R.I.G. Senate.

I'm encouraged to read how this discussion is progressing. I too agree with Ti and Ald in that I really see this project as more of a facilitating organization rather than any sort of ruling body. I like to think that, while we're not striving to replace or reform the player guild system that's been around for over a decade, we are in fact making an effort to enhance or compliment that system and make it more meaningful.

I've been reading thru all the posts here and trying to think of a good comparison for what I think we're all talking about. I think the best example I can give is that of a "standards" organization like the IEEE. Our driving principle is that of common respect and consideration in the online community. So perhaps we could set a goal of making RIG the place where the online community sets the standards for respectful and considerate behavior in the community. While most of the ideas we're espousing aren't by any means original or created by any of us, we could strive to make them more practical and common place across the community. Just like standards organizations in the computer industry, for example, are composed of manufacturers, developers, engineers, governmental organizations, etc that come together to help develop and publish standards that the rest of the industry can point to and ultimately become the "norm" for those areas.

Of course many of us are also wanting to have some focus on the organization of activities between member guilds which I think is also doable. However I also agree with the need to keep all of these grand plans as simple as possible while still achieving what we all want to do. I don't honestly see any purpose in trying to organize along factional lines as that, I truly believe, adds a layer of complexity that could possibly lead to conflict. For example, and I'm sure we aren't the only ones, The Galactic Syndicate is a multi-faction guild where our members often play characters on both sides. So perhaps we can brainstorm ways to organize along both of those lines of thought; organization of activities between member guilds and organization of community relations based around the promotion of mutual respect & civility in the online community. Consider the idea of the equivalent of "The Geneva Convention" in the online world. Maybe not the most popular example, but I'm working on the fly here.

This is becoming a very fruitful discussion and one that I'm very glad to see taking place in our community. Let me throw out some ideas that popped into my head as I read thru these posts. One thing we could consider is to create a kind of "organizing committee" that will work up plans on how RIG can organize along the the many lines that we've all discussed. They could formulate plans and present them to the RIG community for discussion. This could help to give all our scattered ideas more focus. We could have each member guild appoint their own "Ambassador" or "Consul" as some have suggested to represent the desires of their guild on the committee. I think as we get closer to game launch, the number of players here who are not guilded will be extraordinarily few if any, however we can also have someone appointed to the committee to represent the unaffiliated members of RIG. The decisions of the committee would have to be unanimous in order to limit concerns about numbers. Of course it's sole purpose would be to recommend plans for organizing the RIG to the community as a whole; it won't be a rule making body. That's as far as I've gotten with that idea, though I'm sure the rest of you could take it further.

Clovis wrote:

This is becoming a very fruitful discussion and one that I'm very glad to see taking place in our community. Let me throw out some ideas that popped into my head as I read thru these posts. One thing we could consider is to create a kind of "organizing committee" that will work up plans on how RIG can organize along the the many lines that we've all discussed. They could formulate plans and present them to the RIG community for discussion. This could help to give all our scattered ideas more focus. We could have each member guild appoint their own "Ambassador" or "Consul" as some have suggested to represent the desires of their guild on the committee. I think as we get closer to game launch, the number of players here who are not guilded will be extraordinarily few if any, however we can also have someone appointed to the committee to represent the unaffiliated members of RIG. The decisions of the committee would have to be unanimous in order to limit concerns about numbers. Of course it's sole purpose would be to recommend plans for organizing the RIG to the community as a whole; it won't be a rule making body. That's as far as I've gotten with that idea, though I'm sure the rest of you could take it further.

This is a bit of what I posted before (you even took my name for it ). Except I still think it wouldn't be the most fruitful idea to gather guild representatives. For the reasons I wrote above (and also: that would evolve into a way to big thing as we will have a lot of guilds and bigger guilds might end up saying they deserve two spots etc - that's why I say: everyone take part in the "communicational organizing" that wants to - we are not here to exclude people at all). I do agree however that splitting between factions will make it unnecessarily more complicated.

I support the idea of having people help organise things who want to do stuff but i do not support the idea of a senate

When I said senate, thats what I meant Darka. A Group of people organizing events. You have completely ignored everything I said and replied with the position that I am proposing a ruling body.

We dont need a ruling body. Got it. Kill the disco. What we need to discuss is a group of people who will help organize events and such, and provide deliberation on what we will actually enforce officially, like PvP tournament ladders.

All Im saying is we need people to do this.
All we've been saying is that we could call this body of people the senate.

That doesnt indicate a senate like we normally see in governments...it just means a group of people discussing ideas and organizing them.

Valentin Bravado wrote:

When I said senate, thats what I meant Darka. A Group of people organizing events. You have completely ignored everything I said and replied with the position that I am proposing a ruling body.

We dont need a ruling body. Got it. Kill the disco. What we need to discuss is a group of people who will help organize events and such, and provide deliberation on what we will actually enforce officially, like PvP tournament ladders.

All Im saying is we need people to do this.
All we've been saying is that we could call this body of people the senate.

That doesnt indicate a senate like we normally see in governments...it just means a group of people discussing ideas and organizing them.

You did use the words governing in your other post,

Valentin Bravado wrote:

I think we should have an official Senate forum where we (Once we establisb a governorship of some kind) can debate what exactly we will be implementing and such.

Senate might not be the best word for this, and it does imply something more then what could we be actually trying to achieve, so much so that its a word many associate with others telling others what to do, regardless if its our intention to do so or not

My issue lies with this, bringing potential problems when having people involved in doing these types of things, im all for events but i have seen issues come up when people just always leave it up to the person or persons organising it because they see it as their job, and to a degree.
Id rather see people organise events more behind the scenes that way i find people are more encouraged to partake and create themselves, that is my personal preference for a role like this, i do still feel that anything like this could be asking for trouble, but if people are wanting to be put together to help and support then thats fine, its an issue i think we will need clear and defined outline, and a name change anyways

Formalising it is asking for trouble, thats just how i feel about it
Im not against the ideas of people being pro active just how this group could possibly handle it

Gamewiz wrote:

I support this idea, so you have my vote and all future votes accompanying this idea. While I won't be running for any Consul position (I know I don't have the time to commit), I'd be happy to cast my vote and participate in community events whenever I am able to.

I am voting you Viceroy. Done.

In all seriousness though, I do also support this movement, if you will. This type of community outreach effort is a great way to not only keep people entertained, but easily acclimate many new-comers to guilds and MMOs to this scene, and at the same time, act as a venue to provide help and service whenever possible through involvement.

If done right, this could be beneficial for everyone who comes into contact with it. Good job!

Ty-Odi wrote:

Aldemarran wrote:

...

Damn it dude!!!! Were you in my head?!?!?!?!? LMFAO!!! that is uncanny!!! haha

I like rummaging around in other people's heads. But before you finish paying your exorcist let me just say that you have some other interesting thoughts in there, you should let them out!

Aldemarran wrote:

Ty-Odi wrote:

Aldemarran wrote:

...

Damn it dude!!!! Were you in my head?!?!?!?!? LMFAO!!! that is uncanny!!! haha

I like rummaging around in other people's heads. But before you finish paying your exorcist let me just say that you have some other interesting thoughts in there, you should let them out!

ROFL

It was uncanny, I finished typing it just to see yours and it was like a mirror haha Brilliant!

In the interest of kicking off some discussion of alternative methods/organizations/technologies/processes/rules/etc I'm going to throw out some ideas and see where (if anywhere) they take us.

My Bias:

• Time is going to be most people's major issue. Getting everyone into one place at the same time with all the required technical capacities is usually a gamer's greatest challenge. Forums largely negate this issue by being always available and having low tech requirements.
  
• Communication > Organization because organization can flow naturally and evolve more quickly if it is not "organized". (Yeah yeah, that's a paradox...I'm mostly just trying to describe rather than analyze where I'm coming from here.)
  
• As previously stated I see R.I.G. as a communication layer, not an organizational layer.

R.I.G. Methodology Suggestion:
I would recommend that R.I.G. be heavily forum based. I would further recommend that any R.I.G. Senate/Committee/Leadership/Group/etc be organized around the usage of R.I.G. forums. Therefore I suggest having a seperate forum for each of the following topics (others to be added as suggested):

• Server Events Summary
  
• PvE General Discussion
  
• PvP General Discussion
  
• PvE Server Events
  
• PvP Server Events
  
• Crafting Discussion
  
• Crafting Server Events
  
• Leveling Discussion
  
• Leveling Server Events
  
• Guild Recruitment
  
• Guild Seeking
  
• RP Server Events
  
• RP In-Character
  
• RP Out-of-Character
  
• Help Discussion
  
• Community Aid Events
  
• Art Display & Discussion
  
• Rigger's Forum
  
• Heavy Rigger's Forum

As a start I would recommend having a moderator for every pair of forums (pair = General Discussion + Server Events of same type). Obviously we might decide initially to just have one forum that includes both General Discussion and Server Events. The exact level/type/degree/method/etc of "moderation" in these forums would need to be worked out, and would probably involve a discussion much like Ty brought up earlier in this thread about how to stay on-topic.

As regards the Guild forum pair; I would suggest NOT having a Guild Events Forum because internal events are exactly that, internal and none of our business.

As regards the Server Events Summary forum; this would be a more heavily moderated forum. The intention of this forum is that it be a place where people can rapidly read and determine what events are coming up and whether they are interested in any of them. Details of what would be allowed in this forum would need to be hammered out, but to illustrate my thought I'll propose the following:

• Title: Event Name + Date Occurring
  
• Included in Body: Short (1 paragraph) summary of event + link to corresponding Server Events Forum signup or announcement thread.
  
• Excluded from Body: Rules, details, prizes, or attendees listing
  
• For Debate: Allow some or all requirements for attendance to be listed in Summary? (In my mind a level requirement (if any) would be good, but details about what items someone might have to bring might defeat the purpose of a summary.)

The Moderator of this forum would certainly need to do their best to enforce conformance to whatever form is decided upon. Also, the Moderator might (upon request) create summary postings or edit in links (for those not familiar with forum usage).

Moderators & Voice Chat Suggestion:
I would suggest, though this is a much weaker suggestion, that the Moderator for any given forum pair also Host/Moderate any weekly voice chat discussions such as mentioned by Ty earlier. I say this bearing in mind that I question the practicality of voice chat seeing as I've had endless trouble getting people to have functional microphones and setting up Ventrilo (or Teamspeak or Skype or "Whatever"), not to mention that everyone has to be online at the same time (time zone / work schedule issues...).

EDIT: For absence of grammar...
EDIT: Added Help Discussion Forum (thanks Grome!) and RP forums.
EDIT: Art Forum (thanks Variable!) and Rigger's Forums

Unfortunately we can't remove our posts once they've been answered to. I hope the matter is resolved by now as well, as it's really just a simple misunderstanding.

Now, Alde! That suggestion of yours is great and I completely support this. It's a great way to keep people involved but still have people keep a clear picture somewhere. The moderators would be in my eyes also the ones that finally execute the events (if needed), once they have been discussed and put together.

One more suggestion about the Server Events Summary: I think this forum should actually be read only. As the discussion is supposed to go on in the sub-forums.

One other category we might also need is Helping discussion/events although that might fall into all the other categories a little bit (I just think it deserves a very own sub-forum).

Otherwise, great idea!!

How to determine the moderators: I'd say you can be moderator (a good new word) if you want to, but you should be active, as it will take some time (otherwise, no restrictions). And also, there should maybe not just be a single moderator for each sub-forum pair but a small group of them ("PvP moderators", "PvE moderators", "Crafting moderators",...).

I think to put everything in the forums is indeed the best solutions and this structure proposed by Aldemarran might just be dead-on!

Well adding Moderators and as to whom they would be would be Selven's domain if you mean on the site?

I have no issue allow people to come along and act as moderators for certain aspects of the site, I like the headings done by Alde as well, strangley I asked Selven earlier about the possibility of sub folders and so on, so I think these kind of things would fit in nicely to that?

We could have one header for Events, and then have it broken into Sub folders for PVP, RP, Raiding, etc.

Then another for discussions same sort of sub folders and headings?

I don't want to clutter up the main page too much, so I think sub headers similar to those used on the main boards may be the way to go?

Moderators in the above mentioned fashion should be active people though, those who help organise these things, and do so regularaly and entusiastically.

For now we can get something like those headers up perhaps and at least throw some ideas about at least?

Forgive me, but I need to break this down and answer several pieces individually.

Grome wrote:

...The moderators would be in my eyes also the ones that finally execute the events (if needed), once they have been discussed and put together...

The way I had envisioned this the moderators were just that, forum moderators. The idea being to provide the community a place to advertise their own activities. Again, this comes from my bias in seeing The RiG as facilitators, not controlers. Certainly a Moderator should be heavily interested and active in the topic (s)he is moderating, and would likely run events of their own there, but would not moderate the events of others except as requested to be a neutral judge (or such-like) when available. That was how I had envisioned it anyway.

Grome wrote:

...One more suggestion about the Server Events Summary: I think this forum should actually be read only. As the discussion is supposed to go on in the sub-forums...

I like this idea and I don't. In this case there would be no replies (which is what I like) but then the Moderator(s) would have to do all of the event posting instead of just moderating the event posting. Not necessarily a bad idea, but it does have some drawbacks that should be considered before The RiG decides to go down this path.

• Delay: All events will have to be PM'd to the Moderator who will then have to re-create them in a forum post, including re-building BBcode etc.
  
• Decreased User Involvement: This could be off-putting to those who run their own events. We want the community to have and utilize its own initiative.
  
• Control: This puts the Moderator(s) into a control position, which will occupy more time and could (as Ty suggested earlier) cause people to see the Moderator(s) as the event organizers, instead of the community.

I don't know of a mechanic in this or any other forum that would allow anyone to create a post, but not reply to posts. Perhaps Moderators should just lock posts in this forum after they have been created? Or give everyone the authority to lock posts in this section of the forums?

Grome wrote:

...One other category we might also need is Helping discussion/events although that might fall into all the other categories a little bit (I just think it deserves a very own sub-forum)...

Not a bad idea. This would be a good place to put things such as forum user guides, vent user guides, references and guides to communication apps & mods, etc...

Grome wrote:

...How to determine the moderators: ...it will take some time (otherwise, no restrictions). And also, there should maybe not just be a single moderator for each sub-forum pair but a small group of them ("PvP moderators", "PvE moderators", "Crafting moderators",...)...

• Interest, as I've alluded to earlier, is a requirement. Moderators should have an active participant's interest in whatever topic they are moderating.
  
• Time is another major requirement. One of the reasons I try to limit the activity requirements on Moderators is the burnout factor. Don't want to be replacing them every couple months.
  
• Dispassion is going to be a major issue. Not that they shouldn't be passionate about their work, but that they should be able to keep their heads cool when everyone else is flipping the bleepity bleep bleep out. They must be able to appear calm in every action they take.

These are the biggest requirements that come to my mind immediately.

Grome wrote:

...I'd say you can be moderator (a good new word) if you want to, but you should be active...

I would accept a PvE Moderator position if it was offered. My greatest challenge would be Time. I realistically check this forum once or twice a day (except when I'm home sick, like today) and at least on Wednesdays even once will be a challenge. I'm not sure if that's enough. Other positions I would have to think about. EDIT: Due to reasons of interest/involvement/capability/etc.

P.S. I'm going to edit in some more forums (including Grome's suggestion) to my original list.

Ty-Odi wrote:

We could have one header for Events, and then have it broken into Sub folders for PVP, RP, Raiding, etc.

Then another for discussions same sort of sub folders and headings?

That's a good idea, I was originally gonna suggest these as headers: PvP (subs: discussion, events), PvE (subs: discussion, events), ... -- But I think your way is better.
So: Headers would be: Discussion (subs: PvP, PvE, Crafting, Leveling, Help), Events (subs: Summary, PvP, PvE, Crafting, Leveling, Help, RP), Guilds (subs: Recruitment, Seeking), RP (subs: IC, OOC [this one might go into discussion header too...])

Better overview:

• Discussion
  
  • PvP
    
  • PvE
    
  • Crafting
    
  • Leveling
    
  • Help
  
  
• Events
  
  • PvP
    
  • PvE
    
  • Crafting
    
  • Leveling
    
  • Help
    
  • RP
  
  
• Guilds
  
  • Recruitment
    
  • Seeking
  
  
• RP
  
  • IC
    
  • OOC
  
  

Aldemarran wrote:

The way I had envisioned this the moderators were just that, forum moderators. The idea being to provide the community a place to advertise their own activities. Again, this comes from my bias in seeing The RiG as facilitators, not controlers. Certainly a Moderator should be heavily interested and active in the topic (s)he is moderating, and would likely run events of their own there, but would not moderate the events of others except as requested to be a neutral judge (or such-like) when available. That was how I had envisioned it anyway.

After reading this I agree. The only fear I had was that nobody might want to pick up the role of executer and just throw in their ideas, if you see what I mean... In such case I thought the moderator could be an option.

Aldemarran wrote:

I like this idea and I don't. In this case there would be no replies (which is what I like) but then the Moderator(s) would have to do all of the event posting instead of just moderating the event posting. Not necessarily a bad idea, but it does have some drawbacks that should be considered before The RiG decides to go down this path.
...
I don't know of a mechanic in this or any other forum that would allow anyone to create a post, but not reply to posts. Perhaps Moderators should just lock posts in this forum after they have been created? Or give everyone the authority to lock posts in this section of the forums?

You're right, it should really not be up to the moderator to do this. It would really be best to have the possibility that all created topics are locked right away? Or cannot be responded to. Something like this. We'll have to see what Selv says about this.

Aldemarran wrote:

P.S. I'm going to edit in some more forums (including Grome's suggestion) to my original list.

Thank you indeed. However, I was more referring to a "help the community" forum pair. The help discussion could indeed be more general - but I think a "community helper events" forum would be necessary too for events like "noob night", etc.

Keep going guys! lol

Brilliant posts so far!

Ty-Odi wrote:

Well adding Moderators and as to whom they would be would be Selven's domain if you mean on the site?
...I asked Selven earlier about the possibility of sub folders and so on, so I think these kind of things would fit in nicely to that?
...
For now we can get something like those headers up perhaps and at least throw some ideas about at least?

I absolutely love the idea of sub-headers. Another reason being that we don't want to over-whelm people on their first visit to the site.

And my suggestion would have to be approved by the owner/operators of this site (yourself and Selven I believe). My primary reason for the suggestion is that I don't want the 2 of you (mere mortals that you are, no you can't make me believe otherwise! ) don't get overwhelmed by the effort.

First off, I'm with Ald on the idea that this effort should attempt to be fairly hands off and allow the community to do what it does. I like the restructuring of the forums put forth thus far and I'm definitely a fan of modularizing the various topics so that it distributes the moderator workload as well as having a focused area for each discussion.

As far as moderators are concerned, I cannot stress enough that it needs to be clear that anyone in such a position is an enabler for the community rather than a controller - which is why I am more in favor of stickying the event format and having moderators moderate accordingly. Let the community do their thing, and help those who may not quite understand the structure. We want folks to put the effort out, any moderation is an effort to make it easy for others looking to join the event to understand what's going on.

Additionally, I think there needs to be a fan art thread somewhere to facilitate that kind of creativity

In parallel to this discussion is the talk of transferring RiG to an actual .com. Now, if we are looking to restructure the forums to facilitate the spread of ideas and information, would it be a bad idea to combine these efforts into one transition?

Thanks Variable, I'll add it.

After some thought I think I'll also add a "Rigger's Forum" for topics such as this wherein we have open discussions about The RiG. Another forum would be "Heavy Rigger's Forum" visible only to Moderators and acting as a place for Mods to go looking for help when dealing with a particularly complex issue or when in need of a dispassionate "sanity check" on actions they are about to take.

Ald, you know how you were talking about splitting up topics in that other thread? Well, I think this might be the opportunity to have a go at it, don't you think? A new thread for "new forum layout" or such...

Grome wrote:

Ald, you know how you were talking about splitting up topics in that other thread? Well, I think this might be the opportunity to have a go at it, don't you think? A new thread for "new forum layout" or such...

Kicked out of the thread by Grome?

"Right the Grome kick may be."

Now introducing the "Possible Forum Layout?" thread. Let's keep this forum layout discussion going over there please!

YES! Now I have all the power in this thread back hmhmhmhmhm (that's this laughter sound when you're keeping your mouth closed)

Whelp,

Between Grome & Ald..plus the suggestions...I think thats a nice embryo for the consolidation of our RiG topics! You guys are awesome!

Ty, if Grome is OK with it perhaps it would be ideal if all of the posts between my original forum layout post and Variable's post be moved over to the Possible Forum Layout? thread? Grome, what do you think?

I agree. People need to see the truth... about how this topic got Grome-kicked outta here!!

No, seriously, it would definitely clean up this thread again and bring everything back to where it belongs.

I am still in work at the moment guys. even if it is nearly 1am......ZZzzzzzz.....been here since 8am as it is.....hopefully be done in 4 or 5 more hours, so if I am still awake enough when I get home I will sort this out, or I will look into it in the morning/afternoon/early evening when ever it is I finally wake up after this monster shift today! haha

Hope thats ok?

Love what you guys are doing, some real clear, conscise ideas and suggestions, makes it very easy for me or Selven to just look at it and crack on hehe