Veilan's LA Q&A

[CloudDancing]

What do you think about a general rule that all staff MUST either play a character OR DM actively to be involved?

I am all for impartiality but I assume 75% of our Administration do not know our players by name, call sign, login, or character name TILL an issue comes up.

In the last few issues I, a lowly DM, spend my time trying to keep people from quitting and soothing them. I have to rebuild their trust in the system as no one explained them them WHY there was a misunderstanding. And finally I spent my DM time communicating to them why they were disciplined and how they misunderstood the processes that lead up to that.

Me. And I can't say I always have most of that information.

However if you play with characters, you get to know them. If you Dm them, you get to understand them intimately and your judgement is nearly always influenced to treat the whole player and not just based on a few impressions and some rumors from other DMs. No one is ever going to be treated fairly if only some of us are able to access leadership.

So can you see why our Administrative staff NEED to have an active play relationship with our players?

[johnlewismcleod]

Tell me why I shouldnt submit my name for this election to defeat you and usurp your power.

I'd vote for you, Heero










(I bet Heero can't even spell "eggplant"... I mean "elephant"... Uhmmm...I mean that other word )

[Veilan]

Hey piggy.

How many rules changes does it take to get to the tootsie-roll center of an alfa pillar?

Heh. I understand the concern, but as stated in the response to I-KP, it's always a balancing act. I can confidently state though that I never gobbled a tootsie-roll.

also, if you are re-elected, will you fly us all to germany for an inauguration party?

No. You can swim.

and if so, can we make out?

Sure, if your girl's cool with it.

Cheers,

[Veilan]

Tell me why I shouldnt submit my name for this election to defeat you and usurp your power.

Laziness. Though you definetely should .

[Veilan]

Hey Cloud, and thanks for your question.

What do you think about a general rule that all staff MUST either play a character OR DM actively to be involved?

I am all for impartiality but I assume 75% of our Administration do not know our players by name, call sign, login, or character name TILL an issue comes up.

In the last few issues I, a lowly DM, spend my time trying to keep people from quitting and soothing them. I have to rebuild their trust in the system as no one explained them them WHY there was a misunderstanding. And finally I spent my DM time communicating to them why they were disciplined and how they misunderstood the processes that lead up to that.

Me. And I can't say I always have most of that information.

However if you play with characters, you get to know them. If you Dm them, you get to understand them intimately and your judgement is nearly always influenced to treat the whole player and not just based on a few impressions and some rumors from other DMs. No one is ever going to be treated fairly if only some of us are able to access leadership.

So can you see why our Administrative staff NEED to have an active play relationship with our players?

I understand what you're trying to say, and yes, ideally most people should actively participate in game in some fashion. I do not think a rule for this would help, though - all it would do is exclude some people from volunteering their time and work for the benefit of the project as a whole.

By and large, I think you are painting a slightly too bleak picture. Speaking for my own former and current staff, all my Staff Heads either actively play (NES) or actively play and DM (SSM, BHM). This is part of the reason I recruited them, I would find it odd if an Admin brought in people who are not active to help do work. And I myself am an active player too - though I'm not in the most populous of timezones, I regularly meet other characters IG and even got some DM wuv of late.

The other Administrators also don't sit in an ivory tower. Curm has a self-imposed rule of not playing while he's DMA, which is not necessary, but understandable: The possibility for problems when you're the boss of the people DMing you is obvious. He does however entertain TSMers with some surprise DMage, and takes an active and close part in the campaigns of many of his DMs.

Rotku is playing as well (though I haven't found any of his corpses yet).

And Zelknolf's time spent in game seems borderline obssessive.

I'll grant that Hialmar isn't actively playing or DMing at the moment, but I do not see that this is a dramatic issue - he appears well capable of running our infrastructure regardless. And I would posit that he would return to playing or DMing if his time frees up more - in the meanwhile, he offers the perspective of a father of a small child to give some relativity to our assumptions of ALFA's importance .

That you cleared up misunderstandings and helped explain ALFA to people is very laudable. I am 100% convinced though that if at any point you'd have asked an administrator to help with it, they would have taken the time. Also, let's not forget that you are a staffer currently - further underscoring my point that most of our staff actually does what you think it should .

So in summary, I fully agree with your sentiment. Ideally, the experience playing or DMing breeds the desire to help the community further with staff work. However, there is also the case where people cannot commit to regularly playing or DMing, yet still wish to give something to the community. I would not want to exclude these people with a hard rule, though obviously the likelihood of them being employed in a crucial staff role is small - but whatever anyone can offer I'm willing to take.

Cheers,

[I-KP]

Thanks for the answer, V.

[I-KP]

Thanks for the answer, V.

[Heero]

Laziness.

Wait, is this a comment about my weight? You know this is a sensitive issue for me, why would you say this to me? No one vote for this jerk.

*runs off sobbing*

[Zelknolf]

And Zelknolf's time spent in game seems borderline obssessive.

Are you comfortable working with crazy people in an administrative role?

Is your answer influenced by the crazy person having the social skills of two bricks with a frowny face drawn on them?




Alright, I actually do have to real questions.

I notice that your platform discusses our PR efforts via web 2.0 fun-- I would ask if there is anyone trolling, in the sense of catching things instead of frustrating people, the "older" forms of web communication, like message boards related to Neverwinter Nights (2), Dungeons and Dragons, Forgotten Realms, or other locales where we can be reasonably sure that people there are interested in some of the same things we are.

Related question, there seems to be a lot of energy floating around ALFA lately, which often seems to be misdirected or fizzles out for lack of guidance or organization-- our charter's design doesn't seem to overtly place anyone as responsible for heading up such a thing, beyond the sort-of connection by the Lead Administrator's role in determining peoples' roles and fussing with public relations. Do you have plans to leverage this into producing more tech slaves for me? Consuming the souls of your staffers was most pleasing. ... ... also, I suppose that other people could use connections made.

[CloudDancing]

That you cleared up misunderstandings and helped explain ALFA to people is very laudable. I am 100% convinced though that if at any point you'd have asked an administrator to help with it, they would have taken the time. Also, let's not forget that you are a staffer currently - further underscoring my point that most of our staff actually does what you think it should .

Yes, but can they spin doctor it like me?

[Veilan]

Hey Zelk!

Are you comfortable working with crazy people in an administrative role?

I thought I wasn't, but then the voices in my head told me it was okay.

Is your answer influenced by the crazy person having the social skills of two bricks with a frowny face drawn on them?

Let's just hope that those two bricks with a frowny face on them won't run in the next election and beat us all.



Or with some surprise seriousness: I don't think you and I are going to propose to each other in the near future, but that doesn't blind me to your talent, expertise and drive. And I even managed to work constructively with He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named, didn't I?

Alright, I actually do have to real questions.

I notice that your platform discusses our PR efforts via web 2.0 fun-- I would ask if there is anyone trolling, in the sense of catching things instead of frustrating people, the "older" forms of web communication, like message boards related to Neverwinter Nights (2), Dungeons and Dragons, Forgotten Realms, or other locales where we can be reasonably sure that people there are interested in some of the same things we are.

Related question, there seems to be a lot of energy floating around ALFA lately, which often seems to be misdirected or fizzles out for lack of guidance or organization-- our charter's design doesn't seem to overtly place anyone as responsible for heading up such a thing, beyond the sort-of connection by the Lead Administrator's role in determining peoples' roles and fussing with public relations. Do you have plans to leverage this into producing more tech slaves for me? Consuming the souls of your staffers was most pleasing. ... ... also, I suppose that other people could use connections made.

At the moment, we do not have a dedicated "troll" trying to oversee all the web chatter they might pick up, but yeah, given enough funds to hire someone... err . Personally, I somewhat prefer "oldschool" stuff like bulletin boards and community websites and chats to the fleeting "social" media, but it all has as place, depending on the objective. Reaching out to the wider community and lurking elsewhere is definetely a worthwhile effort - especially as, let's face it, the NWN 2 market eventually will shrink, and we might have to try to gobble up flagging other projects to maintain a comparable market in absolute numbers. Our target audience of course is not only NWN 2 players, but as you noted fans of roleplaying and DnD in whatever format.

I've somewhat unsuccessfully tried to reach out with both a general call for volunteers and a more specific attempt to get people to leverage their already existing community ties here. I would be very happy to help making matches (legal ones...), but I have to acknowledge that I'm not situated in the best timezone currently. Sadly, my attempt to recruit as Staff Head a very capable person sharing my idea of getting many people to do small things building on their own experience and connections, failed - but I'm willing to help any volunteer as best as possible, no matter how small the offered contribution.

As for producing tech contributors, I have no plans apart from trying to free up NES in the intermediate future, as he indicated he was quite interested in contributing even more to our tech and scripting. I'm very willing to work together with tech for propaganda purposes, and it is my hope that you could distill some of t3h awesome that we have into a draw for tech-interested members from the wider community - something Curm has also been doing with some success. We can offer a unique and living high-rp platform for builders and scripters to see their babies work in, which is something we could possibly leverage better.

(Developing an overarching PR strategy with a thorough market analysis might also help us identify target audiences, USPs, UAPs and the perfect marketing mix suited to reach the people we want, but I'm in a bit of a bind there personally - I'm not satisfied with a "rough" hobby version, but to do it professionally is a lot of work that I'd usually be paid for, since it's like, my vocation. For now, I'm happy to take whatever and whoever we can get following an "all publicity is good publicity" heuristic, and have managed the last term's PR staff mostly by laisser-faire.)

As stated, I've also approached other projects at Top-Management-to-Top-Management level to get more cooperation and sharing of resources, but there's not yet any real tangible results - I think snatching talented people directly might have more merit, though we should probably avoid "poaching" and getting a bad rep .

tl,dr version: I'm definetely willing to do it, but as usual it stands and falls with the volunteers - the day-to-day work, problems and internal communication and faciliation of work with recalcitrant Admins (not to mention the veto requests ) mean that I cannot personally do it all, not with playing, studying, and girlfriend.

Cheers and thanks for your questions,

[Veilan]

Yes, but can they spin doctor it like me?

Course not. Hence why I hired you .

[Castano]

Will you post the stores selling +3 swords so I can spend less time looking for them?

[Veilan]

Will you post the stores selling +3 swords so I can spend less time looking for them?

If I knew of any, I might... but I'm kind of out of the loop on hot shopping locations outside the Moonshaes of late.

Cheers,