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  1. Hey there, Alpha. I fundamentally disagree with your stance but I'm gonna do my best to keep my response civil.
  2.  
  3. With that out of the way, here we go.
  4.  
  5. I think the first issue that needs to be addressed is this: What, exactly, is a Senior Member?
  6.  
  7. More importantly, what is the distinction between a regular Member and a Senior Member?
  8.  
  9. Everyone who has access to this forum and is reading this thread is a Member, which means they all received the same message when their application was accepted.
  10.  
  11. To quote that message:
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  13. Quote
  14. You have been accepted to join the ranks of FirePowered! You now have access to a members-only forum and officially represent what the FP community stands for. Keep this in mind when interacting with players on our servers, and you may be well on your way to a Senior Member position, which will allow you to vote on each member application!
  15.  
  16. Ok, so a Member is someone who has expressed interest in being a part of the community, been accepted into it, and officially represents what it stands for.
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  18. Not everyone who is reading this is a Senior Member. Those that are received a message upon their acceptance, just as they did when they became a regular member.
  19.  
  20. Quoting that message:
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  22. Quote
  23. Senior Member is a leadership role in FirePowered. You will have more responsibilities and more privileges. We may lean on you to help lead events or be involved in other FirePowered activities. Most importantly, you have a greater responsibility to lead by example.
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  25. Ok, so a Senior Member is a Member who has expressed an interest in being more involved in the community, been accepted, and now has more responsibilities and more privileges, namely, seeding and voting on membership apps.
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  27. Both of those are very important jobs, don't get me wrong. But is a Senior Member any more representative of the community than a regular Member is? They are, as the message states, meant to lead by example -- that is, they are meant to follow the rules, be courteous and helpful, and overall project a good image of themselves and the community.
  28.  
  29. My question to you is this -- if Senior Members are representative of the community and Members are not, then what the fuck is a Member?
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  31. Senior Membership is not and should not be an "inner sanctum". It's not the cool kids' club, where only the well-liked Members get to hang out. So it's complete bullshit to say that only the Senior Members are worthy of representing the community to others. Members are 100% a part of the community, by virtue of being a member. Membership is not a partial thing -- j\you don't "only halfway" join the community; it's an all-or-nothing thing. Members are the community. They are their own fucking face. They don't need a small subset of "specially chosen" people to represent them to others, because that's a) unnecessary and B) dishonest.
  32.  
  33. Senior Members are simply those who have been with the community for some time (hence "Senior"), can vouch for member applications, and can call seed events. Currently, those are the only differences between Senior and regular Members, and they should be the only differences.
  34.  
  35. You seem to think that there should be a select few amount of Senior Members, that they should be limited to people who have been here a long time, and that they should be only given to those who want to help the community grow.
  36.  
  37. Here are the problems with that.
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  39. Why should it be limited to a few people? That would hinder the growth of FP as a whole, not help it. By making Senior Membership into this coveted and elite group you're actually harming the community. Cliques are already a big enough problem in FP (see: Pandm's Mumble thread); making Senior Member into another one would only exacerbate the problem.
  40.  
  41. All prospective Senior Members are asked why they want to become a Senior Member. If the admins decide that the applicant does not have FirePowered's best interest at heart -- they are not interested in helping the community grow -- the applicant just won't be accepted. There is a vetting process that each Senior Member goes through, with lots of discussion by the admins. That's why the process tends to take so long. So it's safe to say that most, if not all, accepted Senior Members deserve their position.
  42.  
  43. Not to mention that "a long time" is bullshit. Of the 57 Senior Members, the "youngest" joined the community over 6 months ago. Seeing as FirePowered is about 18 months old, that means that all the Senior Members have been with FP for 1/3 of its lifespan or more. All of them clearly have a great deal of experience with the community -- certainly enough to be called "Senior Member".
  44.  
  45. But I'd say the major problem with your reasoning is that you're placing all-to-much importance on Senior Member.
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  47. As I've said before, it's not an elite title. It's just access to a group that confers a few extra responsibilities on the Member. And while those responsibilities are vital to ensuring FirePowered's continued health and growth, they're not that big of a deal. Seed events are a recent thing; FirePowered got on fine without them. And while the discussion for Member apps is good and helpful, there is not meant to be much discussion (for the most part).
  48.  
  49. To quote Bombz, on the purpose of the Member App Discussion forum:
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  51. Quote
  52. You should use the Applications comment system in most cases, but sometimes an issue comes up or you would rather discuss a certain Member Application in private. This is the Forum where you may do that.
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  54.  
  55. It's not meant to be a place where +vouches or -vouches are thrown around carelessly, but rather specific discussions on why or why not a person should be accepted or denied.
  56.  
  57. Without the forum, without Senior Members' input, the membership application process would get along fine.
  58.  
  59. Senior Membership is, in my opinion, already too overvalued (and perhaps completely useless).
  60.  
  61. It should simply be indicative that a person cares about the community, wants to have a greater role in it, and wants to help it grow. That's fucking it. No more, no less. There's absolutely no reason that it should become a tiny, elite group.
  62. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  63.  
  64. That was my major beef with your post. I'm just gonna really quickly run through the rest of your points.
  65.  
  66. Joking around on Senior Membership applications isn't a big deal. It isn't necessarily immature either. To me, it simply indicates that the person is comfortable with the community -- as they should be. It also isn't really a bad representation of the community, given that most people probably won't see the Senior Membership apps (and those that do probably won't care).
  67. They aren't diminishing the value of the position because there isn't really any inherent value in it. It's just kinda there. Don't treat it as a reward, because it sure as hell isn't one.
  68. Not accepting people who joke around is a bit draconian, I'd say. If it's really considered that big of a deal they should at least get a second chance.
  69. The members group doesn't need a figurehead group. It can represent itself just fine.
  70. Increase the time of membership required? No. 3 months is already pretty substantial, but the thing is, if someone applies right at that 90 day mark they probably won't be accepted. Senior Membership app acceptance is based on how well the person has interacted with and is known by the community. If someone is the most charismatic person and makes friends with everybody in the first month of their joining the community, why shouldn't they be allowed to apply two months later? It's up to the community to decide if they get in.
  71. Increase post count, but make it so that they must be relevant? No. Two problems here. The first is that post count is not a good indicator of activity. You can buy post boosts from the Ember store once a day (a certain Admin is very fond of doing this). Plus with introduction thread "spam" and the general silly shenanigans that go on around here, post count doesn't hold much weight. The other issue with this is, how the fuck is someone supposed to determine if a post is relevant or not? Is the admin team going to go through the entire post history of an applicant, keeping a tally of which were relevant and which weren't? And that's not even delving into how relevancy is defined, because it seems completely arbitrary.
  72. Maturity, as reviewed by an admin, must be adequate? What do you think happens in the application process? It's already taken into account.
  73. Eliminating bias? No no no no no. No. Applications should be approached from a personal, very biased standpoint. Because that's how you fucking judge whether a person is a good candidate for membership.
  74. A vote by current members to allow admission? THAT'S WHAT THE VOUCH SYSTEM IS.
  75. A vote by unbiased senior members? Please, say it with me this time. APPLICATIONS SHOULD BE APPROACHED FROM A PERSONAL, VERY BIASED STANDPOINT. Also, the admins are already the jury for this.
  76.  
  77. To summarize:
  78.  
  79. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and the system sure as hell isn't broken.
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