Posted by Sharon Miller in Bickering is bad, Love is good

Posted by Katherine Dedul in Bickering is bad, Love is good

Posted by Fleet Captain David Eads (Academy Commandant) in Bickering is bad, Love is good
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Hello Everyone, Happy September.

I thought I would write a separate post regarding what is going on in command because it’s become very confusing with all of the threads splitting of from each other. Just encase you haven’t been reading, the executive team are moving some ships and it has caused quite a divide.

Before I begin, as a former Fcomm and CO in the Infinite fleet I thought I would just add that, in the 6/7 years that the infinite fleet has existed, I’ve never seen anyone really push for it to have it’s own identity, infact, in the 7 years I have been a member, I have never seen any posts about “fleet identity” however that is not to say that it doesn’t exist just a question “where is it”. I was fairly new to the club at the time the other fleets and ships were decommissioned, but I don’t remember a discussion on “we are losing their fleet identity” I have never also in my time as an XO or CO ever been approached by an FComm with the “welcome to the fleet, our fleet is …” and had them tell me about the fleet. However others may have a different experience and I would be interested to hear about that.

I have been away from the club for a while so I’m not going to comment about the fcomm situation (we have loads of people wanting to be fcomm why remove a fleet and make it harder)

Anyway, now to some positives of the change.
- The club has a low membership number, the academy has dropped to just 1 ship in recent years, why are we trying to stretch the club out to make it look bigger when it really doesn’t need to be.
- what if we want to add more ships? then add more ships. I’ll happily have an extra ship in my fleet, I’ll take 10 extra if it means the club is getting larger. As an FComm I want to do the role, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have applied for it. I am lucky (this is not a statement against anyone else) I have very capable captains in my fleet, some have been president and I’m fairly sure all of them have done work in some way ooc for the club. All I do is read the posts now and again, make sure they are not going awol, and write a report. I am however going to be making proposals as the term continues, but that has nothing to do with this. To cut a long story short, I wouldn’t mind having 7 in the fleet, if it became to much I could do something about it.

Now onto the main reason I write this post.

A very interesting thing has happened on one of the threads in command about this issue, it’s not the first time and i’m sure it won’t be the last…

When a prospective new member looks at the club where do you think they go first, I would hazard a guess it’s the button at the top that says “starfleet command” and then to “command ship” - why because why wouldn’t you. If you saw people with senior star trek ranks associated to them bickering and calling each other names slagging off others and calling out their ethics and motivations etc etc I would assume the last thing you would do is say “WOW I WANT TO JOIN THAT LOOKS LIKE FUN” #Sarcasm

I draw everyone’s attention to the terms of Service and I think we need to start reading out posts with these in mind so I have decided to make everyone a little checklist. If you tick one of these then you need to re-read your post and have a serious think about it.

1. Does my post make someone upset enough to not enjoy their time at STF
2. Does my post have anything unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, sexually explicit, profane, hateful, fraudulent, racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable in it?

not a big list but one that we all need to take a step back and seriously think about it. I know a lot of people like stf have been here a long time and have seen and helped mould it into what it is. But is that seriously worth belittling and berating people over. (it’s a trick question, the answer is no)

I would like to give this (FREE OF CHANGE) to anyone who needs any help making a post about something the disagree with or something they disagree with about the disagreement etc etc.

For this example, the President has just declared that they will extending the executive washroom which will mean the potted plant outside the door will need to be moved.

President: I am extending the washroom, please move the plant

Opposition 1 : I disagree with this decision, I would like to know the reasoning behind it

President: I wish to add a new sink to the washroom so that I can pre wash my hands before washing my hands

Member 1: I think this is a good idea

Opposition 1: That plant has been their for some time, why wasn’t this discussed

President: I discussed this with various positions, I apologise that you were not one of them I understand that this decision may take some of the elements of the club that you value, but the decision was the correct one to make because…

---

This was an example that I was writing and realised it morphed a little to close to the real discussion so i stopped and was too lazy to think of another example. but the point is there, nobody has insulted anyone.

My work is very well known for having a lot of hostility towards it, and we get some very rude customers coming to us, my main policy is

• if you are rude or mean to me I will give you the bare minimum and won’t pull out the stops to help you
• if you treat me with a little respect I will do that little bit extra to help
• If you are a nice person I will spend (and have done) hours trying to get you what I can even if I end up falling flat on my face.

I’m currently really tired so most of this post is probably nonsense but these are my final 3 thoughts,

The first DON’T BE MEAN - if you disagree something say “I disagree with this, this is why…” and in reply say “I see your point of view, I think…”

Secondly - Don’t try and one up everyone, over the years I have noticed people come out with various things to try and make themselves seem more “in the know”

And Finally I propose at the very least, everyone from now on should have to say at least 2 nice things about the person they are replying to before writing anything

Rob J

I’ll drink to that. Thank you for taking the time to voice this, Rob.

I’ll add that I’ve been in the club a fair amount of years myself, and have heard very very little about fleet identity. What little I did see discussed was in the venue of one fcomm showing the ropes to a new fcomm. It was also my experience that the fcomm I learned the most from did know where the fleet operated on the star map, and took pains to make that clear, though it was and remains largely ignored. Which tells me that people seem to be concerned with their own ships and little else. If we want community in a larger sense, say fleet culture… Then we must work to grow that.

Thanks,
Dave Eads

Thanks Rob and Dave for your thoughts,

I’d like to just add my two cents in as well. I saw a lot more evidence of “Fleet identity” years upon years ago when we had numbers and it was insanely competitive for GMs to get ships.

In my experience as a CO, former FComm, former President, former VP, et al. fleet culture became increasingly more exhausting for those interested in maintaining it. I was there for the Fleet 7 flagship races and I tried to hold one during my tenure as FComm-7 and I literally exhausted myself until I came to the startling realization that hardly anyone outside of myself and my assistant gave a darn.

I tried and failed to foster that as Infinite Fleet Commander years later, maybe I was doing it wrong, but when you get crickets whenever you send an email or post something on a ship, it’s hard to stay motivated and keep moving forward on an idea. I honestly felt like I was standing on a podium in an empty auditorium and that hurt. So I gave up, because who wants to feel like your carefully crafted email just goes into a black hole?

So my advice to those who are concerned about fleet culture, make yourself known to your FComm and give them your thoughts and your ideas, I’m sure they’d happily accept your ideas (or at least discuss them with you in terms of whether it’s possible in the current climate). I know I would’ve when I was there.

And with that, I’m going to quietly grab a drink and go back to the Chimera and generally minding my business. :)

-Kat

It saddens me to read that you feel this way, Kat, because actually you are the FCOMM who got me to care about fleet identity. I know I’ve mentioned this already elsewhere, but since so many people are making broad claims on how ‘nobody’ cares about fleet identity, I might as well repeat it. When I was the CO of the Viking and the XO of the Magellan, the location of Infinite Fleet featured heavily in the theme of those ships. They both shared a sense of being a little run down and a little ragged, something we frequently ‘blamed’ on our distance from Starfleet HQ. And in fact, we made a huge feature of our proximity to the Klingon and Romulan empires on Magellan by having a lot of our equipment be sourced from there rather than from the Federation itself.

Anyway, I think I’m the only person enjoying this trip down memory lane, lol, but I just wanted to let you know that your efforts WERE heard and appreciated by someone!

• Sharon

Thanks Kat for chiming in! I wish you would do so more often, as what little communication we’ve had has always been very interesting and provided angles and experience that I’ve not considered.

And Sharon, you know I’m one of your biggest fans. Our experiences coming up through the fleet need to be communicated and passed on, especially if we mean to instill a culture or identity above and beyond just ship crew level interactions.

I’ve been going over some ideas in my head all day for some kind of semon type post, and Rob sort of beat me to the punch on it… However, thinking about something Jerome said has got me wondering about moving forward and building up the club. What he said was something along the lines of (and forgive my paraphrasing here) “Our ships are our communities, where good friends share stories.” I may disagree with Jerome on any number of issues, but he’s right about that. At least in my opinion. If we want the kind of community where we can all be friends and know each other on a more familiar level, we need to all be open to that. We need to not be so afraid or at least not so unconcerned that we can’t reach out to people we don’t know and try to make some connection.

If we foster a sense of community as a club, it would probably help discussions here in command be less aggressive in nature, yielding better results as we debate and work to build policies. I’ve also seen membership numbers discussed a lot recently (as well as all through my membership), how can we retain members? The fact of the matter is that Community drives Retention. People stay where they feel welcome, and go where they’re valued.

Something I would very much like to see… Is the various segments of the club membership making a better effort to reach out and find the value in each other. We may not be the real Starfleet, but we can espouse those values that draw us in, and do our best to uphold them.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
-Dave