the face of Trenchwars was TWD being invented. That drastically changed the population of TW and MADE this game what it is. I truly believe without TWD, Trenchwars would be another DSB zone right now. It would be dead. We need to figure out some new, fresh approach to things in that kind of mold that will bring back old players and make people CARE again. Make them WANT to play and be active again. Keeping things the same is NOT going to work. That's the definition of insanity, to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

    I have plenty of ideas, but I no longer give them out freely when they just get ignored by staff due to them not even wanting to TRY anything new. It's sickening to me really. THIS is the reason I'm actually showing I give a fuck right now. I want something drastic and new to happen and to shake things up in trenchwars. I want to see a day we actually have over 200+ people in this zone for once. I'm tired of logging in and seeing 5 people total not including bots playing outside of pub, and seeing pub with 30 afkers and 5 players outside of spec. This needs to change, and the only way to change it is to brainstorm, find a solution of some kind, and to put it into action. We need another TWD type invention.

    This all being said, I honestly believe everyone needs to get over their fucking petty bias' against one another, their fucking flame war bullshit against some random player they called a newbie 10 years ago, and whatever other grudges they all may have against each other, and we need to finally work together and make this fucking game something better than it is. I don't want this shit to die, because a lot of my early childhood was spent playing this game, and I grew up with a lot of the players in this game. I have legitimate friendships outside of this game that formed through players in subspace. I think that's a worthy thing to keep alive, and so I'm actually willing to put my time and effort, blood, sweat, and tears so to speak into doing whatever I CAN do in keeping this shit alive. I actually don't want to just keep it alive, but to make it better.

    Saying all that, I don't give a fuck if someone like megaman89 shits all over me for caring, or trying. At least I do and will try, while people like him will continue the fucking stupid status quo of calling everyone a newbie in a fucking 2d spaceship game that was made in 1997. All it honestly shows is he hasn't been outside in the real world in ages, or better yet, he HAS been outside and he's a fucking virgin loser with EXTREME self-confidence issues in real life. He counts facebook and twitter friends as the meaning to his pathetic life, and he counts how many kills he gets in TWL as a truly meaningful thing in his life. I could understand that mindset when we were all 12 year old kids hitting puberty and wanting to prove our balls were finally dropped and our dicks were bigger, but at our age? At this point in most of our lives? It's counter-productive to the health of this game in every way even if you ignore the obvious pathetic side of it in the lack of self-esteem players like him must have in real life. Grow the fuck up and either do something, or shut the fuck up and let the adults have a legitimate conversation.


    Btw
    Originally posted by Ephemeral View Post
    FYI, I had a short stay in staff about 6 months ago but before I left I pushed for (and posted one of my trademarked long winded diatribes) in the staff forum about the need to have the player base represented on staff. I outlined that the real ‘power’ in the zone was not the ability to send zoners or host events but rather really resided with those who were making the decisions. I had several discussion with the Deans and those in power on this topic.
    Although I suggested that the entire staff should be elected positions, Demonic, Beasty, M-M and Qan have hammered out a pretty good solution with this council. Old habits die hard and change is never easy; kudos to them for having the balls to try to change the way the zone is managed. The foundation for change is finally being laid; time will tell if it is too late.
    eph
    This is something I can respect, which is one of the many reasons I voted for you Eph. I don't really know you as a player, but I can tell you give a fuck by your posts, and that's mainly what I'm looking for. All ideas are good ideas, so even if someone that is a clueless dumbass somehow gets voted into the council (i'm sure someone will fit that mold), as long as they give a fuck, they show they care and they act on that, and they give out those bad ideas they have, at least they are doing something. The idea that the player base needs a say-so in this game has been around ever since staff took over things back in like 97/98, but actually getting it done? Mad props. This game needs people like you in STAFF, and if not that, then the Council is the next best thing. It's like me, I know I'll never become staff based on my past reputation and maybe even my current one (I've only been back for a small while now, so maybe I don't even have a current one), but maybe I could get something done and have my voice heard through this council. It's why I'm at least trying, even with very little hope of actually succeeding. Anyway Eph, I hope you get in.
    Last edited by Exalt; 02-01-2014, 12:49 PM.

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