Idea: a "lead" in every staff team

[barneygale]

There was a pretty good thread on /r/admincraft a couple of weeks ago called "Server Owners how do you delegate?". One of posts mentioned this:

 

 

I like to place a head of this rank that cycles. The head keeps the others in this rank in line, makes sure they understand their responsibilities and reports to the server Owner/s. This delegates the lower ranks making your job easier.

 

I talked about doing this at nerd with an old head, who seemed keen.

 

It would be good for tech admins because we could never seem to organise and delegate work well. Having one person directly answerable to the head admins (and even perhaps a weekly meeting between them) would be great.

 

It would also be good for the head admins, as we don't really have a "Server Owner" figure anymore. AllNaturalX filled that role for a while, but since then there's never been one person driving nerd and planning for the long-term. Because the head admins share responsibility, no one person is responsible for nerd growing in player numbers, adding new boxes and servers, keeping on top of funds and fundraising, etc. It would avoid "design by committee" which has led to many threads with no conclusions, and many good ideas never properly appraised.

 

Likewise server admins could benefit, as one person would be ultimately responsible for handling (for example) revision launches. This should help avoid admins assuming that other admins are going to do certain things when they're not - I've seen this happen a few times while I've been here. Like the lead head admin, the lead server admins would be in charge of the long-term prospects of the server.

 

It might also be nice to have a lead mod, or lead mods from each server. They could help prioritise moderation, give guidelines on handling problems that crop up, report to the server admins, etc. Like all the other leads, they would not have any additional power - they would merely dedicate less time to day-to-day affairs, and more to planning/managing/designing/supervising.

 

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How leads are chosen is a bit squiggly. I don't want another "chosen by predecessor" system as it hasn't given us consistently good results. I also think voting would make it into a popularity contest. Ideally it would rotate between staffers in a random order, but we'd need to take into account people who are too inactive, or too new.

 

It might also be too confusing to add more "ranks" (although they're not really that). I don't think this is a *massive* concern because the information is not important to new players. The difference between a moderator and an admin is much more relevant to players than the difference between a mod and a lead mod.

 

It could rotate once every few weeks for mod, once every few months for admins

 

What do you think?

Edited March 20, 2014 by barneygale

[Pyr0mrcow]

Yea, this is how things are commonly organized, really helps when one person can make the final decision on things. Even if people can manage to agree, that person's still valuable to, you know, actually get things moving.

For selection of heads...maybe allow the next level up to decide, with suggestions from those that would be governed. EG, Admins would normally pick the mod head but mods would suggest and have input.

Once you get into higher ranks or special ranks where the 'level' isn't really relevant, especially Tech Admins, have them choose their own, because if they're that high up or have that sort of influence...well, you'd at least expect them to be responsible enough to choose, and if they're not they shouldn't have such a position.

Of course, you could always have exceptions, nothing's ever set in stone. The server lords might one day decide they want a reorganization and put in new heads. Nothing stopping that.

[buchanman]

I don't think it's too necessary to have a title for Head Mod and Normal Mods. Also, it can be hard to find anyone willing, but hopefully this will all work out! Seems like a great idea, and this is one thing nerd can benefit from.