Posted by Adam W. in Discussion Topic: Smaller Ships vs. Larger Ships
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(1) Often larger ships are the healthier ships. While I’m not convinced this is the general case, there’s certainly something to be said that some smaller ships are small because they have more retention problems then other ships. I can say that there are some small ships we give new members to over and over again, with lots of turnover.

There’s retention problems with crew in general and then there’s retention problems with new members. While ships vary in how well they retain existing members, I don’t believe they really vary in how well they retain new members. If I’m wrong about that I’d love to hear further explanation.

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I can say that there are some small ships we give new members to over and over again, with lots of turnover.

If that’s happening, that should be taken as a problem with that particular ship, not with small ships in general. That shouldn’t allowed to reoccur.

Actually I think it’s a problem with all ships in general that there is difficulty in retaining new members. Perhaps more of a non-desirable characteristic than a problem.

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It is likely difficult to track, but I agree that the success of placements on a ship should be noted. There’s a certain point where we have to balance being fair with giving new members the greatest chance of actually sticking around.

Sarah, VP/2APDir

We currently eliminate obviously unhealthy ships from placement consideration. Regardless of the ship they are placed on, new players usually don’t last very long. If there’s data that shows that on some ships they last and others they don’t I’d be interested in seeing that. For my personal experience in the personnel department no one that I placed was still in the club like a year later.

I could imagine a policy heading in the direction of something like a ship not getting a placement because their last three placements all failed to last three months. Just an example of a possible policy. Personally I wouldn’t be phased at all by a ship not getting three placements in a row to last because I would assume most likely the same issue would have happened on any other ship as well. For example, I thought the Endeavour was fantastic most of the time I was on that ship. That didn’t prevent most from dropping out before the brief Academy tour was complete.

I disagree. Are there any ships that have a good rate of retaining new placements? I suspect no ships have a good rate of retaining new placements because people who join usually either don’t post or don’t last long. Instead, I think we should note any ship that seems to be good at retaining new placements and figure out why that is.

Adam W.

I’m not sure with what you disagree since you said something similar to what I did. Can you explain so that I can make sure we’re on the same page as to what I meant?

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There’s my attempt.

Adam W.

Reading through your thoughts here, it sounds like we actually agree.

To get to your point about never seeing a new member stay on a mainstream ship, I was about to disagree until I went to look at the spreadsheet and I don’t actually see a genuinely new member retained on a mainstream ship over the last six months or more… ouch. Granted, there isn’t that large of a sample size… but hey, everyone would be on equal footing as far as “new member success”? :)

Sarah