Posted by Adam W. in Question for the Candidates - ship speeds (and procedures)

Posted by Admiral Joe P (Election Coodinator) in Question for the Candidates - ship speeds (and procedures)

Posted by Adam W. in Question for the Candidates - ship speeds (and procedures)
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
I have some questions for tickets about (potential) issues with how we determine the speeds of our various ships.

1) What is your understanding of the rules or policies about how a ship changes its posting speed?

I’ll assume these questions aren’t about X-Fleet, where rules and policies aren’t as common and most things are up to those on the crew to sort out (though one rule is X-Fleet can’t be joined by someone who isn’t already at least an ensign).

In the Academy one would need to update Mandate 13, a mandate that coincidentally needs updating. That would be the Commandant’s responsibility to make that decision.

CO’s of standard ships and alternative RPG’s without an AWOL limit in their charter would need to seek the approval of their FComm before making the change.

An Alternative RPG could seek to have their charter changed to add or change AWOL limits. The President would need to issue an edict and the Fleet Commander would need to approve as well.

2) What is your understanding of the rules or policies about whether a ship can choose to refuse to accept new members?

Alternative RPG’s can include in their charter that they are for second characters only. Alternative RPG’s need to be specifically chartered or marked to receive new members and the new members need to specifically request them (which happens often with the Chernov).

As for standard ships, it is the responsibility of the Personnel Department to issue departmental mandates to determine how new members get placed. I’m not spotting anything specifically written about standard ships refusing new members in either the bylaw or the departmental policies, which I’m guessing is why you’re asking this question. In practice, it has been up to the CO’s to determine whether or not their ships accept new members.

3) Do you see any potential issues with the current status quo regarding ship speeds and ships that accept new members? (Note that I have used the word ‘potential’ intentionally.)

Hypothetically if all the ships decided to do the same thing that’d create an issue. That’s not a hypothetical situation that I think has realistic potential to occur though. I don’t see a significant issue looming by keeping things as they are. And a decision to maintain the status quo can be reversed if the need arises.

4) If you could make any changes to the status quo, what would they be? What additional information would you seek as President and who would you ask for that information?

I’d change that the departmental policy states that slow posters don’t get placed on slow ships before they get placed on average ships. I don’t think that makes sense. But I wouldn’t seek to change that as President as that’d be a detail for the Personnel Department to figure out.

5) Regardless of your answers to #3 and #4, assume for this question that you do want to make changes to both (a) the rules and policies for how a ship changes its speed and (b) the rules and polices for whether a ship can refuse to accept new members. What is the procedure to go about changing those rules and policies you identified in your answers to #1 and #2?

Thanks,
Daniel Lerner

Well, that would include bylaws, departmental mandates of multiple departments, and alt RPG ship charters. Rather than go through every hypothetical change, I’ll summarize by saying I would always start by looking at the relevant bylaw and follow the direction it gives.

Thanks for the questions Daniel.

Adam
Adam W. / Thomas B.

I have a follow up for you Adam based on what you wrote here. Specifically this bit:

I’d change that the departmental policy states that slow posters don’t get placed on slow ships before they get placed on average ships. I don’t think that makes sense. But I wouldn’t seek to change that as President as that’d be a detail for the Personnel Department to figure out.

I had no idea this was a departmental policy. I understand it correctly, you’re saying it’s the PDept’s policy to place new people into ships they’re telling us they don’t prefer to be on. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Why is this a policy?
Who made this a policy?
When was this made into a policy?

Joe

Joe,

Good questions, all of which I can’t actually answer. But I’ll add a little more detail to clarify what I mean and I’ll speak to your questions as best I can.

Here’s a little more context. This is what the Personnel Department policy says currently about placing new non-Academy members who request various posting speeds. This link ( https://www.star-fleet.com/pd/policies.php ) can be found from the Personnel Department MOTD.

“Infrequent posters (once per week or less) will only be placed on a ship where such posting is allowed under the ship’s posting requirements. If there is no availability, the infrequent poster will be contacted to ascertain other available options.
Slow posters will only be placed on ships with Average or Slow posting speeds; Frequent posters will only be placed on ships with Average or Frequent posting speeds; Average and Regular posters will be placed on any available ship regardless of the ship’s posting speed.”

When applying to STF, there are five different options for a speed to specify. “Slow” is the second slowest of those five options and means 1-3 logins per week. If I were to literally follow the policy for a member requesting slow posting speed I would place them on whatever slow or average paced ship that was eligible that had the fewest junior officers in the requested department.

I was trying to place someone recently in this situation and I was hesitant to follow the policy that didn’t make sense, so I reviewed with the Personnel director and I ended up placing the member on a slow ship instead of the one following the policy would have led me to.

To get to your questions, I don’t know who made the policy or when it was made. Before this term I’ve had more reason to look at the Academy placement policy than the non-Academy placement policy. It didn’t change while I was in the Personnel Department this term. As far as why I could only speculate. Perhaps the intent was to have those requesting slow be placed on slow ships as a first option and average ships as an acceptable second option, which would make sense. While we’re at it, we can also pick on the policy that those who request average or regular get placed wherever. That perhaps makes even less sense.

Now, I don’t think it’s the end of the world if someone requesting slow gets placed on an average ship. But if we’re going to have policies about what ships to place new members on, we might as well have them match the requests a little better.

Adam
Adam W. / Thomas B.

Actually, as I think more about this it does make sense why one might place a new member who says they’ll login 1-3 times a week as a JO on an average ship with a 7 day posting limit. That posting limit should work for them.

Still, I think it’d be worth the department reviewing the portion of the policy I pasted above as there appears to be room for improvement.

Adam
Adam W. / Thomas B.