Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

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Alex
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Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

Post by Alex » Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:57 pm

Over the past couple of years, we have been working to put the community first, with the PFA as a body serving as Fleet administrators. I've often said that the only "power" we have is because of the community. Without all of you, our ranks mean nothing. Well, we've been discussing it more lately, and we've decided that we want to take things one step further. Even with the community, our ranks ultimately mean nothing. The PFA is committed to building this community and helping our players and sims thrive. We don't need ranks to meet that goal, and if anything, fancy ranks don't get us anything at the end of the day. We want the Fleet administrators to be driven to improve the fleet and see it grow, not just gain a fancy but meaningless title. That's not our purpose.

For that reason, we've proposed that we reorganize the Pegasus Fleet Admiralty into the Pegasus Fleet Executive Council (PFEC). Our roles and positions in the fleet will remain the same. We'll be serving the Fleet the same way we have always been, but instead we would be casting aside our admiral ranks and character names. We feel that they are meaningless in our community, and most of you know us by our names, and not as our characters. Naturally this change will require some adjustments to the constitution and other fleet policies to change the references to the PFA to the PFEC, but the normal operation of the Fleet and the community will not change. Our hope is that this change will help encourage people to reach out to us more often. We are in our positions not because we seek power, but because we love this community.

At this time we have opened this proposal to discussion. This will require a few changes to the constitution to change references to the Pegasus Fleet Admiralty to the Pegasus Fleet Executive Council.
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Re: Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

Post by Jack Mantell » Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:09 am

I didn't get a chance to attend today's meeting, but I did find something interesting there to comment on. It's not mentioned here, but in the meeting Alex mentioned that the characters currently attached to PFA officers would likely become NPCs.

I'd find this absolutely fascinating, and support it wholeheartedly. It might make more sense to slowly replace the characters, as some may or may not be interested in NPCing characters that had been previously written by a solo player. However, allowing sims to use these in-character admiralty when needed, rather than coming up with random underlings or waiting for a PFA player to have time for a JP, seems to add to a lot of the freedoms.

I'm definitely in support of this whole endeavor.
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Re: Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

Post by Thompson » Wed Dec 14, 2016 3:16 am

I didn't get to attend either. But while I like the idea Ima be a no on this one and theres two simple reasons why.

1) Rank structure helps keep things organised to me both in terms of a clear progression of CoC but also for RP. CO's wouldn't in RP feel comfortable answering to a civilian group and your admiralty characters are their bosses. They are the points of contact with starfleet for missions and official business.

2) I think this is actually the most important. Your ranks are a thank you from your community. They are a way especially in this fleet where they are truely learnt of people seeing that you guys are committed to long term work in the fleet and tat we the community feel you do a good job. Like I said I appreciate and think the sentiment behind your suggestion is amazing. But actually I think you guys deserve the titles you've earned.

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Re: Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

Post by Emily » Wed Dec 14, 2016 3:58 am

Thompson wrote:I didn't get to attend either. But while I like the idea Ima be a no on this one and theres two simple reasons why.

1) Rank structure helps keep things organised to me both in terms of a clear progression of CoC but also for RP. CO's wouldn't in RP feel comfortable answering to a civilian group and your admiralty characters are their bosses. They are the points of contact with starfleet for missions and official business.

2) I think this is actually the most important. Your ranks are a thank you from your community. They are a way especially in this fleet where they are truely learnt of people seeing that you guys are committed to long term work in the fleet and tat we the community feel you do a good job. Like I said I appreciate and think the sentiment behind your suggestion is amazing. But actually I think you guys deserve the titles you've earned.

Andrew
You make some good points here, Thompson. However, the Chain of Command, as it is OOC, really doesn't make a difference with the ranks that our characters have. In that sense, we base it off of position (i.e., if you're on the Pegasus Fleet Admiralty, your place in the CoC is the same as another member of the Admiralty, regardless of rank) or time served in the fleet's admiralty. Also, our characters rarely ever see the actual world of Trek. I know my character doesn't even have a bio or any type of story behind her. She's pretty much just a placeholder. The only person whose character might be work keeping is the Chief of Ops, but we could also easily fill that void with a NPC.

As for a rank being a form of recognition, that isn't really what we're about. We'd do our duty to the community with or without rank and, for me, seeing everyone so active and happy is thanks enough. But, hopefully once the awards team is in motion we'll be able to have a better form of recognition that everyone can benefit from! :)

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Re: Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

Post by Yunalesca » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:45 am

Yunalesca wrote: I'm totally behind this idea
Also
Yunalesca wrote: This is a group of persons writing fiction together, not an actual military force, despite the fact that the majority of the sims write a non-military militarized force(Starfleet). The ideation that because we are writing a universe where Starfleet JAG exists, we must have one, instead of resolving our differences as a community seems frankly ridiculous to me.

Honestly, people. This is a hobby. We're here to have fun and write together, not militarize ourselves beyond the ability to see the fun.
Replace italics with "Admiralty".

This idea is much more inclusive to non-trek sims.
Yunalesca wrote: -Pegasus Fleet does not exclusively consist of Star Trek sims.
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Re: Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

Post by Avril » Tue Dec 20, 2016 4:28 pm

I think it's a great idea but I think that having an admiralty in character that can be written with is nice also. I do think using those characters are not necessary for the OOC roles to have the ranks attached though. For instance the leader of the executive board or committee or whatever you mentioned (too lazy to scroll back up) could also still have the privilege of writing IC as the Fleet Commander for those of us who might choose to do a JP with said Admiral IC.
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Re: Proposal: Change PFA to PFEC and Eliminate Admiral Ranks

Post by Constantine » Sat Dec 31, 2016 4:20 am

I suppose I'll weigh in as one of the old dogs on the street.

From what I know/experienced/understand from back when the fleet was formed (Terris can correct me if I'm wrong) the reasoning behind the PFA and ranks was never to delineate and REAL authority over people. Most of the time the PFA were quite approachable and we never referred to each other by rank or anything such as a military organization would.

HOWEVER, what it did represent was the group of trusted people overseeing a community in which there were rules and as such people to enforce these rules. While fleets are completely voluntary in terms of participation, to remain a member and by signing up to sims/GM roles you were expected to abide by a set of rules (the constitution) designed to best represent the guiding direction of the fleet and how each Commander/Admiralty member felt would provide the best experience possible. Like I've always said about JAG, the PFA they are designed to protect you as a player from harm so you can continue to happily go about your simming business. The ranks were not to show a complete authoritative power over any one person, what they said was basically "If you wanna play in this yard, we have rules and you need to follow those rules." The person was free to write/sim how they chose so much as it did not affect other players negatively.

And for that, discipline is the function of the chain of command. CO's run their sims, its their responsibility...but that\s getting into another story.

Back to the ranks, the ranks were also to enrich the RP environment we all seek and enjoy when we come here, they at the discretion of the player holding this position could be used on sims IE Admiral Quinn visiting my new starbase or oversee the send off of a revolutionary new vessel. I know for one I enjoy that unique experience.

Personally with the ranks, even in the military in RL I find it all depends on who's behind them. Personally I have people of higher rank I respect and relate to and I never feel oppressed or under their thumb, and there are those who abuse it. To this day, every member of the PFA I have seen have been responsible leaders and given no one means to make atleast myself feel oppressed.

Now, moving into a whole different can of worms, we come to the age old saying of the burden of command/leadership. Personally, and this is only an opinion here, the PFA is responsible for administering and enforcing the rules of this community in addition to ensuring each member adheres to the values of the fleet. A leader deals with this on a regular basis (I know from experience) and there are times I have had to choose between friends and doing what is best for those around me. Now I get this is a unique body as technically the PFA has no real legal authority over anyone, however the same can be said for any community ever built, but does that mean people can just go around doing what they want? No. The PFA may have no LEGAL authority, but they sure as hell have a moral authority. The members of this fleet entrust the PFA to do what is in their best interests and in that is what gives you authority. But now you see the juggling act every leader in time has ever faced. Knowing when to exercise that authority and knowing when to lay off. Just because you have 'power' doesn't mean you have to use it. However what it does mean is that if you should have to (IE some player is harassing others and destroying that community) then you will exercise it.

Ultimately it's all about how the members of the PFA project themselves. In this case. not being a military organization means we can have more candid conversations, talk amongst one another without having to go through a chain of command and just chat. Try to think of yourselves (PFA) more as guardians of the fleet and it's members.

The ranks don't make you dictators, what they do is represent the responsibility you all have to ensuring the longevity of the fleet.

Now, I have seen a community of Star Trek sims where it is run by a group of GM's whom hold no rank but positions only. If any of the PFA want the link I will provide it however I will not post it in open forum. It seems to work for them as they are where I started simming in I believe 2006-2007.

I'm not saying this can't or won't work, I just want the PFA and members to understand why this came about before simply casting them aside. Looking at the two organizations side by side, the ONLY real difference between how they run the show and how PF runs the show is simply the ranks and probably their judicial system (thankfully I never got involved in it).

IMHO, it's a lot of work to change something that won\t change a lot of how PF operates.

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