STF

Discussion - Member Ranks

Posted April 17, 2021, 3:02 p.m. by Vice Admiral Daniel Lerner (President / Procedures Guru) (Daniel Lerner)

Posted by Vice Admiral Daniel Lerner (President / Procedures Guru / Personnel Director (outgoing)) in Discussion - Member Ranks

Posted by Rear Admiral Calé Reilly (STF Surgeon General / Academy Commandant / AFComm, Pioneer Fleet / EGO) in Discussion - Member Ranks

Posted by Vice Admiral Daniel Lerner (President / Procedures Guru / Personnel Director (outgoing)) in Discussion - Member Ranks
Posted by… suppressed (11) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Hi everyone,

I’m moving the discussion of MOO to a separate thread here.

MOO currently reads:

*A Member’s club rank, below the rank of Captain, is defined as the highest role-playing rank that a Member has achieved since he joined STF. Club rank at and above the rank of Captain is determined by the most recent Presidential Edict. A Member at or above the rank of Captain may be recognized for exemplary role-playing and service to the club by promotion by the President in an Edict to the next highest club rank.

Character rank is defined as the rank that a Member’s individual role-playing character has attained.

No Member shall have a character with a character rank higher than the Member’s club rank.*

The original version of MOO qualified the last sentence as follows: “In the case of the ranks Captain, Fleet Captain, Commodore, and Admiral, no Member shall have a character with a character rank higher than the Member’s club rank.” Removing that when the rank structure at Captain and above has made it such that no members can actually be promoted, which is… clearly not intended. :)

My proposal is to add that back with this phrasing: “In the case of the ranks of Captain and above…”. :) We could additionally add a line that “Below the rank of Captain, promotions are governed by the Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters Bylaw” (which is where it specifies that COs can promote people up to Lt Cmdr and blah blah blah).

  • Sarah, Prez

I’m not seeing a problem with the current wording.

Adam W.

Neither am I, I see no issue with the current wording.

-Dave S

On my reading the following two lines cancel each other out, making promotions below the rank of Captain technically impossible at the moment.

“A Member’s club rank, below the rank of Captain, is defined as the highest role-playing rank that a Member has achieved since he joined STF.”

“No Member shall have a character with a character rank higher than the Member’s club rank.”

I think Sarah’s amendments make sense given the confusion that arises from the above.

Wail

Yes, this is precisely the issue. Currently, there can be no valid promotions under the rank of Captain.

  • Sarah, Prez

The proposed wording change sounds good to me.

  • Sharon

To me the two sentences don’t mean that someone can’t be promoted to the ranks below captain. Rather it is saying that in the event character rank increases, so must member rank.

That members can be promoted to ranks less than captain and how that occurs is clearly explained in the FCOMM bylaw.

So I don’t see this one as necessary. If we’re changing this wording in this bylaw I would think the more important matter to address would be to permit the Academy an ability to promote members up to a certain point. That is, assuming that is something we want.

Adam W.

It clearly says that a member can’t have a character rank above their member rank. How would you be able to increase member rank, then, if no one can have a character rank above their member rank, but member rank is defined as your highest character rank?

MOO came up as a result of the CADET discussion. Fixing this line also allows for CADET to be fixed to allow what you are saying.

  • Sarah, Prez

To further clarify now that I’m not mobile, the current version of MOO defines each rank, below Captain, as the following:

Club Rank: Club Rank is defined as the highest role-playing rank that a Member has achieved since joining the club.

This one is easy enough. Now, let’s look at role-playing rank. The term “role-playing rank” is not specified in the bylaw, but the term “character rank” is used somewhat interchangeably. That one is defined as follows:

Character Rank: Character rank is defined as the rank that a Member’s individual role-playing character has attained.

Where this gets tricky is the limitations placed on Character Rank by the bylaw, which is: “No Member shall have a character with a character rank higher than the Member’s club rank.”

FCOMM allows a CO to promote a Character Rank through Lieutenant Commander, which may or may not have an effect on the character’s player’s Club Rank. The way the current bylaw is written, though, a player’s character’s Character Rank can never be higher than the player’s Club Rank.

Let’s look at an example:

Albert Einstein has joined STF and created the character Marie Curie to play. Albert has chosen to go straight to a mainstream ship (skipping the Academy), which makes his Club Rank to be Ensign and his character (Marie Curie)’s Character Rank to also be Ensign. After a sim, the CO of his ship is so impressed with his excellent role-playing skills that he promotes Marie Curie to Lieutenant Junior Grade, changing his character’s Character Rank to also be Lieutenant Junior Grade.

Under the current version of MOO, that is not allowed, since that would mean Albert’s character’s Character Rank is now higher than his Club Rank. What is intended to happen is that this will trigger Albert’s Member Rank to increase to Lieutenant Junior Grade as well, since that is the highest role-playing (Character) rank he has attained.

This all affects CADET because it states that Academy Character Ranks are an exception and they do not influence Member Rank. Sorting out this inconsistency in MOO will pave the way for CADET to be reworked to reverse that exception.

Please let me know which part you aren’t following in the issue here. I find that more helpful than simple “I liked the other wording more” responses when the question isn’t about liking one thing or the other, but rather, correcting an issue. If I’m not explaining the issue well, I’d like to know how I can do that better.

  • Sarah, Prez

Sorry firstly if my random CADET thing has caused more issue with other bylaws even though I honestly didn’t foresee this but yes I agree it needs to be changed.

I’m in favour of the proposed change but do we need to say “Below the rank of Captain, promotions are governed by the Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters Bylaw or CADET” ?

Calé

I would say “No”, for two reasons:

  1. Regardless of how promotions are governed now, it could be possible to govern them in other ways in the future. Why needlessly limit the ability to do it?

  2. It is always bad to create a circular dependency between bylaws, where half of some aspect of the club is in one bylaw and the other half of that same thing is in some other bylaw. The result is a lot of additional complexity, since you can’t read a single bylaw and understand how something works. Plus, if you need to change that thing later, you need to make two (or in this case, three) bills to do it, which is a tedious chore that is also prone to introducing new errors, like the very one we’re now discussing.

So let’s not do that.

Joe

I’m partly bumping this to generate some further discussion, and also to share my thoughts.

Right now I agree with the proposed changes, as I think it resolves an unintended consequence of block all below-Captain promotions. While I appreciate not everyone agrees that was the consequence, enough people (including myself) think that it does, and there’s no harm with fixing the wording to make sure everyone is happy :)

That being said, this was a side discussion generated by the CADET discussion. I’m happy to elaborate more (I have shared some of musings in DMs), but I don’t think it actually resolves the issue that came up in that discussion. That is, even with the proposed wording, I don’t think MOO allows promoting to a rank below Captain that isn’t a character/RP rank. So either we propose a further amendment to MOO (something I’m not a huge fan of right now, but I’m very open to hear what others think), or we go back to the CADET discussion and discuss other ways to reward a person for passing the exam.

In terms of whether promotions should or should not be used as a reward for passing an exam, I would ask we keep that in the CADET discussion for now.

For now, Sarah’s MOO proposal has been up since March 27th. I think it’s been up for a sufficient amount of time, but I’m not going to close this or post a bill yet until we reach a conclusion in the CADET discussion, in case further amendments to MOO are required.

Daniel

Personally, I think we should alter MOO further to allow for RP related activities (such as the courses) to be included.

Calé

So the issue is whether we allow a member rank below Captain to reflect a rank other than a member’s highest character rank for Generic Accomplishment X (such as passing a course). (It’s hard to imagine how any club accomplishment is not in some broad fashion an “RP-related activity” if we are including passing an Academy course.)

This would be a change in current club policy that we’ve had since 2006/2007.

One of the issues I see with this change in policy is that that there is currently no standard for how or why COs promote players on their ships (nor do I think there should be a standard). As a result, many of the below-Captain promotions are really just based on the whims of a ship CO. In fact, promotions below Commander are highly discretionary and not reviewable by anyone, including an FComm (again, I agree with that).

Creating a policy where below-Captain member ranks are now the tool used to recognize accomplishments other than having your character promoted equates two things that should not be equated. Not only do I think it’s not much of a reward (for reasons stated above) but it results in a person working hard to pass a course getting the exact same recognition as a person who happened to be on a ship where the CO decided every ensign should be promoted.

I think instead we should find other ways of recognizing and rewarding those types of accomplishments, including updates to our Profile system in Exodus to allow for those recognitions, and maybe increase the use of events per term in Discord.

But that’s my opinion :)

Daniel

So we know Calé and I have a rare disagreement on this issue :) (and trust, me - Calé and I have been arguing about his on and off the boards for a while…). Any one else want to share something that has not been raised yet? Otherwise, on April 24 I will close this discussion due to a lack of consensus/agreement for other changes to MOO and post a bill for the wording Sarah proposed last term. (That doesn’t not prevent other discussions regarding CADET and the exams.)

Daniel


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