Posted by Captain James Sinclair (Vice Presidental Candidate) in Questions for the Candidates - Jerome and James

Posted by Daniel Lerner in Questions for the Candidates - Jerome and James

Posted by Daniel Lerner in Questions for the Candidates - Jerome and James
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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4) Promotions above Commander shall be made taking into consideration Club Tenure, Performance of OOC duties, Recommendation of fellow club leadership, and Time in Grade. We feel establishing a Promotions Task Force to develop these guidelines will make promotions even more meaningful and obtainment of new pips even more special. This we hope will provide incentive for members to engage more in the STF community as a whole.

What do you find inadequate about the current guidelines for promoting?

Inconsistency. Many times, members are promoted thanks to having time to hangout in chat/Discord and not on the body of their work. I don’t think the current guidelines are the least bit effective and leave gaping holes for personal bias. A formal system should be in place to ensure members are properly recognized for their contributions to the community as a whole.

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Adam W.

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Thanks,
Jerome

Is that really the case? Here’s a list of promotions starting with Jack’s las term (I used that as a starting point as that was when you were promoted to Fleet Captain):

Jack Dipper’s Presidential Promotions:

• Jerome Davis
• Ty Napier
• Daniel Lerner
• Robert Archer
• Jen Herr
• Joe Fahey

Kat Dedul’s Presidential Promotions:

• Harry Shires
• Thomas B
• Julia K.
• Daniel Lerner
• Steve Johnson

Robert Archer’s Presidential Promotions:

• Joe P
• Matthew Kleinman
• Nicholas Villareal

Lindsay Bayes’ Presidential Promotions:

• Adam W.
• Ray Branch
• Sharon Millern
• Joe P
• Kat Dedul

Jeremy DeSpain’s Presidential Promotions:

• Lindsay Bayes
• David Shotton
• Matthew Kleinman
• Thomas Bates
• Matthew Bernardin
• Amber DeSadier
• Owen Morgan
• Tyra Schroll
• Joe P

Daniel Lerner’s Presidential Promotions:

• Kenson Koth
• Steven Sigle
• Adam W.
• Matthew Bernardin
• Thomas Bates
• Lindsay Bayes

Adam W’s Presidential Promotions:

• Owen Morgan
• Calé Reilly

James Sinclair’s Presidential Promotions:

• Krys McLean
• Sarah Hemenway
• David Shotton
• Kate O’Neill
• Daniel Lerner

While certainly some of the people on the list have been active in Discord, that certainly cannot be said about all of those promotions. And many of the people promoted would not exactly be considered “BFF”s with President who promoted them. (In fact, I think you ran against Jack in that election :P ).

I would also suggest most if not all of those promotion edicts go into the details of what the contributions were since the last promotion that led to the promotion.

Can you therefore please clarify the statement you made above: “Many times, members are promoted thanks to having time to hangout in chat/Discord and not on the body of their work.”?

Thanks,
Daniel Lerner

Hey Daniel,
Thanks for the question. To clarify, using the data you presented as the foundation, I will explain the problem with inconsistencies in promotions in the club. Since Jack Dipper’s final term, around five and a half years ago, the following promotions have been granted by Edict:

Promoted Once

Robert Archer
Ray Branch
Jerome Davis
Kat Dedul
Amber DeSadier
Joe Fahey
Sarah Hemenway
Jen Herr
Julia K
Kenson Koh
Steve Johnson
Krys McLean
Sharon Miller
Ty Napier
Kate O’Neill
Calé Reilly
Tyra Schroll
Harry Shires
Steven Sigle
Nicholas Villareal

Twenty (20) in total

Promoted Twice

Matthew B.
Lindsay Bayes
Matthew Kleinman
Owen Morgan
David Shotton
Adam W.

Six (6) in total

Promoted Three Times

Thomas Bates
Joe P
Daniel Lerner

Three (3) in total

I’m not saying that any of these promotions were not earned and deserved. All I am confident of, is out of over approximately 150 members in and out over the past half decade… there’s been more than enough awesome service by the membership of this club to justify granting more than 29 promotions.

Thanks again for your question,
Davis/Sinclair

I guess then, are you planning on changing the bylaw for promotions from the current language:

• Admiral: “ultra rare… have had a significant lasting impact on the club in terms of its development through government and technology as well as a profound impact on how we function and operate through the implementation of long lasting changes that revolutionise the government, the platform on which we operate or the presidency”
• Vice Admiral: “very rare… made exceptional, lasting and long term impacts on the way in which the club operates and functions… usually given to those who have served as President at least once and have a long history of government work developing new procedures and working tirelessly to develop the best procedures for any department or fleet that they turn their hand to”
• Rear Admiral: “rare… those who have not only made exceptional commitments to the club above and beyond that which is required for a number of years, but have had a permanent and lasting impact in developing the club through government work in Fleets or Departments”

I can keep going, but those are the requirements for three out of five of the ranks in question. So will you be trying to amend this bylaw if you become president?

Daniel Lerner

[Edit - I had a typo in my last sentence, which I have fixed.]

My questions were stated in two ways above:

“I guess then, are you planning on changing the bylaw for promotions from the current language…”

and

“So will you be trying to amend this bylaw if you become president?”

I have asked to remove the “I guess then” from the opening of my first wording of the question. Consider that done and re-worded.

Daniel

Daniel,

I’m sorry, but your guess is not quite on target. Neither Jerome or I feel that a rewrite of the bylaws is necessary here, nor has that even been considered or discussed. We simply feel that there are people deserving of the recognition that simply haven’t been promoted.

James

James (or Jerome),

You do understand though why Dan is confused, right?

If a re-write of the bylaws is unnecessary, then the consequence of that is that a large number of people will eventually “top out” at certain ranks, because the expectations written into the bylaw increase dramatically with each step. Several people on Jerome’s “promoted once/twice/three times” list are never going to be promoted again if we take those definitions seriously.

For instance, 6 people on that list are at the rank of Vice Admiral, and we’ve only ever promoted two people from Vice Admiral to Admiral ever (Kat and myself); the other two Admirals got the rank by default when this rank scheme was created. Daniel already provided the wording of the requirements for Admiral, but what they mean in practice is that you either have to totally re-write the site software very dramatically or you need to be extremely active in club government for more than one decade. Very few people are going to do these things. Ideally we won’t ever need to rewrite the site software ever again, and your platform as explained so far seems to view experienced members serving in government for a long time as a problem to be solved rather than as an accomplishment to be celebrated.

If you go down the list of ranks, you can tell similar stories, but with the expectations being less dramatic. Some people are never going to be promoted from Fleet Captain to Commodore because they were in the cabinet once, did a good job, but said “You know, I don’t really want to do that again, I’m happy just roleplaying” or “being in the cabinet was nice, but I just finished school and I need to start my career, so maybe I’ll keep roleplaying for a bit but I can’t take another turn as a Fleet Commander now,” and then they don’t ever decide to take that second turn, or that third turn (which, at least was the main requirement for Commodore as it was explained to me; consistent effort over a number of years, plural).

So, essentially, if the rules are kept as written, going forward there will be many people who will never be promoted ever again.

I’m not actually a fan of this scheme; it was written to disproportionately benefit a small number of people who generally aren’t here anymore. But it is the system we have and you just said you don’t want to change it, even though both you and Jerome seem to hate the results of it.

So, I guess I’ll ask these questions for either one of you who wants to answer:

1) Regardless of whether you planned to do anything before, regardless of whether you currently plan to do anything at this time, do you now acknowledge that these definitions are part of the “problem” that Jerome wrote about?

2) Jerome argued that, this is a question of consistency, that some people were promoted 3 times but other people 1 time or 0 times, this is inconsistent and therefore something unfair. I would argue that consistency is not the problem: if we had a time machine to replace the President with a kind of perfect robot who would do promotions by applying the standards as written in an inerrant way, the lists Jerome produced would look very similar, or most likely would have fewer promotions instead of more. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?

Joe