Posted by Vice Admiral Sarah Hemenway (CMM) in Proposal: Ship Spotlight of the Month

Posted by Vice Admiral Sarah Hemenway (CMM) in Proposal: Ship Spotlight of the Month

Posted by Vice Admiral Daniel Lerner (Vice President / Procedures Guru / Personnel Director) in Proposal: Ship Spotlight of the Month
I’ve been playing around with this idea for the last few years - maybe even during my last term as prez, but I think we’re are a good point to see if we can put some legs on it.

I have an idea that I’ve been calling Ship Spotlight of the Month.

I’ll start with what it might look like, and then why I think its a good idea, and then some discussion questions.

Each month, we would spotlight a specific ship in the club (not including the Academy ship(s), as that might be too disruptive/inconsistent with the training program, nor would it be useful for the goals of this proposal). There would be a set schedule that COs and FComms/QDirs/EAs would know. While that schedule can change, ships should have at least 2-3 months notice before they are the spotlighted ship so they can get ready. If a ship is too unhealthy for that month, we can skip/delay the spotlight while we work on those issues.

When the ship is spotlighted, the following will happen:
-The front page will have blub about the ship and an invitation to check it out
-Our social media (FB, Twitter) will make multiple references to that ship and/or events on that ship during the month.
-Characters from the ship might be spotlighted and/or referenced in-character on other ships.
-Something special in the newsletter
-Optional: the CO could allow people to RP guest characters on the ship for the month
—If this is done, maybe a side-sim where the ship is docked to allow for those guest characters during the month.
-If needed, the PDept will help with recruitment drives for that ship during the month
-Anything else that makes sense

This will accomplish a few things:
-Give members a chance to see what is happening on other ships in the club
-Maybe drive up interest in that ship if needed
-Allow different in-character interactions that may generate more fun/interest in the ship
-By focusing on some of our specific ships, potentially generate outside interest in the club
-Have fun!

Some some discussion points:
1) Is there general support for this idea or, conversely, a strong reason not to do it?
2) If we went ahead, who would be responsible for organizing it (keeping the schedule, making sure ships are ready, announcements, coordinating with CMM and other departments, etc.)? A new position? The PDept? CMM?
3)If we went ahead, are there other aspects of the ship spotlight that should be considered?
4) Have I missed anything with this proposal?

Daniel

Hi everyone,

I’m bumping this original post back up here as we’ll be starting to make a plan about this and I’d like to solidify what we’d like the spotlight to look like each month. As COs and FComms, what feels manageable to you?

Thank you,

• Sarah, CMM

Bumping this, as otherwise, I’m going to have to decide what’s manageable for COs and FComms and I really don’t want to do that. :)

• Sarah, CMM

Ok, so I just read this for the first time, and I’m sorry to say I don’t really find the idea as you’ve described it here appealing. As a CO of a ship, the benefits you’re presenting me here aren’t very interesting to me, yet you seem to want me to do more work. It kind of makes the whole thing a non-starter.

If we’re going to promote ships, then I think that it’s got to be something that’s relatively effortless for the people playing on that ship. Our ships ought to be appealing as they are; if they aren’t appealing as they are, then we probably shouldn’t be spotlighting them with the goal of attracting an external audience to our website. If we have to spend 2 to 3 months to “get ready” for something, that’s probably a lot of disruption that isn’t going to add a lot of value to whatever it is we all actually want to be doing that month anyway.

I personally also don’t really care that much whether my characters are spotlighted on other ships or written about on other ships. People either have a reason for people to write about my characters on other ships or they don’t; while I like references about other characters on other ships because that creates a sense of the club being an actual place in the galaxy, I don’t see a need to “astro-turf” this. It’s only clever and interesting if people have a natural reason to be doing this.

I absolutely don’t want to deal with “guest characters” on my ship, unless this is a highly structured and coordinated activity; all of my experience of this as the CO who has had to put up with it were headaches, and all of the times where I was dragged into being a guest somewhere else never paid off from a roleplaying perspective because they were generally unfocused activities with no real point.

So yeah, sorry to be so brutal here. I don’t like to say no to people’s ideas but you seemed despirate for any feedback at all…

Joe