Quote by Araa

"Some people may be fraudulently joining the fleet to purchase weapons" - Here we could use the same technique used by other fleets and use a waiting period before allowing new members access to the store. I haven't seen any fleet take the totally open approach that we do, making us potentially an easy target...

...And, always thinking of our desire to continually improve the fleet, there may be a lesson in this outcome. As you may recall, every member involved in our previous discussion was concerned about this happening and suggested ways to avoid it. While I was highly impressed to see the leadership team take a much more bold and risky decision than any of the members were comfortable taking, perhaps in retrospect we should have incorporated a few of the members' ideas and taken a more measured approach to rolling the new solution out.

I'm personally quite interested in continuing input from everyone on this issue, but it's important for everyone to have accurate information, so we're all on the same page as the discussion progresses.

I just wanted to clarify that the fleet store has never been "completely" or "wide-open" for anyone to make purchases, as has been suggested. New members to join the fleet, do so at 'cadet rank', and remain at that rank for a minimum of two weeks, not just after joining the fleet, but also after having created an account on this website, and having made an introductory post on the forums. This provides us with a bit of additional information about our prospective member, before we consider promoting them past the probationary rank. As a cadet, purbases cannot be made from the fleet stores.

Only after the probationary period has expired and no complaints or other red flags about the cadet have arisen, will the prospect be promoted to 'member' status. Only upon obtaining full member status, are they in a position to make purchases from the fleet stores.

I'm not sure if you were aware of this or not, Araa, or if you refer to it as a "wide-open" story policy, because in your view, the probationary period is just too inadequate to address your security concerns. If that's the case, then that's completely fine... that's why we're asking people to weigh in... but it's important that everyone else is aware of what's actually in place, so that informed conversation can take place moving forward :)

Upwards and onwards!

Dave.

yeah its kinda a self sustaining problem. Just doesn't help to prop up people who are an exception, not the rule.

I wouldn't doubt that some of the models are nice people... But having worked with them on a couple of community events I can say they aren't very different from many other "models" in the gay world. Alot of undeserved sense of importance when compared to the many other things people do and try to accomplish.

As I said, those who are using the situation to prop themselves up later through the investment of time, money, and connections gained through this have my respect. But given the fail-success rate... alittle too soon to call this kid a "role model". Also, as I said, Full Frontal Freedom has issues with credibility and -whatever the relationship is with Andrew Christian- there are problems.

P.S. I have no issue with people having lots of sex, I think sexual repression is a huge problem for our society in general... It's the lack of priority in protection and responsibility that I worry about common with this business.

Yes, it's not the one I took so I can't vouch to it's efficacy but the test has been around forever so it'd be pretty hard to screw the pooch too hard. TAKE IT!!

Always been fascinated by navy hardware, there is a Nimitz-class stationed in San Diego. Things a monster when you see it in person, a floating city. Good for the UK, they have always been a strong power in tech advancement for naval use. Haha a very long and noble tradition.

My animal: the Venezuelan Beaver

My color: Mommy "fell down the stairs and hurt her eye" Purple.

More seriously, no I haven't, is THIS the one you're referring to? http://www.colorcode.com/free_personality_test/

I actually know some of the models personally and while yes they have lots of sex, quite a few of them are kind genuine people who are worth knowing. Now, as to the other type...yeah they're douche bags.

Edit:
I do agree though that there is a general problem in our community where we are hyper focused on appearance to exclusion of much else. However, lezbihonest, we have and continue to perpetuate this focus ourselves. If we want companies in our community to change we need to economically make it viable for them to do so.

Araa are you familiar with the color personality test? Also referred to as the animal test? Cause if so I'm pretty sure I've guessed your color but would love to hear what the test said you were. ;)

Well, I figure that, for once, I might as well contribute to a discussion on fleet provisions. :-D I highly appreciate that you guys are involving the entire community in solving this issue for the long term. Definitely makes me feel valued and I find I always learn something from the quality of the contributions to these threads. Thanks!

I do like the temporary gateway approach to rebuild, and it should be vastly easier once we get rid of the fab bottleneck.

On the positive side of this problem, it's good to see provisions being actively used by the fleet rather than sitting in a bank, and it's also encouraging that it's only been a problem for one class of provisions! All in all it seems pretty successful so far.

For the way forward, as to whether we keep the gatekeeper method permanently or not, the next step should probably be based on *why* we think we're running out of those provisions. Here are some possible explanations and a shot at their implications on our next move, decide which ones you think might be happening:

"All provisions are being used by fleet members who are buying reasonable quantities, we're just running out due to demand" - In this case, where fraud and over-purchasing don't exist, the right solution would be to leave it permanently open. There's no benefit to building up 100 provisions and monitoring who gets them, since the right people are already getting them.

"Some members may be buying too many weapons" - In this case I'd recommend to start with voluntary guidelines, where a fleet email and occasional MotDs are used to remind people to only purchase up to a certain limit. I do agree that this is a soft approach that depends highly on communication, so the gatekeeper may be required if this totally fails. Personally, I'd like to think we'd behave responsibly enough to make this work.

"Some people may be fraudulently joining the fleet to purchase weapons" - Here we could use the same technique used by other fleets and use a waiting period before allowing new members access to the store. I haven't seen any fleet take the totally open approach that we do, making us potentially an easy target. While a fleet credit contribution minimum is normally used simply because it's dead easy to administer, a seniority-based period could be used as well. In the latter case, we'd probably have to ask people to self-report when they've passed the minimum amount of time and need to be promoted to a requisitioning rank. It would be harder to administer than the credit-based approach, but still require much less effort than the gatekeeper solution.

Personally, I always prefer taking the more cautious approach, so my recommendation hasn't changed from our previous discussion, which is that, after rebuilding our stocks, we should try the open store approach with both of the above precautions (i.e., voluntary guidelines and a waiting period) and see if that will slow down demand sufficiently. The third idea previously proposed, a gradual roll-out starting with DSS and HNR in order to assess any risks and avoid exhausting all of SW's provisions, is obviously moot now.

________________

And, always thinking of our desire to continually improve the fleet, there may be a lesson in this outcome. As you may recall, every member involved in our previous discussion was concerned about this happening and suggested ways to avoid it. While I was highly impressed to see the leadership team take a much more bold and risky decision than any of the members were comfortable taking, perhaps in retrospect we should have incorporated a few of the members' ideas and taken a more measured approach to rolling the new solution out.

It's not the end of the world, particularly if most of the demand is meeting a valid need of fleet members, but it's just a thought. I'll be very interested to hear other peoples' thoughts on why we have had such a run on that one provisioning class.

Cheers,

Araa/John aka "The guy who spends WAY too much time worrying about provisions" ;-)

P.S. Given that we're gonna be using gatekeeper for at least a while, have we decided who gets to be The Keymaster?

P.P.S. pew pew

I spoke with a friend of mine about this. He also does modeling of a somewhat sexual manner. However, his is generally more artistic and more... gender bending... I suppose you could call it. However knowing him in person and seeing how incredibly negative the response can be from gay men who have the staunch view that we all should be ultra-masculine, he still holds to the conviction that you should be who you want to be regardless of public perspective.

On this I give him much more credit as a possible role model, especially since his philosophy isn't just about honesty in actions but also association; he would never support a fake charity for the sake of advertisement.

It isn't difficult to spend a few hours at a gym then just strip to your underwear for the camera. Guys like this one come a dime-a-dozen. I just hate the idea that so many people see it as a viable, sustainable, and -somehow- noble goal. I almost fell into that trap at a much younger age and learned that it's a horrible idea unless you truly are nothing but a pretty exterior with little substance.

Chemkarate-that is a far more noble goal that I'd love to see even more people strive to. There are a lot already that seem to not get the notoriety they deserve, but we continuously need more of that!

As for the idea that this problem is far grander than just the LGBT community: I agree. However, in the long standing of human civilization the general population has the foundation to choose whether or not to get tied up into these kinda of lifestyles or look up to these kinds of people. For our community this is new ground and I'd hate for the incredible examples of individuals in OUR history to be over shadowed by these terrible cliches.

I've always been a fan of navy ships, namely Destroyers and the old Battleships... I've never really been intrigued by aircraft carriers, though I have to say that these are quite impressive.

As a proud member of the commonwealth, it's awesome to see Britain produce these cool, new ships. Also, it means we'll get your old hand-me-downs, lol.

Although our fleet of Iroquois class destroyers are aging, they've been refitted and are still cool :) If nothing else, we gave our ships bad-ass names: HMCS Iroquois, Algonquin, Huron, etc. It's too bad that in this day and age of fiscal responsibility, that we're not making as many big, cool things like the space shuttles, the Concorde etc, to show that it can be done. Our spirit of adventure has been stifled lately, which is why this project excites me :D

I thought this might be a cool thing to talk about, especially amongst my countrymen. For those that aren't aware already, Britain is currently building the largest naval ship in this country's history and we're building two of them. The HMS Queen Elizabeth Class and the HMS Prince of Wales.

Almost as large as the U.S's Nimitz class, it will be Europe's largest Aircraft Carrier and among the largest carriers in the world once completed.

I can't say how proud of my country I am, for undertaking such a feat of technological engineering and construction. These will be jaw dropping when built and are FAR larger than the "Lusty" (HMS Illustrious), our aging light aircraft carrier.

These will go a long way in re-affirming Britain's place on the stage, power projection and the security of overseas territories (I'm looking at you Argentina).

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We've always been good at punching above our weight, long may it continue! :lol:

Yeah, it's always bugged me how a lot of youth (LGBT or othwerwise) look up to some of the worst people. The rise of reality television has only made things worse.

Once I'm more established in my career as a scientist, I'm planning on looking for an LGBT mentoring program. At the very least, if I can get just a few of these people to look into a career in science and engineering as opposed to pursuing a career in 'being famous', I will consider my time well-spent.

Good Call. Fleet needs to make sure there are no shortages that hinder other projects. For now I think this is a good thing to do.

Grats to everyone who's recently hit 50! :woohoo:

It's a more systematic problem then just the LGBT community. What bugs me is tonight in America 17 million( more then twice the population of New York, NY) children went to bed hungry, let's all cry about Beyonce possibly lip-Syncing the National Anthem or what Justin Bieber is doing. We need to get our priorities straight.

A sad day indeed. I liked logging into chat rooms elsewhere to talk... although I haven't logged into the site in almost three years...

It worries me too how many glbt youth look to models, porn stars, and other outwardly identifying professionals. It feels like more and more like the next generation of glbt is more worried about how others see them than how they feel about themselves and are searching for an external means of validation.

There are so many tremendous role models out there now. (Many more than when I was a teen in high school.) I wish more of our youth would look and see what a great impact they could have as doctors, scientist, engineers, lawyers and politicians.

I've seen a few glbt not-for-profits that don't looked on the up and up. Many don't release how much of their funding goes to the actual causes and I believe are really business profiting off of the marriage equality fever.

Seems like a good plan, if the lack of provisions was caused by a bottleneck project i am all for letting us build up some more provisions and then seeing how things work out with it open to the floor again.

Starting on Friday, January 25th, we’ll be reinstating the Gatekeeper Method previously used to access the Fleet Stores. This will affect Stonewall Fleet and Deep Space Stonewall, but not House of Nagh reD.

For those of you that are new to Stonewall Fleet, the Gatekeeper Method is where access to the Fleet Store is restricted only to the Requisitioning rank. For a Member to purchase from the store, they must contact a gatekeeper, either a Fleet Captain or an Admiral for a temporary promotion to the Requisitioning rank. After their purchase is completed, they are demoted back to Member. The purpose of this is to limit purchases from the Fleet Stores and provide more fair access to everyone in the Fleet.

Since we opened the restrictions on the Fleet Stores, we have seen a large demand for Engineering Personal Provisions and for the last couple weeks we have had difficulty keeping up with demand. This has in large part been due to the upgrading of the Industrial Fabricator in Stonewall Fleet. During the upgrade, we are unable to queue regular requisition project and our only mean of replenishing provisions is through a Basic Provisions project that requires 200,000 Dilithium. Suffice it to say, it takes some time to fill that project.

Now that the upgrade has completed, we have access to the new higher ranked requisitioning project and will be aiming to get our stockpiles back up. Our current goal is to reach 100 provisions and then rescind the Gatekeeper Method again. We ask that you all focus on Provision Personal Fleet Equipment From Engineering IV whenever possible.

When we first gave Members the permission to purchase from Fleet Stores, it was with the concession that if provisions dropped below 25 we would reinstate the Gatekeeper Method. We were lax to do it this time since we were only lacking one provision, but with levels not restoring we decided to. Now that we have, we’d like to hear from the membership-at-large and ask their opinion on how we should further proceed.

Should we continue removing and implementing the Gatekeeper Method as provisions allow? Would you prefer a different mechanism to manage provisions?

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