Headlines Stardate 20505.01

HEADLINES

Anniversary!

It had been tradition for me to make a post on the site’s anniversary about where we’ve been and where we are going. I didn’t do that this year, but wanted to do something similar now as I have some information to pass on.

The past year and a half has been a relatively quiet one. We saw the creation of just one new ship, the USS Comet. We concluded a site wide plotline covering a war between the Federation and the Romulan Empire and another war that saw the virtual elimination of the Borg. In addition, we saw the conclusion of a conflict between the Federation and a species from the Andromeda galaxy. We intended to follow up all of those plots with a post war plotline titled the Fires of Resurrection. For various reasons, that plotline never got off the ground. However, within the next couple of weeks, you should start seeing some posts originally intended for that plot. Though we MAY not run that plot in its full glory, we are going to focus on certain elements that will help us do some exciting things within the game and should reveal some very interesting surprises. More to come.

Redesign!

Now for what’s ahead. As you have already seen, the board has changed colors. As already stated, I made a decision to make our colors a little darker and sinister. This is a break from the TNG like colors we’ve used in the past and a move towards the darker colors of DS9/Voyager. The site redesign, still in its infant stages, will be using the same color scheme as the board. In the past, I have always waited to post redesigns until they were completely done. This time, however, changes will be posted as they are made.

In addition to the color face lift, the site will have a new logo. As Cmdr Otlan can tell you, I’ve never been overly fond of the logo we are using right now. A new logo has been designed and will become the official, not to change again, logo on the site. As soon as I can get a good working copy done in Photoshop, I will post it here.

Events/Updates!

Along with the new logo, I am excited to announce we will soon be making Federation Space merchandise available for purchase. These will include T-Shirts, Hats, coffee mugs and some other items. By the end of this month I hope to be able to open the Fed Space Store up and offer FS merchandise. 100% of the profits from this merchandise will be used on/for the site in the form of paying for server space or site gadgets such as the message board.

I have just emailed a draft version of a redesigned constitution to Cmdr Otlan and RAdm Benestad. This has been the most extensive change to the constitution since its original inception. I have tried to make the document a little easier to read and believe it or not, have deleted 2 full pages of text! The changes to this document will be posted once we’ve had a chance to reveal some of the organizational changes in game.

Many of you may remember having writer’s workshops in the past. Largely they have been dismal failures because of the intensive work required by the organizer. Well, because they were so popular in that past, we’re going to try again. This time, though, it’s going to be formatted and run entirely different than in the past. Instead of having an instructor critique the writing, the participants will mentor each other and critique each others work. The instructor (me) will give out a weekly assignment to be completed during the week. When the assignments are completed, the students themselves will critique each others work in a constructive and consistent manner. (There will be standard critique forms.) In the past, we have focused on Fed Space topics such as character development and so forth. This time, we will be focusing on writing in general and most of the writing topics will not have anything to do with the site or even Star Trek. For instance, one assignment might be “Tell a story that begins with the discovery of a ransom note.” This workshop will be conducted in a top level topic with restricted access limited to those participating in the workshop. I, btw, will be a participant in the workshop as well. :P

If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please send me an email with the topic “Writers Workshop” Please include your characters name.

This doesn’t affect most of the people reading this, but the way we do BIO’s in the Academy is going to change. In short, we’re going to go with a highly abbreviated BIO form for new cadets. In discussing this with the academy’s admin, we came to the conclusion that many recruits might be discouraged by the length/depth of the BIO form. In addition, it’s common for many players to change entire fields in their BIO’s after playing the game for a little while and realizing they took their BIO’s in a direction they didn’t really want to go. Thus, there is an abbreviated BIO while they are in the Academy. Once they are graduated and posted to their ship, they will be required to complete a more in depth BIO. In fact, they will be rank capped at Lt[JG] until they complete the in depth BIO. Who will be there to help them with their in depth BIO? The department head, first officer and ultimately the commanding officer. Primarily and constitutionally, it will be the first officer’s job to ensure/assist the new officer complete their BIO.

I need to make a clarification about how instant messaging transcripts could/would be used in disciplinary proceedings on the site. This has been a very touchy subject in the past but needs to be addressed again. I once said that IM transcripts would not be used in disciplinary proceedings. I need to revise that policy as it’s not effective for the site. Though I would prefer to not have to use IM transcripts, I’m not going to simply ignore them. If that transcript proves or validates wrong doing, it would be silly for me to ignore. In short, chat transcripts may be used in a supporting roll to demonstrate wrong doing. If someone is kicked from the site, a full accounting will be posted in the Captain Table for the CO’s.

Responsibility

Now I need to take a few minutes to address some business issues on the site.

First, let me address the issue of position and responsibility on the site. The new version of the constitution states:

“The goal of Federation Space is to bring together a diverse group of writers with a common interest in Star Trek, friendship, mutual respect and the art of writing.”

In short, our goal is to bring together a group of people to have fun.

Many of you reading this have aspirations to become department heads, game moderators, academy instructors, first officers, commanding officers or maybe even more. I would strongly encourage those aspirations as long as they don’t become the driving reason you are playing Federation Space.

However, I need everyone to understand that once you accept a position on the site, that position comes with both rewards (points) and responsibilities (aka obligations). When you commit to taking a position, you agree to fulfill those responsibilities as they are defined in the site’s constitution. I understand that some of the tasks defined for a particular position are not necessarily the most glamorous. Yet, they still NEED to be done. There is a detrimental effect on the site when these responsibilities are not accomplished. I’m going to pick on the CO’s for a minute here. Not because I’m mad at them or anything like that, but just because they present a good example to use in this passage. My one, really big, pet peeve in regard to the CO’s is the completion of Captain’s Logs. Many of our CO’s simply are not doing them. Now why is that my pet peeve? Why is that important for the site? Because the captain’s logs are the only way we have to demonstrate and preserve the heritage/history of the site. In addition, we currently have 9 ships and hope to have a 10th sometime soon. With so many ships it would be difficult for any one person to read every post on every ship and figure out what’s going on in the fleet. The Captain’s Logs give the casual reader the opportunity to get a summary of what’s going on aboard a given ship without reading every post. That’s pretty helpful for the newbies too.

If you accept a position and agree to fulfill the duties of whatever position you occupy, you also accept that there will be ramifications if those duties are not fulfilled. When you accept a position of responsibility on the site, you are, in essence, assisting the administrators run the site. In short, I count on you to help out. If I find out that I can’t depend on you, first you will lose your reward (points) and then your position. I don’t like to have to do that, but this site has grown to the point where I have to rely on others to help run things. To keep the site consistent, I need dependable people who are willing to recognize that assuming a leadership position on the site has fun and not-so-fun aspects and is willing to charge ahead despite it.

In Closing

I’d like to thank each and every member of Federation Space for making this the quality role-playing/fan-fiction site that it is. I look forward to the years ahead as we watch the site continue to grow in both quantity and quality.