Council of Setons Discussion

[visionik]

Hi everyone.

I hope you are enjoying FAF and I also hope the new server is working well for you.

As you know, my plan when I purchased FAF and worked with Ze_Pilot to get the old server turned back on was to transition FAF to community driven leadership.

I’ve spent a great deal of time over the last two months getting to know the community better by talking, chatting, and working with a lot of the people involved in FAF. I didn’t want to make any quick decisions. I wanted to learn what the “FAF community” really meant. Who contributed, want roles did they play, and how would they best be represented on the community leadership group I’ve been calling the “Council of Setons”. I came up with 8 parts of the community I think are key:

1. Players – this really speaks for itself. The player community of FAF is the heart and soul of FAF.

2. Client/Server Developers – these are the people that invest their time improving both the FAF client you download and use and the server processes the client uses behind the scenes that make the client work.

3. Patch and Balance Developers – the people who build the “FAF patch”, in-game lobby, and work on balancing units for the core of FAF gameplay itself.

4. MOD & Map Developers – equally as important as FAF gameplay is the rich library of game mods and maps we have.

5. Server Operators – these are the people who work behind the scenes to make sure the game server is working well, is fixed when things go wrong, and generally “run” the FAF website, core server, proxy server, etc.

6. Moderators – you know them and (unless you’ve been banned) you probably love them, the moderation team for both FAF client chat, games, and the forums. They help keep the FAF community from going insane.

7. Promoters – the people who help promote FAF via blogs, casts, contests, and other forms of promotion. They help grow the FAF community.

8. Administrators – people (such as myself) who help out with a wide variety of tasks, including some of the above and other things like finances, working with all of the teams to help progress, and generally help fill in and divide the big role Ze_Pilot played within FAF.

So while it’s not the absolute final list, I’m thinking these 8 individuals would represent the FAF community. They would each work with and help guide a team of people responsible for each area. For example we have several people working on the FAF client/server, and several who want to work on patch/balance moving forward.

For the first year and to get things started soon, I propose to select 7 of the first-year councilors. I am thinking that each councilor would serve for one year, and then each community group would select a new councilor. I’d leave it up to each group to determine how they select their councilor, only stepping in if no one can be selected. The 8th role, the player councilor, would always be elected by the community of FAF players – including this first year.

The council itself would vote on strategic plans, but leave the details up to each individual team. With an 8 person council we can have a tie vote. That is fine. I think if we have a tie, the community should work to go one direction or another. If we had a tie for an extended period of time, say a few months, then I would cast a tie-breaking vote. But only after all attempts to find a compromise have been explored.

These are my thoughts. As I said, this is not a final plan, but it is the result of my thinking over the last two months. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or other thoughts, please let me know by either:

- posting on this thread

- or by sending me a PM in FAF chat.

Thank you, and I look forward to you thoughts!

-Visionik

[galacticfear]

Sounds good.

[rootbeer23]

for a vote on balance having equal vote for players/balance team with moderators/promoters makes no sense.
i am sure we can come up with a better voting system for that eventually.
just as an example: 3.5 votes distributed as such:
* players with > 1 year of supcom experience
* players with < 1 year (1/2 vote)
* balance developers/coders
* a balanceteam that volunteers to debate and think about it.

but the details are offtopic.

[BRNKoINSANITY]

I think it actually does make sense.... I am a member of three of the groups, so I can speak for them (in my opinoin).

Moderators deal with complaints of every shape, size, and colors. We KNOW when something is broken and we know how the community feels about it, for better or for worse. Moderators are a good judge of the whole of the active player's opinion because we always hear it.

Players, well, of course we have opinions about balance! We play the game! Everyone cares one way or another, and the people who are actually active and want to have a say will be the ones electing the person to speak for them. The person who does will have the majority of the active playerbase behind them. Those who choose not to vote can't complain about the result, and those who lose the vote know that they are in the minority. Your voice will still be heard, but in a democratic way.

Promotors are also a good gauge. I read this as the castors, and I can personally say that in addition to playing ~20 games a week, I watch another ~15 replays in order to gather my materials. We see the game go by in mass, and we see the flow of general gameplay, not just one person's interpretation.

I think this councel is a brilliant idea, and it has my full support!

[DarkMatterVale]

VisionInk,

This looks great! Could you specify which group people who are contributing to Galactic War would fit in? Thanks.

Also, as a person new to coding FAF but a regular player, I feel that there should be votes/questionnaires open to everyone, mainly geared towards those that do not contribute code or would most likely fit in the player category. This way players have a simple and easy way to voice their opinions.

[Napalm175]

Sounds like a good idea to me!

[belatedcube]

community leadership group I’ve been calling the “Council of Setons”.

but why setons? why not stella maris, twin rivers, or canis?

otherwise sounds nice

[Rogueleader89]

Sounds good, though you might want to make some mention of contingencies incase we have someone get a position and have to leave for some number of months or who stops participating in the council (I seem to recall a balance team or two falling apart in the past due to this sort of thing), does the council operate without them? Do we replace them with someone else? What method do we use to replace them?

I guess my point is, this sounds like a great way to structure the council, your groups sound great and should represent a large portion of the community pretty well, selecting these people the first year is also probably a good idea and gives each group some time to sort out how they will select people in the future.

Otherwise I second DarkMatterVale's request to know where people handling galactic war would fit in, I could see it fitting under server/client developers but at the same time its kind of its own separate thing and someone coding UI, friendslists and matchmaking is fairly different from someone coding in strategic level mechanics and balance into galactic war; this said, I could see galactic war being divided between multiple categories, it certainly has its own balance, it needs its own server/client work, its own maps and mods, etc. but that should probably be clarified. Since each category outside of their council member (who presumably oversees everything and probably has their own project they are working on in the area they represent) seems like it will be largely self-organizing I assume splitting GW over multiple groups would mean we would have subgroups essentially dedicated to galactic war in each (so our galactic war-specific balance isn't necessarily being determined by the same people who play normal faf and may not have as much interest or investment in GW), but again any clarification you can provide would be appreciated.


Lastly, as to the name, I have a feeling it will stick but ideally, while I personally have no better ideas, it would be nice to have a name that represents a larger amount of faf members than just the seton's clutch community

[rexx1888]

seems solid to me in my newcomeriness

[IceDreamer]

Solid set-up.