JaydeMoon for DMA: Platform and Questions

[Brokenbone]

Thanks for your answer.

Boiling down to a "eager to be trained and live under the rules" seems like a good enough question to ask anyone who's been around ALFA for awhile. Everything I've touched in the last year has been "all HDMs know this person, minimal discussion, rubber stamp, go."

Assuming we someday trick... er, entice, new blood into the community, mightn't you still have an interest in the "tell me a story", "teamwork views" or other sorts of questions, in order to get an impression on applications where no one has really gamed with / formed any relationship with an applicant? I.e., here's two mandatory questions, here's six optional ones?

The application itself ought to look the same for all applicants, whether they've been here since Hector was a pup, or whether they moseyed in a month ago. Share that opinion?

[JaydeMoon]

Assuming we someday trick... er, entice, new blood into the community, mightn't you still have an interest in the "tell me a story", "teamwork views" or other sorts of questions, in order to get an impression on applications where no one has really gamed with / formed any relationship with an applicant? I.e., here's two mandatory questions, here's six optional ones?

The application itself ought to look the same for all applicants, whether they've been here since Hector was a pup, or whether they moseyed in a month ago. Share that opinion?

Certainly those are pertinent questions, I just feel that in the case of an HDM sponsored candidate, they must already answered to the HDM's satisfaction. I do not believe an HDM is going to sponsor a DM to their team who they feel is going to railroad plots, unbalance the server, and work exclusive of the rest of the DM team. I don't know that it's necessary to have to second guess that HDM, whom we have trusted with the stewardship of the server.

As I stated before, keeping the application available 'as is' (or with slight modification) covers those who do not have HDM sponsorship (likely because "no one has really gamed with / formed any relationship with an applicant", well put!). With that, the 'application' can be fished around to the various HDMs to see if any of them want to extend a hand to the member and sponsor them.

The application itself would look the same to any who 'filled it out' and what is eventually done should satisfy all concerns to the best level of compromise.

[Rusty]

Hi Jayde

Two queries.

Time: Fulfilling DMA duties, over the past weeks, has usually taken two hours a day or so, with one or two days each week requiring five or more hours (I'm just talking about actual activity here, not forum cruising or IRC lurking). In the run up to Live (and likely for some time afterwards), this is only going to increase. If necessary, are you prepared to give up all of your DMing and playing to do the job? Do you have any Staff lined up to assist you?

NWN2: You don't seem to have had much involvement in our NWN2 development (you're not in the NWN2 Team, have not been to any NWN2 meetings, haven't been around #ALFA-Builders, have barely posted in the Projects forum group, etc etc), and we're scheduled to go Live in 21 days or so. Can you get up to speed with all the issues facing us before then? What do you think are the biggest issues to be dealt with before Live? How will you handle server review? What issues are you prepared to leave until after Live? And do you think we will be ready on April 15?

[JaydeMoon]

Time: Fulfilling DMA duties, over the past weeks, has usually taken two hours a day or so, with one or two days each week requiring five or more hours (I'm just talking about actual activity here, not forum cruising or IRC lurking). In the run up to Live (and likely for some time afterwards), this is only going to increase. If necessary, are you prepared to give up all of your DMing and playing to do the job? Do you have any Staff lined up to assist you?

NWN2: You don't seem to have had much involvement in our NWN2 development (you're not in the NWN2 Team, have not been to any NWN2 meetings, haven't been around #ALFA-Builders, have barely posted in the Projects forum group, etc etc), and we're scheduled to go Live in 21 days or so. Can you get up to speed with all the issues facing us before then? What do you think are the biggest issues to be dealt with before Live? What issues are you prepared to leave until after Live? And do you think we will be ready on April 15?

Rusty, thanks for your questions. Also, thanks for your work thus far.

An estimate of 20 hours a week spent on DMA duties is very easy for me to envision doing, as well as maintaining the level of DMing and playing I currently do. Let me reiterate: right now and for the foreseeable future, I have no life outside of ALFA. I literally sleep, wake up, go to work (where I work and... deal with ALFA), come home, deal with ALFA, eat dinner, deal with ALFA, spend an hour hanging out with FI outside of ALFA (but usually end up discussing current events in ALFA), then go back to sleep.

Am I prepared to give up all of my DMing and playing to do the job? There is a difference between being prepared to follow through on what you absolutely must if it absolutely came down to it and the realities of any given situation. If it came down to that, I would prioritize my responsibilities and put my time where it was most important. In this case, DMA duties.

Do I think that DMA duties will have an appreciable impact on my ability to DM and play? Not unless the increase you allude to more than doubles or triples, on a daily basis. I don't see that happening, frankly. Not if the position is properly prioritized and delegated. Unless the duties were completely micromanaged, it is not something that would be so intensive and exhausting. Of course, you have held the position for quite some time, you know better than I.

Do I have a staff lined up? I have people in mind to fill the staff roles. The people best suited for most of the jobs already hold them. I will ask them if they wish to retain their position. I sincerely hope so because the simple fact of the matter is that it will be that much easier for me to perform in those duties with an experienced staff.

Brokenbone alluded to the philosophy of "If it ain't broke..."

The different teams don't feel very broken to me.

While your statement that I don't seem to be very involved in the NWN2 process, believe me when I tell you I learned from the last election. I have been following developments casually and noting who was working with them, what we were prioritizing, what we were setting aside, what we were waiting for from elsewhere, etc. If I haven't been vocal, it is because there was no need for me to be so. ALFA has a lot of experts. And there were people in place coordinating their efforts, such as yourself. My voice would have been superfluous at best.

If I take on the role of DMA, then I will be putting myself into the role of coordinator.

As for getting up to speed, the answer to that is, quite simply, yes. I have spent years working in high-tempo, dynamic situations where one must be able to quickly move from one set of issues to a whole other set of them and get up to speed quickly and capably. Mistakes did not end up in drama-fest and hurt feelings, but loss of assets, money, and time. I'm also not as far behind as you think, as I've spent the last six months tracking developments.

As for key issues, on the technical side of things, ensuring that the servers are stable and that the custom content we've incorporated in terms of critical systems are functional. We're still locating bugs and tinkering with certain issues, but if we can be certain that we have the necessary components working, then we're good for Live.

On the expressly DMA side of things, ensuring that the DMs are ready for the Live date. That they are trained and geared up for DnD right out the gate.

WILL we be ready for Live on the 15th? Not fully, there are things that we are still working on. But in practice? Sure. The critical issues are prioritized and being worked on by very intelligent people, team work is being stressed as the builders all come together to focus on 003. We have DMs on-line, ready to get into the game.

[Mayhem]

I literally sleep, wake up, go to work (where I work and... deal with ALFA), come home, deal with ALFA, eat dinner, deal with ALFA, spend an hour hanging out with FI outside of ALFA (but usually end up discussing current events in ALFA), then go back to sleep.

That being the case, what happened to the Standards documentation that you were, as part of Veilan's S&T roster, specifically charged with creating?

Is somebody who (apparently) loses interest in a standards related task so quickly really an appropriate choice for DMA?

[paazin]

Jayde, aren't you concerned about burnout with all that you do and you've been doing?

It wouldn't do much good to have you as DMA if you're consistently overworked and overstressed - after all, others put in that position before had resigned, stating it was just too much.

[JaydeMoon]

I literally sleep, wake up, go to work (where I work and... deal with ALFA), come home, deal with ALFA, eat dinner, deal with ALFA, spend an hour hanging out with FI outside of ALFA (but usually end up discussing current events in ALFA), then go back to sleep.

That being the case, what happened to the Standards documentation that you were, as part of Veilan's S&T roster, specifically charged with creating?

Is somebody who (apparently) loses interest in a standards related task so quickly really an appropriate choice for DMA?

Mayhem, thanks for your question.

To take the question as asked:

Is somebody who loses interest in a standards related task so quickly really an appropriate choice for DMA?

I removed the apparently. And I'll say that... 'perhaps not'.

However, in my case, that's not the entire story.

When asked to handle that task, I accepted and set about to getting started.

However, it looked like a lot of things weren't ready to be set to documentation and I had questions about some of the ways to go about it. I posted for guidance and, after an initial flurry of 'musings' and opinions, those requests were not answered to my satisfaction.

I took it as a sign that the ducks weren't in a row for documentation and that the answers were not forthcoming because there were no answers. So I waited. I suppose waiting is seen as 'losing interest'. Simply, the office of the DMA could have asked me at any time if I was still willing to work on this and set me up with the proper guidance.

Instead, the DMA took it elsewhere, through private channels, apparently, since I never saw any discourse concerning documentation and somebody else needing to handle it.

Had I noticed it on one of the standards or training forums, I would certainly have answered to the effect of, "Hey, I'm still here! You got stuff for me to document?"


To be fair, there were many things that were complete or near complete and needed polishing up. But to compile a full document, I needed more info and guidance on how the office of the DMA wanted it done, exactly. That wasn't forthcoming at the time.

[JaydeMoon]

Jayde, aren't you concerned about burnout with all that you do and you've been doing?

It wouldn't do much good to have you as DMA if you're consistently overworked and overstressed - after all, others put in that position before had resigned, stating it was just too much.

I sure do spend a lot of time with ALFA regardless, and I have been dealing with ALFA politics for a while, stating my opinions, offering input, helping to get things going...

This is about focusing those efforts and working with some really good people for the betterment of a community I feel strongly about.

I don't think I'll suffer from burnout.