Group Moderators/RPing mods

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Are group moderators leaders of a group or are they just there to delete posts in their forums? This is an honest question, I know it used to be leaders but now everything is very incestuous with people being mods of multiple factions, etc, and we've been very open to ideas and things coming from everyone, which is good.

I think, however, that something like who gets what planet would be figured out more quickly if the Rebel and Empire mods got together and just hashed it out?

I also wonder if the RPing moderators should be having more of a say in how and when the year 10 stuff happens, or other RPing questions? Like the Jedi were twiddling their thumbs for a few days waiting for someone to tell them if it was ok to start posting on Ossus. Seems like a good time for an RPing (typoed that as Rapping lol) Mod to give them the heads up yes or no.

Or are RPing mods also just there to delete posts and check sig file sizes? (I know there are a few other things that they can do, like stopping spammers and moving threads/posts, this is more a question of do they actually moderate the RPing/story etc)

[Captain Untouchable]

Personally, I think it's really important that staff/administrative stuff is kept separate from creative decisions.

At the moment, whenever we decide something to do with the story, everyone's decision is equal. It doesn't matter if you've been here five months or five years; you can weigh in with an idea, and everyone will think it over and respond to it. Yes, it sometimes does take us a long time to reach a final decision, but when we get there it's a consensus that we are all happy with, and that we were all part of. That community aspect - that sense of writing a story that we all thought up together - is what I think makes Fans such a great place to roleplay. We're all friends; equals; fellow writers.

If being a group moderator becomes part of making creative decisions, then suddenly certain people start having opinions that are more important than other people. We start making decisions that people who aren't group moderators didn't have a say in, and that's when people start feeling left out. It's awkward enough when people have to take off their "your friend" hat and put on their "the staff" hat so that they can discuss stuff that you aren't privy to: I think we need to keep that sort of thing as far from the creative / fun / roleplaying side of things as we possibly can, else we might start to lose the relaxed, casual vibe that we've spent so long cultivating.

That's just my personal take on it. I agree that it would be useful to have a clearer definition of what a group moderator is (since I am one, and am not entirely sure what that entails any more :uhoh)... I just think it needs to be more at the administrative end of the spectrum, and less at the creative decisions end.

[Rev Solomon]

I agree with Cap on this one. Broad story arcs on the forums have always been collaborative in nature, but they also depend on the people who have the energy and the time to execute them. I may be a Jedi moderator, but I can't realistically be involved in every Jedi storyline, even at the planning level, simply because I don't have the time.

Ossus is a special case, being a brand-new setting that affects everyone who wants to play a Jedi character, but I think it's actually a good example of the way we operate. We spent considerable time discussing ideas for the direction of the Jedi - whether they'd be moving to a new ship or to a permanent planetary base, then what planet they'd be settling on, then what their political position in relation to the Alliance would be. Once we decided on Ossus, we threw around ideas about the nature of our settlement, the kinds of resources we'd have available, the kind of atmosphere we wanted to evoke. It all grew very organically, like most of our mythos, and lots of people had the opportunity to weigh in and add to the joint creation.

When it came to actually getting us started, Droo volunteered. And even though he's a Jedi moderator, I didn't think of it as an exercise of moderatoial authority (moderatority?) but as a case of someone stepping up and setting the stage for the rest of us, just as Charley did for the Senators in "Mrs. Meorrreii Goes to Bothawui." It's not so much a case that somebody needs to give the forum permission as it is that a grand new setting needs a proper introduction. People feel a lot more comfortable posting in an important setting when they have a precedent they can refer to.

Let's consider another example. The Wheel has been disbanded, which means a lot of existing Rebel characters have to find new places to call home. If a few Rebel RPers wanted to put their heads together and create a new setting for their characters - say a forward outpost that can serve as a hub for fleeters, pilots, and ground forces - would they need to get the approval of the Rebel mods to do so?

Well, I certainly hope the Rebel mods would be interested in offering their input into such a setting, but if they did, it would be as fellow interested RPers, not as moderators setting policy. The only way I could see moderators possibly needing to invoke their authority is if the setting interfered with the plans of other RPers, but on the whole this community is good about working with each other so we don't step on one another's toes.

I can understand where you're coming from in terms of promoting expediency. There's a time for discussing, and there's a time for just posting to get the ball rolling. But ultimately that comes down to personal investment in the story.


EDIT - Presumably moderators would also step in if someone wasn't playing nice in an RP - as in, godmoding or otherwise being abusive IC or OOC. But the fact that this didn't occur to me until after I wrote that whole post is an indicator of how far removed those issues are from my experience here. Common sense RPing and a generally level-headed user base do make moderating a much cushier gig!

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I need to reread both of your posts more fully, but for now I will say I am on the same page as you both. I guess I was just asking because if everyone on the board has to come together and decide boundaries or something we lose whatever scant momentum we had going. We are already losing that momentum, I feel.

Edit: I think my questions are more along the lines of "what do the group and RPing mods do, do we want them to do that or should they do more? Or less."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Cap and Rev have pretty much said everything I would have said.

I don't see the mods as being the ones to say 'do this now', or 'planet x,y, and z will be so-and-so's'; we're a community and that's how we enjoy coming up with ideas and writing. If we take that aspect away, the drive to be a part of this site is diminished pretty significantly. Who wants to be given no say in how things are done? That's what my work does to me every day, and I damn sure wouldn't want to be a part of an RPing site that operated under those same principles. I come here to be creative, have fun, pitch my ideas, and bounce those ideas off of others for fine tuning and input.

The mods are here to make sure things run as smooth as possible, not incite action (though if one does that's not a bad thing, I'm just saying that members shouldn't feel hesitant about doing so themselves).

As for momentum, I don't think we're losing any.

[Rev Solomon]

Well, let's examine my second example from a different perspective. With the Wheel, we had a hub that accommodated Jedi, pilots, mechanics, and fleet officers. It had its limitations - in order to have any planetside adventures, we needed an excuse for the whole fleet to be near a planet, and it was hard for people to come and go when the fleet's location was supposed to be a secret. But it was an effective melting pot for different groups of characters.

If someone joins up today and wants to introduce a Rebel pilot character, where do they go? Or a mechanic? Or an intel spook? I've been around for nine years now, and I honestly don't know. Mitch mentioned to me that he's dropping Tevit because he doesn't know what to do with him in our Year 10 setting. I have to think newcomers will be just as lost, whether they're playing Rebels or Imperials.

The whole point of defining the setting at all is to provide continuity and structure for storytelling. Having unlimited possibilities for RPing is functionally the same as no possibilities at all. But it's a Catch-22, because it's hard to provide structure for RPing if we don't know what sort of RPing people are interested in, and people are less likely to choose certain kinds of characters if there's no structure already in place to accommodate them.

Aside from some broad-stroke background details, the Alliance and the Empire are both pretty amorphous and ill-defined right now. The only real activity I've seen has been from Reshmar and Kraken, who are developing some great fleeting scenarios for the new setting. Once again, it's down to people with a personal investment in a certain kind of storytelling actually getting down and dirty and making it happen. But that doesn't help the pilots, the mechanics, and the spies.

Is it the responsibility of the group mods to come up with some structure for these groups? Do we just wait for enough people to speak up and say, "I'd really like to bring back Rogue Squadron"? I think those are the sort of questions we're trying to address here.

[Captain Untouchable]

There actually is already an Alliance fleeter / pilot hub in place for Year 10. We've had plans in place for over a year: the only difference that the time skip has made is that we're adopting that status quo now, rather than waiting for the Dan-s'Il arc to run it's course.

At least a year (possibly longer) ago, I decided that Vansen Tyree and the Challenger were going to leave the Wheel. At the time, Rogue Squadron got together and discussed whether they (individually) wanted to stay with the Wheel or with the Challenger, and the consensus was that wherever the Challenger went the Rogues would go. We ultimately decided that the best point for the Challenger to leave was at the culmination of the General Dan arc, with Vansen leaving the Wheel to take command of the 4th Fleet. This had the bonus advantage of putting the Rogues as part of the same chain of command as Task Force 42, which is our collaborative fleeter group - Charley, Dee, myself, and others in the past each command small groups of ships that work together, rather than one person writing the entire fleet on their own. Charley & co also made the conscious decision to have the Novgorod as part of that chain of command (which is why Cirr has received orders from Soto Terius, my TF42 character, in the past), so that we had all of our eggs in that same basket. We also talked at around the same time about General Brecklin - Christin's character who is/was going to be the head of the Starfighter Corps - being part of Team Challenger and using the Challenger as a sort of Top Gun academy where new pilots can go for training.

When we decided to do the jump to Year 10, those plans were already discussed, agreed upon, and in place. The only changes we collectively decided on were that a) Vansen would be the Admiral of 4th Fleet now, instead of waiting until after the General Dan story arc had finished, and b) instead of being at Sullust as originally planned, the 4th Fleet would move to Moonus Mandel (in the Bothawui Sector) so that in addition to being where most of the pilot/fleeters were it was also in the same neighbourhood as the capital, Alliance Intelligence, Army HQ, and so on.

There didn't need to be "Jedi on Ossus" scale conversations about the Rogues and fleeters, because that stuff was already discussed, agreed, and signed off on in advance. That's a prime example of the well-oiled way that things on Fans often work: not every decision we make collectively takes a long time to discuss in the way that the Jedi situation did.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Is it the responsibility of the group mods to come up with some structure for these groups? Do we just wait for enough people to speak up and say, "I'd really like to bring back Rogue Squadron"? I think those are the sort of questions we're trying to address here.

In the past - or at least how I kept things going on the Empire board - group mods helped to provide structure. I had my main group of guys who were in charge of different aspects within the Imperial board, and when one of us saw something that either needed to be changed or something they wanted changed, the subject was brought up and the decision(s) made.

But, on the end of the RPing mods, I personally feel that they do not need to take such an approach. They may have to help settle disputes between roleplayers, delete unwanted posts, and other stuff of that nature, but I see them as mainly overseers whereas a group mod/leader is someone who helps to keep things going within their faction.

[Rev Solomon]

There actually is already an Alliance fleeter / pilot hub in place for Year 10. We've had plans in place for over a year: the only difference that the time skip has made is that we're adopting that status quo now, rather than waiting for the Dan-s'Il arc to run it's course.

I'm very glad somebody was able to contradict me! :)

Anyway, I think we're still on the same page here. In terms of determining the mythology-shaping events and settings for our RPing, being a moderator is more or less irrelevant. It's more about who is available, interested, and motivated to carry these things forward.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I'm glad there's an Alliance fleet thing going on, I wasn't aware of any of those plans. Must have been discussed on AIM! Or there's a thread and I missed it.

[Stela'shlit'nuruodo]

Much of the Fleet based issues are worked out on AIM. I and a couple others are the ones who deal mostly with these issues. Though I have little to do with TF 42 The wider strokes of the Fleeting here I do work with Jace and others to keep it streamlined. Jace does the heavy lifting most of the time. I just throw Ideas at him and others. In the future I can certainly see anyone who is interested and wants to know what were working out and planing is kept in the loop so to speak.

[Captain Untouchable]

I'm glad there's an Alliance fleet thing going on, I wasn't aware of any of those plans. Must have been discussed on AIM! Or there's a thread and I missed it.

It was discussed in a few threads, and you were involved in at least one or two of them... but like I said, it was quite a while ago (over a year), and it's not an area of the boards that you're actively involved in, so it's probably not particularly memorable for you. :)

[Dasquian Belargic]

I'm glad there is still fleeting stuff going on. I've always avoided it like the plague, but it's nice to know that it's still there. Reminds me of the old days ^_^;