(11-14-2016, 03:19 PM)Thorbought Wrote: Thank you for all the advice everyone. It's certainly give me a lot to mule over. I'll address some points below.
Officers
We actually did originally start with different branches as officers with medical, airships, field, etc etc. The problem is that it ran into problems with ooc and ic and the lack of definition for the officer role. Currently, we've just made a singular officer role for ooc purposes and the person can simply put 'head medic' in their tag for ic purposes rather than making a bunch of different officer roles. I'd like to ask, what do people usually ask for their officers? What would be too little to ask and what would be too much?
Besides creating established roles, maybe have one or two "official" things the officers do, but try custom tailoring roles to what the individual is good at. For example, if one person is good at creating rp and getting people to rp, bam, make them the RP director or whatever. If one person is good at scouting out people, recruitment. You don't even necessarily need to give them official titles -- just let them know what they're in charge of.
When I was an officer in a raiding guild that had around 20-25ish people in it, that was how they did it. When they brought me into the officer core, I asked what they'd expect me to do...and they told me 'just do what you're already doing, but in a more official capacity.' Same thing with most of the other officers -- they pulled in people who were going the extra mile, told us 'this is what we need' and we filled the roles. None of us had official titles; we were just officers. Our members knew who to go to for what, because it was essentially what we were already doing. And when one of us had to take a break for a move, or a baby, or a vacation, or an assignment in the middle east, we'd have a quick chat about who was taking what extra stuff on, and that was that.
Same thing when I was an officer in a rp guild on a mud way back when -- I never had established roles, but I coordinated a lot of rp oocly. That was what was expected from me: building rp plotlines, supporting ones our members/other officers started, answering any questions that arose and brainstorming when needed.
Likewise when I was a mod on a rp forum. We all had general roles, but I was the one people went to when they wanted to push this or that rp plotline -- because it was what I'd already been doing for a couple years. When I got mod status, all it meant was that I had more resources to do what I'd already been doing, and when people had complaints/concerns I could address and settle them or take it to the site admin more directly.
The above won't work for everybody, but there's no reason why you can't look outside of the box for what will best suit your needs. But what I've always seen work best is take a good hard look at the people you have -- the one who goes above and beyond? Try them out and see how they work. The ideal officer (imo) is the one who has already taken on some sort of responsibility for themselves without needing to be asked and without micromanaging others.
I've joked before that people who are officer material are the ones who don't want to go within 100 feet of the position, because they know how much work it is, and they know that responsibility is a burden. Those are the people you want. (not that people who are eager to take on a leadership role because they want to do good aren't good for leadership roles -- it's just in my experience they're a lot rarer).
