Questions - Wynna

[Wynna]

Are you now or have you ever been a njub?

Yes.

[Wynna]

Hi, Twigs, and thanks for the serious questions.

3. Server proposals: This process will be thrown out and replaced by a vote from all 5 admins on new servers with a brief server statement of intent (1 or 2 pages of a simplied summary). This will make it easier for builders with real experience to put in a proposal, hopefully attracting back the builders we chased away.

Wynna I would like to hear your thoughts on this excerpt from Rick's platform in particular the bolded text. Many DMs/builders were lost during the planning phase of NWN2 which you spearheaded and more during/after the proposal selection. Many of the HDMs at the time, myself included, raised concerns with the planning, the emphasis that was being placed on numbers, and the fear that there would be too many servers and not enough players. One year into NWN2, we have no servers live, only a few in progress, and a handful builders. There is no question that ALFA lost talented members as builders, some entirely, and it has hurt the NWN2 efforts.

Before I even declared that I'd be running as a candidate, I was thinking hard about it. Part of the thought process included gathering information on the status of server selection specifically. On Thursday, November 15, I asked DMA to talk with me about the server plans in place and Rusty was kind enough to share with me his thoughts over this issue in his domain. What followed has been, to date, five days of PMs back and forth, with me asking questions and expressing opinions and observations. I'd be glad to share the gist of it here.

I wouldn't throw out any process within any Admin's domain and replace it with a vote by all 5 Admins. Servers are the DMA's domain. In the course of our discussion, we talked about what DMA's plans were, the end of the Server Selection Team, what the current approval system will be when new servers start applying, who will be approving applications, criteria for servers, potential failure of servers (whether at the application or approval stages or by simply going MIA somewhere in the middle of the process) and how to resolve potential disputes over geography claimed by any active or inactive team. You can see DMA's current plans on the wiki here: http://www.alandfaraway.org/docs/General/ServerApp.

As for emphasis on numbers and suchlike, in the absence of any hard information I suppose I fall back on extrapolation and trying to predict parameters. I went looking for some old posts back from the NWN2 Server Proposal days but I'm afraid time has done for them on any forum I can see. I'd be interested to see if my emphasis on numbers matched the brouhaha that brewed up about them. As I recall it, I was pretty clear on the idea that the plan was a place to start, was a living document that would change as we got hard info and that nobody should take it as chiselled in stone for all time. As a matter of fact, exactly what I consider a Lead's role to accomplish was accomplished. A direction was established, energy was created and now those with domain over the issues have taken ownership and run with it to develop the future of ALFA as they've been elected to do.

As for questions...

Do you intend, as Rick did, to try and draw back builders that felt disenfranchised by the proposal and selection process? If so, how do you intend to do this?

I intend to publicize ALFA. Those people who left in good standing and are still within the wider community are welcome to return. Mik can correct me if I'm wrong, but If they have active accounts, they may resume playing. Building and DMing would be up to Rusty's approval process.

The heated density debate, the fear that we would have so many build teams creating a large number of servers without a player base to fill them, was a sticking point in the planning phase. Since this obviously never actually became a problem but was a factor in the loss of enthusiasm and talented builders, would you have handled this differently? If so, how?

I guess I handle all relationships in the best way that seems to present itself for any situation at the time it presents itself. It's hard to look back from the future and say I'd have changed anything about any previous act. I also hate to lose any talented, enthusiastic members of the community and it's distressing when any heated argument leads to the loss of people from the community. All I can say is that sometimes people decide to go, based on their own beliefs. I hope they come back, when they feel those beliefs are served here.


Thank you, Twiggy.

[Wynna]

I feel that elections by domain serve as a check and balance among the Admin and prevent a single block of like-minded Admin driving the community in directions that might benefit more from varying opinions.

One could likely argue that a like-minded team of Admin could skip all the petty bickering and power struggling and have an easier time working together towards the betterment of ALFA, while using Rick's poll proposal as a universal check, but I digress.

Seems to me at least, by the tone of your answers that while many people agree on "what's wrong with ALFA", you're not one of them. Seems to me that you feel that a lot of those "wrong things" are actually a natural ocurrance and should solve themselves. So my question is, right now what are ALFA's, lets say, three greatest problems and what would you do to resolve them?

With my apologies, I'll have to handle this one later, either tonight or tomorrow. I'll get to it as soon as time permits.

[Wynna]

Seems to me at least, by the tone of your answers that while many people agree on "what's wrong with ALFA", you're not one of them. Seems to me that you feel that a lot of those "wrong things" are actually a natural ocurrance and should solve themselves. So my question is, right now what are ALFA's, lets say, three greatest problems and what would you do to resolve them?

Here we are. Seems like one case of pink-eye in the house and the best laid plans of mice and moms go out the window. With apologies for the delay, I did take the chance to think about what is, after all, a very big question. As it is a very big question, I began to find myself musing on the problems facing other worldwide organizations at various times. The first ones to come to mind were the EU, bootleggers during U.S. prohibition, and Disneyland. I pretty quickly told myself to get over myself. We could never hope to be as entertaining as the EU or as politically divided as Disneyland. But bootlegging...that provided a basis for comparison. ALFA provides a service of varying respectability to consumers who can't get what they need in their physical environs. While the metaphor breaks down under close scrutiny and politically correct horror at the trivialization of mob activities, it gave me a few hours of entertainment and served as a springboard to these three ideas:

Depth
Division
Vision

Depth -- Right now we lack depth in staffing and playerbase. Our builders are spread incredibly thin. Without exaggeration, I think Acadius Lost puts in a 40 hour work week for ALFA. Losing AL would sink ALFA. Seriously. He needs backup. The same scenario is repeated across the board. Too few DMs. Too few folks overall.

As we go Live, people will come. Some ratio of them will turn out to be interested and capable of holding the positions we need. But, first we have to get there. So, my role in getting us there is to publicize ALFA. Yesterday IWS was kind enough to ask my opinion on a blurb he has prepared for release on various community boards. Should I win the confidence of the electorate this term, my role in fixing a lack of depth will be to increase the depth of membership of ALFA all around by more of the same, by direct involvement in and support of PR disseminated through the wider community. Of course, with more members comes a greater profile of the next problem....

Division -- Different people hold different opinions. No way around it. No reason we should go around it. So long as differences of opinion are treated in a respectful manner, they serve the community rather than divide it. It's when they become entrenched lines of battle with the battlers involvement at stake that it becomes a problem.

There are two ways I see myself of use here. The first is by prevention of division, to an extent that confusion or lack of clarity in policy engenders it. I am a great supporter of documentation: the APM, Standards, the Charter itself, to name a few that I've been involved in. In any event of unclear situations that might lead to dissent, it is my natural inclination to suggest and support written clarification as driven by the Admin within whose domain the issue might arise. The second way I might help is simply that I've been around a long time and have a good relationship with most ALFAns. I've found that in all but the most memorable cases, sitting in as a third party between opposing sides takes the heat out of the argument and their own cooler heads find a way forward.

Vision -- ALFA’s mission is to provide an immersive persistent world for the purpose of high-quality online role-play using the D&D™ game system within the Forgotten Realms™ setting. That's our mission statement. How many of us knew it's the heading of our Charter?

The Pillars of ALFA:

1) D&D. ALFA uses Dungeons & Dragons ("D&D").

2) Forgotten Realms. ALFA is set in the Forgotten Realms.

3) Faerunian Scope. ALFA's goal is to span Faerun.

4) Permadeath. ALFA has permadeath for player characters.

5) One PC. Players in ALFA are only allowed one player character at a time.

6) Hardcore Role Play. Players in ALFA are required to role-play their characters; meta-gaming and power-gaming shall be prohibited.

7) Persistant. ALFA's Faerun shall be persistant.

8 ) Moderated Advancement. Character level advancement shall be moderated by the DMs and by standards.

9) Controlled Wealth. Wealth, which includes gold, gems, magic items and mundane items as well as intangible items, shall be controlled by the DMs in accord with standards set by the Administration for the purpose of ensuring play balance.

As simple as it sounds, I'll keep these two things to the forefront of any term to which I'm elected. And I'll formally begin the process of change to Pillar #5, to read: "One PC. Players in ALFA are only allowed one player character at a time in each of the ALFA gaming platforms of NWN and NWN2."

Thank you, Psycho Leo, for giving me the opportunity for such in depth thought.

*edited for typo

[dergon darkhelm]

Good afternoon Wynna,

Going to your above discussion of "depth" I wanted to gauge your opinion on a discussion that that the applications team members have been having of late.

Essentially it boils down to "Who are we looking to recruit and accept into ALFA?"

Are we seeking only the best of the best (some might actually use the word "elite") role players for our community?

Or should we be seeking out applicants that we feel are likely to become solid members of the community (follow the rules, rp in an immersive fashion, etc) in order to grow our base, knowing that if we set the bar at this level there will be occasional mistakes?

Thank you for your time and willingness to step forward. ((also a "get well soon" to the wynna household ))

Pete/Dergon

[Mikayla]

Wynna:

Those people who left in good standing and are still within the wider community are welcome to return. Mik can correct me if I'm wrong, but If they have active accounts, they may resume playing.

You are not wrong - old members who left while in good standing will be happily returned to the fold if they so desire.


More questions for Wynna:

Something that has come up recently is the lack of a formal decision making process for ALFA. We all know that the Admin make decisions on their own with respect to their individual portfolios - I make decisions in Player dispute cases, the DMA decides if someone becomes a DM or not, cipher decides what to do about Haks, etc.

However, we have no formal process for decisions that cross the individual domain lines. Take the Planetouched decision for example - we agreed on a process (more or less) but that process was developed Ad Hoc. Presumably we could have defaulted to an Admin vote, with the majority holding sway, but that has not been formalized.

To further highlight this quandry, you wrote above that you would start the process of amending Pillar 5 to expressly allow playing a character in both NWN and NWN2. Now, for my part as Player Admin, I have expressed my interpretation of Pillar 5 as allowing just that - but you wish to amend the Pillar (and I support that) - but what is the process? We have no "Pillar Amendment Process" just as we have no "Major-decision-for-ALFA" process save for a default of majority Admin vote.

So, would you spearhead the development or formalization of ALFA's decision making process (or legislative process if you will) so that we know how it is we are supposed to be making decisions when the decision falls outside the authority of one Admin to make?

[Wynna]

Are we seeking only the best of the best (some might actually use the word "elite") role players for our community?

Or should we be seeking out applicants that we feel are likely to become solid members of the community (follow the rules, rp in an immersive fashion, etc) in order to grow our base, knowing that if we set the bar at this level there will be occasional mistakes?

Not to be flippant, mostly because I do it poorly, but....yes.

We are seeking both. I would put more emphasis on the latter, frankly, as it is a community we are seeking to flesh out again. I would certainly pass over anybody clearly disruptive to the society of ALFA, no matter how fabulous their RP. I would also offer RP101 to extremely clumsy or inexperienced RPers and delay acceptance until some willingness to improve had been witnessed, no matter how mind-blowing their building. Most acceptable applicants will fall between these two extremes. My policy when I was doing apps, was that when in doubt, to err on the side of contribution to the community.

[Wynna]

However, we have no formal process for decisions that cross the individual domain lines. Take the Planetouched decision for example - we agreed on a process (more or less) but that process was developed Ad Hoc. Presumably we could have defaulted to an Admin vote, with the majority holding sway, but that has not been formalized.

This is precisely what I would do. Give the Admin body time to familiarize themselves with the issue, including the opinions of their electorate, then hold an Admin vote with Lead breaking ties.

To further highlight this quandry, you wrote above that you would start the process of amending Pillar 5 to expressly allow playing a character in both NWN and NWN2. Now, for my part as Player Admin, I have expressed my interpretation of Pillar 5 as allowing just that - but you wish to amend the Pillar (and I support that) - but what is the process? We have no "Pillar Amendment Process" just as we have no "Major-decision-for-ALFA" process save for a default of majority Admin vote.

So, would you spearhead the development or formalization of ALFA's decision making process (or legislative process if you will) so that we know how it is we are supposed to be making decisions when the decision falls outside the authority of one Admin to make?

My formal approach to this would be to propose it in Admin, have a period of debate and solicit opinions from any who wished to express them, then have an Admin vote. It seems to me this is already the way things are done...at least that's how I did things in my previous term. I think it's a rather self-evident way of doing it, so much so that I don't think a Charter amendment is called for...but I'm willing to listen to anybody who says it would be better to add a line to section 2.1 of the Charter, wherein the areas of oversight belonging to each administrator are defined, the line to define the process for a general Admin vote in cross-domain issues.

[FanaticusIncendi]

((bolding is mine))

However, we have no formal process for decisions that cross the individual domain lines.
....
what is the process? We have no "Pillar Amendment Process" just as we have no "Major-decision-for-ALFA" process save for a default of majority Admin vote.

My formal approach to this would be to propose it in Admin, have a period of debate and solicit opinions from any who wished to express them, then have an Admin vote. It seems to me this is already the way things are done.

What I am hearing Mikayla say is that while we have an ad hoc, assumed process, we have no formalized process.

What I am hearing Wynna say is, what she believes is the "process" is exactly what we supposedly already have:

1) Issue is proposed
2) Issue is debated and opinions are given by the community on the issue
3) Admin votes
4) Problem solved.

Sounds pretty straight-forward. But it's not. Here's how it really goes:

1) Issue is proposed
2) Issue is debated and debated and debated
3) Admin doesn't ever make a final ruling
4) Issue rears its ugly head over and over, creating tension and rifts amongst the community

The so-called "process" we currently have does not create expediency in dealing with the issues.

There is nothing formalized which says that the issue has to be solved expediently. So, if an issue arises that, say, the PA wants to push through, but the DMA maybe does not.... *FILIBUSTER.

Without a formalized process the debate wages on...and on...and on... And the community suffers.

With a formalized process, we can have a time limit. No filibustering. Then it might look something like:

1) Issue is proposed.
2) Issue is debated amongst the community until the thread reaches ten pages.
3) Thread is locked
4) Admin have 5 days from the day the thread is locked, at the end of which they must vote Yes, No, or Abstain.
5) Issue is put to bed.

So, Wynna, my question to you is, do you support documentation and implementation of a "Major-decision-for-ALFA" formalized process? Or will you leave things as-is and let the filibustering reign?

*As a form of obstructionism in a legislature or other decision making body, a filibuster is an attempt to extend debate upon a proposal in order to delay or completely prevent a vote on its passage.

[Wynna]

(
So, Wynna, my question to you is, do you support documentation and implementation of a "Major-decision-for-ALFA" formalized process?

There are two ways I see myself of use here. The first is by prevention of division, to an extent that confusion or lack of clarity in policy engenders it. I am a great supporter of documentation: the APM, Standards, the Charter itself, to name a few that I've been involved in. In any event of unclear situations that might lead to dissent, it is my natural inclination to suggest and support written clarification as driven by the Admin within whose domain the issue might arise.

I'm willing to listen to anybody who says it would be better to add a line to section 2.1 of the Charter, wherein the areas of oversight belonging to each administrator are defined, the line to define the process for a general Admin vote in cross-domain issues.

Sounds like we have a second to Mikayla's motion for clarification. I'll be glad to raise the issue in Admin if the confirmation vote puts me in the Lead seat.

[Mikayla]

Thank you for the answers Wynna. Given that you see ALFA's decision making process as being an Admin vote, what is your stance on the inclusion of Planetouched as a player race? The decision on inclusion of Planetouched was done by a vote of DMs, not Admin - indeed, most of the Admin were not allowed to vote and did not vote - was this proper? If not, will you revisit it? If it was proper, how do you reconcile that with your stance regarding ALFA's decision making process?



Keep in mind that I supported inclusion of Planetouched - but I also supported the decision making process that was used because it was proposed by Rotku - on the other hand, Rusty was opposed to Planetouched inclusion, but he also did not support the vote as it was taken (I believe he had problems with the constiuency, etc., but I am sure he can explain better than I his reservations - my recollection is that he wanted an Admin vote post-DM vote to ratify the results). My point here is that as I supported Rotku in this, I can (and will) live with the decision as it was made for the time being - but - I am wondering what your view on that decision is given your stated view on ALFA's decision making process (and note, there are many folks who think the vote was flawed because of the constiuency chosen).

[Burt]

Surely an admin vote is only valid as long as the voters remain admin?

[Souvarine]

So does that mean the planetouched parade can rise again?

But what's the Wynna stance on the democratic voting...yes i mean players actually getting a voice on decisions that affect their choices within the game?

Oh yeah, bugger...was probably asked some thread ago. Anyways...pressed the submit button.

[Swift]

[Not a question.]

[Wynna]

Overturning a previous Admin decision is bad form. It opens the door to everything one Admin accomplishes being undone by the next Admin. How I would have handled an issue that was within the purview of a previous Lead is academic. By preference, cross-platform issues that come up during any tenure I hold as Lead would be handled with a proposal in Admin (even if the proposal follows/comes about because of significant debate or requests from any other member/s of ALFA), a period of discovery during which Admin gathers information however they wish (polling the membership or constituency certainly included) and a binding Admin vote.

It seems establishment of this procedure itself should be one of the first things put to a test by the format itself.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those celebrating today.