Posted by Admiral Joe P (Election Coodinator) in Questions for the candidates - All candidates

Posted by Daniel Lerner in Questions for the candidates - All candidates

Posted by Sidney Parker in Questions for the candidates - All candidates
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻
I have follow-up questions:

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Plus there are people who think that the way things are right now is all fine and dandy and there is fundamentally no need to change anything. I find this kind of thinking appalling, it’s anti star trek imo. The idea that things are as good right now as they will ever be is poppy cock. Human history shows us that things can always be refined and improved upon. Indeed Star Trek is all about striving for that better future and saying that things are as good as they could ever be right now is the intellectual equivalent to shoving your head in the sand and hoping that by ignoring time it will ignore you. But I’ve wandered off topic.

Who are these people that have said we don’t need to change anything? I’ve been in one form of leadership position in this club or another for the last 3-4 years, and I’m not aware of anyone saying nothing needs to change. In fact, over the last four years, the goal of most of the presidents have been to push the club (screaming and crying sometimes) into making changes to have a better impact on how the club addresses various issues, such as retention. Often the response is that we haven’t changed enough. Saying that there is a group of people who say nothing needs to change and then pointing out why that is wrong is a bit of a straw-man argument if such a group doesn’t actually exist.

So is there really a vocal group saying that?

Ohh come on Dan, there has and always will be an element that think there is no need for change both major and minor. For example one of my opponents is running on a the club has reached equilibrium lets not rock the boat ticket. I simply disagree with that thinking.

I think that refers to the Parker/Findora ticket so I will add a little here. I think your mistaking Continuity with Complacency. In fact we have some policy initiatives so were not talking about doing nothing. What we suggest is not turning over the apple cart for a term just to see what falls out. I think it makes sense that governments don’t trash their legislative accomplishments every year just to see what impact that might have. What we are suggesting is concentrating on recruitment by first allowing the previous administrations efforts with MAC to reach fruition, which to me makes good sense. I respect your right to have a different way of thinking so this is not an attack rebuttal but rather an explanation as we proudly stand by our policy points and direction we want to go this term.

What Sid said. :P

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One of the major thrusts within my presidency if elected will be to work extensively with the Academy to revamp the ciriculumn to include more basic and extensive skills development as apart of the academy process in these three major areas. As apart of this I recently conducted a survey of Academy members who had graduated within the last three years asking them about their academy experience and how they thought it could be improved. 66% of people who took that survey wanted significantly more skills development of all three major areas and if you included the number of those who wanted some increase but were divided on how much that number rose to if memory serves more like 75-80%.

This would be a major change and it doesn’t require much if any in the way of legislative action.

How percentage of graduates responded to this survey? Was the Academy consulted about the survey or the results of the survey to see how perceptions compare to practice?

I know you and D haven’t had a huge amount of experience in senior positions in the Academy - and I don’t mean that as a criticism - we each have our own areas of specialty in where volunteer in STF. But in light of that, have you consulted with the Academy about proposed changes you want to make or want them to focus on, and whether some of the expectations are possible or now? You are saying that revamping the Academy curriculum will be a “major thrust” of your presidency - if it is that major, it may be helpful for voters to have a better idea of what you are proposing and what the pros and cons might be.

Within the bounds of this answer a major policy peice is coming on Academy reform. As for speaking to the Academy, I think your a little confused Dan. Discussions of what is “possible” are more correctly refered to TECH. As technology will always determine what is or isn’t possible first. Discussions with Academy is about whether or not they consensus of the desired change.

I’m not talking about what is technically possible, Matt. I’m talking about what is possible within the means of the Academy. We have a long-term Commandant in place currently, two experienced Academy COs and two experienced Academy XOs, and a number of Academy DHs who have held various senior Academy training positions.
They all have have a huge amount of experience with what is or isn’t feasible on an Academy training ship and what kind of curriculum changes are possible to proceed with or are potentially impossible. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t room for improvement or new ideas. But has any of this even been discussed with those who are very familiar with what is going on in the Academy? Maybe that’s a better question for after the specific post on this topic.

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I presented a statistical breakdown of retention for new members to the command group last term showing that we loose a decent percentage of all new applicants simply due to the time it takes PDept to process the applications and I theorised that it’s due to the fact that the stated “guaranteed” turn around time of 72 hours is letting us down. The result of that presentation to date to my knowledge was “hmm....interesting”. No change to officially stated processing times has been announced by PDept so far as I am aware.

I no longer have access to all the reports from this term until we have the WeBBspace archive, but either in the mid-term prez report or the PDept reports starting mid-term it was announced that (a) the PDept had managed to keep processing times below 36 hours (with most below 24 hours), and that if that was kept up the PDept was going to move to making 36 hours the new formal policy (which I anticipate is something coming next term for the PDept). For the remainder of the term, the PDept has kept average processing times as part of their monthly reports so that it can be kept track of. For the longest time, the PDept has used 72 hours as the absolute max, not the expectation. I believe it was Adam as Assistant Personnel Director this term that started introducing this information. My question from this point will come below.

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– Matt/D

Let me quote a few things from some earlier posts:

July 1st HQ post: But we believe it has been a long time since the members were offered something besides the same solutions to the same problems every term that never end up changing things. Doing nothing has accomplished exactly that—nothing. Utilising current thinking has done nothing either.

July 11 reply to a question to candidates: From the average members perspective the executive seems to run fairly well. It mostly just ticks over pushing the paperwork to cope with AWOLs and the ever changing personnel requirements from day to day… But behind the scenes the reality can be very different. I’ve likened stf government to a old drunk who stumbles about the place and occasionally falls down a hill and some days that’s accurate some days that’s harsh and some days that’s charitable.

It appears, Matt, that platform is based on the proposition that prior terms haven’t really even tried to engage in making changes to the club to address some of the major issues, and that that is what you are going to fix as President. This can be compared to other campaigns (both in this election or other elections) that suggest that they will be offering different or new ideas to address major issues. Your suggestion is that you are a different kind of candidate because no one has even been willing to do what you are campaigning to do. (Which goes to the point I made above that, in fact, the issue of reducing processing times has been one of the priorities in the PDept and that it was publicly announced what the new numbers were looking like and had not, in fact, been ignored).

On the contrary Dan, I’m very much aware of the numbers. This year PDept’s processing time has drastically improved. However it’s processing time sits on average of around 35 hours. Without looking at the data again to determine how that reflects vs last year, but I’d be willing to comfortably speculate a 48-50 hour ballpark figure. But when I spoke directly to Matt K with regards to that issue, a 35 hour average is according to the retention data which you were also given is just at the edge of the ballpark of acceptability and that minimums of 12-24 hours would the kind of improvement that would have to happen to address those losses.

Now having said that, do I think PDept does a sloppy job. No, do I think a change in stated official processing times from 72 to 24 hours needs to happen. Yes, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong and that’s already happened.

Adam’s answers to Cale’s questions I think gives some different numbers. As with most policy changes, first we needed to actually get the numbers down, and then we can be in a position to change the numbers. I’m pretty sure that’s been talked about in the reports this past term in Command.

Since I returned to the club approximately 4 years ago, the following individuals have been president: Thomas, Jack, Kat, Linds, Rob, Jeremy and me. Now, different people may criticize one or two or more of those terms. But this idea that none of these terms have involved real plans to make long-term improvements to the club and were just going from crisis to crisis seems, frankly, ludicrous to me.

So… that leads to my final question. Are you really suggesting that (a) none of these prior terms have put blood, sweat and tears into making long-term improvements to the club and (b) that your presidency would be fundamentally different than everyone that has come before you?

Daniel

If your suggesting this is not the case, can you point to studies, statistics or any kind of research or effort to quantatatively frame the problem has been commissioned or completed? Failing that can you demonstrate any realistic debate or conversation started and chaired by those presidents that returned a consensus that was then actioned in a timely manner?

Hmm… didn’t I invite you to do one of your discussion this past term and supported your idea to introduce more quantitative data in the reports? What came of that, again?

Also, didn’t Thomas do just that as part of the discussion about making changes to the MAC position (something that will need to be addressed by the next president)?

And frankly, your question in reply to my question doesn’t make a whole lot of sense:

1) Was a quantitative analysis required by Kat and Thomas to see that the historical IDept/Coder system was no longer working for STF’s needs and a new structure was required to make long-term changes to the club’s website (which led to the introduction of TECH and ultimately Exodus)?

2) Did Jack really need statistics to see that we were doing a lousy job of recognizing the work of our volunteers, and brainstormed the idea of introducing commendations, as well as an idea for more recognition on member profiles, etc. (something that I understand we might see in a future version of Exodus)?

3) Did I need to commission some kind of study to see the the mentorship program needed a massive overhaul, and that the best area of the club to work with mentors and develop new policies was the the Academy (where we also starting this term with a more department-based focus - again something that will take a while to grow)?

Am I suggesting that you all sat around on your rumps and did nothing. No I am not. Each Presidency has had it’s issues to deal with. I believe that you have mentioned dealing with PDept processing times was a major issue in your presidency. I think it was linds? that dealt with a major GM shortage as apart of one of her presidencies.

Nope, never said that that PDept processing times was a major issue in my presidency. Each term has had to use it’s 8 months wisely. In my term, we focused on moving the mentorship program to the Academy where it was felt the Academy had better resources to do the hard-work on making improvements, addressing community events and community organization to help with retention and attracting new members, working with TECH to ensure we had a move to Exodus before everything broke down, and trying to make some long-term improvements to the Personnel Department (which I think I was only partially successful on). Processing times was one small part of a larger project with the PDept. And I think that’s why I’m upset at the theme your campaign seems to be taking, Matt. You seem to essentially be trying to brush away or discount the extremely hard work the Presidents have been doing over the last few years so that you can then say you will be fundamentally different. Brushing off the extremely hard work me my both of my VPs put into the PDept by suggesting we were simply trying to reduce processing times is, well… well, frankly I find it slightly insulting. I’m not necessarily criticizing the idea that you and D may want to introduce - my concern is that you are campaigning by trying to bolster your plans buy brushing off the very real and hard work prior presidents have done, and it makes me concerned with your style of presidency.

As for the statement about “will mine be fundamentally different from all those before”, I’d like to think some what yes. But in all honesty that’s not something you can say going in, only coming out the other side.

– Matt

Sidney
Parker/Findora Ticket

Well, Joe, feel free to slap me regarding this post, as it was more of a reply than asking questions. But I felt that the record needed to be corrected here.

-Daniel

Only because I was mentioned by name, I’ll say I don’t intend to slap anyone so far because I don’t think any lines have been actually crossed yet; the discussion is a little heated but it’s focused on things the candidate has actually said, and I think there’s ample room for debate on these kinds of questions. Let’s just be sure the debate stays focused on the questions at hand and doesn’t stray elsewhere. I have every confidence that everyone here is able to manage that appropriately.

Joe

Dan, I’m sorry but you are apparently reading what I’m writing and failing to comprehend what I’m saying.

When I say that previous presidents and electoral candidates, cause yes I’m including them too, have and are failing to deal with the major issues, let’s clear that up cause I can understand why you’d be pretty hostile about that.

1. The major issue being spoken of is the steadily declining membership numbers.
2. Yes you and your predecessors have failed to, in my opinion, take the necessary action to remedy this ONE SPECIFIC issue.
3. No, this does not mean that I think you were a bunch of lazy humps that sat around doing nothing. Quite the contrary.
4. This failure is not your fault. In my opinion each president has had other overriding issues that have worked against them to prevent serious headway. Some of these issues I have already mentioned, cultural inertia being one. Change is only possible in an environment that will permit it.
5. Change does not equate fault or aspersion of blame. At no point have I implied, or thought, or tried to imply, that these failures are due to the poor performance of the people executing these offices.

I’d also like to rebuff your conclusion that I don’t have much experience in senior roles. I have nearly 2 terms as an afcomm, one in forward fleet and half of one in infinite fleet that I then went on to serve as fcomm for the remainder. I’ve spent more than a term in PDept and have trained a few GMT’s for GMD. Several times I’ve served the academy department as a dh and as a counsellor over the course of a decade, not to mention the fact that I wrote and proctored an academy course. There is also my current position on TECH.

I have a dearth of experience in several departments at various levels making me an ideal candidate, and one to actually know what I’m talking about. Plus as I mentioned earlier, I talked to CADETS about their academy experience. Any conversation with Academy staff is premature without that knowledge. And that conversation with former cadets only happened right before this election season. I didn’t have those conversations for political reasons, I just wanted to find out what was important to players.

I presented these ideas to someone in the know, using him as a sounding board. Some ideas he agreed with and some he didn’t, but he did say that I needed more evidence to support my ideas and conclusions. So I thought about how to get some and then went asking the people with the most recent impressions of their time in Acad. I have actually said that any changes for the academy would be with the Academy staff as mutual stakeholders. You keep implying that I’m just going to ram these ideas down their throats and damn them, their opinions and the consequences. This is just not true.

I asked you to point to one piece of analysis, consideration or attempt to quantify the problem by any recent president so as to meaningfully take action or at least get the conversation started towards meaningful action. Instead, I feel you chose to act in a berating manner.

Moving on

As for the discrepancy between Adams numbers and my own. My average of 35 hours is, if you would have taken note, the average for the year 2018 up until the Exodus switch over. I stated this, as opposed to averages from 2017, which were much higher.

Adam is quoting specific averages from time during his tenure, and I do not dispute them. Indeed, the data I looked at showed processing times generally under 12 hours where he was involved. But once again I asked you to demonstrate where the POLICY of a 72 hr processing window had been changed.

To answer your question about the SSR edict, I did the work on that. As to why it didn’t coalesce, that’s because there were a high degree of technical challenges that were hard to overcome. Writing a read and display script and integrating it into the reporting scripts only took about a week to complete.

The problem was, the zeitgeist script library Larry left, which is where the data was coming from, was written to output as flat .csv files rather than to a database. Meaning I had to manually download the correct .csv file, extract each months data from the thousands of lines, clear and upload to a specific SQL table, to make the whole process work.

By the time I overcame and automated these limitations and had managed to conclude a full successful test of the new system, (thanks to poor confused Ray for helping me out with the testing btw) the zeitgiest script library inexplicably stopped updating that particular metric and as Exodus was so close maybe one report was left and I didn’t see the point in going through with trying to figure out why. Because the whole zeitgeist metric library is drupal dependant and wasn’t going to carry over to Exodus

Finally Dan, you yourself have made informal discord remarks about how the next president will have member services as their most important challenge. Am I wrong there? Because that’s what I’m proposing as the main thrust of my presidency. Is it wrong to state that member services has been neglected in the past for a variety of reasons. It seems to be the truth as far as I can see.

At the start of all this I said that I’m one person and I can not have all the ideas to all the problems all of the time. Why are you upset when I mention that others have this failing too. These things NEED to happen, and I’ve been specifically focused and done my homework on this one issue.

I’ve looked at why previous presidents have failed to make a dent into this and come up with some possible workarounds. That’s not dismissing your hard work, that’s learning from history so I can do better. All improvements are built on the backs of those who came before. That drive and desire for improvement isn’t dismissive it’s anything but.

Finally, yes I do think I can do it and I owe it to myself and the club to give it a try. Our intention is to help STF be a better Star Trek club, with the hopes of it becoming the best one. If I didn’t think I had good ideas and the knowledge to carry them out, I wouldn’t be running for President, I’d be supporting one of the other two platforms instead.

Matt/D