Talk:Condensed structure
Contents
Spokes' input
Taking a look a the new Squadron structure (is this flying only?) gives me a better idea of what Licah had proposed on RSHC. I really wasn't having much luck visualizing it.
This raises a few of questions for how it plays out (new structure) and how the old info/records are folded in:
1. Can any pilot fly any mission? If so, we need to make it VERY clear to folks that there is no longer a game-based distinction for Squad placement.
2. How will Merit be tracked and who will be responsible for multiple reports on various ITODs (this must cover posting scores, awarding Merit, Medals, etcetera).
3. Do we lose the current "Fleet-based" Medals? If so, what will replace them. If not, will we just rename them to reflect the various games?
4. With multiple ITODs, how will we measure/reward Squadrons?
I may have more later, but I'm certain that we will need ready answers for these issues.
~Spokes
A rough draft
Spokes,
I've largely updated the Common ITOD page in response to your questions. Of particular note is the merit system, and my thoughts on it on the discussion page. As this is a very tricky issue, I'd welcome lots of input.
And indeed, it's flying units only.
- Licah
What about our fleet "history"?
My main concern on this whole thing of merging the fleets, lies in what to do about our history, and by that I mean the things Spokes mention.
To make one thing clear right away: I'm not out to "defend" my own position as fleet CO and member of the HC. I'll gladly give that up if it serves the club and the fleet I serve.
The reason for me to focus on the fleet history...well, I guess it has something to do with my own time in here. I've been active in the IBG for 3,5 years, and have met quite a number of people during this time. A number of these are still around, some were here when I joined, some joined about the same time as myself, and some came later. I've flown for Dagger all the time. I've fought and done what I could to make my squad the best one in the fleet. I've achieved all I want to when it comes to flying. This is reflected in our rankings; the merit ranking and the cummulative ITOD ranking. I'm proud of those two lists. Not only because I'm up there at the top, but because in a way they're the only real documentation of what's happened in the fleet for the last four years.
Almost two years back we remade the merit system in the IBG. Vender was CO at the time. It gave us a much better merit system, but it ruined the fun for some of the veterans, as much of their effort and hard work suddenly was "nullified". I fear the same might happen if we suddenly were to start from scratch. Also, remember what happened when Rahj suddenly got that idea about messing with the rankings. So, either we have to make a new structure that will continue the traditions, or we'll have to start preparing the members on what will happen, and then wait a few months, so that they'll get used to the idea, and at the same time start an open discussion on the bbs, where all the members can state their opinions. Personally, if we start over, I know I'll simply no longer care for the merits and medals; I'll probably dedicate myself to making missions, and solving missions other makes.
I tend to think a model where the existing fleets are placed in wings, and where they can continue the activity they have as they want to, is the best. But I admit this is because I care most for the IBG. I need more time.
The structure drawn up looks nice enough, though, even if it's an early version, and a number of things need to be looked at more closely. What about new cadets? Is the idea to get the academy back? Or will our model be the one followed? With that many squads and pilots under one CO, we'd need some kind of Personell Officer to take care of the contact with the members.
It's getting late, so I'll have to stop. Only one more things that got into my head right now. If, and only if, we decide to do this, then we can make a two or three missions minitour for each fleet, fix it in time to Thrawn's victorious period, and let our fleets be beaten and partly destroyed. We will loose the ships that belongs to the decomissioned squads. We will loose our bases. We will be forced to regroup - and restructure.
Himm
Histories: the biggest problem
History is always a problem when one makes changes of this size. However, we are preserving most squadron pride, and many people are tied to their squadrons. What of all the individual honors a pilot has earned? I can think of two things:
- Keep the individual fleets' merit systems going (complicated, preserves history)
- Respectfully bring the merit systems to an end, and continue to display them as history.
I kind of prefer ending them. The IBG had an uproar because the old merit system was deleted, but ours will be kept so no one will lose their hard work. They'll just look back and smile fondly, remembering when they got all those awards. In the meantime, the excitement of everyone starting over may make people want to be more active again.
That's what happened with the ranks too - and please remember that it was HC that unanimously approved the ranks change to happen immediately, something Rahj actually didn't want. Sorry, that issue is a little touchy because the blame fell and still falls on Rahj, when it was really HC's fault, and they never did really apologize to him about it. Anyways, the ranks, like the IBG merits, created problems because they erased history. We won't ever erase history; we'll just salute it and gently retire it, keeping it on display.
Personnel Officer? I know you wanted to get rid of Wings, but they fill that purpose right now, so I think it would be useful to keep them. It would also lessen the shock of the new system.
Anyways, I'd prefer to leave it up to the membership on whether they want to keep Fleet merits and medals active, or retire them. We won't ever remove them from anyone. It really depends on how the willing the membership is to go with our plan.
I'm starting to get worried about having written too much text for people to come in and read, so I'm going to stop now ;-) I am going to add a couple more possibilities to the Structure changes page though based on a couple things you said.
more on history and structure condensation
I don't understand why we simply can't let the ITOD rankings and merit rankings go on, as well as fleet specific medals. If we make a new fleet, I suppose it will be natural to let those squadrons brought over from each fleet form a wing, so we get an XW wing, TF wing etc. Then each wing could simply continue what the fleet do today. Sorry, but make us one fleet, I will still care only for the XWA activity. I will fly the XWA version of the ITOD, and I will only compare my flying to the others flying the same mission. You can have us competing against a squad of XW pilots, but I don't care and will not bother to even look at such a competition - we play two different games. I can fly XW, TF or XvT if I want to, but that's not what I'm here for. I will enjoy the common SL, but not for the competition.
I realise that this is rather selfish of me.
On to structure. I wholeheartedly support anything that can reduce the number of command positions. That's why I want to get rid of the wings in today's system; they have no function at all, I don't intend to let them have it, and it only makes people do work we can very well do without. So having one staff for all our flying units is fine for me. Then the wings could actually get a function. I would also support it if we made it so that one can be a squad staff member or a wing or fleet staff member, but not at the same time. I know this would again up the need for people to be in command position, but then at least they'd be in only one at a time, and hopefully would make the most of it. There also ought to be a limit on how long one person could hold a spot, to prevent someone sitting in a chair for too long, and to ensure more people got the chance to have a place if they wanted to. But yes, put us together under one staff might be wise.
Himm
focus: participation
Putting all the fleets into a "superfleet" where the present-day fleets become wings accomplishes nothing at all, as far as I can tell. Key problems won't be addressed at all.
You're missing the focus of the new fleet: participation. Your squadron still gets to fly XWA and compete on a killboard against other XWA pilots. You don't have to compare your score or kills to any of the other games. The only way that you would directly compete against a squadron only flying X-Wing is through participation. Whether your squadron flies more, writes more, and is generally more active. You will still get bonuses for doing well on the scoreboard, such as the squadron winning first place and individual pilots getting high scores.
I'm trying to make it clear that participation is the way squadrons will be judged against each other for the title of "winning" squadron. As far as I can tell, this is the only good way for competition between different games, and it's how many other clubs (e.g. the DB) do it. Let me point out a flaw with our current system: one pilot with a really high score (say, 100,000) could beat 10 pilots reporting an average score (say, 8,000), if that one pilot was good enough. Yet the second squadron was far more active and did better as a squadron. I think our focus should be more on activity than skill. Skill will still be important, but not as much as participation.
I think Wings can serve a very good purpose, but we've run out of use for them due to a lack of skilled leaders. I'd also like to point out that right now it's not actually allowed to be a CO or XO of more than one unit, unless both Fleet COs agree with each other that it's okay. That's a bylaw, and no one has been following that recently.
Anyway, I just wanted emphasize that participation is the central focus of the restructured flying fleet, and that's a big reason I'm in favor of it.
but then why?
I understand that bit about participation. THat was the reason for me to bring back into our fleet the special participation medal (IBG Commander's Golden CHalice) when I took over after Face. Those who know me from my time as Dagger CO will also know that the one aspect stressed repeatedly then - and I try to keep doing it now when I talk with the squad staffs and individual pilots - is that participation is the most important thing in here. All new cadets gets an advice from me about the importance of this in the first personal greeting I send them. So a participation competition between the squads in the new flying fleet will be very much welcomed.
But, this in a way makes it even more incomprehensible for me why we have to abandon the existing ITOD score board and merit rankings. We can perfectly well keep those things, and have the main thing in the fleet as a whole be the participation aspect. And I repeat once again, that I don't defend these listings because I'm on top of them. They're the most impoirtant thing to show who is who in our fleet. Take Daron Lochek in Dagger; he's as far as I know the pilot who've been in the IBG for the longest time now, without any break in his career. Daron is the type of pilot who faithfully reports on the missions, he's one of the best 5 pilots we have when he choos to really go for it, but he's chosen not to be very actively involved in much else. THat's his choice, and he's got all rights to choose that way. Put the ITOD score rankings and the merits into a museum page nobody will visit, and you've erased his history. Sorry, I can't go with that.
Someone brought up the point about how no one can overtake those on the tops of the lists in the different fleets; I think this was in one of the mails. I can see that this might been wiewed as an argument, but I'll not buy it. In stead, I've got a suggestion on how to fix this at least partly. This goes for the cummulative ITOD scores. I'd like to have available another set of ranking, and as far as I can understan programming, it shouldn't really be that much work to make. Besides the ongoing ITOD score following all the missions we've flown, make it possible for all pilots to report in on all missions, and by that give them the chance to compete for the all time best score in the fleet. Say Richo was given the chance to report in his top score on every mission flown in the IBG; will he be able to climb to the top? THe scores from the historical list would be there on the alternative list, and be updated in the future together with the traditional list. I think this would be a great way to encourage pilots to fly the former missions, and it cetainly would go a long way towards fighting "boredom". Of course, those who've alreday flown and reported on those mission could also report anew. Like on 2.08 (IBG/R2F mission 8), where I discovered the ultimate solution to the top score like 3 hours before the mission was due; had those others fighting for top score on that mission seen my report, they'd probably reflown and beaten me.
As for the Wings place in our structure, having the new fleet organised with each game forming a wing will finally give some meaning to the wing element, as I can see it.
I like the poll idea, Remember though, what happened in the rankings incident. Most of those who then voted in the poll to keep the new system suggested by HC (sorry, Rahj, for blaming you in a former post) or those who voted I don't care, was among those who suddenly got a jump upwards in the rankings. Most of those who voted no was among those who'd been working hard to gain their rank. I think the same might happen here; those low on scores and merits might say start over, while those who've really worked hard for years will vote to keep it. When we had the merit system in the IBG changed, I know that some of those who suddenly "lost it all" stopped caring for the whole system. And that was no good at all. But the IBG CO decided that wasn't very important. I fought then as now for keeping the history; Nate, the all time best pilot in the IBG, was way ahead of the rest of us, but after the change he ended up in the middle of the list. That was a shame, if you ask me.
Sorry for all my long writngs, but I simply try to find ways to reach the same goals, without having to erase history.
Himm
