[Sunfire]

EX ASTRIS, SCIENTIA

FROM THE STARS, KNOWLEDGE

SFA SURVEY RESULTS

December 2023 APPROVAL: 98%(~%)


DEPARTMENT REVIEW: NOT REQUIRED

Strongly Approve: 18%
Approve: 14%
Neutral: 67%
Disapprove: 1%
Strongly Disapprove: 0%

It's been a while since I went through but it looks like new members are being well equipped by the work of those in Starfleet Academy.

Sunfire: Thank you! That's what we try, good to get feedbck that we achieve what we set out to do.

It's been a long time since I've been at Starfleet Academy, but as far as I can tell it's doing great! The staff is friendly and from what I can see, the support provided to new members is top-notch. Academy News is always a highlight to look forward to.

Sunfire: Thank you! It's not been an easy year for the Academy but we are very glad to get positive feedback like this. The Academy Newsletter is indeed a highlight and Alex does in excellent job with it.

We have a major issue of the majority of our members not posting and not being involved in anything other then posting on role call to retain their membership. Moreover at the moment I would suggest that we seem to be not retaining our members as much as we have in the past several years. Is this SFA's fault? Maybe... we know that primarily we are a STO forum. However the majority of our members do not play STO. Most of them do not even post on our forums. Maybe it's time for us to look at why that is? If we can solve that maybe we can keep more of our members in UFP, or at least motivate them to be actively posting. Lets care enough to make our forum the best that it can be and find out why hundreds of our members keep their words to themselves.

Sunfire: This is a difficult topic and one we have talked about in the last weeks as well. The difficulty here is that the Academy is not (solely) responsible for member retention, in fact the gamin divisions are primarily reposnsioble for this. The Academy's purview ends when the recruit gets relinquished and his orientation periods ends, after that it's up to the whole (forum) community as well as the ingame players to keep members engaged. Historically the UFP has always been extremely hands-off in how members behave, we have no activity requirements for very good reasons, so it's up to every single member if they want to engage on the forums or not. I agree that in the past the forums were more active, it is something that FEO and the CL5s are already looking into.

Random Comment of Strong approval

Sunfire: Specific answer of great appreciation!

I am proud of every single SFA member. They're all doing a fantastic job!

Sunfire: Thank you very much, we all do our best!

Neutral

Sunfire: Okay, neutral is not bad. It's not good either, so if you'd like to reach out to me in private to tell me why you feel only neutral about the Academy I can look into changing that neutral into something a bit more positive

I need to make time to take more courses. THEN I can give you proper feedback.

Sunfire: The exams are always here for you to take, no need to rush!

what do they do to recruit

Sunfire: We use several gaming forums to advertise the UFP, specifically those of games we support (either STO or the bigger Holodeck games with community presence). We are in close corrdination with Holodeck command for which games we actively recruit at a given time. Outside of gaming forums we do not currently do coordinated recruitment.

[Miles]

.. we know that primarily we are a STO forum. However the majority of our members do not play STO....

Just to add that we are not an STO forum. UFPlanets is a Star Trek community. The forum has various sections ranging from Star Trek TV to literature and other non-STO games.

[Satek]

I hope you don't mind me replying to this post with my thoughts.

I joined UFP when STO launched (however couldn't remember my log in) and subsequently years later rejoined. Several factors keep me in UFP and I will admit I am a guilty party in regards to signing the roster and that's it.

Fond memories of UFP are certainly when you acquired the EF:Holodeck - the sense of nostalgia was immense! Also speaking and debating with others in the chat at the top of the website regarding Star Trek, episodes etc is always brilliant.

I personally love Star Trek, the games although excellent, lack in numbers which stops me playing them, and thus a cycle is born. With STO, I am rarely playing it as it very much became lock box central (I must have spent hundreds) and I used to really enjoy PVP.

The problem I have with STO is everytime I load in after a break, I am overloaded with new things and reset skills etc that I have no idea what is going on. It would be great if there were a "Welcome Back" team who we could reach out to for support - not necessarily the best builds, but someone who can help with the overload.

I feel guilty that I have really just "used" UFP for my own purposes, rather than actively engaging in the community and games (part of this being I only use Discord, but with the changes, I see this improving). I suppose to pay off my guilt, although I donate, I think offering my services to you all is the right thing to do.

I am no good at graphics but I like to think I am an approachable person with quite a bit of Trekkie TV/Film knowledge and am more than happy to help in anyway you all deem suitable.

That's my 2 cents - its a long one, but I feel people are waiting for the next big Trek game to come out or STO expansion - why else would people keep signing the roll call?

[Stormy]

I'm going to step in and add something to Sunfire's comment about the UFPlanet's recruiting effort. And, in full transparency, I am an RSO (on my second tour with the division). As he said, we do recruit on gaming forums, but I would venture to say that's not all we do... at least not me.

Any time I see someone looking for a fleet in-game or in a forum, I send them our way. Sure, it could be someone just looking to raid our banks but I am pretty sure we have been around long enough to know how to keep those things from happening so I do not let that fear keep me from inviting anyone. After all, it COULD be someone who eventually becomes an XO or CO of one of our divisions. Was I asked to do this? No. In my opinion, I shouldn't have to be asked to encourage people to join this fleet... and neither should anyone else. In fact, I did this in between my stints with the Academy because it was the right thing to do. And it still is.

As for other options, I am open to suggestions but with one caveat. I do not... and will not... spam chat channels with fleet invites. I do not think that's very "professional" and I seriously doubt it's effective.

I do not believe I am the only one who feels this way or invites those they encounter along the way. My questions is... do you?

[Sunfire]

As for other options, I am open to suggestions but with one caveat. I do not... and will not... spam chat channels with fleet invites. I do not think that's very "professional" and I seriously doubt it's effective.

This is out of the question and will never happen as long as I have anything to say about it.
To be fair, that is the overwhelming view of CL5/6 as well, so we will not spam chat channels for the foreseeable future.

[Stormy]

This is out of the question and will never happen as long as I have anything to say about it.
To be fair, that is the overwhelming view of CL5/6 as well, so we will not spam chat channels for the foreseeable future.

I have no doubt leadership feels the same way and thank you for stating it. I was simply giving my personal opinion and in no way meant to imply UFPlanets would ever use this tactic.

[Mack]

...

The problem I have with STO is everytime I load in after a break, I am overloaded with new things and reset skills etc that I have no idea what is going on. It would be great if there were a "Welcome Back" team who we could reach out to for support - not necessarily the best builds, but someone who can help with the overload.

I feel guilty that I have really just "used" UFP for my own purposes, rather than actively engaging in the community and games (part of this being I only use Discord, but with the changes, I see this improving). I suppose to pay off my guilt, although I donate, I think offering my services to you all is the right thing to do.

...

It's been two months since I've returned to STO and been playing it after a hiatus myself and can relate to being overloaded. But to be honest, I started off by doing the new missions and episodes which I had missed out on during this tenure.

For everything else, I decided to take a slow pace and indulge myself in UFPlanets in-game chat and the members. Jammers especially holds events which are more theme oriented and to run queues + the game for fun.

With the move to discord - administration has become even efficient for Gaming Divisions both STO and non-STO. So regardless, don't be sorry to just lurk but if you do wanna play the games - feel free to say hello.

[Jestersmith]

I hope you don't mind me replying to this post with my thoughts.

I joined UFP when STO launched (however couldn't remember my log in) and subsequently years later rejoined. Several factors keep me in UFP and I will admit I am a guilty party in regards to signing the roster and that's it.

Fond memories of UFP are certainly when you acquired the EF:Holodeck - the sense of nostalgia was immense! Also speaking and debating with others in the chat at the top of the website regarding Star Trek, episodes etc is always brilliant.

I personally love Star Trek, the games although excellent, lack in numbers which stops me playing them, and thus a cycle is born. With STO, I am rarely playing it as it very much became lock box central (I must have spent hundreds) and I used to really enjoy PVP.

The problem I have with STO is everytime I load in after a break, I am overloaded with new things and reset skills etc that I have no idea what is going on. It would be great if there were a "Welcome Back" team who we could reach out to for support - not necessarily the best builds, but someone who can help with the overload.

I feel guilty that I have really just "used" UFP for my own purposes, rather than actively engaging in the community and games (part of this being I only use Discord, but with the changes, I see this improving). I suppose to pay off my guilt, although I donate, I think offering my services to you all is the right thing to do.

I am no good at graphics but I like to think I am an approachable person with quite a bit of Trekkie TV/Film knowledge and am more than happy to help in anyway you all deem suitable.

That's my 2 cents - its a long one, but I feel people are waiting for the next big Trek game to come out or STO expansion - why else would people keep signing the roll call?

Only just saw this, Mentioned User Satek. The best place for questions, concerns, and help for STO is in the STO Section https://ufplanets.com/forumdisplay.p...ar-Trek-Online

I will reflect on what Mack has said and join in as it suits you best. we are here to assist with anything you need help and advice on anything STO related be it builds or anything to do with STO. This now extends to our move over to utilizing Discord. PVP is still around, though we don't actively participate anymore; however, there is a fleet that occasionally posts on our Discord server.

Feel free to reach out via forum PM, post, or Discord if you need any help with anything.

[Sul-Matuul]

I've always seem the academy guys as very welcoming and helpful. Not many online communities would go into as much effort as UFP does when welcoming a new member; even appointing a personal "guide" to said new member to help them out.

What happens once the welcome period is over is really up to the members themselves. You could be a ghost on here but still be "active" by reading all the threads and enjoying the content others are posting. Or you could be highly active in multiple games and get stuck in to events and use voice chat. Or you could just be someone who is and STO player and wanted a fleet to join and found all the extras that come free with memberships here; even if you're really only looking for access to fleet stores etc.
UFP's beauty is that we don't judge how you spend your time here and don't expect anyone to super-involved or push for activity participation. All that's needed to the rollcall signature once a quarter to keep the ranks thinned from spam or inactive accounts clogging it up. You can be as casual or as "stuck in" as you like here and nobody will judge you.

It's difficult to "push" members to stay active though. Most find us currently via STO I'd imagine; a free to play game with very light gaming requirements and no real complexity for the casual gamer.
Yes other games are played by some but you can't expect members to drop real cash to play games others enjoy, or have access to voice chat equipment.

I will say though that if you're a member and think something you enjoy might be enjoyed by others here then speak up and suggest it! We're always open to other ideas for community involvement. Maybe it's a new (or old!) game you'd like to play with others. Perhaps you'd like to do some group re-watches of old Trek episodes. Maybe you'd like to start a Trek themed book club.
Drop a suggestion in the forums or via a PM to someone in a department and see what comes of it!