[Mikester92]

First off, thank you all for commenting and leaving feedback! It's been great seeing so much interest in this project. Please keep it coming and feel free to reply back to me if you have any more questions to your specific pieces of feedback.

So It seems as though we have a lot of feedback on two specific areas of this proposal, I'll therefore be grouping all related feedback together to respond to in one go, and will conclude by answering the independent questions.

Grouped Feedback

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!

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.

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!

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.

CL4 Positions
Just to be clear, as mentioned in Section Seven, the CL4 policy of having to resign upon being elected to a council position would only apply to certain CL4 positions. There would still be plenty of CL4 job roles exempt from this policy. I only mentioned a few examples, but other positions like SFO event planners, RSOs and news writers, for instance, would all be exempt from having to step down from their CL4 positions.

On the other hand, positions up the chain of command like senior CL4 supervisorial positions and global moderator positions would not be exempt under this policy. It's set up this way to avoid abuse. A bias Global Moderator for instance might jump at the chance to moderate a opponent if it made him look bad.

Determining which positions are exempt and which ones are not would be done in a similar fashion to the multiclanning CL4 extension. In that particular process Lynx simply went down the list of all CL4 positions and approved certain positions as being suitable for multiclaning exemption.

Rest assured if you do indeed have to step down from a CL4 job, arrangements can easily be made, once your term ends, to get your job back. After all you'd be an even more valuable member to any team with CL5 council experience under your belt!

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.

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

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.

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)

Planetary Distribution
I hadn't predicted this to be an area of concern, else I would of elaborated more on the distribution of members across each planet, but to those concerned, rest assured there is nothing to worry about.

As I gather feedback and adjust certain policies, Sharpkiller and Jordan are both working hard behind the scenes to get the planetary system ready for a reshuffle. What this means is that the entire membership will be evenly distributed across each planet. How it will work from there, at least early on, is that up and until the first election cycle this summer, members will be able to switch and swap as much as they like. This gives you a few months to pick a planet you personally like or even group with your UFP friends.

That said, you must act quickly if you want to switch to your prefer planet of choice as there will be thresholds in place to prevent over population. For example, picking an arbitrary value here, it will be set up so that the most populated planet can't have more than say... 30-50 more members than the second most populated planet. What this does is ensure that there isn't a ridiculous overpopulation of a particular planet such as Earth.

Once the first election cycle ends, the freedom to hop around as much as you like will likely come to a permanent end. From then on you will only be able to planet hop through a form submission. Once submitted your request will then have to be manually processed by the existing council or Council Secretary. All this does is crack down on planet hoping, as those who do hop on a whim would eventually have to face cool downs. At the end of the day, if a member is switching planets like Kim Kardassian switches shoes.. then it's just going to create a headache for the councilors when they have to pass over your outstanding feedback or issues to the next councilor.

And as for councilors, zero planet hoping will be allowed unless they chose to run for a new planet on the next election cycle. I do not foresee there being an issue with prospective councilors running for different planets if they meet all of FEO's requirements and patiently wait those long six months to give it another stab.

Misc Feedback

"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?

The Secretary to the Council would be a permanent FEO level posting and supervisor. It will either be created as an independent position or will be folded into an existing FEO member's area of responsibility.

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.

This is an excellent piece of feedback Seldon. I will take it under advisement and gauge FEO's opinion on it at our next meeting.

That is my one real worry. Perhaps a few regulations on campaigns and such?

Campaigns will indeed be regulated and moderated to ensure that all candidates run ethical campaigns. Should a member violate their campaign terms or engage in behavior deemed unethical, he would be taken out of the race and likely punished.

[Adster94]

I am very interested to see how this all pans out, and who will campaign for these positions - should be quite interesting

[Torinth]

Thank you for the response Mike, that makes much more sense to me now and as Adster mentioned I look forward to seeing the candidates put them selves up for election!

[Caymen Greener]

I echo the above comments - thanks Mikester. This will definitely be an interesting enterprise, no pun intended!

[Wesstan]

Sounds like a good start.
If we are going to be serious about transforming this communiy to a status that is similar to that of the "original" Federation of Planets we will have to talk about swifting balances of power between the council, the President and FEO.

As far as I know in "reality" the Councielors get appointed by their home planets (in our case through an election). The Council then elects the President for a 4 year term.
The President names the Federation Cabinet (which is much like our FEO) which has to be confirmed by the Council.

Now don't ask me how a democratic organisation like this could work within a legally registered company in the UK but right now it seems that it would be a good start to ask how the Council can work towards the goal to transform the UFP into an organisation like described above.

[Reggie]

Sounds like a good start.
If we are going to be serious about transforming this communiy to a status that is similar to that of the "original" Federation of Planets we will have to talk about swifting balances of power between the council, the President and FEO.

As far as I know in "reality" the Councielors get appointed by their home planets (in our case through an election). The Council then elects the President for a 4 year term.
The President names the Federation Cabinet (which is much like our FEO) which has to be confirmed by the Council.

Now don't ask me how a democratic organisation like this could work within a legally registered company in the UK but right now it seems that it would be a good start to ask how the Council can work towards the goal to transform the UFP into an organisation like described above.

I think this will probably happen around the same time someone actually invents warp travel.

[Soral]

Sounds like a good start.
If we are going to be serious about transforming this communiy to a status that is similar to that of the "original" Federation of Planets we will have to talk about swifting balances of power between the council, the President and FEO.

As far as I know in "reality" the Councielors get appointed by their home planets (in our case through an election). The Council then elects the President for a 4 year term.
The President names the Federation Cabinet (which is much like our FEO) which has to be confirmed by the Council.

Now don't ask me how a democratic organisation like this could work within a legally registered company in the UK but right now it seems that it would be a good start to ask how the Council can work towards the goal to transform the UFP into an organisation like described above.

I understand your thoughts on this as the idea would be that the mediator between the FEO and the Council would (in a sense) be chosen by the community members and not the FEO. Ideally, it would be nice to have a balance of power between both groups, so I'm looking at it as kind of like having a group of stockholders in the company. You wouldn't necessarily have the stockholders making all of the company decisions, but you would want them to have a voice and that their feedback is given a respectful amount of weight in any decision. The FEO would be like the board running the company and the council like the stockholders providing that voice to be weighed in the future growth of the community. And typically the mediator, or liaison is maybe a better term, is chosen by the board running the company. Mikester can respond to whether my analogy fits with the intent of the proposal, but that's the way I'm looking at it and I see the community having that balance in the long-run.

[Stormy]

As a person who is very familiar with the political process (no I am not a politician) in the U.S., the length of the term concerns me greatly. My main concern is that just as a councilor is getting comfortable with his or her position, they must then start campaigning again. Campaigning will instead take up some of the time he or she really needs to fulfill their duties. I would suggest the following:

A term would consist of one year with a maximum of two consecutive years of service. Once a candidate has served two years, they must sit out for at least one year before running for office again. No candidate may serve for more than six years total.

I believe this would be fair to both the councilor and to those who want to pursue this position.

[LynxMukka]

I do very much complement the thoughts that are going into this. It shows that everyone has some interest in this and that can only be healthy for what we're trying to achieve here. The interest reassures us that we're doing something the community will hopefully enjoy and find rewarding in terms of their input.

I don't really want to have a long debate on the forums about specific points, but I thought this thread would benefit from at least one post from me. I did wish to respond to Soral's point:

I understand your thoughts on this as the idea would be that the mediator between the FEO and the Council would (in a sense) be chosen by the community members and not the FEO. Ideally, it would be nice to have a balance of power between both groups, so I'm looking at it as kind of like having a group of stockholders in the company. You wouldn't necessarily have the stockholders making all of the company decisions, but you would want them to have a voice and that their feedback is given a respectful amount of weight in any decision. The FEO would be like the board running the company and the council like the stockholders providing that voice to be weighed in the future growth of the community. And typically the mediator, or liaison is maybe a better term, is chosen by the board running the company. Mikester can respond to whether my analogy fits with the intent of the proposal, but that's the way I'm looking at it and I see the community having that balance in the long-run.

One of the main objectives of the Federation Council is to indeed provide an additional channel in which members can speak about their ideas and their thoughts in general. Those ideas and thoughts will help FEO and SFC to make them think about the decisions they're making and sometimes when questions are raised about specific actions, it gives FEO and SFC a chance to explain why those actions were taken to a wider audience than what has otherwise not been the case for the past 12 years.

What I will say though, is that your point about stakeholders in your analogy, being that stakeholders are usually investors who have their hard-earned, large amount of cash spent in the company. People essentially pay to have influence and power, because they want to be someone with a say.

We obviously do not operate in the same fashion though. We're not an organisation driven by money nor are our volunteers even paid to do the job they do (despite the fact that some jobs here in real life would have quite a lot of monetary value). Nor if I may say, is it guaranteed that members sitting on the Federation Council would have invested a considerable amount to be there, the only tangible condition for someone to sit on the council is to be voted in by the membership via democratic vote.

Here at the UFP, with this announcement of the Federation Council, we are in many sense providing this to members with no fee, no strings attached etc. We're doing this because we value the say of members and to ensure that there are as little barriers as possible from the casual member to the President himself. It is a value we've had for years now, enstilled by President John Hathaway.

So while I fully support the Federation Council and feel it will bring real value and a stronger voice for members that may otherwise be afraid (they shouldn't) to show their concerns, FEO is keen not for it to turn into an entity that spends the majority of its time critising the work of our volunteers who devote countless hours, not for their own benefit, but for the simple benefit of providing an experience to others, for free. The Federation Council members, will become part of that group too, giving away their free time to benefit the community as a whole. So what I would emphasise is once this goes forward, I would be keen for there to be a spirit in which it says that we're all in this together, rather than allowing a situation where rivalry exists between different internal administrative groups. That is not healthy because usually, it's wasted energy that could be better spent on excelling ahead.

[Soral]

Lynx, I'm not sure that my analogy was fully understood.

The point I was attempting to make was about the expected balance that we would have as members through the Federation Council. While the FEO has always welcomed feedback and encouraged members to make their voices heard, there have been times where the feedback has been missed, forgotten, or not given the weight that it deserved (not necessarily by intention).

In my analogy, the council serves to bring the membership's input back into balance where it was always intended to be from the start. Thus giving members the same type of impact that one would expect from stockholders in a company. Stockholders, regardless of how they got there or what they invested, carry a certain amount of weight in the decisions made by a company. Although that weight may or may not be a deciding factor in what the company plans to do moving forward. Similarly, while what we as the members have to say will carry a great deal of weight, the FEO will still make decisions based on what they perceive as being in the best interests of the community.

That's as far as my analogy was going though.

I did not include any comments or even mean to imply (I'm not sure where) that the council would be focused on criticizing volunteers or pitting two groups against each other. The idea of balance is that all groups are working together to benefit the whole. I'm not sure why my analogy made you think otherwise, but I'm talking about everybody being on the same team and feeling like their feedback/voices are given the respectful amount of weight that comes with that balanced approach.

The FEO can't think of everything and be expected to be the sole source of generating growth in this community. With a roster of 700+ members, there are many positive ideas and opportunities that we as a community could take part in or become groundbreakers in pursuing. Ideas that are undoubtedly being missed because not all voices are being heard as well as they should be. Voices that have much to offer if only they would be heard more clearly.

It's my belief that the council should provide the means for that if it lives up to its ideals. And I look forward to its creation for those reasons.

[Wesstan]

I understand your thoughts on this as the idea would be that the mediator between the FEO and the Council would (in a sense) be chosen by the community members and not the FEO. Ideally, it would be nice to have a balance of power between both groups, so I'm looking at it as kind of like having a group of stockholders in the company. You wouldn't necessarily have the stockholders making all of the company decisions, but you would want them to have a voice and that their feedback is given a respectful amount of weight in any decision. The FEO would be like the board running the company and the council like the stockholders providing that voice to be weighed in the future growth of the community. And typically the mediator, or liaison is maybe a better term, is chosen by the board running the company. Mikester can respond to whether my analogy fits with the intent of the proposal, but that's the way I'm looking at it and I see the community having that balance in the long-run.

Don' get me wrong on this anyone. It is not my intention to demand UFP to develope into a democratic lead and driven community. The step we are doing is great and time will show wheter its a good idea or not.
I just think that in our plans for the future and how we want to act within and outside of this group references the "real" Star Trek with its values and instiuions alot. I guess many of us have been influenced and socialised by them very much.
Therefore i stronlgy believe it is always important to think about and discuss how we want this commuity to be and to develope in the future. And thats where i see a major responsibility for the upcoming Federation Council.

[Flicky]

Very interested in this whole thing, it sounds like a great and adventurous new step for the community as a whole. And no, I most certainly am not already working on my campaign, no-siree bob.

[Mikester92]

Excellent feedback so far guys, I'm going to be looking at making a few final tweaks before final implementation.