Chief type thoughts part 1

About this TM chief thing. I’ve been thinking. (Uh oh, everyone run.) No really, I’ve read posts to various live journals, some folks on my friends lists, and some not. I’ve spoken with some people on the phone. I was at the chiefmeet, so I read what lots of people said there. Now, I’m going to post what I’m thinking on the subject. Just to preface: this is not meant as an attack on anyone or even a reply to anyone in particular. I’d like to thank everyone who I’ve spoken to or whose journal I’ve read on the topic. Because you’ve all helped me consider ideas and possibilities that I might have otherwise overlooked.

So, as I see it, in my own humble opinion, and mine alone, there are 3 main symptoms. I am not even going to begin to try and figure out what the heck the cause is. I haven’t a clue. (Only thing that comes to mind off the top of my head is too few people running things and too many of them hitting burnout round about the same time – chiefs, wizards and players. It’s not a pretty thing.) The symptoms

1. idle tribes
2. idle chiefs
3. idle players within active tribes.

Okay, idle tribes. In a lot of ways, this particular issue, even after all the discussion, I still see as minor. There is a method of dealing with it. I know the wizards said so at the chiefmeet. It might be a very slow method, but that only gives the tribe every opportunity to rebound. And if there is the interest to create the tribe, then perhaps it’s a good idea to give that opportunity, to make sure that interest really has died, before declaring the tribe defunct. From where I stand as chief of Briarholt … well, we’re an island. We shouldn’t by rights get too many visitors. To be honest, the status of other tribes activity or nonactivity has little to nothing to do with Briarholt on a regular basis. I might be missing something here, but I’d be content with letting the wizards continue to deal with this as they currently are. So long as there is some mechanism for dealing with this, I don’t see this as an issue. And there is, since at least 2 tribes have become defunct while I’ve been a chief.

Chief type ideas Part 2

Next up, idle chiefs. This refers to an idle chief in an active tribe, because if the tribe is inactive, it’s really item 1. So, how do idle chiefs affect me in particular and the MUSH as a whole? So long as each tribe has at least one active chief, whether IC or OOC, then there is someone to look after the tribe. Personally, I’d think each tribe should have at least 2 active chiefs, so that no one person gets burned out too quickly.

For instance, I have an OOC and an IC second in Briarholt, and they can both make decisions if they’re logged on and I’m not, though all three of us make it a habit of informing the other two when we do make decisions. This set up works very well so far as I’m concerned and it keeps any one of us from becoming totally overworked or stressed over things. We also consult on things, if there’s any uncertainty. Now it helps that we are a tight knit chiefing team, admittedly. But I think this is something to strive for, just in general. Communication is a big part of chiefing.

Chiefing does carry with it a great deal of responsibility and should not be undertaken lightly. That said, keep in mind that chiefing is still a voluntary position and chiefs are players too. I do think that chiefs should attend chiefmeets if at all possible, and that might be one mechanism to deal with inactive chiefs, from the wizard’s perspective. From my perspective, as a chief, I am not going to worry about which chiefs outside of my tribe (or those others I play in) are idle. The policy seems to me to be that a tribe can oust a chief who isn’t doing the job. So, if I go idle and am not doing my job, it’s really up to my tribe, including my seconds, to point it out to me, if I’m not noticing myself. I don’t think it’s up to the me, as a chief, to go to any other chief in another tribe and say, “Hey, X, you’re not doing your job.” Though I might if I’ve an alt in that tribe go talk to them as that alt. Or even offer to help, if they need some help. This is not a hard and fast rule, just a generic concept really. Of course, I’ve already come up with exceptions to it. The possibilities will go on forever, really.

I’ve no objection with enforcing stated policies with respect to idle chiefs. None at all. That said, I’m going to consider this discussion done, unless someone has some concrete ideas for policy changes to put on the table. Personally I’m okay with using the current existing methods and just enforcing them, though I’d like to make sure that everyone knows upfront what exactly is going to be enforced. Since I believe that information is already in the news files, this should not be much of an issue, really, except to make sure that people read the news files.

And again, if I’m missing something, I’m open to discussion.

Chief type ideas Final post

The last item on the list – inactive members of tribes. Okay, yes this can be a significant problem. For instance, an inactive healer (or other magic user) pretty much seems to guarantee a tribe has no healer, for all practical purposes. Given a healer’s uses in TP’s, I have to admit that an idle healer does affect the TP’s I am willing to run. Maybe it shouldn’t, but that’s another whole discussion.

In general, though, if I do a +tlast on my tribe, I’ll find there are maybe 2 characters right now, who haven’t logged in during the last 2 months. One of which is having access problems and we know about it. Most of the characters have been logged on within the last couple of weeks. Was it just to check +mail? Maybe. I did send some, after all. However, I expect there was some rp in there, and that if there’s anything that happened, that the IC chief needs to know about, my players (!) will tell me. As a personal note, there are times when I log an alt on, check the bb’s and the +mail, and then discover there’s nobody logged on in that tribe. I tend to frequently be rping on 3 or 4 screens at a time and I don’t like to have too many idle characters. What’s the point to keeping the alt up, if it’s not doing anything? So, if I log on, there’s nobody there, I might stick around 10-15 minutes, in case someone shows up. Then I log off that alt, and play with who’s around. I expect the same is true for many other players.

This particular topic, I think should be dealt with on a tribe by tribe basis. I think it’s up to individual chief teams to decide this. If MCI’s and idle characters are a problem in your tribe, then having a mechanism to deal with it is good idea. When to use it should definitely be up to individual chief (or chief teams)’s discretion. Which is what everyone is saying, so far as I can tell. Once I wade through the acrimony, the frustration, and the anger. (And once people very kindly take the time to explain things to me. Thank you!)

I know what my own personal policy is on it. And both my seconds agree. I am debating whether I should post this in the Briarholt OOC area, just so folks know. I’ll post it here for now, while I’m thinking about it.

For regular characters in Briarholt, so long as you meet the requirements to not be idledested by the wizards, you will be considered active. We encourage players to post to the +bb if anything happens during rp that the rest of the tribe would reasonably know about, and to +mail the chiefs if anything happens that the IC chiefs would be expected to know. Otherwise, relax and enjoy your rp.

If I end up having a problem at some future time, then I’ll deal with it then. For now, this is where I stand.

*gets down off soapbox now*