Council of Setons Reboot

[visionik]

Hello everyone –

It’s time to begin restructuring the Council of Setons (CoS). For those who don’t know, the CoS was set up to guide the “work” side of Forged Alliance forever (FAF). The CoS has been in place for coming up on two years. We’ve had some people come and go, and we’ve had some roles that have worked and some that have not.

The biggest problems we’ve had with the CoS are:

1. Time availability from all CoS members
2. Lack of regular, scheduled communications
3. Clear identification of responsibilities

We are addressing all three.

First, we are going to have all CoS members sign an agreement (ceremonial, not contractual) that they will put in a minimum of 4-6 hours of work per week. If they are not able to do so they will be rotated/replaced with a new member in their position relatively quickly.

Second, the ceremonial agreement will require CoS members to be available for a regularly scheduled call every two weeks. Again, if they are not able to do so they will be rotated/replaced with a new member in their position relatively quickly.

Third, we are working here and on Slack to identify some of the specific responsibilities each councilor will have.

We'd like your feedback on these roles, their names, and the responsibilities. In parallel, we are also going to start nominations for a new Player Councilor; which I'll do in a separate thread.

If we could please let's keep this thread focused on the new CoS structure, roles, names, and responsibilities. Feel free to start other threads to discuss any other questions, suggestions, comments, or concerns you have.

The current plan is to include the following roles (and their associated responsibilities):

Responsibilities of all Councilors
• Make overall strategic decisions of FAF
• Appoint / manage voting on new councilors
• Dismiss councilors who are unable to do the job
• Biweekly meetings (Semi-mandatory)
• Be available on Slack



1. Administrative Councilor (visionik)
• Bookkeeping of FAF “budget”
• General Administration
• Help settle disputes between Councilors
• Break any tie votes
• Veto right (Visionik speaking – I rarely if ever expect to use this)



2. Moderator Councilor (Voodoo)
• Lead the moderator team
• Approve new avatars

Moderator Team
• All other moderators



3. Player Councilor (To Be Nominated)
• Organizing event schedule
• Organizing tournament directors
• Gather feedback from the community about top desires and problems
• Stay in touch with the community as much as possible on general issues
• Organize player surveys



4. System Software Councilor (Sheeo)
• Be generally available 24/7 in case of server issues
• Make general technical decisions for the overall technical structure of FAF
• Schedule/deploy client/server updates
• Give server access to the capable



5. Game Councilor (To Be Nominated)
• Schedule/Deploy game patches
• Non balance related bug fixes
• Strong communication with Balance designers
• Lead the Game Team

Game Team
• Anyone who contributes to game (LUA) code



6. Balance Councilor (Zock)
• Set the strategic direction for game balance
• Lead the Balance Team (have a final say in game balance related questions)

Balance Team
• Other balance team members



7. Promotion Councilor (To Be Nominated)
• Managing official media channels (What’s New, Facebook, Youtube)
• Managing wiki contribution
• Organizing resources for streamers/casters (tags for yt vids)
• External advertisement
• Guide the Promotion Team

Promotion Team
• What’s New contributors
• FAF Facebook page contributors
• FAF Youtube channel contributors
• Wiki contributors



8. Mod & Map Councilor (To Be Nominated)
• Deleting maps from the vault (duplicates, cheat maps from moderator order etc.)
• Decide on which mods are featured
• Ladder Map pool selection (Evolution of ladder as a whole)

[Blackheart]

It appears the balance councilor is unchanged and the system not up for discussion. Is this correct? (Thinking about viewtopic.php?f=67&t=13130 )

[visionik]

Blackheart:

I am so massively over-due on getting the general council restructure - and more specifically, the nomination for Player Councilor done - that I'm very focused on these subjects right now.

It's so over-due that I really most apologize to everyone for how long it's taken.

That said, anything about the council is up for discussion, and I would expect that one of things the new Player Councilor will do is help us gather information (via surveys, discussions, etc) about other changes we should make to the council, its members, and our process.

If after getting the Player Councilor we find that the community wants to change things about the Balance Councilor (person or process), we should do that...

Please note that I am not saying I'm unhappy with anything Zock (or you, Blackheart) has done or is doing. I just want to get this first massively over-due task done, then let's all have a discussion about Balance.

[IceDreamer]

*Raises hand for Game Councillor*

Since I literally have been doing it for 9 months already :p

[TheKoopa]

Map and mods need to be separated because there is literally no one who both makes good maps and good mods.

[speed2]

Map and mods need to be separated because there is literally no one who both makes good maps and good mods.

That's not what the position is for, to make the best maps and mods. Anyone can do that. Doesn't require anything...

[IceDreamer]

The position is one of management and administration. Anyone with the time and motivation could fulfil the role, but knowledge of mods and/or maps would of course be a bonus.

[Lieutenant Lich]

I like this idea, visionik. Can I try the role of mod/map councilor?

Spoiler: show

I made a map selector to do ladder selections automatically, with a bit of work it will select them just fine.

[TheKoopa]

Map and mods need to be separated because there is literally no one who both makes good maps and good mods.

That's not what the position is for, to make the best maps and mods. Anyone can do that. Doesn't require anything...

A mapper doesn't know how mods work or how the mod vault works and vice versa.

[biass]

Map and mods need to be separated because there is literally no one who both makes good maps and good mods.

That's not what the position is for, to make the best maps and mods. Anyone can do that. Doesn't require anything...

A mapper doesn't know how mods work or how the mod vault works and vice versa.

This is why (and i said this at the beginning) we need a map and a mod team that can help inform the councillor!