Survey Data and More Changes, Oh My!

[Erin al'Denael]

As promised, here is a synopsis of information that we received from both Survey #1 and Survey #2. Many thanks to Elanda for her work in analyzing the information in Survey #1!

Survey #1
The first survey we sent out was very open-ended and broad in scope. Approximately 77 members responded to this survey. We wanted to know what you, as our community, felt about the then status quo. What worked for you? What didn’t work? Here are highlights of what we gleaned from your responses:

• Discussion about the Mission Statement showed that while we were not living up to it, people were in general support of what it stated. We just need to actually live up to the existing statement more than change it. A majority of people felt that we could not live up to the statement because of bullies, trolls, and toxic drama taking precedence.
• Discussion about the vision, with emphasis on real-life community, online community, philanthropy, and our library, was mixed. Similar numbers in our community felt that we should both give priority to and de-emphasize both the library and our philanthropic efforts. As with discussion about the mission statement, many shared in vision discussion about how they felt bullies and toxic interactions needed to be handled.
• Three core values emerged: fun, community, and service.
• The three things that most members felt were working within our community were membership groups, real life events, and online community.
• The three things that most members felt were not working for them were the arguing/contention/toxicity, bullies/trolls/sealions, and the Community Feedback forum.
• What people want most from our community is safe and fun socialization online and at in-person events, and less drama and conflict.

Based on this feedback, in conjunction with prior surveys, suggestion box feedback, and personal conversations, we decided to move forward with bringing back the Department of Moderation. We feel that is the right move to address the biggest problem identified: the toxicity and drama centered in Community Feedback. We are not going to change the mission and vision at this time. We have focused on administrative and internal changes designed to focus on fun, community, and service. We will be approaching those in various ways, both new and old. We also looked at each and every area of our administration and worked to address our “top-heavy” problem while streamlining operations.

Survey #2
This survey was for more targeted questions that were either raised by multiple members throughout different surveys, or questions designed to try and address situations or circumstances that we feel are impacting our community in negative ways. Approximately 104 members responded via this survey.

• We have removed the gender identity spaces in the Within the Tower section for longstanding members.
  • 54.8% of responders said to remove them or to have their vote count with the majority
  • 31.2% of responders wanted to keep the space, or said keep them if people want them
  • The remaining responders either didn’t care, were not aware the spaces existed as they were/are Tower Initiates, or had other comments.
• Most members highlighted membership spaces and places for everyone to communicate together as essential forum spaces.
• Tower Initiates will stay Tower Initiates.
  • 50% of members wanted to keep the name Tower Initiates
  • 24% were in favor of just Initiates
  • 11% didn’t care one way or the other
  • 6% wanted to go back to Junior Members
  • 5% are just tired of the name changes in general
  • 4% had different miscellaneous suggestions
• Tower Sworn will go back to being called Senior Members.
  • 45.3% wanted to go back to Senior Members
  • 21.1% voted for Tower Sealed
  • 9.5% wanted to stay Tower Sworn
  • 9.5% didn’t care
  • The remaining responders voted for just “member,” or had alternative suggestions
• We will keep the naming conventions of our administrative roles.
  • 47.0% voted to keep things as they are
  • 35.7% wanted all Wheel of Time-esque names
  • 10.2% didn’t care
  • The remaining responders either provided different suggestions or non-related feedback
• We will continue to address member concerns raised from communication occurring on private membership Discords. While 42% of members feel that Tower administration should not address Discord at all, 53% do feel they should in some capacity -- be that fully enforcing community guidelines (15%), handling major issues that are shared (32%), or holding administrators to a higher standard of behavior than the rest of the community (6%). We will go with what the majority of members recommended for involvement, and respond if major concerns are shared with administration. The remaining 5% of responses suggested having Discord-specific policies, deleting all references to Discord communications if someone makes them if we do not control them, or to not permit any private Discords at all.
• Membership Discords will continue to be allowed, with 61.8% voting this way; around a third of people voting this way pointed out that we can hardly disallow them after they have existed for so long. Remaining responses felt they should be allowed with guidelines (21.6%), not allowed at all (13.7%), or felt that we should add private group spaces to the main TV.Net Discord (2.9%).
• Ajah Sitting Rooms and Company Great Rooms will remain as they are.
  • 43.6% were very opposed to the suggested change
  • 13.9% were moderately opposed
  • 26.7% were ambivalent
  • 9.9% were moderately in favor
  • 5.9% very much liked the proposed change
• In alignment with and support of the other Discord-specific questions, we will not be asking groups to include guest roles in their private membership Discords.
• We will not be removing bond limits or allowing unlimited bonding.
  • 50% voted against this
  • 17% voted for this
  • The remaining votes either didn’t care about this or suggested adding a small number of bonds to the existing limits, potentially tied to merits
• The number of Hall representatives from each group will remain the same. Current practice is that if a group cannot field representatives, those spaces remain open until filled.
  • 39.2% felt the number of representatives should not change
  • 31.4% felt that 1 per group was appropriate
  • The remaining percentages showed members with related suggestions that aligned with both of the above options, or the respondent did not care.

The last question on Survey #2 is one we do not feel we can make a determination on at this time. We will be considering various avenues to discuss this within the community. The question asked “Should we enable more/different membership groups at the Tower?” We allowed members to check all responses that they felt would be appropriate. Results are as follows:

• 7.8% said add all groups that members want to have
• 33.3% said to add groups but have qualifications for starting them and a method for removing inactive groups
• 29.4% recommended allowing Unaffiliated Tower Sworn to “choose” an alternative group
• 41.2% recommended no change
• 31.4% wanted a way to retire inactive groups
• 1 member felt that all groups should be removed
• Other suggestions include allowing new groups but making sure they are groups that are limited to specific Wheel of Time aspects and/or with sufficient numbers to justify making the group, or multiclassing. Some members did not care, and others felt that adding more would be pointless with our existing population numbers.

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Internal Department Changes

We previously announced changes at the Executive level affecting Officers and Directors.

Spoiler

Structural Changes (So Far)
We have decided to move forward with some structural changes to TarValon.Net’s Executive administration. We understand this is a partial deviation from the timeline released with update #1. The nature of plans is that sometimes they evolve. We feel that we have more than enough feedback at this point to move ahead with these changes. All of these are in response to feedback we have received, both from the most recent Phase 1 survey and from prior surveys. All changes are subject to future revision depending on how they work out; we will be monitoring and correcting as we go. We hope that these changes will make for a stronger, more streamlined administrative structure to lead the Tower going forward.

First, we have heard again and again -- and agree with you!! -- that our structure is too “top-heavy.” To that end, the following changes to reduce Executive positions are in the process of being enacted and will be live when we reopen:

• The Director of Membership role is being eliminated; the department will report directly to the Cordamora. There is significant overlap between the two roles, and ultimately we feel that the position of Cordamora, Chief Membership Officer, needs to be the role to stay.
• The Director of Research & Records role is being eliminated; the department will report directly to the Archivist. We feel that the Archivist role can handle the responsibilities of this department, in conjunction with an administrative-level assistant as needed.
• The Department of Online Events is being eliminated. We don’t want to halt any fun activities by doing this -- instead, we are hoping to remove restrictions and open up shenanigans to the community as a whole. The event that gathered the most member engagement in recent memory was hosted by Tower Initiates without administrative oversight. This is, in part, an experiment -- it might not work. And if our membership does not embrace this change, we’ll revisit it in the future. There are a few other caveats in regard to this change:
  • Guilds are staying, but in a more organic form. We will not have term limits for Guild leaders, and activity within guilds will be guild-driven. Guilds will be maintained by a Guilds Coordinator housed within the Department of Technology; this person will keep an eye on activity, handle the requests for new guild spaces, and coordinate with inactive guilds to remove unused spaces.
  • The Amyrlin Seat will maintain a Calendar of Shenanigans. If you have an idea for a community event, let her know and she’ll block off time for you. She will also be soliciting members, groups, or site administration areas to run both Bel Tine and Shaoman on a “we have this idea and want to do it” basis.

One department will be shifting from the Keeper’s responsibility to the Shatayan: the Department of Philanthropy (formerly Outreach). This department primarily focuses on things dealing with money, and we feel that it makes sense to have them report to our money Officer as a result.

Lastly, in response to buckets of feedback from our community about needing fair and appropriate moderation: we are bringing back the Department of Moderation. This department will report to the Keeper in order to balance the workload between Keeper and Cordamora. Previously, the Cordamora was responsible for all areas of the site with potential for drama; this created an unequal balance of responsibilities. To mitigate that, moderation will be the Keeper’s responsibility and the Cordamora will focus more fully on membership as a whole.

Many thanks to Roheryn ni Galghandhrei t'al'Djinn and Adina al'Mari for their service as Directors. We want to stress that these changes have nothing to do with Roh's and Adina's performance in their jobs, and we particularly commend them for their diligent work during a very difficult time in our community's history. Y'all certainly have our gratitude! Additional thanks to the moderation team which was dissolved (with credit for their term of service) in light of the return of the Department of Moderation. They were rockstars, stepping up to help and taking on way more than they should have had to handle. We have hired Thaddius al'Guy, as previously announced, to lead the returning department. He is currently hiring for moderators so that when we reopen the site Moderation will be in place and ready to begin with us.

Here are administrator and staff changes within respective departments:

• Communications & Media
  • The Marketing Project Manager and Social Media Manager roles are being retired in favor of having just one Assistant Director to help the Director support both. This role is administrator-level.
• Events & Conferences
  • No changes at this time
• Membership
  • When Dar’jen’s term as Mistress of Novices & Recruits ends, the incoming Mistress/Master of Accepted and Soldiers will become the Mistress/Master of Tower Initiates and be responsible for both sets of groups. We feel that with the number of Tower Initiates we have and have had over the past several years, one administrator is sufficient to handle all Tower Initiates.
• Moderation
  • This department will have two special roles focused on applying the Discipline Process fairly and in advocating for affected members: the Chair of Rebuke and the Seat of Pardon. Both members in these roles, along with others, will serve as our team of moderators on both the forum and in Discord.
• Philanthropy
  • The Servant of All team is in flux. It is not planned to exist as a team within Philanthropy, but instead we hope that the site as whole will become more involved and engaged in service. Activity in this vein will be going more public. Particulars are not finalized at this time.
  • The Patreon Coordinator (new position, administrator-level) and Team will become a part of this department.
• Research & Records
  • The Archivist will be hiring an Assistant Director to help manage this department. We will be making changes to the Library wiki in the not-too-distant future.
• Technology
  • The changed Guild Coordinator position will report to Technology as the role is primarily to facilitate the creation and removal of guilds. It will remain a staff position.
  • We will no longer have Forum Gatekeepers. Instead, designated officers, directors, and administrators will handle adding and removing usergroups.
  • The Mason role has been retired.
  • The role of Illuminator has been rolled in together with Wansho.

 

[Deleted member 43]

• Tower Initiates will stay Tower Initiates.
  • 50% of members wanted to keep the name Tower Initiates
  • 24% were in favor of just Initiates
  • 11% didn’t care one way or the other
  • 6% wanted to go back to Junior Members
  • 5% are just tired of the name changes in general
  • 4% had different miscellaneous suggestions
• Tower Sworn will go back to being called Senior Members.
  • 45.3% wanted to go back to Senior Members
  • 21.1% voted for Tower Sealed
  • 9.5% wanted to stay Tower Sworn
  • 9.5% didn’t care
  • The remaining responders voted for just “member,” or had alternative suggestions

I feel like it would be better if we just did Initiated Members and Senior Members.