Make the max slots per OSA and ECA 3 on both servers.

[Cade Valentine]

What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
This suggestion would have the team change the max slots in VJobs to 3 per each Assistant job on the servers.

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
I'm pretty confident this has been suggested before, but context has changed and thus that's why I'd like to try making the suggestion again.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
Should eliminate 99% of all cases where Assistants are queuing just for a chance to get on their role
Makes it even easier for O5 to delegate tasks as there are more people available to work with
QoL as it reduces complaints on the subject substantially and gives people more access to the limited slot.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
Too easy to be on the role, according to some
Removes the 2:1 ratio of O5 to Assistant on the Server

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
Gonna be honest, with how the servers have developed, I think this is just common sense. As Site Command continues to move in a direction of focusing on overarching RP Leadership, which in turn means that OSAs also need to be available so that menial task delegation can be done in a more efficient way, having more potential slots is nothing but a boon for both branches.

The 2:1 ratio actually is irrelevant imo too - it's nothing to do with how many O5 or Ethics Members each Assistant can help, it's the volume of tasks. Issues on the Site tend to flare up all at once, and sometimes two Assistants isn't enough, and bottlenecking occurs. Having more Assistants eases the likeliness of that bottleneck, which DRASTICALLY eases some very fixable pressure on SC and lets them do their job better and spend their time on the Server more efficiently.

This is a small change but a massive, MASSIVE QoL in my opinion and I'd be greatly appreciative of any approval. The context that changed it is to do with how many Assistants I see that are on who play the slot for quite some time. Many Assistants are beginning to actively struggle to find room to flag on to the role and I want that to stop and not be a worry for them.

 

[Kaneki Fujimoto]

+Support

To be transparent, I think three slots would be nice to both the Council and the Committee. Then again, I always thought two would be good enough due to the council's ratio as an example: 4 Council Members, Two Assistant's, One can assist two council members etc.

That's my mind talking silly however. Though you could always think of having four, but that'd kill the whole 'personal assistant' thing in regards to a factotum as an example.

 

[Tiffany Lilly]

-support

!setjob exists

Unfortunately, not your average player can do this command

 

["Hydra"]

+Support

 

[Gizzmo]

-support again

 

[SamPaval]

-support

!setjob exists

If you have to bug a staff member to Play a role in which you applied for cause theres not enough slots, the slot count NEEDs to be increased

 

[Speff]

-support i hate assistants with a burning passion

 

[Yeke]

Im going to weigh in on this here as I am tired of seeing it crop up.

The constant reason I see this suggestion is "We dont have enough slots to accommodate everyone", this is not a problem with the slots, this is a problem with over-hiring, Assistants is meant to be a decent position to attain, not allowing every tom, dick and harry to take, there is also consistently a lack of monitoring of assistants to the point 6 monthly purges are constantly required as no one monitors activity / inactivity.
We should not be increasing slots of a role just because you are over-hiring, furthermore I would like to present the option of communication between players i.e. "Hey, how long are you going to be on for as I need to do my assistant reqs" or something of this nature, as a community, communication is important rather than just "more slots"

However now to delve into a few other issues;

Site Command RP
Extending the assistant slots means that you remove more RP from Site Command who routinely have complained in the past to SSL / NL that there is "no RP", so increasing this limit to provide more RP to other users will just result in this complaint escalating

Site Administration
In the past we have continuously seen a state of more Assistants = more Site Admin overreach whereby Assistants inflating their self-importance will seek to curtail and involve themselves to the point they hinder Site Administration or try to remove parts of their role for themselves, I do not feel that is wise to increase that.

Requirements Tracking / Overhiring
As mentioned above, I have seen this throughout my years within the Network whereby Assistants are just seen as this role with no prestige and anyone can get into it, that is not what the role is for, it is a sub-administrative role that supports places and acts as proxy, thus we should not entertain the idea of overhiring everyone, as this leads to less slot time.

On top of this, Assistants never actually have activity monitored to the point 6 monthly purges have to happen because people have left months ago and no one actually pays attention to them and we end up with a rogue CL4 who comes to minge later down the line, if activity and standards were monitored, overhiring would be likely reduced.

If accepted, what's next
So I will ask this bluntly, say I accept this to 3 slots and im convinced its a good reason to the point we can all agree, how long before "We need 4" appears, as this happens all the time due to the above, this is why we reduced the slots in the first place to make it a prestigious position not a position where everyone is an assistant walking around.

I am happily up for discussion, but I really struggle to see the need outside of the want.

Kind Regards
Yeke

 

[James V]

-support
I honestly do not think that the Assistant role warrants 3 slots, as Julien stated !setjob exists if it is deemed that more Assistants will be required for something however for now, from my experiences, they just interfere with SA who have just come back from a dying state

 

[Aurelius 'Fusilli']

Im going to weigh in on this here as I am tired of seeing it crop up.

The constant reason I see this suggestion is "We dont have enough slots to accommodate everyone", this is not a problem with the slots, this is a problem with over-hiring, Assistants is meant to be a decent position to attain, not allowing every tom, dick and harry to take, there is also consistently a lack of monitoring of assistants to the point 6 monthly purges are constantly required as no one monitors activity / inactivity.
We should not be increasing slots of a role just because you are over-hiring, furthermore I would like to present the option of communication between players i.e. "Hey, how long are you going to be on for as I need to do my assistant reqs" or something of this nature, as a community, communication is important rather than just "more slots"

However now to delve into a few other issues;

Site Command RP
Extending the assistant slots means that you remove more RP from Site Command who routinely have complained in the past to SSL / NL that there is "no RP", so increasing this limit to provide more RP to other users will just result in this complaint escalating

Site Administration
In the past we have continuously seen a state of more Assistants = more Site Admin overreach whereby Assistants inflating their self-importance will seek to curtail and involve themselves to the point they hinder Site Administration or try to remove parts of their role for themselves, I do not feel that is wise to increase that.

Requirements Tracking / Overhiring
As mentioned above, I have seen this throughout my years within the Network whereby Assistants are just seen as this role with no prestige and anyone can get into it, that is not what the role is for, it is a sub-administrative role that supports places and acts as proxy, thus we should not entertain the idea of overhiring everyone, as this leads to less slot time.

On top of this, Assistants never actually have activity monitored to the point 6 monthly purges have to happen because people have left months ago and no one actually pays attention to them and we end up with a rogue CL4 who comes to minge later down the line, if activity and standards were monitored, overhiring would be likely reduced.

If accepted, what's next
So I will ask this bluntly, say I accept this to 3 slots and im convinced its a good reason to the point we can all agree, how long before "We need 4" appears, as this happens all the time due to the above, this is why we reduced the slots in the first place to make it a prestigious position not a position where everyone is an assistant walking around.

I am happily up for discussion, but I really struggle to see the need outside of the want.

Kind Regards
Yeke

I am going to state my point of view in this:

Whenever I flag on, the OSA job is full, this is simply due to the fact that I usually get on site at the start of high pop where every other person who mains assistant has already hopped on the job and therefore filled it up. I cannot continue any roleplay I start the day before (If I manage to get a slot) because the day after the slot is full and by the time 1 slot has freed up it might either be too late for me to keep playing or simply I want to play some other job at that specific time.
Genuinely, my question to you is: What is so bad with adding 1 slot? You should deny any suggestion that goes above the 3 slots, but even with only 6 Assistants the issue would repeat itself, it only requires a few active assistants to get that job full not 10.

The problem is not about over-hiring, it's simply about competent people who want to play a specific job and just cannot, not every person who applies should get in, only a small minority, but everybody should have the chance to atleast play the job they have applied for.
I have recently started to lose interest in OSA because of this, so I urge you to listen to our assistant community.
Thank you Yeke.

 

[Broda]

I am going to state my point of view in this:

Whenever I flag on, the OSA job is full, this is simply due to the fact that I usually get on site at the start of high pop where every other person who mains assistant has already hopped on the job and therefore filled it up. I cannot continue any roleplay I start the day before (If I manage to get a slot) because the day after the slot is full and by the time 1 slot has freed up it might either be too late for me to keep playing or simply I want to play some other job at that specific time.
Genuinely, my question to you is: What is so bad with adding 1 slot? You should deny any suggestion that goes above the 3 slots, but even with only 6 Assistants the issue would repeat itself, it only requires a few active assistants to get that job full not 10.

The problem is not about over-hiring, it's simply about competent people who want to play a specific job and just cannot, not every person who applies should get in, only a small minority, but everybody should have the chance to atleast play the job they have applied for.
I have recently started to lose interest in OSA because of this, so I urge you to listen to our assistant community.
Thank you Yeke.

"If accepted, what's next
So I will ask this bluntly, say I accept this to 3 slots and im convinced its a good reason to the point we can all agree, how long before "We need 4" appears, as this happens all the time due to the above, this is why we reduced the slots in the first place to make it a prestigious position not a position where everyone is an assistant walking around."

He kinda answered that part

I'll be real, slippery slope expanding slots for ECA/OSA. Even with my brief return as Chairman I still cannot see the justification in expanding what is designed to be a secondary role. Assistant mains need to look elsewhere for that type or RP or work something out with the other assistants to share the time accordingly. Or, Apply for Site Administration its Assistant on steroids (This is not a paid recruitment ad by Site-65 Site Administration)

 

[Aurelius 'Fusilli']

"If accepted, what's next
So I will ask this bluntly, say I accept this to 3 slots and im convinced its a good reason to the point we can all agree, how long before "We need 4" appears, as this happens all the time due to the above, this is why we reduced the slots in the first place to make it a prestigious position not a position where everyone is an assistant walking around."

Fact is, we must admit 1 slot is not going to change the prestige of assistants, and I did say that any suggestion going beyond the 3 is ridicolous.
It is a slippery slope that you can control by going slowly and not taking the worst paths.

 

[Yeke]

Fact is, we must admit 1 slot is not going to change the prestige of assistants, and I did say that any suggestion going beyond the 3 is ridicolous.
It is a slippery slope that you can control by going slowly and not taking the worst paths.

This is the exact same argument that was used when we had 3 slots initially, in the exact same way, stating "how would it hurt" and its not a why it would hurt, but why is there a need, outside of "we want to be on the job", as too many assistants means an inverse in the command structure as we have job limits for a reason to spread people out into other roles i.e. Junior CL4 roles of Departments.

Whenever I flag on, the OSA job is full, this is simply due to the fact that I usually get on site at the start of high pop where every other person who mains assistant has already hopped on the job and therefore filled it up. I cannot continue any roleplay I start the day before (If I manage to get a slot) because the day after the slot is full and by the time 1 slot has freed up it might either be too late for me to keep playing or simply I want to play some other job at that specific time.
Genuinely, my question to you is: What is so bad with adding 1 slot? You should deny any suggestion that goes above the 3 slots, but even with only 6 Assistants the issue would repeat itself, it only requires a few active assistants to get that job full not 10.

The issue is, communication, if you want to go on a role that's full, please speak with the people on the role if they wouldn't mind if you went on it for a bit, its the same as if you wanted to play Deep Cover but the slots were full, you would ask.
Right now I'm asking for the need not the want, I have done the maths

Rostered Assistants
USA
Overseer Assistants - 15
Ethics Assistants - 16

UK
Overseer Assistants - 9
Ethics Assistants - 10

Total
Overseer Assistants - 24
Ethics Assistants - 26

In-Game holding (will include some staff who have all roles - though this will be like 3 people realistically)

UK
Overseer Assistants - 19
Ethics Assistants - 17

USA
Overseer Assistants - 20
Ethics Assistants - 37

 

[Emilia Foddg]

We should start a new server just for Assistants Civil Networks Assistant Roleplay

 

[Yeke]

I want to add, im down to have further conversation with the community but I need to make sure I understand the issues in full before i make an agreement on the rule i implemented.

 

[Emilia Foddg]

The constant reason I see this suggestion is "We dont have enough slots to accommodate everyone", this is not a problem with the slots, this is a problem with over-hiring, Assistants is meant to be a decent position to attain, not allowing every tom, dick and harry to take

I'd also like to add to this point that, IMO, if things are the same now as they were back at the start of last year when I was an OSA, the standards for Assistants are (or at least, were) fine - And to my understanding, there were just a lot of good people for the position that wanted it (Although this was on UK, can't really speak for US). During my time as an OSA, I did also experience the frustration associated with being unable to play the job that also required me to maintain activity to keep playing it... Not necessarily to the degree where it felt like a second job (Although I could understand if someone has that perspective), but to a point that was frustrating and stressful enough that contributed largely to my just resigning from every position I held at the time.

Do I think that adding more job slots will solve this? Absolutely not. That's why I've previously tried suggesting alternate solutions such as volatile job slots or introducing a new CL3 watered-down Site Admin job that would also function as a sort-of extension to Assistants.

I want to add, im down to have further conversation with the community but I need to make sure I understand the issues in full before i make an agreement on the rule i implemented.

To be honest, from what I've seen of the community's feelings regarding this, I don't see a conversation to have. As you and Broda said, they want job slots and if they get those job slots, they're just gonna want more. I firmly believe the solution to this problem is something else that doesn't necessarily completely take away what Assistants have now, while also providing new and increased roleplay opportunities across multiple departments. That's why I made the second suggestion.

Honestly, at this point my thoughts are to go even further and I think both Assistant jobs should be reworked entirely into something like the second suggestion idea I linked - Instead of having a dedicated role on each side of FCOM to be their personal busybodies (which on an intuitive level restricts RP to only those closed circles), give something that can flexibly work alongside FCOM, Site Admin and even Departments, in the same way that I said in that Foundation Clerks suggestion - You could more or less make what Assistants are now into a sort of IC position and if you want, utilise the keycard printers in Site Admin to give them the necessary clearance to do so.

What's clear to me is this impasse - Nothing can be given. Not slots, not jobs, not anything. And if that's the case, I think the choice should be to either keep Assistants as they are now, or make them into something new entirely, that you can reasonably afford to make more available to players because of how flexible the result would be.

And once the dust settles, everyone will still be fighting over the job slots, because that idea isn't a solution to the problem - It's potential mitigation. Which is probably the only thing that can be done about this.