Changing Westfinder

Posted by Sam S.

I'm going to start this out with a quote that I'm sure everyone has seen or heard recently

"Have more people do what are currently considered staff duties. Instead of having staff doing everything, from workshops to making stuff to legal issues, let the community in. They want to. People have expressed interest in most staff activities—workshops, costuming, foamcraft. Let anyone who wants to run workshops—teach them how. Have everyone who wants to foamcraft or sew or make cool stuff. Staff have been doing these things because nobody else has stepped up, but neither has anyone else stepped up. Let's step up. Staff are part of the business, let them do business things. Let them keep track of the budget and inventory as visible google docs. Let them post current issues or news updates on a Westfinder blog where they can mediate discussion or debate. There can be polls on the blog for decisions the community can make, and the staff can confer on business-oriented decisions—business issues like Wayfinder relations and selecting games / staff for the new season. With this new model, it also opens up possibilities for staff locations, as most of the things that are necessarily staff-y simply involve communication. You don't even necessarily need staff keeping the weapons or costuming. Let staff do the things that make Westfinder a business, and let the community do things that bring people together." - Ben Gould

I'd just like to say that I endorse this idea. Westfinder has been having problems with the disconnect between it's staff and it's community recently and this would help with that. As Ben says, this would get the community involved with what goes on in Westfinder. Not only that, but the general production output of Westfinder would probably rise as well. If some of the people who are newer to Productions could make some of the required props for upcoming games, the other people could work on even more stuff and we could have even more cool things in game. This idea allows the community to make the decisions that pertain to it, which it should be doing, but it still allows the Staff to take care of what needs to be taken care of. 

This isn't to say that there would be no regulation of general materials or issues with this suggestion. General issues to deal with would include -

- Keeping track of who has what.

- Is your idea for a Workshop going to teach the community something and help everyone have fun, or is it, "How to pickle cucumbers."

- Teaching newer people to make things or teach workshops.

- Resource Allocation: It would be fantastic if all of you could train in the art of foamsmithing, but from personal experience I know that the materials are very expensive and that the only way to get better at it is to practice. At least in this specific case there are only so many people who we could have working on it, so everyone might not get to do everything they want.

So to deal with these problems we assign someone to keep track of things. We have the staff in charge of each division teach other people how to do what that staff can do. These issues can be dealt with, hopefully without much fuss. This is an idea that could radically change Westfinder for the better and I think it could do it without much trouble involved. 

This change isn't going to happen if I'm the only one up here talking to myself, so to speak. So if you like this idea, parts of this idea, or have some way to make it even better then speak up! Let's change things!