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I am not in support of this proposal. I do not fault those who drafted this proposal - there is a clear problem, and this is an attempt to find a solution to that problem. But I believe this will not only not solve the problem, it will make things worse. I think it is helpful to understand (1) the historical context of how we got here, (2) the problems this creates for this ships and the club as a whole, (3) how burnout in STF is actually playing out and why this proposal will not only not solve it but has the real potential of making it worse, and (4) what we need to do to resolve the problem.

Historical context

In the very early days of STF, it wasn’t even universally accepted that COs could automatically keep their position from term-to-term. They were presidential appointments, and there was a real question of whether COs needed to be re-appointed each term. Ultimately, the club’s consensus was that unlike other presidential appointments (such as the positions we now call the cabinet), COs kept their position from term-to-term, and an edict was posted to that end. But this question nonethless reflected an early view that positions in STF were not generally considered to be held in the long-term or in a semi-permanent way. Early on in STF, CO appointments rarely got to longer than a year or two. Over time, though, this changed, and we started getting a sense of entitlement to positions in STF, and hurt feelings (and even angry rants in Command) if there was a need for a change - even though these positions were meant to be held for the betterment of the club, not the individual holding the position. I recently heard someone actually say that COs can only be removed if they haven’t posted for 30 days! I don’t know how we reached that point, but we have come a long way from what the original intentions were behind CO appointments.

It’s also important to understand the ebe-and-flow of ships in the club. STF first experimented with having a website and creating a separate web-based fleet (STF’s third fleet) in the mid-to-late 90s. There was nothing quite like STF at that time - a free website for online Star Trek roleplaying with characters, well thought out sims and ships, opportunity for characters to move up in rank, with multiple, accessible Star Trek shows on television and a great source for role-playing. That early experiment proved to be very popular, and the new member numbers swelled. To respond, STF quickly started creating new ships and new fleets to administer those ships - in just a few years we would see the creation of the fourth fleet, the fifth fleet and the sixth fleet. Then moving the first fleet from Prodigy to the web. And finally moving the second fleet over and closing down STF on Prodigy, as that was the direction everything was going.

But the popularity of STF waned. It’s still there, but it was no longer the new and exciting. Other free online Star Trek RP websites came up - some directly copying from STF’s success. The Star Trek franchise stalled, with no television shows and a movie franchise that was not nearly as accessible to Star Trek fans for role-playing purposes. An original membership getting older, having families, and less time for someone like online roleplaying. And ultimately, other ways to role-play online for free that for some people is easier than the text-based Star Trek roleplaying STF does - there will always be a place for STF’s style, but it’s not the only option anymore (and it’s not nearly as exciting for some people as a graphic-based role-playing game).

We introduced a lot of ships when the membership numbers swelled. But while no one complained when it was time to create ships, members in Command found there will always be people upset or angry when it was time to reduce those numbers (see above how we started to have a sense of entitlement to our positions). “Yes, ships need to be reduced, but why my ship?” “We just need to allow players to create more characters.” “Let’s lower the GM standards so we can have more GMs!” (that was a ‘fun’ one!), and so on. Dissenters might be the minority, but they were a vocal minority. And so what should have been the normal state of affairs (increase ships and fleets with more members, decrease ships and fleets with less members) took on an unfair political aspect, and was now seen by some people as a sign of defeat or lack of success.

I cannot begin to express how absolutely frustrating I am when I am told we will only decommission a ship as a “last resort”. That was never supposed to be the case, the club is dying as a result.

So we end up with ships we can’t maintain, and cabinet positions we can’t fill (so we keep filling with whoever will volunteer regardless of experience, resulting in less accountability or understanding regarding in why we cannot maintain these stretched number of ships. COs don’t turn away a player who already has 6 or more characters, and then are surprised when that player is burning out and not posting on all of these different ships. GMs are stretched to the limit. And ships become more and more vulnerable to the few players who cannot post and are burning out, and are desperately trying to recruit from an already stretcher membership to try to keep their ship “healthy” and not vulnerable to decomm.

We are all avoiding what needs to be done. Reduce ships. Reduce fleets/FComms.

Instead, we are left with this proposal. Keep a stretched out membership, and unsustainable number of ships and fleets, and just let the burnt out members post less.

This won’t solve the problem. But it will make it much, much worse.

This proposal will make the ships and club worse and unsustainable

The traditions and policies of STF regarding ship speeds and posting requirements are centered around an club and enjoyability of the overall players. STF has incredibly lasted over 30 years, and that is no small achievement! This is in part to the model we have generally followed: we balance between the needs of the overall players and an individual player, with a strong leaning towards the overall players.

Our existing 30-year model has worked well. We have had clear ship speeds (I know it was mentioned elsewhere this was only introduced in 2011, but that is not correct. Set speeds, with a slow speed and a medium speed pre-dates as moving to the WeBB, and lasted until at least 2009 with clear speeds. It disappeared for a couple of years, before being requested to be brought back by the PDept in 2011. But for the period of roughly 2009 to 2011, we have had standard speed ships, and it has served us well.)

You place a player in a ship with the correct speed for what they expect to be posting. Everyone on that ship posts at that set speed. If the player ends up posting too slow, you move their character to a ship that is slower. If they are posting too fast, you move their character to a ship that is faster. It worked. It worked for a long, long time. It worked because people were willing to change ships. It worked because ship speeds were enforced - first by the CO, and then by the FComm. If someone posts too slow, they are either left out of the sim because players cannot wait for them, or the whole sim stalls while waiting for the slower player, and the players complain. If someone posts too fast, it could be overwhelming for the rest of the crew, and sometimes unfair when they posted first or took lead in every sim-related post. Enforcing ship speeds and moving players to the correct ship was the model that worked. And enforcing AWOLs, of course - including removing players who simply kept AWOLing, which affected the whole ship.

This proposal throws that model on its head. Now, we are accepting that ship speeds won’t be enforced. Players will not know what to expect from their fellow players. Sims can be delayed because some player has a different posting requirement from the rest of the ship - or that player just has to be left out of the sims, etc. Instead of enforcing AWOLs, we will just let AWOL players ask to permanently be allowed to post less, regardless of the affect that has on the rest of the ship and the players.

I think has been missed all together. When I asked for confirmation that the Academy would be exempt from this proposal (which was ultimately confirmed), the proposal drafters indicated the original intention had been to include the Academy fleet! This only shows that there has been little thought into the impact this has on the players as a whole, and seems focused on the individual players to the prejudice of the club and the ship.

And all of this when we have the tools and the models to address this already - if they were actually enforced. Yes, the strain on the membership needs to be addressed. But instead of doing the obvious - reduce ships and fleets - we are killing the very model that worked for 30 years, which I say will be far, far more harmful to the club in the long run.

How burnout plays out

Raise your hand if this sounds like you at some point in STF.

You are starting to feel overwhelmed in STF. Maybe too many positions. Maybe it’s not that enjoyable right now. Maybe you have more interesting hobbies. Maybe work is busy. Maybe there’s an issue at home or the family. Maybe a combination of the above.

And if no one removes you? You’re just one more AWOL member on the ship, waiting until the absolute limit before you post again because of involved it has become.

That, I suggest, is STF burnout.

Reducing STF commitments (either the number of positions, or the positions held that have additional responsibilities, like CO), not having to read through so many posts, and making STF fun and not a responsibility for all of the players is the trick to solving it.

This proposal makes it worse.

First - based on my description above, it will usually be the CO reaching out to the player, or the FComm reaching out to the CO, rather than the other way around. But instead of a conversation about stepping away or stepping down to improve their STF experience, we’re going to encourage them to keep their ships and responsibilities, but just not post as often (which is symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.) This will increase burnout.

Second - all that will happen is the burned-out member has even less need to post. Instead of feeling guilty for not posting every 7 days for example, they will only feel guilty when they don’t post every 10 days or 15 days or whatever they work out with the CO. They’ll still feel guilty and burned out. But they just have to post less. So no solution there.

Third - it’s even worse for them when they do finally post! There will be even more posts waiting for them - because there is now a total mis-match of their posting frequent and the ship’s speed. They will have to read even more on all of those ships just to get caught up! And they can’t even participate in a sim that has moved on without them.

If that’s what burn out is, not only will this proposal not solve the problem, it will make is so much worse!

What needs to happen to solve the problem?

We’re burned out and stretched beyond our limits because we aren’t doing what we need to do by attaching inappropriate political aspects to it.

When the club started breaking 100, then 200, then 300 members, we responded accordingly. But as we went down, we have refused to respond.

We have the ships and cabinet size for a club in excess of 150 members. I stand to be corrected, but I think our club is 60-80. That’s not going to grow anytime soon in a major way, but we can stabilize it from shrinking. And to do that, we must make ourselves sustainable.

When the first draft proposal was given to the cabinet, I had some strong language about it. While this proposal is much better, it is still the wrong direction to move in, and avoids us doing what needs to be done to actually fix the problem. I’ll repeat what I had to stay to the cabinet about the original proposal as I think it still applies now with this proposal:

I disagree with this proposal. This is because (a) in the long run this is the death of the club, and (b) there is a better way to address the problems. Any solution will result in upset members quitting but this proposal undermines what made STF successful to allow a recent status quo that is killing the club become the norm.

I still stand by that.

Daniel Lerner