[Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

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[Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Jacob Conwell 24 Mar 2022 19:11

With the vote for a temporary pause on policy having passed, we need to get moving on the actual meat of the issue: Rewriting/overhauling the charter. The following is meant as a skeleton for our (Admins) proposed process for this, created in combination by moose, Conwell, Bleep, Yossi, WhiteGuard, Zyn, and Dexanote.

EDIT: In response to what appears to have been a big misunderstanding of the intent of this thread: What is to follow is a discussion, here on O5, for your recommendations for the process, and additions as well as any comments or concerns regarding the following. This would also be a good place to mention if you are interested in helping with a particular step. The skeleton below is left intentionally open-ended as a springboard so as solicit what we as a staff in whole want to see from this process, and how we think it should flow from here on out.

1) Assessment: Where is the best place for staff to start Charter Overhaul. A few important topics that must be included somewhere in the Charter rewrite process:

• Screen and identify our current starting set of policy. [Currently in process via MAST]
• Staff definition and purview list/responsibility boundaries.
• Staff Hierarchy and Level Definitions
• Pain Points: Admin (Where does the admin role create difficulty for the site/what are the difficult parts of the admin role.)
• Pain Points: General Staff (Where does general staff create difficulty for the site/what are the difficult parts of general staff roles.)
• Pain Points: Community (Where does the community create difficulty for the site/what are the difficult parts of being a community member.)

2) Breakdown: Where can the charter be broken down into smaller bites? This shouldn’t be a difficult part of the process but is very important. How should the Charter be presented, section by section, for clarity and completeness?

Steps:

• Requirements for our use, versus the requirements for the document’s structure.
• Blockers (What is going to get in the way?)
• Charter inclusion vs Sub-document - Would a segment of information work best as a direct part of the Charter, or as a connected sub-document?

3) Review: How well will this all come together, per each section? A set of guidelines for authors to consider throughout their discussions and rewriting process. Each section being broken down should be analyzed through this lens.

• Accountability? Useful Accountability?
• What possible harm can come from this section? How can it be mitigated?
• Longevity? Will the SCP Wiki Staff of 2032 be doing this exact same thing? How often should Staff be reviewing the charter for updates?
• User Friendly? Will staff actually be willing to run through these processes? Is the information presented in a manner that future staff can understand the intended use?
• Assignment Mechanism? How will this section be assigned to people? What kind of expertise or insight should be prioritized? What happens when they fail to do this work?
• How does the user base interface with this? How can they assure accountability?

Discussion is open for one week to all staff, as MAST works on assembling our current set of policies.

EDIT: Discussion has shifted to the following thread, with additional clarification: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14580540/discussion-charter-overhaul-skeleton-ii:electric-boogaloo

Main Site Mirror: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-14576417/discussion-charter-overhaul-skeleton

Last edited on 27 Mar 2022 18:15 by Jacob Conwell Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 24 Mar 2022 19:49

Making a post here to note that I approve (as one of the authors of the OP) and in a day or two will post my suggestions for how we should proceed. Cannot at this moment as it is Dad's birthday.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Yossipossi 24 Mar 2022 22:31

I also approve, though my approval means little haha.

I am very much willing to assist in redesigning the staff hierarchy (as someone who is presently studying Industrial/Organization Psychology and has both been promoted to and rejected from each individual staff level exactly once) and the community's interaction with staff. I can help in other sections, but I am not particularly as specialized in those subjects.

I believe staff should begin our charter rewrite with a redo of how the policy adoption process works (our current system is discussion then vote). After that, I believe we should focus on the roles of staff and designing the hierarchy to be much less top-down.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

DrBleep 25 Mar 2022 00:36

I approve of this skeleton, and note that I will be a large and potent driver in helping to design the navigation and structure of the charter. Our policy organization and the way the charter is presented/written as is woefully inadequate, and not conducive to long term structure and referential survival as a staff body (as has been clearly demonstrated in the last 3-4 years).

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 25 Mar 2022 20:56

and note that I will be a large and potent driver in helping to design the navigation and structure of the charter.

Why?

This is a serious question. How are we deciding who has the power and influence in this process? Who is considered an important stakeholder? For such an important step in our policy reorganisation, we should be starting with *the most fundamental questions*, and so far those decisions have been opaque to the rest of staff.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 25 Mar 2022 21:18

What I think Bleep meant was she intends to be a person who's involved throughout the process, and not that she will be steering the wheel or dictating direction.

I also think we're having different definitions here, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "stakeholder", and you're the only one to have used that word in the thread. Could you expand and explain what you mean when you use that word? It might help us answer questions.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 25 Mar 2022 21:39

What I think Bleep meant was she intends to be a person who's involved throughout the process, and not that she will be steering the wheel or dictating direction.

This misses the point I was getting at really, which is that how who is a "person who's involved throughout the process" is decided is unclear and yet people seem confident in claiming positions of extreme influence. Beyond that, this is also a very charitable reading of what was said. This is not to say I have a problem with Bleep having such influence, but she said she will have such influence, when how and why she will have such influence (and more importantly how and why *anyone* will have *any* influence) has not at all been discussed.

I also think we're having different definitions here, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "stakeholder", and you're the only one to have used that word in the thread. Could you expand and explain what you mean when you use that word? It might help us answer questions.

A stakeholder is someone with interests or stakes in the events and project and how they unfold.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 25 Mar 2022 21:52

This misses the point I was getting at really, which is that how who is a "person who's involved throughout the process" is decided is unclear and yet people seem confident in claiming positions of extreme influence. Beyond that, this is also a very charitable reading of what was said. This is not to say I have a problem with Bleep having such influence, but she said she will have such influence, when how and why she will have such influence (and more importantly how and why *anyone* will have *any* influence) has not at all been discussed.

Aha that tracks. Well my understanding is that if somebody wants to be part of the active work, they are welcome to, so long as they have the understanding that we'll be focusing on fulfilling the goal of making a clear, future proof, and workable Charter for our needs as staff on the SCP Wiki. From the OP:

This would also be a good place to mention if you are interested in helping with a particular step.

So, Bleep's saying she'd like to help with the whole process.

As for what a stakeholder is - that would be the Staff for now, and once we have a solid workable draft together, probably presenting the new Charter to our community as a whole. I say "workable draft" and mean "something close to finished, requiring tuning" - as it's not the community's responsibility to have to know what's best for us to do our work. Or, rather, they should not be expected to know insight into why we construct and iterate and manage the Charter, but should be presented a near-final-version for commentary and outside perspectives to give input.

Essentially, to answer your questions -

1. Who is involved and for what parts is 'this person is committing here to contribute, and will do everything in their power to not drop their ball'. We invite people to commit to specific segments themselves as we cannot assign roles like this to individuals - every time someone has been assigned on a task relating to the charter, it's slipped out. Here, we can keep track of who, and when, and what has dedicated eyes on it.

2. Stakeholders are us on staff first, then the community at large.

I hope this is clear.

Anyway - do you have any specific segments of the skeleton, or aspects of the Charter as it's written now, that you'd like to help with, or give insight or opinions on? If not that's okay, this is going to be a very involved project and honestly I do not anticipate everyone will be interested or equipped to directly contribute the early parts of it.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 26 Mar 2022 19:01

Well my understanding is that if somebody wants to be part of the active work, they are welcome to, so long as they have the understanding that we'll be focusing on fulfilling the goal of making a clear, future proof, and workable Charter for our needs as staff on the SCP Wiki

This response doesn't really inspire any confidence in me on this project. You are an admin and a leader of the this project, it seems, and 'your understanding' is functionally the project bible until it is written more clearly. Beyond that, and more crucially, for a project of this importance "if you wanna help you can" is not a useful method of crewing. How do we decide what roles people have? Who has what roles? Can one simply pick a role, or must they be assigned it? I'm very glad to hear we're open to anyone being part of this project, but there is a crucial difference between that and simply saying "if you wanna help you can so long as you understand our goals", which is nebulous and fuzzy in a way that is going to make the project further down the road messier and harder to follow.

As for what a stakeholder is - that would be the Staff for now, and once we have a solid workable draft together, probably presenting the new Charter to our community as a whole. I say "workable draft" and mean "something close to finished, requiring tuning" - as it's not the community's responsibility to have to know what's best for us to do our work. Or, rather, they should not be expected to know insight into why we construct and iterate and manage the Charter, but should be presented a near-final-version for commentary and outside perspectives to give input.

This is good to know, but a project like this should have started with these kinds of questions, rather than receiving an answer in response to a question under what is supposed to be the project outline. We should have started by asking "who do we think the stakeholders are?" because, even with this answer, there are questions on this front left unanswered. If community members are considered stakeholders, does that give them influence over what the charter looks like? (I believe so) What kind of community member is considered a stakeholder? Are offsite community members? What about INT community members? Former staffers? Content creators who rely on the site content? There are a lot of people who are conceivably affected in some measure by what this charter is now and could be later - whether or not they are stakeholders is (at least in my opinion) an important and fundamental question to a project such as this.

Who is involved and for what parts is 'this person is committing here to contribute, and will do everything in their power to not drop their ball'. We invite people to commit to specific segments themselves as we cannot assign roles like this to individuals - every time someone has been assigned on a task relating to the charter, it's slipped out. Here, we can keep track of who, and when, and what has dedicated eyes on it.

I find this answer quite concerning. If I am reading correctly, this allows individuals to simply pick a section and choose to be working on it? Do I misunderstand? If so 1) that is incredibly unclear from the OP and 2) that's not an effective method of managing a project. I imagine I *am* misunderstanding, but the fact I am able to is half the problem here. The structure for crewing this project is immensely unclear from the OP and the responses here have not vastly cleared it up for me.

Anyway - do you have any specific segments of the skeleton, or aspects of the Charter as it's written now, that you'd like to help with, or give insight or opinions on?

I absolutely do, but this is skipping what should be the first step in this process IMO. I'm in agreement with Lucio that the first step should be a conversation about what a charter is and should be, divorced from any notions of the current charter.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

hungrypossum 26 Mar 2022 00:06

Bleep is co-captain of MAST, the team that is currently in the process of organising and sorting through every piece of policy that has ever happened in the history of the site. Besides this position, I'm fairly certain anyone who has a clear interest, motivation, and capabilities to help with the process can say they are willing to take a deep dive into this task and help with a bunch of stuff, and we'll need a lot of hands on deck for this. It's not necessarily claiming a position of extreme influence, but more a willingness to fully focus on this task and nothing (or little) else. This is my take, and could obviously be flawed/incomplete, but that's how I see it.

Edit: seems Dexa has already responded to these concerns, but Wikidot didn't show the comment. My point stands, though

Last edited on 26 Mar 2022 00:09 by hungrypossum Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

DrBleep 26 Mar 2022 01:12

Possum's response above is a pretty accurate take to my approach. I'm really confused by your posts Ocuin.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 26 Mar 2022 19:04

I do not understand what is confusing about my posts. I don't have an issue with your involvement of any degree in particular, but your initial post, at the very least, said outright "I will be a key player in this project". Regardless of what the *intent* was there, it is pertinent to discuss how any staff member might come to that degree of influence over the project. The status of MAST, your position within it, and its current projects (relevant or irrelevant to charter rewrite) are, at least for the moment in my opinion, irrelevant to this question.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Vivarium 26 Mar 2022 19:12

I need to step in briefly to point something out.

The status of MAST, your position within it, and its current projects (relevant or irrelevant to charter rewrite) are, at least for the moment in my opinion, irrelevant to this question.

I want to make it clear that you are entirely incorrect in this assumption. I can attest that due to our involvement in the current efforts to catalog and organize existing policy that Bleep and I are in a unique position of knowledge. We are the ones in charge of organizing O5 Command and more likely then not continue to be after team purview is readjusted by all of staff's collective input. We have valuable insights into these matters and I will politely ask that you not disregard it as "irrelevant".

Further more, can we please start talking about what needs to change about our garbage fire of a charter instead of talking about how we should be talking about fixing our garbage fire of a charter. Lets get this ball moving please.

Last edited on 26 Mar 2022 19:17 by Vivarium Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 26 Mar 2022 19:32

I want to make it clear that you are entirely incorrect in this assumption. I can attest that due to our involvement in the current efforts to catalog and organize existing policy that Bleep and I are in a unique position of knowledge. We are the ones in charge of organizing O5 Command and more likely then not continue to be after team purview is readjusted by all of staff's collective input. We have valuable insights into these matters and I will politely ask that you not disregard it as "irrelevant".

This is, again, not what I am arguing about. I am saying it is irrelevant to the question of *how* someone might get this level of influence, not *why* they might have this influence. Of course these factors are relevant in deciding someone's level of influence, in deciding why. I do not believe it is relevant in deciding how. Maybe this is semantics. My point is that deciding the crewing of this project is an important step and we should be discussing how that comes about.

Further more, can we please start talking about what needs to change about our garbage fire of a charter instead of talking about how we should be talking about fixing our garbage fire of a charter. Lets get this ball moving please.

Explicitly no we cannot. The process by which this is done is incredibly important, and rushing past that is a significant problem we have had in the past. I wanna get this ball rolling as much as you, but that requires actually understanding what we are doing first, and how we are doing it.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Vivarium 26 Mar 2022 19:41

Maybe this is semantics.

It is 100% an argument about semantics and I find these to more often then not a utter waste of time and my brain is actively rotting watching these arguments. Let's fast forward to the point where you realize she was just stating her interest and passion for wanting to help and skip it. Also-

My point is that deciding the crewing of this project is an important step and we should be discussing how that comes about.

I can answer this really quick. The answer is everyone. Done, mystery solved. We are a team working together to discuss and debate the best way of handling this rewrite.

I wanna get this ball rolling as much as you, but that requires actually understanding what we are doing first, and how we are doing it.

Then by all means, let's do that instead of this current comment chain.

Last edited on 26 Mar 2022 19:42 by Vivarium Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 26 Mar 2022 19:52

Let's fast forward to the point where you realize she was just stating her interest and passion for wanting to help and skip it.

Is this really a necessary response

I can answer this really quick. The answer is everyone. Done, mystery solved. We are a team working together to discuss and debate the best way of handling this rewrite.

I find this an intensely unhelpful answer. This does nothing to help solidify the actual structure. Again, who are the key decision makers? How are we deciding them? How are decisions being made? These are all questions left unanswered in this skeleton.

Then by all means, let's do that instead of this current comment chain.

That is what I'm trying to do. In fact I'd argue that's exactly what we are currently doing, I'm just questioning the answers I'm being given.

(I would like to clarify my tone here because I realise the "intensely" and so on probably make me sound more aggressive than I intend - I don't intend any animosity to be present in this response).

Last edited on 26 Mar 2022 19:54 by OCuin Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Vivarium 26 Mar 2022 19:57

Again, who are the key decision makers? How are we deciding them? How are decisions being made? These are all questions left unanswered in this skeleton.

I did not write this skeleton, but by virtue of my knowledge that we vote on charter edits as a democratic body and we are currently opening the floor with this very post to gauge and ask for the opinions of all staff including you and me, the answer is everyone. Decisions are made by a collective vote by everyone. Like, I'm being completely serious with this question, why are you missing this?

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 26 Mar 2022 20:06

Of course decisions are made by a collective vote, but that's not exclusively how decisions are made. Before a vote, ideas are generated, condensed, presented, and discussed. Those first three steps often include a smaller number of individuals. The writing of those ideas is usually down to one or two people. This skeleton! was a set of decisions made by a small number of people, the power of which was vested in them by no particular process beyond already holding significant influence within the staff body (I'm not complaining about this, just pointing it out!) To deny that decisions are going to be made by individuals and small groups throughout this project is denying the reality of a project like this. We have already, at this first step, made decisions that were not made by everyone.

Last edited on 27 Mar 2022 12:02 by OCuin Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

DrBleep 26 Mar 2022 20:07

I find this an intensely unhelpful answer. This does nothing to help solidify the actual structure. Again, who are the key decision makers? How are we deciding them? How are decisions being made? These are all questions left unanswered in this skeleton.

I think the point of misunderstanding is that we are not designating any key decision makers, this is a whole staff effort guided by administrators who have a deep knowledge of policy working and policy formulation and who intend to put forward threads like this for discussion, debate, review, feedback, and editing. The whole point is to empower everyone within the staff body to evaluate every aspect of staff, assess, and draft governing policy that will last us moving forward.

Decisions will be made based on staff consensus after multiple rounds of discussion and editing until we reach a point where we're all satisfied.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Vivarium 26 Mar 2022 20:12

(I'm not complaining about this, just pointing it out!)

Cool, so let's move on and talk about the charter. I'll pop back in once we are beginning the meat of this rewrite.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

The Pighead 25 Mar 2022 08:18

I will just come here to say that this skeleton is fine. Nothing else to add.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Riemann 25 Mar 2022 14:10

This all seems good. It's a fine skeleton, but I don't really have anything to say until there's more meat on the bone here. A good starting point, and looking forwards to seeing everyone working on this!

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 25 Mar 2022 17:29

This post has a lot of words and they say very little. It reads like the notes I might take in a lecture where each phrase clearly means *something* more to me, but to someone else it would be close to meaningless.

I'm sorry to be so blunt about it but this tells me very, very little about how we plan to structure the actual overhaul of the charter. Who is leading this project, if anyone? How are decisions being made? Who are the key decision makers? Who are the key stakeholders? What are the to-be-agreed-upon elements of the rewrite structure, what is considered non-negotiable? This point in particular seems to have been brushed over - "Breakdown: Where can the charter be broken down into smaller bites?" is a phrase indicating we have already decided that the charter shall be broken down in order to be dissected (something I do not necessarily disagree with doing!), when in fact no such thing has been discussed. I feel its pretty obvious this kind of project should from the start be discussed with the whole of staff, but it seems this project has started from the top down without initial preliminary discussions on structure and leadership.

Each section of this skeleton feels like a diluted version of a step that might exist in a more comprehensive and detailed plan. Whilst I recognise this is supposed to be a skeleton, the result of that here seems to be very little actual *plan*. Just the vaguest idea of what a plan might eventually some day look like.

In my opinion, this skeleton ultimately ignores the actual reason for fixing the charter - the problems it currently presents, and the problems it could fix. IMO, a much more useful starting point for rewrite - before we even reach the planning and skeleton structure phase - would be to first identify and discuss the problems that the charter currently presents, and the problems we feel it could fix but which are not present in the current document. Perhaps I misunderstand the purpose of this skeleton, but as it stands this feels like it has skipped the most crucial step in fixing a policy document and as such is missing the key structural hold points that the overall project will rely on. There's arms and legs here, but no spine, and so the skeleton feels pretty unfinished.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OriTiefling 25 Mar 2022 19:39

I have to agree with the statements OCuin makes above. I look at this skeleton and am left largely confused by it, and it doesn't appear to really be an effective starting point. Right now it appears to be a fairly abstract set of goals and statements that truly don't really hold much meaning outside of a certain bubble. I know I have been out of the loop re: charter stuff, but this definitely doesn't do anything to help bring me in the loop.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 25 Mar 2022 20:53

Please don't take any of this as talking down or being angry or frustrated - I can come off as less conversational and more blunt and caustic in text.

Several of your questions are actually explicitly what this thread we are posting in here is for.
You ask-

Who is leading this project, if anyone? How are decisions being made? Who are the key decision makers? Who are the key stakeholders? What are the to-be-agreed-upon elements of the rewrite structure, what is considered non-negotiable?

And the opening post states-

What is to follow is a discussion, here on O5, for your recommendations for the process, and additions as well as any comments or concerns regarding the above. This would also be a good place to mention if you are interested in helping with a particular step.

This thread is a place for us to actually answer your questions. I haven't made my own post yet - I left a to-be-added-on post above when this thread was made, because I haven't yet had the ability to sit down and get my thoughts down. But I feel if I had, it'd have at least helped present some suggestions to answer your questions.

As it is, all admins are explicitly part of this, and we are opening up for others to come and offer insight they might have, opinions and expertise* they may have from other communities or experiences, and any specific parts of the charter they might have a specific direction in mind for.

If you have an issue with the skeleton, it may stem from what I perceive might be a misunderstanding of what the purpose of it is. This is our plan for how we will be approaching all charter discussion, our pre-pre-discussion prior to actually beginning our work, the document wherein we decide upon the key points to attack and approach this critical document rewrite as planned and prepared as possible.

I'm inviting you to present your perspectives and insight. For example, your final paragraph opens with how the skeleton 'ultimately ignores the actual reasonf or fixing the charter' - what do you believe is the reason to fix the charter? There are more-or-less correct answers to this question, but it's not black and white.

What I think you are asking (or should be framing your mindset as) would be more something like the following -

"What are our collective opinions regarding the key problems with the Charter as it exists right now? We should start off with also a general idea written in this thread as a central place to identify what to avoid in the rewrite, and try to structure the new version to avoid and solve the problems presented by what we have now."

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OCuin 25 Mar 2022 21:30

I am very confused as to what the OP here hopes to achieve then. It reads like a notes document, and it appears its actually supposed to be the pre-notes document. I do not actually see what the plan for approaching discussion is here; how are these discussions to be structured? Who is to be included? Or is this thread just an open forum for people to suggest their own answers to these questions? If so, that is *highly* unclear from the initial post, which appears to be sourcing opinions on what is already presented, rather than broader thoughts on the project as a whole.

If the purpose of this thread is to facilitate broad thought-sharing and opinion-gathering, rather than opinions on a presented plan, then it is a damning indictment that all posts but mine, Lucio's, Gee's, and Fabled, have amounted to "yeah this seems cool".

If admins intend to source opinions on what the plan should be for rewriting the charter, then the post should have amounted to a single question asking exactly that: How do you believe we should rewrite the charter? The OP here is too broad to allow for useful discussion of it as a plan, and far too narrow to facilitate such broad discussion on what plans others may seek for charter rewrite as you seem to intend for it to have done. (I apologise for that sentence but I can't think of another way to phrase it.)

If the thread exists to seek answers to the questions I pose, why are those questions not the only thing present in this post? Whatever this post *is* feels very confused.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OptimisticLucio 25 Mar 2022 19:40

I… gotta echo OCuin here; there's a lot of text here and a lot of questions posed, but it's kind of a mess, frankly.

There's too many points for us to narrow down on any single one specifically, yet there's a lot of options that are preemptively excluded by the way this is built. This claims to be a skeleton to work on, yet seems to miss a definition for the hierarchy or even how to break down the charter. A lot of these questions are useful and ones we should be asking, but they're kind of thrown on there without much rhyme or reason beyond "we'll need to do this."

This isn't really a skeleton as much as it is a pile of assorted bones in the corner of the room. You could build a skeleton from these, with time, but a lot of bones are missing and there's a lot of bones that you're pretty sure aren't even human.

I'm rereading the first post over and over, and I think the main issue boils down to the following: we needmultiple threads for this. Most of these issues are going to be multilayered and complex, and we don't need to throw them all onto one thread like we did here. "How do we start collecting data" and "how do we do the actual rewriting" are two great questions which should be each given their own space, otherwise they'll mix together.

I could address the points made here, but the formatting of this all already has a lot of problems with what it assumes we should agree on along with how it's structured, that I don't feel like I should do so for now.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

DrBleep 25 Mar 2022 20:36

Going to respond primarily to Lucio here, but this is more a general response to the folks who have concerns so far:

This is an open discussion about the nature of this skeleton. It's entire purpose is to be discussed, edited, and refined. The points so far are attacking the skeleton as if it's a finished thought, there's no need to attack the skeleton as if it's a finished thought, instead suggestions on what you think the skeleton should be, what you think would be better going into it, how to refine it, what should come first. This isn't finished/polished proposal by any means and we're open to suggestions and fixing.

Additionally, I want to point out that the most flexible part of the skeleton is after the first phase. The first phase, which is already partially in progress, is entirely pointed and poignant in assessing the following crucial details that will be important for the charter rewrite:

1) What are our extant policies? What policies are working? What policies are not?
2) What is staff supposed to be responsible for? How is staff shaping policy? What is staff actually responsible for.
3) What does staff structure look like? What about staff structure is working? What about staff structure is not working?
4) What is staff hierarchy? What do we think it should be? What parts of it are currently not working?
5) What are each of the current positions within staff doing? Where are individual staff positions causing problems? Where are they working well?
6) What definitions and terms should we be using to describe different elements of staff? What are our current definitions and terms? Are they causing problems?
7) How are staff interacting with each other? Where are inter-staff interactions causing problems? Where are inter-staff interactions excelling?
8) How does staff interact with the community? How do staff actions affect the community? Where are staff interactions causing problem for the community? Where are they causing benefits?
9) What are the current strongpoints of the extant charter? Where does it fail? Where could it be done better?

Answering these questions are a crucial part of the actual charter rewrite process because they will tell us where we need to begin, what we need to target, how we can improve on the existing charter, and how we need to document and encode staff policy, structure, etc.

From there it's a matter of discussing how to establish accountability systems, editing, and ensuring wording and longevity runs into the future.

Last edited on 25 Mar 2022 20:42 by DrBleep Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 25 Mar 2022 20:52

Please don't take any of this as talking down or being angry or frustrated - I can come off as less conversational and more blunt and caustic in text.

Your second paragraph is actually explicitly what this thread we are using here is for, actually!

What is to follow is a discussion, here on O5, for your recommendations for the process, and additions as well as any comments or concerns regarding the above. This would also be a good place to mention if you are interested in helping with a particular step.

This thread is for trying to come up with the best way to answer the questions presented in your second paragraph ("There's too many points…"). We have the "what we need to do" in the skeleton, or how admins as a whole identified we should start from. This thread is to hammer out what direction what each segment should even be, and what steps we should take for each segment.

We DO need multiple threads for this, I absolutely agree. But this is the first step - We aren't going to throw up chunks instantly, we need to plan every step out and clearly have a gameplan and a 'win condition' before we can approach any given thread.

As much as I'd adore to be able to have a small team of admins and mods build out the charter themselves, that demonstrably has not worked historically. So for this attempt, everybody is invited to offer their perspectives and, if they happen to have workable and relevant experience and perspective, offer their insight to build on others'.

So in light of that - do you have any specific suggestions for people to keep in mind? Or some idea of what a definition of heirarchy as per this project should be? How would you break down the charter?

Last edited on 25 Mar 2022 20:53 by Dexanote Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OptimisticLucio 25 Mar 2022 21:43

Alright sure. I'm going to use this to respond to both you and Bleep since you seem to bring up similar points:

+ On structure

I think that, for the most part, we should start bottom to top with only vague ideas of what the rest of the plan is. We should start each phase without a strict adherence to what the future phase should look like, because otherwise we could try to force a square peg into a round hole, since we're trying to build around this preconceived notion of what the end goal should be. We should have some plan, but nothing beyond the vaguest of directions, otherwise we'll end up with a rewrite that is kind of a mess tonally.

Step one should be talking about what we want a charter to be, while completely ignoring what it actually is. What do we want in a fundamental document detailing staffwork? What should it list? What shouldn't it list? We should wholly avoid bringing up the old charter at any point, and I am serious about this. Again - if we rely on preconceived ideas of what the charter should be, we're already starting off wrong. Let's aim for a better future than a safe present.

Step two - going over the current charter, section by section, and seeing what we want to salvage. On longer sections, we might want to split it up by sub-sections. Once we already have the mostly-free-of-preconcieved-notions version of what we want the charter to be, let's go over the actual charter to see what obvious things we may have forgotten. That way we can see what we actually want and need, without necessarily carrying over any old-fashioned ideas that we just keep around because "eh sure why not."

Step three - organize. Let's break the points we have to different sections, and possibly subsections. Now that we know what we want we should have it neatly organized.

Step four is the fun part - tackling our ideas and fleshing them out. This will take a while, possibly longer than the rest combined, but it needs to be done. How we do this is… I'm not sure honestly. We'll hit it when we hit it.

Step five - Organizing everything into one document, and editing some sections for SPaG problems and wording issues.

Bababoom bababooey, we have a new charter.

"Lucio are you insane this is so much work and will take longer than the currently alloted time"

First of all - yes, have you ever talked to me. Second - Better to burn time now than have issues in the charter we'll be eating shit over for years to come.

Honestly this is what I have the strongest opinions on.

Last edited on 25 Mar 2022 21:43 by OptimisticLucio Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 25 Mar 2022 22:10

I appreciate this actually. And I don't think it's necessarily in opposition with the skeleton as presented.

I especially like point 1. "What do we want the Charter to be?" is a critical question to ask. I think as a whole we each have a generally congruent set of ideas of what we understand it should accomplish, but specifying a definition or set of definitions we can work under is critical.

I think that completely avoiding the old charter is a bad idea though. We should not be beholden to the old Charter, but we should use it as a rubric at least for things that we absolutely need to improve on and consider. We haven't had this conversation recently but in the past admins (or rather, thedeadlymoose and the rest of admins) have discussed what parts of the Charter are unworkable in the modern SCP Administration World:tm:. It should be a framework to springboard improvements off of, at least initially.

I do believe points 2 through 5 are actually outlined or intended to be outlined by the Skeleton, but I can understand where your disconnect in your post comes from.

So okay, though. Let's focus on Point 1 - What's your perspective on what's needed in the Charter? I think it should outline the Responsibilities of Staff at each level (the intended roles of Admin/mod/OS/JS etc in broad strokes), Methods of Accountability (disciplinary matters and processes, how to remove or add staff, responsibilities to the wiki and other members), and What Is Expected of Staff (both with how work should be carried out and etiquette as staff). Not that I think these should be the sole specific sections, but theyre like… I guess the tenets I'd like to keep in mind of what should be included in the Charter.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OptimisticLucio 25 Mar 2022 22:24

We should not be beholden to the old Charter, but we should use it as a rubric at least for things that we absolutely need to improve on and consider.

Oh I completely agree, that's why step 2 is there too.

Step 1 is just so we can have a fresh, free-of-preconceptions mind. I don't want to fully ignore the charter, but once we start arguing and discussing the current charter we can't go back, so let's do the part that requires us to ignore it before we get out hands dirty. People will take the old one into account otherwise, even if by accident or subconsciously, and make us beholden to it by extension.

What's your perspective on what's needed in the Charter?

Ok so I didn't even read what you wrote (really big on "no preconceived notions"):

• Staff structure at the basic level. What's a JS? What's a mod? What do those roles mean and why should you earn them? Who decides who gets what?
• The role of staff in relation to the site. Everything else should be built on this. Does staff rule the site, or is staff shaping the site as it grows? If site and staff disagree, who's right? When?
• How to change the charter. Self-accountability measures, people.
• How staff teams should function. Who should lead? What's their core responsibilities? Do they need a hub? ETC

This is what I got for now. Ok, now to read what you wrote.

Ok we agree lol, but I missed Methods of Accountability. This probably should be in the charter too because it should be something that's hard to take down, but most importantly, the methods of accountability in the charter should not change freely based on the function of a team. As much as possible they should remain static, even if staff changes around them.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 26 Mar 2022 01:30

It *must* be in the charter, as the topics covered under the umbrella of "Methods of Accountability" must be enshrined in broad strokes so we are capable of actually enforcing them. The Charter isn't just a set of rules, it's The set of rules we as a group agree upon following. So I'm with you there.

Overall I think we're all largely on the same page. Your major points correspond to the OP's "Staff Heirarchy and Definitions", "Accountability? Useful Accountability?", and "Staff definition and purview list/responsibility boundaries", which lines up well.

So I suppose it comes to - Do you have any input on things you think would be essential to keep in mind as we proceed to move forward?

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

OptimisticLucio 27 Mar 2022 16:33

Honestly? Other than "try to keep only thread-starting discussion points in the OP" and "we should not, under any circumstance, use 'but it's in the old charter' as a justification", I think we're good.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

gee0765 25 Mar 2022 19:42

ocuin said all the cool stuff so i don't have to write as much as i was initially going to. i agree with basically everything in their message and will probably just repeat some of it in mine

the main issue i have with this skeleton is that it's really just a pile of bones. i don't know how they're going to fit together or how they're going to get put together. it's good that this post acknowledges that we actually need to think about the community and staff members who are not admins but again, it doesn't actually say how we're going to be doing this.

is it going to be all on 05? because if we are actually considering the community there's no way we can be doing that in staffchat. hell, if u want to consider anyone except admins and the loudest voices in staffchat you can't be doing it in there. id go as far as to say that too much has already happened in non-public spaces — realistically this 'skeleton' shouldn't have been made without consulting both the rest of staff and the wider community

i have other, more specific concerns regarding the information that's actually here, but how i express them will rely on the response to the concerns above so they'll come later

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 25 Mar 2022 20:52

Please don't take any of this as talking down or being angry or frustrated - I can come off as less conversational and more blunt and caustic in text.

This thread is to help start the conversations of how we're going to do this project. It IS a pile of bones, but we're here to put the meat on starting with square 1. The how, the where, who, and what should all be touched on here, and we as staff are inviting everybody to give insight and suggestions if they feel comfortable giving. As per the opening post-

What is to follow is a discussion, here on O5, for your recommendations for the process, and additions as well as any comments or concerns regarding the above. This would also be a good place to mention if you are interested in helping with a particular step.

The skeleton here is only as a starting point. I feel that Admins needed to take the first step simply because we needed to take the responsibility to set it forward, and since few OS and Mods have actually worked in any appreciable amount on past Charter versions, we could at least have a first step of what we know for certain should be considered, and put the conversation in the right direction. This process requires extremely defined planning to actually work out.

Your second paragraph though actually is a great question. I think that a majority of work here should be done on 05 (despite the fact that I dislike how clunky it is on mobile). My instinct is that actual drafting being done here as well, but with a mix of docs or Discord discussions to draw up the basic outlines and initial versions (only cause drafting directly to Wikidot posts is unnecessarily difficult and extremely often it eats drafts).

What are your suggestions for how we should approach this? You've given your opinion it should be more or less all on 05, so we generally agree there.

And what are your more 'specific concerns'? I'm interested in those.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

gee0765 25 Mar 2022 22:30

Please don't take any of this as talking down or being angry or frustrated - I can come off as less conversational and more blunt and caustic in text.

you're all good here, don't worry

The skeleton here is only as a starting point. I feel that Admins needed to take the first step simply because we needed to take the responsibility to set it forward, and since few OS and Mods have actually worked in any appreciable amount on past Charter versions, we could at least have a first step of what we know for certain should be considered, and put the conversation in the right direction.

i agree with you that admins should be guiding the rewrite, but i think this post has gone significantly further than a first step has to - this is at least the second step, if not the third

This process requires extremely defined planning to actually work out.

planning that should have been done with the involvement of the rest of staff much earlier on

What are your suggestions for how we should approach this? You've given your opinion it should be more or less all on 05, so we generally agree there.

(also going to touch on that specific concerns thing here too)

firstly i think we should start again from square 1, or. square 2 i guess - MAST's collection of existing policies thing is fine. the first thing that should go on 05 is a very general discussion where people can say, without any super structured initial post telling them how it's going to work, both how they think a charter rewrite should be handled and what they think the charter should actually be. there was a somewhat recent staffchat discussion in which people had massively differing opinions on what's necessary in a charter - a significant number of those present in the discussion thought a charter should be very brief and largely filled with objective information e.g the definition of staff, with policies that are more likely to change kept to some sort of policy list. so we absolutely should not proceed without a far more general discussion about what the staff body thinks a charter should be. i can't really suggest further steps until i know what the staff body actually wants in a charter, because they'd vary too much

My instinct is that actual drafting being done here as well, but with a mix of docs or Discord discussions to draw up the basic outlines and initial versions (only cause drafting directly to Wikidot posts is unnecessarily difficult and extremely often it eats drafts).

this would be nice and convenient for staff but for users following along they'd have absolutely no idea what's going on behind closed doors. drafting in wikidot sandboxes is fine - copy the page source before saving anything and there's absolutely no issues. so i think it can all happen on 05 easily, and definitely should as this should be a process users can follow the whole time

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 26 Mar 2022 01:43

1 and 2. I think you're overestimating how far the skeleton's first step reaches. This is planning for planning, not much more than that. But noted, I suppose. We needed to take the step, and so we're here now to proceed with everyone.

3. That's what this thread is for, largely. So I'll actually take a moment to ask - What does a staff charter need to be, in your eyes? There's some essential, critical aspects it must fulfill in order to do what we need it to do as a guiding document, but I want to know what you see its function as and the most critical parts to be.

4. Good call, though authors should be cognizant that drafts will be eaten if they're not saved quick enough. Drafting on a dedicated set of sandboxes is the best call, I think. If we largely agree on that point as a group we can set up guidelines and a hub thread on here.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Alexander the Jar 25 Mar 2022 21:09

Does the discussion of specific issues in this thread need to follow an order of some kind? Or are we able to simply list topics/ideas/concerns/recommendations/whatever in no particular order and refer back to them later?

+ Some Random Ideas

• Guides/instructions for specific staff positions in case of a sudden absence of critical staff members (e.g. Conwell is stuck in a well, here's how to run deletions).
• Staff/Team structure set up so that teams don't end up with one member who is absolutely indispensable and overworked (LadyKatie does incredible work with INT relations, but needs help as discussed in staffchat).
• Serious discussion/consideration of public staffcord, or some other means of making Recap team's job easier
• A clause in the charter/equivalent text that says it should be reviewed/amended once the move from wikidot is done and we are no longer bound by this site's limitations

Last edited on 26 Mar 2022 17:27 by Alexander the Jar Show more

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Dexanote 25 Mar 2022 21:54

You know what, let's go for the latter. 05 Threads have the luxury of having everything open at once for cross-referencing, future threads can be more focused.

Re: [Discussion] - Charter Overhaul Skeleton

Alexander the Jar 25 Mar 2022 21:58

Understood

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