Labour Management

From Tazlure Gaming System Wiki

See Also The Theme Park

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Delegation 2.1 Communications 2.2 The Danger of Burn Out in New Staff

[edit] Introduction

There are two ways to approach the division of labour. You can maintain a council model, aka ruling by consensus and majority vote in a variation on democracy. In a council model all teammembers are equal, though you can have one or two administration types for some behind the scenes technical work. The ultimate danger is that the owner of the game will see his original vision disappear under the influence of younger moderators. Also, if nobody is in charge, things will not get done because people look at the pile of work and don't feel responsible. It is called the problem of diffuse responsibilities.

Or you can accept that the running of an area needs leadership, and install a certain hierarchy. There are several approaches to hierarchy. It can be entirely top down, with a big boss that oversees the entire game, with below that senior game master dealing with sections of it and below that game masters and assistant game masters with even less responsibilities. This creates a rather heavy administration and also breeds passivity in moderators, who learn in essence to wait for permission from the higher ups and expect the higher ups to solve their problems.

In a classic development Tazlure started out with a strict hierarchy, but grew to a more consensus based community that needed less and less layers of authority, while maintaining some elements of hierarchy to ensure Continuity of Content. Thus there were only moderators but each area had its coordinator in charge of content. In addition players that didn't want any administrative burden and only a limited involvements with threads were allowed to help out as supporters.

[edit] Delegation

A coordinator can delegate material either to a co-moderator or a supporter. You can't have it both ways. When you delegate to an assistant, you do far more than hand them threads/locs to run: you must empower them to truly run the thread or loc, and to run it as they see fit. You won't always love what they choose to do with it, but you must let them pursue their own interests or you'll shackle their creativity and their power to do what must be done to run the thread properly. Backing your assistants is sometimes more important than being right.

Plotting for the entire location lies in the hands of the coordinator, and this task should be withheld for that coordinator. All decisions regarding plot direction and content should lie with him or her, though you'll find this isn't so difficult a problem if you avoid the trap of "entertainment" threads. The most difficult problem with delegating to another staffer is the storyboard thread that wanders all over the location, smashing your consistent content with numerous ambiguities and conflicts.

• Location moderators. Most Locations don't need these because the loc lives in a single forum. But for locations with multiple forums, assigning a designated person to watch and update one of those forums is a great idea. They'll look for new threads opened, and they'll evolve the locations within their forum to accept plot trends and other little pieces of twink, like weather, dead rulers, etc. These are the cornerstones of running a large location, and it's a potent job in itself.
• Event Moderators. You can bring in Supporters to run special events for this reason: the event has a finite goal or end, and when we reach that end, the thread is done and the Supporter free to pursue other tasks, having learned a few things from the thread.
• NPCs - Sometimes a moderator or support is brought in to represent a single major NPC, giving life and colour to the writing of a thread. Considerations against it are that more chefs in the soup will not make things easier. In addition you now have two mods who can potentially lag behind in posting. It also requires more communication and coordination. There is the danger that a mod becomes too attached to a NPC to allow IC consequences to be served in full, or indeed to allow another moderator to run that NPC.
• Supporter Locations. This person doesn't run a forum, but runs one single loc thread. Sure, they might have two or three active threads going on at once to chronicle two or three different times for their loc, but they watch for material in only one loc thread. This is easily the most successful type of assistance, but the loc must be popular and used to be of any service...and it must not be ignored by moderation like any other thread in their area.

[edit] Communications

Communications is obviously the key in any Staff relationship dynamic. So communicate! Tell them what you think, and listen to what they have to say...and don't be afraid to accept alternate viewpoints, and don't be afraid to admit that "This is how I want it because it's how I want it!". At the end of the day, someone must be in charge...and if it's your location, that someone is you, so take charge. A few quick management notes that really helps you manage people:

• Always keep content communications on the boards to be sure they're tracked and can be followed easily. This is a good "cover your ass" technique as well as good policy for incoming staff.
• When it's time to have "words" with a moderator that isn't meeting your expectations either in posting rates or in thread management, take them aside and discuss it with them. Do it in private and do it directly. The Privacy protects their dignity, and the directness is a show of respect.
• Don't take up problem players or interrupt problem threads for your staffer too quickly. Remember that it's always better for them if you empower them to act instead of acting on their behalf. Support them and council them, but don't do their jobs for them until you absolutely must.
• Stay Alert to their posting rates and their players. Problems happen, and be prepared to provide direct or indirect support for their threads if they should suffer from a time crunch.

[edit] The Danger of Burn Out in New Staff

See Also Burn Out

Very few choose to become staff here in a game, and only a select few remain and become greats: staffers are human, and they don't always realize that their own commitments and interests can change or might not be so long-termed as they originally believed. Be aware that new staff might be less inclined to remain than the older staff...and as such, while you shouldn't consider their involvement transient or temporary, you should always understand that Real Life always takes a much higher precedence than our beautiful, fictional world.