Survival Survival Staff Meetings - your input appreciated

[Mumberthrax]

I'd like us to begin having some sort of official general staff meetings for the survival server. The idea would be to provide a specific time or gathering to focus on anything and everything to do with survival, it's moderation, planning, policy, etc. in a structured format so that nothing is left unresolved, and everyone on staff has an opportunity to be involved and part of the discussion and decision-making process.

 

I'm hoping that this thread can be used for everyone to share or discuss ideas for how such meetings or discussions could happen in a way that has the highest amount of value to everyone involved. Feel free to submit anything, wacky or conservative.

 

The overall objective here would be to make s.nerd.nu the best it can be. The meetings would be professional, task-oriented, and aimed at serving the needs and desires of the community.

 

All staff would be eligible to participate in these meetings. Sadmins, Moderators, Techadmins, Headadmins, Cadmins, and Padmins. Everyone should have the opportunity to be heard. Hopefully we can have general meetings later on that involved the non-staff community, but for now it would just be mods and admins - unless strong arguments could be made to the contrary.

 

Some basic things that I think ought to be decided are as follows:

 

• Medium
• Agenda formation process
• times
• advertising meetings
• roles
• topics
• specific format
• publication of minutes

Medium: Mumble, IRC, and Forums are things I have considered. Mumble has been used traditionally on nerd, and is the closest thing we have to traditional face-to-face meetings. One drawback is that text chat seems to sometimes be overlooked in mumble, as well trying to match up recordings and text logs can be difficult for those trying to review the meeting. In general meetings, text-chat can be off-topic at times as well - perhaps with a staff-only attendance those wouldn't be as significant problems.

   IRC could work as well. Tone isn't conveyed as easily, but everything is laid out in text for convenient review, and it may be easier for some to express themselves in text than in voice. Both IRC and Mumble only work if everybody is present at the same time for the meeting. This is not ideal for people on opposite sides of the planet, as not everyone will necessarily have an opportunity to be present.

   Using the forums is one option that resolves some of these time issues, though it would require some careful planning. We do have the forums already, but there are no threads designated to serve as general planning and discussion spaces for the survival server. It isn't as fast as using IRC or Mumble, but it would give everyone an opportunity to be involved.

   Some combination could work as well, possibly. Get as many in mumble as possible, not finalize anything, post recordings/minutes on the forums, and ask those who were not present specifically for their input after hearing what was said. Then having a wrap-up type deal in the forums? I guess it would depend on the issues being discussed.

   I'd like to hear suggestions or opinions on this.

 

Agenda: Agenda for the meetings could be drafted through some kind of pre-planning thread, everyone can comment saying what they'd like to discuss, it gets sorted and prioritized by an individual organizer (sadmin, possibly) or by everyone on that thread through consensus.

 

Times: If these meetings happen over mumble, IRC, or some other 'live' medium, selecting appropriate times is essential. What times work best for everyone? Weekends? Evenings? What has been used in the past to be most useful to as many as possible?

 

Advertising meetings: Hopefully everyone checks these forums, but what would be the best way to ensure all staff who may be interested are aware of the existence of the meetings should they choose to be involved? Just going through the staff list and messaging each one? Stickying a thread here in modchat, or modchat-private? If they occur on a regular basis (which I hope they will) then perhaps this will be less of an issue. I'd just like to maximize involvement here.

 

Roles: One person would likely be the host or facilitator of the meeting. This would be the person responsible for making sure the agenda is followed, that the meeting begins and ends at an appropriate time, and ensures that topics are either resolved or have a specific task set to resolve agenda items. This person would also be responsible for making sure everyone who wishes to speak on a matter is heard, as well as making sure the meeting stays focused and productive. It's a lot of responsibility, and would likely be an admin. Some of these tasks could be delegated, I suppose. A good host/facilitator can make a meeting or break it depending on how they conduct it.

We may want to select a person to be responsible for taking notes, and compiling a summary of the meeting/minutes for later review. This is commonly referred to as a secretary or scribe position.

Additionally it may help to have someone serving as a bookkeeper/historian, to keep track of past meetings and decisions in a format easily accessible by staff in the future. The secretary and historian could be the same person. This isn't required, but when it's needed it could be a valuable asset.

Secretary and historian could be decided at the time the meeting begins, or beforehand. Host/facilitator would likely be selected beforehand, but a secondary could be present in case that person is unavailable.

 

Topics: some discussion topics I can think of which would be appropriate for such meetings include: Specific S policies, history and getting everyone up to speed on certain issues, planning events, revision planning, general moderation, points of contention/disagreement, and *possibly* general nerd policies though that wouldn't be a primary focus as this is mostly about S. Things which are off-limits would be anything that jeopardizes server security, issues with personal information, and any hostile behavior or harassment.

 

Format: This doesn't have to be complicated. Some ideas I have for a basic meeting format are:

• intro - make sure everyone is here, get attendance on record, note time and date
• review last meetings minutes, check up on unresolved issues from that, confirm with whoever was responsible for assigned tasks what their situation is
• go through new items on agenda from pre-planning
• cover any last-minute items, afford only a few minutes for each of these if there are a lot
• review meeting, decisions made, tasks assigned, items discussed, and unresolved issues. Possibly assign one individual or forum thread to report progress of ongoing tasks to, to have a central information hub. Confirm next meeting time.

Publication of minutes: Afterward, secretary tidies up notes, puts recordings and notes together, and publishes it all for the participants to review in a forum thread. If anyone observes anything left out, they can point it out in that thread and it would be added to the minutes which then get filed with the historian, and possibly published publicly.

 

Does this sound overly complicated? Like too much thought or structure? Or does it sound like it's just enough to provide a substantial amount of value with minimal drama and effective communication? I'm thinking that if staff meetings like this can be conducted effectively, we may model meetings with non-staff on them, though meetings with a larger group may require a different format than whatever we choose here to be effective.

 

If you have thoughts, ideas, or opinions - please share them. I'd like to see something like this happen sooner rather than later. You're welcome to bring up specific topics you'd like to see discussed or put on an agenda if you like, and I'd most appreciate suggestions for the planning of how these meetings themselves would happen.

[CROCKODUCK]

Throwing my ideas out that we could really benefit from these meetings with staffing, and general policy changes.  I have had multiple instances where I am unsure of who is in what position of staff, or what policies have changed recently.  These meetings could be the perfect type of reminder and head's up that Survival staff need. 

[TornadoHorse]

I think these meetings would be a lot more productive if it wasn't staff only, just whole Survival community meetings, then maybe followed up by a staff meeting to gather the thoughts and see what we can do about it.

[Mumberthrax]

I think these meetings would be a lot more productive if it wasn't staff only, just whole Survival community meetings, then maybe followed up by a staff meeting to gather the thoughts and see what we can do about it.

 

That's possible, and I think general public meetings are definitely something that we should look at doing. These meetings would be focused on helping to get us as staff working in a cohesive manner, to get us all on the same page.

[Malvagio87]

I think we need to determine what the identity is of the Survival server and then go from there.  It used to be PvP focused but now it seems a lot more spread out and Survival focused.