My Opinion

[Killjoy]

The administrative team is in place to maintain the server and it's players to orderly behavior. We set up our rules and expectations to what roleplay we wish to see on our servers and we will not have 'exceptional' players dictate our standards. Our staff works to preserve the server and this community in the way it was intended to be, while allowing for it to progress in a positive yet unforeseen way.

[FL] staff, consisting of the administrative team, support staff and owners, strive to keep this community and develop it in the best way possible, limited to what our team has collectively deemed acceptable or approved. We are united by a common sense of values and virtues and this is what keeps the spirit of this community as it is.

Unlike any professional or business institution, our rules are not as specific nor does our staff operate based on any sorts of scripted answers or actions, all this to allow a more dynamic flow of gaming experiences, we carry out our actions based on the actual situation in case its deemed worthy of a unique approach.

We offer a 'take it or leave it' service to those who find our standards conflicting to theirs.

We are all doing this out of our own good will, not for any performance ratings or salaries.

[Ms. Mudpie]

Not for 2 servers, V33 needs more admin support, only one that TP's to me is toast.. FL could definitely use a V33 admin

10 admins is perfect for two heavily populated servers.

[Fleet Admiral Zapington]

Not for 2 servers, V33 needs more admin support, only one that TP's to me is toast.. FL could definitely use a V33 admin

10 admins is perfect for two heavily populated servers.

Let's cut it out in pieces.

Imagine 10 admins on 2 servers.
That leads us to 5 admins per server.
5 admins, which 40-60% of them must be from different timezones.
That would be about 2-3 admins for, lets say, the daytime of Europe.
These admins have personal lives, so they can't be on for 6+ hours a day.
You get the drift.. if you could have 10 admins for 2 full RP Servers, they would have to be people that would have no social life, dedicating all their time for FL.

I hope you get my point here..

[Vauld]

I'm going to make another statement here, another one of my opinions. Before I state this one, I want to make sure that everyone knows that, no I'm not an "Admin wannabe" I realize my chances of being admin after posting my opinions are slim, because I'm sure that some of the admins don't really like what I'm saying.

But anyway, my current feelings on system is, its corrupt. The entire system is simply corrupt, I feel like some great people are becoming admin, but for the wrong reasons. And I'm sorry Soul, but I honestly disagree with you, I don't think that you look at RP, Maturity, or other aspects first. To me, it looks like admins are being promoted based off of relations with other admins. Just look at Nadrick (Sorry Nadrick), I know, admins spent weeks thinking about the decision.
But I want people to step back, look at the big picture, why was Nadrick recommended in the first place? There are people with more, or even x2 the level of experience than Nadrick.

But yet he's promoted first? Wait though, there's a pattern, the better friends you are with admins, the more chance you have of getting admin, despite who else is out there.

My point is, promotions aren't based first off of experience, activity, RP, maturity anymore. Promotions are based first off of, who's the better friend with the admin, then they look at maturity, experience, and all of that.

Ever think, maybe that's why the quality of admins have gone down, hmmm, maybe that's why we need 20 admins instead of 10?

[Killjoy]

Vauld, you are right - picking staff also has a part to do with relations. We are building a team, naturally we won't pick people who do not fit into the team - this simply to avoid internal conflicts, fact is that a team in harmony works a lot better than a team annoyed by itself.

Do not get distracted by what I just said. Our main criteria are still maturity, RP skills, activity.

'Experience' is a not something to wave around here, how would you measure it? Who's been here longer? And how would one gain experience if not given the chance to even prove themselves?

Every time we recruit a new staff member we basically take a leap of faith. Obviously we want this leap to be as small as possible, thus people we are more familiar with we will instinctively find more trustworthy - and will give them an advantage of getting a spot in staff.

I fail to see how the system is corrupt. It's not a democracy, it never has been. But this isn't about equality and voting rights, it's about running a community efficiently.

[Ms. Mudpie]

Let's cut it out in pieces.

Imagine 10 admins on 2 servers.
That leads us to 5 admins per server.
5 admins, which 40-60% of them must be from different timezones.
That would be about 2-3 admins for, lets say, the daytime of Europe.
These admins have personal lives, so they can't be on for 6+ hours a day.
You get the drift.. if you could have 10 admins for 2 full RP Servers, they would have to be people that would have no social life, dedicating all their time for FL.

I hope you get my point here..

Which is why you hire people who live in different timezones. Just have 10 admins, at least four of which live in America or anywhere outside Europe, and you have the ideal admin team (assuming they are competent and willing to spend some time on the server, not even that much).

You don't need to exchange a social life for playing time, particularly with four other people who can look after the server while you're not there. And anyway, while the admins aren't there, you can still post ban requests.

[Killjoy]

Apparently I had been unclear in my post and this was brought to my attention, so let me quote my reply to a concerned community member.

You do realize you are directly contradicted by souls post? "This admin team is democratic" Soul says "The admins are chosen democratically"

Hello,

In case I was being unclear - the admin team is chosen democratically only within staff itself, by "this isn't a democracy" I meant that we can not afford to give the entire general population a 'fair election.' We elect our staff just as in Soviet Russia the communist party picked their next leader - we vote, but the general public does not have a say.

Also, what's up with the attitude? Don't you have better things to think of rather than sending aggressive, arrogant PM's to staff?

Regards,

[FL] Killjoy
Server Administrative Team

[wweee2345]

As you have stated they, meaning the admins, do vote upon these admin's democratically. Now let's say we had a server wide vote, it would be the same thing just a broader spectrum of a popularity vote. Now sum it back down to what it is now, it's a popularity vote among a smaller vote. My point in saying this is that even if we have a vote democratically among both admins or the players, it is often going to tip popularity over who is qualified. With the exception of a small few, this occurs majority of the time. Though my way of trial may be a bit harsher, I still see the need for harsher trials, as it seems to me that several admins were under-qualified for the job. Honestly, I feel a week is not enough and here is why, its easy to stay good in the minds of the players for a week, once that week is up, it is a lot harder to complain about that admin. Though the majority of admin abuse threads are made by people whom have been banned, there is a high amount of disgruntled players who don't speak their minds. Meaning that if anything were to change for some kind of good. As Storm has stated, there basically thrown into the job, unfortunately caused by this, it passes down the bad habits that other admins have.

I can't agree with this. Allowing not only admins, but also the community to vote for an admin will lead in a lot of inactive accounts on the forums, that were just created to vote for a friend, will lead to votes only based on popularity and notoriety of people and will give us, admins, less control about who we want to work together with. I think a week is enough to get to know how the basics of administration works, and after this trial week an admin can't just mess around, they know that it will lead into a demotion. I think (without trying to show off) that Fearless has one of the best managed admin teams. We have a lot of guides for admins to read, we have guidelines, we have a code of conduct and we have a lot of conferences about how we can improve the community, ban discussions and so on. The quality of the communication, managing and bans has been brought to a new level in my opinion and experience.

You guys now have a TS server, this should solve any communication issues, if used correctly. Better communication will lead to a stronger admin team, as well as community.

This might help a bit, but won't solve the whole problem of the unanswered @ messages.

RP points are a waste of time and often useless in creating a true RP community. It's easy to realize especially listening in OOC, how many people choose to RP just for it's rewards instead of its true meaning.

I rather have people who choose to RP just for it's reward than who doesn't try to RP decently at all. I'm sure that after the introduction of the RP points, the overall roleplay quality has increased a little.

Sure, they cause a temporary boost within RP, but in time your losing more than is returned back to the community.

Giving RP points doesn't take much time and is a pleasure for an admin to do. We don't have to make time free to get RP points since we reward if we see something nice. In the past we gave the player a compliment, nowadays still, but including a RP point. I don't see that as lost time.

We don't need more positions, we need better quality users.

Indeed, I think an team of 20 people will be enough at this moment, so I agree that we don't need that much admins anymore. That means we need one more admin, who is already being discussed about by the way.

I do appreciate your opinion and your feedback and will try to make the community a better place for you.

You didnt quite understand what I am trying to say.

I never stated we should allow the community to vote, I was making the comparison that either way it would be the same as the admin team choosing. Only on a broader level that is. Thing is both admin team and community vote ends up in the same result. Poor decisions and what seems to be a popularity contest in the eyes of many. It doesn't have anything to do with who you want to work with and their relationships. When it comes to being an admin, they're suppose to be professionals and let by gones be by gones. If they cant get along then rid the team of the conflict, there is no clear loss, seeing as you have a much larger base of qualified users for the job. If what you say is true about the week being enough, Why is the days I go on the server, I see the following:

- An admin RDMing a player
- An admin trolling a player for his/her opinion
- An admin performing a silly stunt that doesnt promote RP

And they go without consequences.

When it comes to Admin Abuse threads, it is one in a million chances that an admin is actually prosecuted. Would you like to know why? They don't look at it from a completely professional standpoint, they look at them as friends, and rush to their side to protect them. Even doing so, Faustie pointed this out himself.

Now with the TS server being spoken of, it ought to solve several of the issues and why should it not. If you have the admins are conversing with each other, then it solves the issue with multiple admins reporting to one call. Even so, its obvious to see this in the server as well. Yet we STILL have multiple admins reporting to one said person, in the process ignoring other calls to solve this one.

Soul, There are people who RP on the server for fun and people whom RP it for just points. Now honestly, tell me which one is more valuable to a successful community?

Im hoping you picked those who do it for fun. In saying this, you have better promotion of quality RP rather than casual RP that may last for an hour or until they receive an RP point. RP points lack the promotion of quality RP and are often abused by admins and players themselves.

Time made no factor to my assertions on RP points, doing so I will reiterate my point. Most players that I have spoken to, being several, RP for just RP points and that means items such as Gas Mask or Tommy Gun's. Once they've hit that accomplishment, there is generally a immediate drop in the quality of that player's RP. Plain and simple, they already have what they want. In ridding the server of RP points, you end the constant complaining over whom deserves RP points and who doesn't. Also offering more time and one less job for admins to perform.

Honestly Soul, This is going to be very general. Bigger is not always better and here is why. The biggest argument that is brought up is time zones and location, right?
It makes no difference whom is admin and where they are when they are either a) Not doing there job, b) On all at the same time, c) Is alone while doing his job.

Chances are its both a), b), and c) afterwards. When one admin is on and several players are on, they tend to be overstressed by the amount of @ calls. One main issues is you have either everyone administrating at once or no one at all. Set shift work, run it like a job. A demo being lets says Temar and Toby are on, at average the same time, these two admins focus on administrating for a certain period of time. Afterward they can do as they please if the other admins are on their average time. It can be unpredictable, but there is always a cover. Especially being if you want to use the higher number of admins, which you are doing now.

I don't want the community better for me, I want the community better for the sake of itself.

[ForceGhost]

It isn't a Job though.

We have lives outside of FL

[wweee2345]

It isn't a Job though.

We have lives outside of FL

Yes, and I realize that. As Ive stated, shifts would be much more efficient with the team we have now.
My words were "like a job". Meaning keep it professional and efficient.

Hope this clears up a bit.