Regarding Faction Deletions & Faction Owners.

[Tefka]

We've had some recent issues with faction deletions. I want you guys to know deletions are permanent. That's it, no going back. It's fine to remove failed ideas or stuff that just never took off. But try and keep local copies of your content. Once you press that delete button, there's very few safety nets in place to catch mistakes. We literally just get a notification on the backend, and most of the time these minor factions are just empty factions that never went anywhere so we'll just clear the queue.

However, we're paying closer attention to the issue now. If it's affected you in the past, I'm sorry, there's very little we can do for you. Major Factions are a bigger ordeal - we require FO elections if one steps down. But minor factions are still the wild west - so be careful of incompetent and/or unhinged Faction Owners who might delete your content in the faction at a moment's notice.

The Staff Team has been instructed to start an internal conversation about how we might install more safety nets and possibly even regulations regarding Faction Ownership without impacting the "wild west" feel that I think is integral to the aspect of Minor Factions here at Chaos.

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With that said, I'd like to open this touchy subject to community discussion and debate. Would you like to see more regulation on minor factions and Faction Ownership? Less? Samesies?

 

[Ayden Cater]

[member="Tefka"]

I know elections have been held in the past to elect someone as a Faction Owner, but is there a system in place for members of a faction to put up a vote to replace the FO if they believe that the FO is no longer fit to lead the faction or if they think someone else would do a better job?

I ask this because I know some smaller Major Factions had a strong start, and then an FO went off the deep end and by the time things had settled, and the old FO was absent long enough to justify someone new trying to take over, the damage was done and the faction was dead. Members can choose who leads them, can they also choose when that person should step down?

 

[sabrina]

[member="Tefka"] can I second [member="Ayden Cater"] idea

 

[Tefka]

Members can choose who leads them

Member's can't choose who leads them in Minor Factions. This discussion is about Minor Factions.

If you'd like to start a discussion for Major Factions, that is fine, but please post it as a separate topic in the Site Feedback forum as a Suggestion.

 

[James Justice]

As the owner of a minor faction, I personally enjoy the wildness that comes with it. Big ones seem to be all about dominions, invasions, the map game (could be wrong, I ain't done much with em). But minor factions to me feel very organic, almost like a few good friends at a pub or whatever you want to make them. Big factions are like nations, to me, small ones remind me of families and states (or Provinces for you canadian folks)

With that said, I like how things are, personally, in the minor factions, but I am very open to change. I think that wildness of it is the great part. I mean you could be anything or do anything. I personally feel that going major is kinda over-rated. Sure, you dominate planets and your on the map. But you lose em too. And there is a lot of stress involved, it seems. The stress-free nature of the smaller factions, I feel lend themselves to more organic play and storytelling. It lends itself to the ability to be "secret societies" or third party mercenaries, or anything you want really. Some have been bands, I even had an alt as part of a mercenary group for a bit.

To me the way things are feels right. Minor factions feel like playdough to me that you can shape into anything you want. But that's just me.

 

[Ayden Cater]

[member="Tefka"]

Alright. Thanks.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="James Justice"]
Well put.

 

[Jsc]

With this knowledge in mind, I'll definitely start moving a lot more of my IC RPs out of the Faction Forums and into the Main Boards. Good heads up.

 

[James Justice]

[member="Ember Rekali"]


Thanks ^_^

 

[Coci Heavenshield]

There is much more freedom with a minor faction as James has pointed out, which makes them very attractive to create. There are limits to what you can do regard tech and stuff that the major faction get to enjoy. But those that create them knows this..

Regarding the ownership. I think minor faction should have the ability to replace an owner if they are inactive especially if the rest of the minor faction are and doing the work to develop the faction and their story/character development. Is it not possible to remove the ability of the owner to delete the faction? Only have this ability with board administrators? I am not savvy with the workings of the boards so it might not be.

Also I thought that like threads, that factions can be archived? so rather then delete them, archive them? that way at least content is kept for the RPs and history to be kept.

 

[Kenrath]

[member="Tefka"]

For my two cents the "Wild West" of minor factions in my opinion is not an issue and can be a rewarding experience. The issue comes up when people forget the inherit wild west nature of minor factions and lose their ever loving minds when it doesn't go like clock work. Or should I say their version of clock work.

It is very easy to RP with a core group of writers without needing to form a Faction to do it. Then all writers involved can get a feel for the activity levels of each individual writers, test the longevity of the concept, and better chose the writer to actually commit to the OOC creation of the Minor faction and forums. This would hopefully weed out the unhinged/incompetent Faction Owner candidates. Trial and error is not necessarily a bad thing.

That being said the idea of backing up content is a great idea to bring people to thinking about again. I know I keep folders and folders of past stuff on my desktop and external hard drive.

 

[Jack Sparrow]

[member="Coci Heavenshield"] brings up a good point. On the one hand, if I create a minor faction out of my head, it should be mine to blow up if I go off the deep end. If members don't like it, there are lots and lots of other factions to choose from. On the other hand, if I create a minor faction and said faction gains traction and finds I'm out of action, they should be able to request inaction retraction. I would suggest that if a minor faction owner is found to be inactive (say, players are looking for the FO for a month), a player interested in taking over the faction would send them a PM and Cc an Admin. If a week goes by and no reply is received (now five weeks have gone by with no FO activity), ownership of the Faction can be turned over to the requesting player. If multiple people all want control, take it to an OOC thread, set up a duel, or however they choose to decide on new leadership.

 

[Kenrath]

[member="Coci Heavenshield"] brings up a good point. On the one hand, if I create a minor faction out of my head, it should be mine to blow up if I go off the deep end. If members don't like it, there are lots and lots of other factions to choose from. On the other hand, if I create a minor faction and said faction gains traction and finds I'm out of action, they should be able to request inaction retraction. I would suggest that if a minor faction owner is found to be inactive (say, players are looking for the FO for a month), a player interested in taking over the faction would send them a PM and Cc an Admin. If a week goes by and no reply is received (now five weeks have gone by with no FO activity), ownership of the Faction can be turned over to the requesting player. If multiple people all want control, take it to an OOC thread, set up a duel, or however they choose to decide on new leadership.

The problem with this idea is once you send the message the inactive Owner can just kick everyone out of the faction and keep the shall we say shell to go back to at their leisure or just delete the whole faction.

I am not saying the proposed idea is not a good one. I am just saying a flawed one without some sort of Admin oversight similar to what Tefka is bringing up for discussion.

 

[Jack Sparrow]

I was hoping the owner could be changed behind the scenes by the proper admin.

 

[Mantic Dorn]

I'd say let the minor factions regulate themselves.

If a FO is open about that the faction is his/her toy thats fine, members have to accept that when joining.
On the other hand if the FO tells folk that he/she want others or even everyone to be part of how things are handled and thus "lures them into" investing time and energy to develop the faction, then the member base should be able to point at that and ask for admin help to install a new FO if the old goes inactive or outright works to destroy the members work out of ooc reasons or such.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

I definitely agree with [member="Coci Heavenshield"] on the subject of ownership. There might be a Minor Faction that has a solid idea, active members, and the community is jamming and if the owner is inactive the rest of the faction should have the ability to remove or vote him or her out. As for regulation on Minor Factions, I think its fine currently, although I personally wouldn't mind if we had a sort of categorical distinction between if one faction is a growing galactic nation/community, or if one faction is just the defined lore and information of a specific planet like the Kainate Authority is.