Thanks to Matt Baillie and Abe Smith. They have volunteered to serve as editors and moderators of STARFLEET Fail in case I get hit by a bus or something. They will be keeping an eye on things. I’ll still be here, my job is starting to settle in and my workload will be lightening up soon.

I work as the sole I.T. guy in a small call center, and we are ramping up and adding reps to the sales floor. I have been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, getting workstations deployed and servers installed. Once we get to full strength, it should be just a matter of fighting evil, entropy, and boredom. Then I can get back to the important things I do at work, like reading Slashdot and posting on Fail.

(8 votes, average: 2.63 out of 5)

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One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the sheer amount of noise in STARFLEET at pretty much every level. As I remarked to a friend, it’s starting to become a ‘third generation’ organization. It started as a Star Trek fan club. Then it became a STARFLEET fan club. Now it’s a Lizard Administration Argument Society. It’s a pretty bad scene. Moreover, this doesn’t show any sign of stopping.

During the election, I talked a lot about new ideas and how we could use technology to ‘flatten’ the organization. Trying to think around the problem and put less focus on a centralized organization and more on a community and node-building metaphor. In the process, eliminate a lot of positions that aren’t necessary and (if at all possible) reduce the sheer amount of mind-boggling paperwork. The STARFLEET Membership Handbook and Constitution is forty-six pages long! Bureaucracy? You’re soaking in it!

The answers are far from clear on an organizational level. Sal won’t resign, so if you want to get rid of him, you’ll have to start that petition. Getting that petition around means politics, and is assigned a membership loss number. Combine that membership loss number with the egregious amounts of spending that have been happening and add it to an already-precarious financial situation of spending more than is brought in, and you’ve got a fantastic recipe for disaster. It leaves very few positive directions for a concerned member to turn.

Or does it? I think the general idea is to connect Star Trek (and sci-fi) fans together as efficiently as possible. Maybe use the ‘STARFLEET’ metaphor of starships and gallant crews, but eliminate the paperwork and requirements. Additionally, since the idea is to be efficient, then there should be no cost passed down to the ‘member.’ And what the hell is a member, anyway? When you eliminate the cost, you’ve eliminated the bureaucracy and with it, an awful lot of hand-wringing and angry screeds. Eliminating the cost also has another advantage: When you make it free, you also eliminate competition. There’s no reason why another model cannot flourish.

I think that it may be possible to reboot by taking a look outside of the STARFLEET hegemony and looking at fandom organization from the point of view of an open-source project. Manage through communication, with many hands making light work for the enjoyment of all. I have a very, very ‘alpha’ proof-of-concept that I’m working on right now, and while it’s not very pretty, it’s functional. If you’re interested in lending a hand, drop me a line.

Emmett Plant
http://www.trekfan.org

(8 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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For some reason, WordPress stopped sending comments. In three weeks, I received three comments via email. I was convinced that it was quiet because I have not been here to provide proper care and feeding to this site.

Boy, was I wrong. I missed a lot, it seems, and I am trying to catch up.

I have resolved this issue.  I am still looking for a couple volunteers to serve as editors and comment moderators. Won’t be too much work, we have really needed very little moderation or editing here. But with my work schedule being as hectic as it has been, another pair of eyes is a Good Thing™.  Let me know if anyone is interested.

(3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)

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What if STARFLEET were just limited to North Americans, and those in other countries can just have “diplomatic” ties with STARFLEET N.A.? That way, we wouldn’t have to worry about internatilonal mailings and turf wars like R8 and R9 and R20?

(4 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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I’m pretty happy to work for STARFLEET. I offer up web-space by the truckload, and ‘Thirty Days’ is doing a really good job of using that space to host copies of chapter handbooks, regional handbooks, chapter and marine unit newsletters and things like that. The ‘Thirty Days’ book project has sent out a huge pile of Trek books to STARFLEET chapters, and will continue to do so. Lots of good things are happening, and STARFLEET and its members benefit.

There’s an important thing to mention here: STARFLEET isn’t doing it. It’s not a STARFLEET project. It’s my little project that I’ve put together with the help of a lot of people. There is zero support for any of it from the STARFLEET administration in any capacity, and I’m grateful for that. Here’s why:

“Until my term ends or I get impeached, I’m not quitting STARFLEET and I’m not going to let the malcontents who lost the election make everyone else suffer.” — Sal Lizard

I lost the election — So did five other folks. Joost Ueffing, Dixie Halber, Wade Olson, Sandy Berenberg and Will Devine. Those were the names on the ballots, and from what I can tell none of us are making STARFLEET members suffer. I think Wade is still active with the SFMC, Joost is working as part of DTS; Will has recently taken over as the CO of the USS Accord. I’m still running the USS Blackheart in addition to all the ‘Thirty Days’ stuff.

I’ve recently been contacted to help on a STARFLEET project, and I have responded that I will not do so. I’m not willing to work for any department of this administration after that kind of unbelievable attack. I can’t bring myself to do it. I would like nothing more than to volunteer my time and effort working toward making things better from the core — If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have run for CS last year and I wouldn’t have applied for VCS this year.

I don’t mean to come off as overbearingly arrogant, but I think we’ve done more with ‘Thirty Days’ in the past few weeks than STARFLEET’s been able to put together since last January. Since we’ve been very careful about money, we’ve been able to send out hundreds of ‘Star Trek’ books to chapters and troops overseas for less than 5% of what STARFLEET has spent on attorneys. We’ve got a ton of bandwidth — Enough to give every member of STARFLEET over 50M of webspace for a decade — And it cost us less than 8% of what STARFLEET has spent on attorneys.

We’re getting things done. STARFLEET seems unable to do so, and to make things worse the administration takes a point-of-view that encourages talented and capable people to run screaming. It’s a really bad situation, and I don’t know the solution.

(13 votes, average: 3.31 out of 5)

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So we’ve identified that Starfleet as we know it is broken.  We’ve indentified that people who want the titles and yet not the duties that go with the titles migrate into positions of authority. We’ve identified that the reason Starfleet was necessary 35 years ago, is not the reason fan’s need Starfleet today.

So then what do we do?

First Identify what Starfleet has to offer today.  Starfleet’s motif where each chapter is a variant of Kirk’s/Picard’s/Archer’s Enterprise with a crew (membership) working together for an accepted common goal is as valid today as it was 35 years ago.  Starfleet’s existance as umbrella organization that makes it easier for chapters to coalesce, grow, and continue is easier today than it was then, because of both the Internet and the greater acceptance of being a Star Trek fan.  Members join because they want to play Star Trek.  They don’t want to play Starfleet, they don’ want to deal with Politics, they don’t want to be bogged down in work and/or paperwork.  THEY WANT TO PLAY STAR TREK.

Thus it becomes clear, that Starfleet’s Offering should exist ONLY and for no other reason to help the Chapters enable and enhance the MEMBERS PLAYING STAR TREK.

By playing Star Trek, I mean a very broad definition of whatever Star Trek based experience (with other Genres included in a greater or lesser degree) the member is enjoying.

Starfleet then, and its administrative sub-units known as Regions then exist not to serve themselves, not to make some great combined contribtution to Fandom, or Charity, or Community life, but they exist to serve the Chapters and Members. Period, that is it, close the book we’re done.

Sal talks about members mattering, but he’s still thinking in the paradigm of Starfleet First, Chapters Second, Members Third.  When his supporters on the AB and EC and elsewhere, say that he is the Boss, and we are followers, you can see this misguided thinking.  A better example would be when a CEO of a real corporation, is the Boss of the PAID Employees, but he is employed BY the Board of Directors,  who are selected by the Shareholders (for us that would be the CS - AB and the Member’s Chapter Presidents).

So here is what I would recommend.

That Starfleet move forward with separating the AB into two bodies.  One a governing Board of Twelve Directors selected by ALL of the Membership in staggered three year terms (The Initial vote will have the top four vote getters getting a three year term, the next four a two year term, the next four a year term), there after every year, in an online election administered through the database four Directors will be elected for three year terms.  These Directors will select a Board Leader (titles are not as important as their duties) who will be be responsible for all of the “back office” responsibilities of the organization, finances, membership processessing, publishing and distributing hard copy materials.  They will also select a Commander Starfleet who will be responsible for the FUN part of Star Fleet, ie the Star Trek portion.  The regions then will no longer be led by politicians, but will be led by Regional Commanders appointed by the Commander Starfleet.  In addition the regional boundaries will be readily and easily shifted per the needs of the chapters therein, not on the needs of political necessity.

More to come

Scott

(6 votes, average: 2.83 out of 5)

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As some of you may remember from my Live Journal, I am reading a book called “Kicking Habits” by Thomas G. Bandy.  In this book he talks about the declining church.  Much of what he says about the declining church and the revived-growing church has also a lot to say about the declining fandom and the revived-growing fandom.  What this books says, and what it has to say to us as fandom is very important, and deep down a lot of us know it already, while others, much like the old church geezer/geezerette, will never understand, don’t want to understand, and will do everything in their power to punish and expel those who want a newer, more active, more bountiful fandom.  Sounds familiar? I think so.

For four years now I’ve been saying that Starfleet has no purpose, no focus, no mission.  We’ve become more about Starfleet, than about Star Trek.  We’re more about rules, on top of rules, on top of rules.  CQ after CQ after CQ glorifies members, chapters, and the organization but fails to mention that thing called Star Trek.

In the not so distant past Starfleet served as a medium where like minded fans could get together, hang out with other geeks, and play Captain Kirk, or Mr. Spock with friends without some dumb jock calling them nerds and giving them wedgies.  It was a way we could network, gather and enjoy Star Trek more fully.

But somewhere we’ve lost that, just about everything about Starfleet, except for the Motif, is about Starfleet, Recruiting just to have numbers, Conferences just to have conferences or to conduct business. Positions at all levels exist either to justify the position, or serve the Organization, not to celebrate Star Trek, not to enhance anyones enjoyment of Star Trek, and not to enhance anyones Star Trek experience.

If someone wants to roleplay being an Admiral (playing Star Trek), they have to achieve a position of responsibility within the organization and serve the membership.  However the vast majority of these people didn’t join Starfleet to work and serve, they joined to play and hangout.  SO what happens, people who want titles, don’t do the work needed, people get angry, feelings get hurt, rancor exists. Fingers get pointed, people become bitter, manipulators take advantage and gain ‘power’ in a fan club.

If someone wants to write a short story about Star Trek and get it published, they hear wails of how we will be sued by Paramount, they get rejections that their story is badly written, they get attacks for having a different vision of the Star Trek universe than our geezer/geezerette have.  Ask the SFMC, they’ve experienced this for two decades.

If someone wants to wear their uniform, or use their rank, or just say “I LOVE STAR TREK”, they are told not to embarras the rest of us, that Homeland Security will come after them, stop impersonating the real military, do charity work so the mundanes don’t make fun of us.  Celebrate Starfleet, not Star Trek.

What then do we do to break this cycle, to return to being a Star Trek Club, instead of being a Starfleet Club?

Tune in tomorrow, when I lay out my suggestions in the second part of this series.

Scott

(9 votes, average: 2.78 out of 5)

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