Hall of Honour

[Alexander]

In our recent community survey it has become clear that the Hall of Honour faces a lot of criticism with many unsure of how it should be used. Via this discussion we seek to come up with a reform for this service that manages to reach the objectives of rewarding individuals members for achievements but that is also sufficiently engaging to actually see active use.

The objective of the HoH according to the wiki is "Its sole purpose is to reward the players of the community (past and present) for their effort and participation. Whether it be as a player, a commanding officer, a graphics team member or in some other role there is an award here to recognise everyone and thank them for their contributions."

The questions I would like to start off with are

1. Does the current HoH reach the objective and if not how would you reform it to make it reach those objectives?
2. Do you feel the objectives should be expanded and if so, how?

[greenfelt22]

Honestly, I think we all forget about the Hall of Honour. I don't want to necessarily answer since I'm writing this as a BFCC member. But, I do want to know how many people actually knew the Hall of Honour existed and if they know what they can do with it.

[jhina]

In our recent community survey it has become clear that the Hall of Honour faces a lot of criticism with many unsure of how it should be used. Via this discussion we seek to come up with a reform for this service that manages to reach the objectives of rewarding individuals members for achievements but that is also sufficiently engaging to actually see active use.

The objective of the HoH according to the wiki is "Its sole purpose is to reward the players of the community (past and present) for their effort and participation. Whether it be as a player, a commanding officer, a graphics team member or in some other role there is an award here to recognise everyone and thank them for their contributions."

The questions I would like to start off with are

1. Does the current HoH reach the objective and if not how would you reform it to make it reach those objectives?
2. Do you feel the objectives should be expanded and if so, how?

Honestly, I think we all forget about the Hall of Honour. I don't want to necessarily answer since I'm writing this as a BFCC member. But, I do want to know how many people actually knew the Hall of Honour existed and if they know what they can do with it.

So coming here from being in charge of the HOH I too indeed have questions mentioned to the above:

Are we following the purpose statement the community actually feels we need?
Do people know we exist and to that effect if they do what is causing the community to not use our services?( Is it the time it takes to get things done, is there some other issue?)
It would also help to know if we have awards people will actually want to use and for that matter are the awards simple enough to be used properly... Do people even understand their purposes?

[zyrell]

As a former member of the Hall of Honour staff I think it is under utilized resource, I think nominations are much more tricky than what they should be which makes people not want to really use it.,

The other item is that a lot of the time players feel that they can't nominate others as some awards you must either be a CO or a higher level. I think that there should be more leniency to allow players to really push through people who really do deserve an award.

I also think they need to market the HoH as there is seldom any mention of it except when there are Player and Sim of the Months, quarterly or year,.

[TheCaptain]

I'll jump in here, and apologises if it is too long. I very much agree so far with what has been said, the Hall of Honor has and is an under-utilized resource. As a Commanding Officer of two simulations, I find it difficult to use the resource because I simply forget that it is there and also because we are in a period of time where a lot of simulations are suffering from lack of activity and we are more focused on getting our players/writers just involved in the storyline and missions than looking at those players that are taking the time to get in there and write and are doing the efforts that would warrant use of the Hall of Honor.

I do find the nomination process, as zyrell has put it "tricky" not in the sense that it is complicated, but because there just isn't a set of awards that sit there and can just be awarded straight away without any need for process, discussions, approvals. I'd personally rather see the whole IC/OOC award thing get scrapped and we move to a tier system in where you have a bunch of basic awards (let's call them Tier 1 awards) that are very simulation-based and can be awarded by the Commanding Officer straight away. Good to announce them once a month in some sort of document/PDF file that gets sent out each month.

Then you have Tier 2 awards which would require some sort of reasoning behind them, so an addition or advancement of a Tier 1 award. Still, have the same process as the Tier 1 awards but they require that approval from the Hall of Honor team. Then you have your Tier 3 awards which are your fleet-level awards; so things like Player and Simulation of the Month. Those awards are only given out by the Hall of Honor team, or by the BFCC/BFA and are top of the line.

That is just my feeling and idea behind it all. To answer the questions, I personally do not feel the objective is reached at the moment... but I feel with some modifications, that it can be reaching if not passing those objectives.

[greenfelt22]

So far, I love that pretty much everyone's comments so far have been from current or former administrators and members of the Hall of Honour. Several of the ideas that have been presented so far have been using knowledge of the current system.

I think a huge part of the breakdown is that not many possess knowledge of both the system and the awards it contains.

The other item is that a lot of the time players feel that they can't nominate others as some awards you must either be a CO or a higher level. I think that there should be more leniency to allow players to really push through people who really do deserve an award.

I can agree with that, zyrell. There should be more awards for which anyone can nominate for.

I do find the nomination process, as zyrell has put it "tricky" not in the sense that it is complicated, but because there just isn't a set of awards that sit there and can just be awarded straight away without any need for process, discussions, approvals. I'd personally rather see the whole IC/OOC award thing get s****ped and we move to a tier system in where you have a bunch of basic awards (let's call them Tier 1 awards) that are very simulation-based and can be awarded by the Commanding Officer straight away. Good to announce them once a month in some sort of document/PDF file that gets sent out each month.

I like your approach, TheCaptain, however I think you're getting too technical too quick. Firstly, we want to make sure that COs know that they can create their own awards for their own sims, while we as a fleet provide something that can be utilized at the fleet level, such as our Community Recognition or Writing Proficiency. Honestly, I'd even like to see something like the Bronze Star be moved to a more accessible level, and I would like to see a few more automatic awards. However, our approach must first be answering the questions that set out above, namely, are we reaching the objective set out by the Hall of Honour.

Personally, I feel that in order to properly answer #1, we need to find out why the community at large is not using the Hall of Honour. Until then, it's guesswork on our parts.

[aparry]

Ok so here is my 3 cents. As a CO of 2 ships and a long time member for the Fleet I have not held any role above CO so the inner doors are not open to me but I think you are looking for the impressions of COs like me. I know its there but outside of Sim/Player of the month/quarter/year I don't really know what it is used for. Part of that is on me, YES! Part of that is on as mentioned above it is not marketed to the COs or the fleet in general.

Since this work group is community engagement I would also bring up it would be nice to see that the HoH awards currently being handed out be blasted on our receptive Social Media pages as a great way of getting these accomplishments out there.

As a CO I take crew awards very seriously because I feel rewarding my hard working crew is a great way to keep them engaged. I am not an everyone gets an award type guy but every month I give a Captain's Personal Merit award and take nominations from the crew for a Crew's Chose award every month. That way it gives me a way to say thanks and the crew can also say thanks. I have other awards that my crew can nominate people or I can award based on how the month went.

So I know I went all over the place with this but in the end the HoH in whatever form needs to be marketed better and make worth the peoples time to put in the nominations.

[greenfelt22]

Ok so here is my 3 cents. As a CO of 2 ships and a long time member for the Fleet I have not held any role above CO so the inner doors are not open to me but I think you are looking for the impressions of COs like me. I know its there but outside of Sim/Player of the month/quarter/year I don't really know what it is used for. Part of that is on me, YES! Part of that is on as mentioned above it is not marketed to the COs or the fleet in general.

Since this work group is community engagement I would also bring up it would be nice to see that the HoH awards currently being handed out be blasted on our receptive Social Media pages as a great way of getting these accomplishments out there.

As a CO I take crew awards very seriously because I feel rewarding my hard working crew is a great way to keep them engaged. I am not an everyone gets an award type guy but every month I give a Captain's Personal Merit award and take nominations from the crew for a Crew's Chose award every month. That way it gives me a way to say thanks and the crew can also say thanks. I have other awards that my crew can nominate people or I can award based on how the month went.

So I know I went all over the place with this but in the end the HoH in whatever form needs to be marketed better and make worth the peoples time to put in the nominations.

Going to tag aio in this so he sees it.

I do think that is part of the issue. A) With no marketing, our player base just isn't using the system and B) No awards are being issued because no one knows that this is here.

[Skoll]

Okay so I have a back ground of normal games dating back ten years or so... star trek took a back seat for a long time so kill me. I am not talking about independent star trek games I am talking about all different kind of games. On the independent circuit individual games tend to have players of the month, thread of the month and so on *Best male and best female character in most cases." Individual threads and group threads are also on that list. Now the HOH is fine but their is nothing to say that a co can't recognise unofficially anyway the hard work put in by their players on a monthly basis. Until someone can get the HOH facing the right way so its backside isn't in the air and the back log (I assume their is one) has been cleared. Doesn't have to be an official award but co's could use their powers as co's to recognise individual excellence and group excellence on their own ships. Nothing quite like a thank you from a co in the form of recognition for someone's hard work without all the pomp and circumstance that comes with going through official fleet channels. (Just my two bits worth and what do I know.)

[Reius]

Okay so I have a back ground of normal games dating back ten years or so... star trek took a back seat for a long time so kill me. I am not talking about independent star trek games I am talking about all different kind of games. On the independent circuit individual games tend to have players of the month, thread of the month and so on *Best male and best female character in most cases." Individual threads and group threads are also on that list. Now the HOH is fine but their is nothing to say that a co can't recognise unofficially anyway the hard work put in by their players on a monthly basis. Until someone can get the HOH facing the right way so its backside isn't in the air and the back log (I assume their is one) has been cleared. Doesn't have to be an official award but co's could use their powers as co's to recognise individual excellence and group excellence on their own ships. Nothing quite like a thank you from a co in the form of recognition for someone's hard work without all the pomp and circumstance that comes with going through official fleet channels. (Just my two bits worth and what do I know.)

Just to reply to this Skoll, every simm CO can given award to their member, from any type. The HOH is used for Fleet Wide Award, as the Player of the month to take your example is to promote the work of a player in one Task Force (which is why there is now 6 Player of the Month award.) I recognize your opinion as a very valid one but as i said, they can already do so as much as they want. I do it myself on my own sim.