Potential Solutions to the Problems faced by Disco

[tazuras]

What's wrong with Disco?
What's the fix?
So I say attitudes.
You say faceless, ruthless, admins would help.
The very fundamental way Disco is set up needs changing.
Do I understand you right?

Is Disco setup for the numbers we have?
What's the difference between now and before?
Why is it so magnified now? Surely numbers alone wouldn't bring the problems we face?
What would make Disco work for the numbers that we have? - don't just work on the forum-ites. Remember all those who play ingame but don't come on the forums much as well. I've met many people who aren't on the forums but they RP well and try to stay in the rules.
How do we want Disco to work?
What makes a good Disco for you?

The fundamental way disco is set up does need changing if we want things to change. Things might go back to better times once the summer splurge is over, but somehow I dont think that will be enough.

Disco is not set up for the numbers we have.

The difference is the ratio of people in power to people not in power as well as the total number of people in power, these things cause animosity and suspicion and segregation, generally unintentionally, but thats what happens.

Numbers alone do bring this kind of problem, when a company grows behind a certain size it needs to make major changes in its policy and often needs to restructure, I do not think we have done wither of those.

As for my thoughts on a solution, I will get to that shortly.

This is the internet and this is a free public server. Play any public game and you will find this sort of thing, particularly worse on free communities. A close knit community works much better, and all round has a better aptmostphere. There are arguments and disagreements but by in large they pale in comparison to the drama on these forums.
The larger this community gets, the worse it is going to get. Roleplaying communities work best small scale. Discovery has become the largest Freelancer mod, and thus attracts all the new players. Short of turning this into a closed community, I don't see any solution to all our problems.

First, we know this is not going to become a closed community, unless Igiss has a major life experience that makes him do a complete 180. Your point about the close knit community is dead on though and I think it is the divisions in the community as well as the increasing population that is the cause for the majority of problems here. There are many divides here, some of them larger than others.

1. First of all there is a huge divide between between the average player and the admin here. They dont get to play together almost ever, at least not to the knowledge of many.
   
2. The second divide is between the developer and the player. Now this one is much smaller as developers often post ideas and thought on the main section of the forums.
   
3. There is also the divide between faction leadership and members and independent players. This is something faction really need to deal with on their own, so I am not going to explore it.
   
4. A fourth divide exists between faction leaders and developers. This is a big one as evidenced by the FP11 situation.
   
5. Finally there is the divide between player and player. Now, I would like to think that a lot of this animosity filters down from the other divides. Additionally, nothing can be done about it directly really, everyone just has to try their hardest to give anyone they meet on the server a chance before jumping to any conclusions. Judgment should be reserved as often as possible.
   

Now, how do we bridge these divides? Well, personally, I think they need to be bridged with two things, one of which can actually be changed via structure and policy, the other one is a bit more personal and general. The first one is interaction and communication.

1:The Admin/Player Divide

Applying this to the first divide, there is obviously not enough. Reputations get changed without notification, forum requests to admins are not often answered, I rarely see any in game anymore, at least not on their admin characters. I see one basic solution to this issue, expand the admin team. There needs to be enough so that most players can have at least occasional to infrequent contact with an admin. And I dont mean just seeing them in space, I mean having combat with them, chatting with them, and generally getting to know them as quality human beings. Ideally it would be nice to see some of them acting in a capacity similar to the angels sometime.

The expansion of the admin team can take two forms. One, more admins. I dont really like this idea as it may just lead to disorganization, confusion and animosity among the admins. Two, create a second class of admins. These admins would have fewer powers than full admins. They could beam and act as a direct witness to sanction able offenses, aka, they can write abbreviated reports. They do not have the power to sanction by removing credits or equipment, all they can do is place people in bastille to talk with them and try and help them integrate, and if that fails, hold them there until they cna be dealt with by a master admin. These sub admins would be under the supervision of the current admins. In addition to performing the duties I have listed above they would also act as educators and goodwill ambassadors, much like the angels. They would be able to tell people about all the good things the master admins are doing and spend as much time helping as possible. There should probably be a minimum amount of in game time a week required to be an active sub-admin. I think this would effectively bridge the first and perhaps largest gap.

2:The Developer/Player Divide

Second divide isnt a huge deal, im gonna leave it be for now

3:The Faction/Indie Divide

Third divide is a faction responsibility, really, so im not gonna talk about it here.

4:The Developer/Faction Leader Divide

Fourth one. This is a problem. Shouldnt be terribly hard to fix. You can include all faction leaders in the development team or a representative from the each NPC faction if there are multiple player factions, which might not be a bad idea to allow a more diverse set of opinions as well as to give representation. This might put too many people on the dev team who's primary objective is to do what is right for their faction. You could restrict them to working on their own faction only perhaps, but overall I can see this being pretty bad.

The other option is make communication with faction leadership the responsibility of any developer who is working on that faction. This would keep any major misunderstandings from happening.

The third option I see is to have a member of the dev team responsible for liaising with faction leaders. This person would mainly be a secretary that would send messages and arrange meetings if another dev team member was too busy to find or contact faction leaders themselves.

5:The Player/Player Divide

As for the fifth divide, I think if the other divides are reduced or bridged, this one should get smaller as well. All we need is less judgment and more goodwill. Try your hardest to treat anyone here like one of the more esteemed members, give them the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible and if they show they have absolutely now intention of following the guidelines of this community in any form do you even think about taking a harsh tone, or ask for official action.


So those are my thoughts. Feel free to comment and yeah, I am out of brain power now....

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