A New YSFHQ

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A New YSFHQ

Post by Varren »

Introduction
A few days ago I proposed a series of changes to YSFHQ and its staff, a few minutes ago these proposals were passed by Staff by means of a vote, with 6 voting yes, and 1 abstention. These changes are effective immediately and are listed below. (There's a TLDR at the bottom if you don't want to listen to me ramble on)

YSFHQ Staff Changes
The largest change is a complete overhaul of the YSFHQ Staff system, the entire process of selection is now completely Democratic. Staff Candidates will choose which area of YSFlight they are most familiar with, and then YSFHQ Members will select their two favourite candidates from each section. For example, I can vote for Jetskit and Myself in Civilian, and then go on to vote for another two in both Military, and Aerobatics.

Candidates will have a space on the topic for their section to state why they believe they are the best person for that section, and why they deserve your vote. There will be a word limit, and candidates will not be able to post again on that topic.

We had a slightly similar process before, however the elected staff did not have as much of a say as the regular staff in YSFHQ affairs, they also however did not contribute as much as normal staff either. To counter this the first duty of a newly elected Staff team will be to elect a Crew Chief from their current roster who will keep everyone on track, hand out assignments and represent the collective staff’s decisions outside of the staff forum; by means of announcement posts, bannings, ect. To make sure this position is held by someone who can truly fulfill the requirements of the role, for the very first Crew Chief election only, a candidate must have previously been a member of Staff that did not recently resign or been voted out, if none of the elected staff have been staff before then the vote will carry on as normal.

Elected Staff will be the main body of Staff and will completely replace our current staff apart from the Core Staff. The Core Staff are Special Staff such as Site Mechanics and Treasurers who are required for the running of YSFHQ, current core members will stay regardless of the results of the votes - however their permissions will be limited so that they can only act in confines of their role. A Core Staff Member can also be removed from their position if two thirds of the staff vote to do so.

These elections for Staff Members will be held once every 6 months, however the staff will be able to vote to hold another vote at any time with a two thirds majority. Staff Members will be able to have as many terms as they wish as long as they are elected. Once a different staff team is elected the Crew Chief for the old staff will stay regardless of whether they are included in the new staff team for the first two weeks to help the new staff in anything they need, and then they will leave and a new crew chief will be elected.

YSFHQ Rule Changes
We are also going to be making some rather large changes to the rules of YSFHQ, it is important that you understand these new rules as they will be in effect the moment this post goes live.

Any grossly offensive, aggressive, and highly negative posts will be removed by a staff member immediately. However, you can dispute this privately in a PM to a staff member and it will be reviewed by the staff, if the post is re-defined then the post will be restored and the Staff Member may be disciplined/warned depending on how often this has occurred. Any warnings you may have received due to the post will be removed also.

Leading nicely on to the next change, the Warning system is going to be reinforced, and will be used a lot more than it has in the past. Receiving a warning will be nothing serious and should not be taken as such, it will be just that - a friendly warning and will only be visible to staff and yourself. Warnings will be given for anything that breaks the rules minus the very minor ones, such as a double post, posting in the wrong forum or topic etc.

To compensate for warnings being handed out a lot more than usual, the ban you receive for having 3 warnings will be decreased to 12 hours. However staff can remove this ban after a period if they feel the 3 warnings were not serious enough to deserve even a tiny ban.

Probation will also be reinforced as well with members who break a rule within a short period after returning from a ban earning Probation. Breaking a rule while on Probation will extend the ban of the original incident by 1.5 times each time. Probation will be removed after a time set by staff has elapsed and then the normal warning and banning rules will apply.

Standard YSFHQ Rules will no longer apply in private subforums or in private messages, as well as servers. YSFHQ Staff will not be allowed to interfere in anything that does not occur on either the YSFHQ Forum, YSFHQ Teamspeak or any future YSFHQ YSFlight Server.

Any site criticism of any kind will of course be allowed and even encouraged, however these posts will be put in a forum for only registered members and must be completely calm and friendly or they will be completely disregarded by Staff.

Transparency
YSFHQ will also be making a large push towards transparency between YSFHQ Staff and its members. One of the ways this will be addressed is by a new topic that will be called “YSFHQ Changelog” - this topic will include any changes to YSFHQ by Staff, site maintenance and budget decisions. For example a post will be made if a person is voted to be banned by staff, with the poll results and evidence. Any planned downtime will also be posted here 24 hours before the downtime.

Members can also request from a staff member reasons for a post removal, banning or anything of that nature with evidence if they feel that this action was unwarranted or unfair.

Conclusion
Thanks for reading, I realise these reforms will not fix all of our problems, but it will fix a great deal and allow us to really get stuck in and sort out any problems we have. With a much friendlier, fair and transparent staff and community we will also be a more pleasant place for our members, and should hopefully attract a few new ones as well. I am very excited about the future. Feel free to ask me to further explain anything you don’t quite understand here, however these changes are final.

P.S - Here's a nice TL;DR for all of you lazy people out there
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A New YSFHQ

Post by waspe414 »

Varren wrote:[post]90089[/post] Standard YSFHQ Rules will no longer apply in private subforums or in private messages, as well as servers.
What will the alternative be? And what are the consequences of being an ass to someone in PM despite not breaking any rules?

Also on the length of voting time, 24 hours seems a little short. I'd think something along the lines of a couple days would be more appropriate for the thrilling pace of day to day activity here.
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Post by Varren »

waspe414 wrote:What will the alternative be? And what are the consequences of being an ass to someone in PM despite not breaking any rules?
Also on the length of voting time, 24 hours seems a little short. I'd think something along the lines of a couple days would be more appropriate for the thrilling pace of day to day activity here.
Users can block those who are sending them PMs that they're not very happy about.

As for voting time, there'll be 48 hours before voting starts so there's plenty of time overall.
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Post by Dragon_Mech »

Varren wrote:Standard YSFHQ Rules will no longer apply in private subforums or in private messages, as well as servers.
this will also incourge server admins to be more involved in the day to day traffic in there servers.
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Post by Barr »

I feel that bans should be publicly announced. No names on who banned who, but at least list the banned individual and the reason.
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Post by Varren »

BARRACUZ wrote:I feel that bans should be publicly announced. No names on who banned who, but at least list the banned individual and the reason.
Yep near the bottom there it says if anyone wants the reason for a ban or anything they can ask the staff for the details.
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Post by Scarecrow »

Varren wrote:
BARRACUZ wrote:I feel that bans should be publicly announced. No names on who banned who, but at least list the banned individual and the reason.
Yep near the bottom there it says if anyone wants the reason for a ban or anything they can ask the staff for the details.
I second Barracuz's statement. I feel these should be publically announced, not something we have to request for. It keeps people and staff accountable and not hidden.
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Post by Varren »

Scarecrow wrote:I second Barracuz's statement. I feel these should be publically announced, not something we have to request for. It keeps people and staff accountable and not hidden.
I didn't see much of a problem with having to request, but if people feel that strongly then we'll of course announce publically.
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Post by Barr »

I think its best to keep the mod/admins name hidden from public view only to avoid any hate and targeting.

As long as people know who is banned and for what reasons all should be good.
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Post by Scarecrow »

BARRACUZ wrote:I think its best to keep the mod/admins name hidden from public view only to avoid any hate and targeting.

As long as people know who is banned and for what reasons all should be good.
This is fine.
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