Posted by Admiral Joe P (Librarian / TECH Chairman) in Discussion on Bill to Amend Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters (FCOMM)

Posted by Rear Admiral Daniel Lerner (Personnel Director, EGO) in Discussion on Bill to Amend Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters (FCOMM)

Posted by Commodore Steven Sigle (FComm, Meridian Fleet) in Discussion on Bill to Amend Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters (FCOMM)
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
This is a proposal for an amendment to Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters (FComm). Discussion will be open for 7 days, ending on 7/29/19. Helping with moderation of this discussion will be Sarah Hemenway.

Steve Johnson
Vice President

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Proposed Change:
- Change requirements to be a Fleet Commander or Assistant Fleet Commander

Original Text:
(Under the section of “Fleet Structure and Command”, the subsection “Restrictions”)
The Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO of the fleet in question, or a current or former XO in the fleet in question with CO experience. The Assistant Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO or XO of the fleet in question.

Proposed Revision:
The Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO within STF, or a current or former XO within STF, with Assistant Fleet Command experience and a member rank of Captain or above. The Assistant Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO or XO within STF.

This text of this bill seems pretty different from what we were talking about before. Could maybe someone explain why?

– Joe

Personally I like the removal of the fleet restriction as per my original proposal/discussion to remove this. I also 5ink it will open up more potential people to the roles if the CO experience is removed for the FComm part but agree with others that there does need to be adequate admin and experience doing the sorts of things a CO has to deal with as a ship environment administrator.

I’m not sure I agree the club rank must be Captain however but that may just be me. I can foresee that resulting in people being promoted to captain to fulfil this role and we have had issues in the past where people holding this rank were out in charge of struggling ships with the assumption they had been COs before and actually had none of that experience which concerns me.

Possibly unrelated to this completely but almost an indirect tie in is we are assuming that having afcomm experience means that the person in question has been taught how to do the role properly. Now I know that as an afcomm who became a FComm rather suddenly I was literally in at the deep end and floundered while I tried to work out exactly what my job entailed because it is more than just filing the monthly reports. I know others have had a similar experience. Perhaps if we are making this change a further discussion is needed to establish the exact remit of the fleet commander and assistant fleet commander and what support is available in the club for these roles.

Cale

I fully agree with Cale this position doesn’t need the captain rank for a few reasons, but mostly I think cause for many years I think too much pressure has been placed on FCOMM/AFCOMM roles. I have held this position off and on for over 10 years, you just need to know how to run the admin page and read Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters (FComm) to know your powers you are in charge of. This doesn’t need a degree from Yale, 5 years experience, and a recommendation from Bill Gates to take the role.

So many people want to step up but we make it seem so daunting and scary at times. If we open this position up to as many as we can we encourage people to help the club in more ways than before. It helps people from all levels in the club to give more chances to people to be able to assist the club wherever they feel capable. So for me, I am all for removal of this archaic restriction that gives us nothing more than headaches when trying to bring others into positions in the club.

~Steven Sigle

Argh.... Yes, FComm doesn’t require a Yale degree, etc. But it’s more than what has just been described. When done properly, FComm is one of the hardest positions in the club. One of my issues over the last few years is that we’re not properly explaining to FComms what the job is, to the extent it has just become what has been described above.

Being FComm requires:
-Sufficient familiarity with the TOS to ensure that ships are properly complying with them (including behavourial issues and copyright issues).
-Ensuring COs are being properly trained and updated with their responsibilities, tools, and various changes that come along
-Ensuring that COs are properly maintaining their ship to be a healthy RP environment
-Understanding the differences between a regular ship and an alt-RPG ship, and making sure that ships have appropriate RP environments
-Identifying potential issues on a ship before a CO or a player comes running to the FComm about a problem
-Being the admin person responsible for ensuring there is a balance between the needs of the ship and the needs of the club
-Assisting the COs with finding appropriate resources as needed when they are having difficulty with recruitment, updating or replacing an MOTD, etc.
-Being experienced enough to make a decision about consenting to a request to promote a person to Commander (something that requires FComm consent) and appointing an XO (which the bylaw gives fleets the option of creating that policy)
-Knowing when to recommend a new CO for a ship versus an experienced CO for a ship when a vacancy comes up
-Knowing when it is time to recommend replacing a CO

That’s just what I came up with quickly. There’s a certain amount of experience required. I’m still torn on whether we should remove the CO background requirement all together for a FComms, but at a minimum it needs a certain amount of background given those listed responsibilities.

Daniel

Don’t forget “Appointing GMs” and “Reading the content of every single post in the fleet (split with assistant)” on that list.

– Joe

I think this is a good list of what the remit was. As far as I was trained as an AFComm and the had to learn to do as aFComm thrust into the role it seems right to me.

I’m not sure if it is that anymore exactly. If we are going to discuss and finalise the responsibilities and remit of a FComm now this is a very good place to start.

Cale