Good morning James,

Thanks for answering these. I do have some follow-ups - I’ll snip out everything except my follow-ups since the post is so long. My snipping a question/answer doesn’t mean that I am satisfied with the answer and I may ask additional follow-ups in the future if no one else does.

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4a. Do you think creation of additional government roles will help with membership retention or inclusiveness?

I think adding an EA or two wouldn’t hurt the organization, would open up new opportunities for service, and allow the club to move in a new direction towards inclusivity in all we do.

An EA is a semi-permanent position and generally is not replaced unless the person resigns or is removed for cause. Does that fit your image of opening up new opportunity? Historically it has been difficult to staff some of those posts already because of a lack of applications.

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1. How do you reconcile the difference in concept between elevating highly-experienced people out of traditional roles like FComm (in your Fleet Admiralty Board proposal) with the opposite proposal of switching around QDirs and AQdirs as has been done before for training? (adapted, July 7: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/command/election/posts/89135/)

I feel making such policy would be beneficial in bringing up new leaders, even without the Admiralty Board… as discussed above… because it forces more experienced member to assist newer members in learning the rope of club management.

I have witnessed this dynamic in multiple administrations including, if memory serves, my own. How would you handle a situation in which a more experienced AQDir effectively still does the QDir’s job because the QDir isn’t doing it? In your administration, would the onus be on the AQDir to try and train their own superior even if they (their superior) didn’t want or think they need that?

1. What would you do if you understood that an FComm was selecting Command staff specifically as favors to recruit their own friends, and not looking at who would best serve the ship? (July 7: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/command/election/posts/89135/ )

I would first counsel them on the multitude of reasons why what they did was wrong and advise them that if such actions are discovered again, they will be removed by Edict. It has been said that the “appearance of impropriety is impropriety in and of itself” and if transparency of leadership is to be at the heart of my campaign as well as my administration, such behavior would fall under a one-strike rule.

I think that sounds appropriate. Would this kind of admonishment or dismissal also be used if you encountered other things, for example (all hypothetical) QDirs providing preferential treatment to certain ships or COs, or manipulation of STF content to suppress or elevate certain people, or maybe FComms otherwise favoring certain people?

Second - your quote is one of my personal mottos that I consider often (usually in the phrasing of “avoid even the appearance of impropriety”) and I strongly value it. In the situation above you stated you would admonish the person, but retain them in their post. Can you offer any example of what might be so brazen that it would result in an outright dismissal? And in the first situation, would you have consented to the FComm’s CO recommendation if you discovered the ill-gotten-gains before the edict went up?

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10a. What would make you recognize that [ship cuts were] necessary?

General club health. However, I would first do all I could to save a ship before decomming her. You can’t have “fleet identity” without a fleet. Changing Command Staff, Posting Speed, and GMs are just a few of the options one has before cutting out a ship that has been part of club & fleet culture for 5, 10, 15 years or more. I would rather move a ship to the X-Fleet if I felt it might save the ship. Sometimes, sadly, you can’t. That said, I felt only a handful of the decomms in my club tenure were absolutely necessary and had I been in leadership… they’d still be around today.

That is interesting, as X-Fleet is the home of unceremonious ship cuts for STF. If a ship does not perform well for a 2 week period it is immediately cut. Moving a ship to X-Fleet would be a less controversial, more covert, way to cut a ship. In fact, the rapid ability to cut ships is the whole point of X-Fleet - low risk opportunities to try fun ideas outside of STF’s main focus. With this context, would you answer the above question any differently?

10b. Recognizing that necessity, what metrics would you use (to cut ships)? (July 7, https://www.star-fleet.com/core/command/election/posts/89135/ )

I look at the quality of the creative environment of the ship. I feel that each ship at the cut/no cut stage deserves individual attention from the Executive to make every effort to right the ship first. If the environment just isn’t going to work and after seeking guidance on the matter from the major stakeholders, the ship would then be shuttered.

This is exactly the metric set I used during my term for ship cuts, especially the individual focus and consultation of stakeholders. Thanks for answering.

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13b. Why do you think this keeps coming up over and over again when there isn’t enough popular support to have facilitated it in the ~8 years since X-Fleet’s inception? (July 9: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/command/election/posts/89644/)

Because it was never given the attention and support needed. This isn’t a complicated thing to do, it just needs to be formally added to the club legislation body.

I’m sorry to differ but your statement that “it was never given the attention and support needed” is not accurate. The concept of a path to the Main Fleets from X-Fleet has been discussed numerous times, including multiple times in the original drafting and discussion of X-Fleet, multiple times during bylaw revisions, and every single review X-Fleet has had it has been raised and dismissed for specific reasons. In fact, the idea that a ship could be eventually elevated to the Main Fleets was something people who were against the adoption of X-Fleet elevated - and elevated again during bylaw reviews for X-Fleet’s elimination. Now that I have provided historical context, I will rephrase my original question. Why, with the knowledge that it both lacks popular support and has been discussed and nixed numerous times, do you think this keeps coming up? Do you think it has any relation to people who see X-Fleet as a “shortcut” to attaining a CO spot? (This second question is directly taken from original discussions about X-Fleet as a concept).

Please feel free to provide your answers here or in the linked threads, whatever is most to your convenience.

Thanks in advance for your answers,
-Thomas

Thanks Thomas,
Davis/Sinclair

Thanks again Jerome.

-Thomas