[Mikester92]

Hey all,

Myself and the rest of FEO would like to gather feedback on our upcoming and imminent Federation Council project, which is due to be implemented soon. This idea has been in the works since about 2011 now, and we're finally about ready to give it a test run. That said, there is always room for improvement, and since a Council is all about community interaction, what better way to start early then by interacting with the community on such a massive project.

As such I have declassified a FEO document below detailing the basics and preliminaries of how a UFP council system would work. These basics should be more than enough to get solicit some healthy feedback!

So please be sure to give this a complete read through before commenting. This council system is a lot more about reinforcing our community then anything else, so hopefully that comes across well in this document. Look forward to hearing what you all have to say!

If all goes well, we might look at having a working acting council of members interested in testing this system for April before the first elections start over the summer.

Federation Council Details
FOR IMPLEMENTATION IN MAY 2014

The Federation Council - A proposal for a new tier of community leadership.
This proposal calls for an elected or appointed body of councilors to represent their assigned member planet and interests at a top tier of leadership.

Now it’s important to first and foremost understand that the idea of having a separate council does not mean that drastic fleet-wide changes can occur at any councilor’s whim. In fact, to the contrary, a councilor’s power would not extend beyond community development. Rather, the Federation Council would be there to reinforce some of the weaker areas in the fleet while representing the membership and their interests at large.

For example, many fleet proposals have fallen through the cracks and don’t get as much attention as they might deserve. To develop a fleet proposal one needs to discuss it in detail, speak to the affected COs about it, gather their feedback, and then either deny or accept the proposal in question.

The process can be rather lengthily and indeed time consuming as a lot of debate can sometimes spark from these proposals. With that noted, it’s no shock that some of these proposals have been forgotten - the COs responsible for their development are already dealing with enough on their plate.

It’s areas like these, along with a few more I will go over later on, which I feel a council could oversee far more efficiently due to their close ties with the membership.

Composition of the Council
Under the current planetary system, in which we have five planets, there would be one councilor voted in by each planet, for each planet, including Bajor, Earth, Andoria, Vulcan and Risa. Resulting in 5 councillors at present. There would be room to increase the size of the council by increasing the amount of planets to a limit of 9. The council should remain odd numbered in order to ensure a majority.

Councilors will be given elevated CL5 status to be neatly grouped with FEO as a ‘Federation’ usergroup. It is important to distinguish councilors as part of their special user group so that they can be located on the forums and on TS more easily with their CL5 tag and unique color.

Council Relationship to FEO
Much like Starfleet, the Federation Council would maintain a close relationship to the Executive Office. First and foremost a FEO member would eventually take on the dedicated task of supervising the Federation Council. This role, however, would not come into play until after the first term, as the council would be first be supervised by its architects for a brief period of time.

The Secretary to the Council would carry responsibilities similar to that of the Secretary of Defense, or Head of Starfleet. As a supervisor they would represent the council in all FEO meetings and would act as the middle man between both administrative branches.

Apart from acting as a middleman, the Secretary to the Council would need to oversee the election processes for the Fall and Spring terms. This task is similar to that of a moderator and event planner. The applications would have to be gathered, approved, and campaign season opened (where moderation would need to take place). The secretary would then of course need to open a poll and announce the winners after the process comes to a close.

Powers of the Council
The Federation Council is designed to give more powers right down to the CL3 membership. As such, certain responsibilities are to be handed down to the Council in order to meet with this ethos.

• Councilors would be primarily responsible for representing member interests at large in the community and provide a member voice to the running of the fleet through their own private forums.
• Councillors would host monthly open meeting where all members are free to attend and voice their concerns.
• Councilors would be invited to observe all Joint Session meetings
• Feedback would be delegated down to the council level to deal with. If a member from Earth submits feedback it would be the Councilor from Earth’s responsibility to see it through to the end via PM correspondence or TS.
• Resignations, although processed by FAB, would be housed in the Council forums so that they can be kept up to date on exit grievances and PMs if need be.
• The proposal system would fall under the purview of the council
• Councilors are able to propose measures up to FEO or Starfleet without having to go through the proposal system.
• Councilors are able to challenge policy decisions should they feel the membership not react well to it.
• The Council would be tasked with issuing fleet surveys and dissecting its data.
• Councilors would be tasked with organizing the UFP Olympic Games. (a separate project in development)
• Councillors are able to recommend members at UFPACs.

Forum Hosts and Hostesses
Along with the powers lsited in the previous section, councilors would also carry one very important passive power: the power of being UFP’s face.

Councilors are expected to always be reading the forums. Unlike forum moderators however, they’re not looking for rule violators but are instead tasked with being the perfect hosts.

Think about when you host fancy dinner party, as a host one of your responsibilities is making sure everyone has a drink, making sure there’s always something to munch on before dinner and generally socializing with each guest to make sure they’re happy and not left out.

This is exactly what a councilor will be doing on the forums. But, instead of drinks and food, they’ll be dealing with all the discussions that go about on a day to day basis on the forums.

For example, a member from Andoria might make a serious comment on a discussion post about the upcoming STO season launch. Sadly in this example, this comment gets overlooked. This happens every day, and it can really alienate someone if they end up feeling ignored. As part of his duties, the councilor from Andoria should be reading through the forums and should be specifically reading through comments made by members from his planet. In this example, the Councilor can reply back directly to the member and comment onto what he said.

Not only are counselors responsible to do this, but they have all the incentive in the world if they’re serious about getting re-elected.

This sort of socialization, be it on a simple STO discussion, or an important UFP announcement, not only accomplishes the important task a host has of making their constituents feel welcome, but also promotes a lot more interaction with fleet leadership as a result.

I can’t think of way a new member can feel more welcome than having a leader casually chat with him on the forums.

Term Length and Important Dates
Terms for serving in the Federation Council would last for six months, in which the terms would last from 7th July to 7th January of each year; a councilor can only serve for four terms maximum. Elections would take place over three days from the 1st-3rd of July and January respectively; to coincide with Roll Call.

The following breakdown of dates serves to simplify the next three sections in a simple timeline.

Fall Term
Month of May - Application Period
1st of June - Nominations Due
Month of June - Campaign Season
1st-3rd of July - Elections
4th of July - Winners Announced
3rd-7th of July - Transitional Period
7th of July - New Council is appointed

Spring Term
Month of November - Application Period
1st of December - Nominations Due
Month of December - Campaign Season
1st-3rd of January - Elections
4th of January - Winners Announced
3rd-7th of January - Transitional Period
7th of January - New Council is appointed

Prerequisites to being Nominated on an Election Poll
In order to become a candidate, interested members must first be nominated by the Secretary to the Council and then be approved by a FEO member before they can actively run for a seat on the Council. The Secretary to the Council must get his nominations in by the first of June and December so that after 48 hours pass, the approved candidates can have around a month to campaign.

The following prerequisites are in place to ensure that FEO maintains control over who’s on the election poll:

• In order to be electable, a prospective councilor must have been in the fleet for at least 12 months as an active CL3 or 6 months as an active CL4+.
• No councilors can hold an active CL5 or CL6 position when running for a council seat. More so, should a candidate secure a seat in the council, he must resign from any CL4 posts he has, unless otherwise exempt by FEO. Signature team members and Herald editors would most likely be exempt. SFO and ESF staff members, however, would need to leave their post, ect.
• Members with strikes on their record would not be eligible candidates.
• Taking into account these requirements, it is the responsibility of the Secretary to the Council’s responsibility to appropriately nominate, to FEO, those interested in running. All candidates must be approved by FEO.

Campaign Season
Upon being nominated and approved by FEO, the candidates will receive a notification by the Secretary to the Council that they are now eligible to campaign.

Unlike the real world, UFP campaign season would be limited to a set forum. Campaigning outside this forum opens the candidate to forum moderation, which in of itself could ruin a candidate's campaign.

In this forum each candidate is limited to ONE forum topic. This topic generally will contain their opening statement, which they are responsible for, and will remain open so that members can ask questions, should they wish to. Candidates can be as creative as they like with their forum topic and can post videos, images, and follow up statements as a sort of live feed.

This “Election Season” will last a month, after which all campaign topics will be locked.

It is important to note that not all candidates will need to campaign. Should you be the only one to apply and be approved to your planet's single council seat, then you will automatically be cited as the unchallenged victor. This means all you have to do is wait on through till the appointment phase!

Election Day
The 1st of July and January marks the end of the campaign season and the start of the three day election cycle.

The Secretary to the Council or general FEO account will be responsible for posting a thread, alongside Roll Call, with a list of all the candidates and a link to their locked campaign thread. Along with that list, each poll thread will go over the simple basics of voting and what it’ll mean to one’s membership experience.

The poll results will remain hidden for the remainder of the three days as not to encourage voting for the most popular candidate. The end results, however, will not be classified.

Once the election ends at the end of the 3rd day, a public announcement will be made by the Secretary to the Council announcing the winners. The poll data will be declassified as public knowledge, meaning anyone can request a detailed copy of the names attached to the numbers in the poll. The winners will not be given permissions or Council-level status until the 7th to allow for a transitional rest period.

Being Removed from the Council and Replacements
Like any position in the UFP, serving high up is a privilege not a right. Under a variety of circumstances, a Councilors can be removed from the Council by the Secretary to the Council (conjointly with Chief of Staff.) should they violate a clause of their Elected Position Agreement (EPA), which they must sign before being publicly announced as candidates.

This document has yet to be created but the following violations, which would warrant removal, would include:

• AWOL Councilor hasn’t been on for more than two weeks, without notifying the Secretary to the Council.
• Inactive Councilor- has not done his job to the Secretary to the Council’s own satisfaction and does not participate or represent his members in meetings or discussions.
• UFPAC Recommendations - Has not recommended the minimum amount of recommendations.
• Code of Conduct Violation - Receives a strike for a serious CoC violation.

Should a representative be removed, it’ll be up to the Secretary to the Council to nominate a suitable replacement to FEO. This replacement would normally be the second most popular candidate in the election. Upon being approved by FEO, this candidate would automatically be appointed to the Council to finish the remainder of the removed representative's term.

Conclusion
It’s very important to note that a Councilor is not a community administrator in the same sense that a FEO member is. Rather, a councilor is a community reinforcer and representative who is tasked with looking over our membership and their many evolving needs. The community will continue to be chiefly run by its owners and senior administrators, the Federation Executive Office.

It’s also important to note on one of the council’s more passive powers: forum stimualtion. If we’re serious about becoming a full community we need to make our forums something more than just a haven for STO discussion and policies. We’re doing a lot already with the News and Social efforts, but we need to be doing even more to get ourselves out there.

One thing the council will bring to the UFP added forum usage and fanfare. Elections take place over a two month period from June - July (fall term) and December - January (spring term) - that’s four months of forum usage and hype; a third of the year! Quite the bonus.

So I hope this brief overview of the council is enough to get some valauble feedback from you all! So without further delay, please by all means comment, or if you wish, PM me any feedback or comments you may have!

[Noram]

I think the main thing I see with this at the moment is the visibility of the planet system at the current time.
I don't know what plans are already in motion, but it seems to me like that system should be given a lot more visibility than it currently is.
Perhaps having a member's planet be displayed beneath their forum avatar, like reputation and join date are?

[Mikester92]

I think the main thing I see with this at the moment is the visibility of the planet system at the current time.
I don't know what plans are already in motion, but it seems to me like that system should be given a lot more visibility than it currently is.
Perhaps having a member's planet be displayed beneath their forum avatar, like reputation and join date are?

Increasing the visibility of the planetary system is indeed something that will get done now that we have a council coming soon. Whether that's graphically via our signatures, or technically underneath our avatars remains to be seen but it will certainly happen!

[Minnow Raydor]

This seems like a well set out plan and I have no issues with it, The parts that stand out to me are "Prerequisites to being Nominated on an Election Poll" and " Powers of the Council" Both these points made perfect sense. Am sure we all look forward to seeing future developments on this topic.

[Jackie Weaver]

My reaction to this post

In all seriousness though, I like the idea. Only one thing I thought was a bit iffy was the 'Resigning all CL4 positions' part. I know it's probably a commitment thing but I personally think that after your term ends as Councilor, you should get your previous CL4 positions back automatically. But that's just me

[Hermanator]

Might want to split the membership evenly across the planetary system. Just an idea, based on the assumption that we have far more members on planet Vulcan than Earth et cetera.

Really good first step. I hope the majority of the membership get as excited about this as I. I'm happy to see that it isn't just a glorified School Council. Which was my greatest fear.

[Torinth]

My reaction to this post

In all seriousness though, I like the idea. Only one thing I thought was a bit iffy was the 'Resigning all CL4 positions' part. I know it's probably a commitment thing but I personally think that after your term ends as Councilor, you should get your previous CL4 positions back automatically. But that's just me

It all looks great apart from this same point Ben made, some CL4's who have been 4's for like ever would love to open their avenues and put even more time into aiding the Community, but then when their time was up they'd be starting from step 1 again for the most part.

But other than that the system looks great and I really can't wait to see it put into effect!

[Caymen Greener]

I believe this was discussed earlier on, and ties to Noram's question, but I assume we'll also disallow planet hopping? A council member should be "invested" in his or her planet, so he/she should not be allowed to hop around for better odds of getting voted in.

Perhaps we put a limit: if you've planet hopped in the preceding 6 months to an election, you cannot run; further, once you are elected, you must remain on that planet for a year or so (prevents you from hopping to another planet for the next election)?

Also, people should not be able to vote then hop, or visa versa. So perhaps if you hop a month prior to an election, you are not eligible to vote?

Some of these timelines would not be prudent for the first election, but moving forward we should put some controls in place to avoid "gaming" of the system (ok, that'd be a pretty elaborate game, but I can see someone doing it).

Caymen

[McClintock]

All looks fantastic, and great to see. I look forward to this in May.

More so, should a candidate secure a seat in the council, he must resign from any CL4 posts he has, unless otherwise exempt by FEO. Signature team members and Herald editors would most likely be exempt.

Would the CL4 position of Global Moderator also be exempt from this rule? From my PoV there seems to be some overlap in forum management etc.

The Secretary to the Council

Perhaps I missed this, but is this position one of the Councilors (i.e an elected position) or is it a permanent role?

[Reggie]

Bring on the popularity contests! woo

[Seldon]

This sounds very exciting and very well thought out. The community can only benefit from this sort of interaction especially if it involves greater forum and Teamspeak usage which, sadly, I have noticed a decline with.

My areas of concern would be that 2 years seems a long time to be allowed to hold the position, having a year maximum (2 terms) would create more competition for the positions especially from a new community member's perspective, who might not even consider running because the member currently in office has been in the fleet longer so a 'why bother competing' mentality might come into play. Although if no one does run for a particular seat then the existing councilor can win by default if he decides to run again, but only as long as there are no viable candidates. This would also fall in line with being a member of the community for 12 months.

I am also concerned about the allocation of the community to the various planets for the first election, how would you ensure that all planets are represented with an appropriate number of members who would be eligible for nomination? Is there anyway you can at least get an idea of who would go for which planet to ensure they are all represented properly? It would suck if there were 50 people representing Earth but 5 people for Andoria, for example.

Very exciting stuff.

[GallantCJ]

This sounds like a good initiative, however, perhaps some further definition to the "end of term" for members who are veteran contributors at the CL4 position level. It would be concerning to me if I was in such a position to be back at square 1 on completion of a term. Outside of that point, it sounds like a great idea!

[Curzon Peers]

Sounds good to me though I am a bit unsure why you'd have to drop CL4 reeponsibilites. At the very least being eligable for getting your position back when your term ends would be good. I should note that positions more geared toward communication and involvement rather than administration should probably be exempt, for instance the moderator position(s) fits in nicely since both involve going through the forums reading all the posts, and other positions such as RSO have a similar role of membership support though with a bit of a focus difference.

My main concern is the planetary system. If everyone is piled into one planet it could be problematic by overburdening a single person while the others are free. On a similar note have you considered giving the councilors an assistant or two to provide a second set of eyes for their planet (unless the other councilors are to be also focusing on people from other planets)

[Kains]

Bring on the popularity contests! woo

That is my one real worry. Perhaps a few regulations on campaigns and such? Otherwise I'll announce now that I can be bribed with Romulan Ale, EC, and beautiful moon princesses.

As for the rest of it, I think it's a great idea! I really like the idea of having a rabble rouser getting people to participate in the forums. Plus, getting a healthy bit of competition between the planets I have been all for since the system was announced!

Plus, I'd like to point out that Risa will be the regular victor at these Olympics, so make sure to have our trophy polished and our drinks ready!

[Kains]

Ooooh, plus, if we end up councilors to a senate... do we have to wear togas?

... and by that I mean can we wear togas?