In the beginning we cobbled together servers and forums, and after some early admins had to leave for unexpected reasons, we ended up with 4 co-admins who shared different aspects of the work: Thalgor ($$Moneybags), Pook (Security Admin), KGJV (Developer), and Aarmstrong (Gameserver Admin).
After periods of inactivity, this ended up being reduced to just 1 Community Administrator: Pook.
During Pook's reign, when he was active there was measured progress in pretty much everything Allegiance. If people screamed about something, he heard it and just fixed the problem. As the sole administrator, he had the leeway to do whatever he wanted, and without anyone keeping him in check, he could move on-a-dime to make changes without worry of overstepping his bounds.
But then people started complaining about the potential for abuse of power since he didn't have to consult the community on anything. Now I should mention that as far as I can remember, Pook **NEVER** abused his power to the community's detriment, and always took a "feel" for what the community wanted before making his own decision. He just didn't have to.
In response to the increasing screams of dicatorship, Pook created an Allegiance governing body known as The Senate. One member of each active squad was appointed to The Senate and they voted on issues to provide a community-represented majority on each issue.
This worked well for some time.
But as time wore on, senators became less active, left the community, or otherwise stopped being involved. Squads were slow to appoint new senators, and votes in the senate stalled due to inactivity.
Pook's real-world commitments took over too, and he handed the keys to the servers to Tigereye. While the senate was largely inactive, there were community members who were volunteering their free time to get things done. They organized the @Cadet program, they developed fixes for problems in the game, they helped people out in the Helpline, etc.
Thalgor and I shook things up shortly after Pook left and decided to abolish the senate and replace it with people who were actually DOING something. The Zone Leaders were born. This worked out great for a time because finally the people who were actually working for the community were now in charge.
I transferred the majority of my "power" to this body of active volunteers and positioned myself as their systems administrator lackey. If they request a change, I simply implemented it. This setup worked for a time in the same way that the Senate worked out for a time.
My hope was that this group of ZLs would be self-governing and self-replacing. As a ZL announced his intent to 'retire' the other ZLs would appoint a new one to take his place. As long as the core remained active, they would collectively run Allegiance with very little interference from the systems administrator. Unfortunately, this did not happen.
As you know, ZLs started to go absent in the same way that the Senators went absent. While some announced their intent to depart in the ZL forum, others didn't. When one would be absent, new ZLs did not get appointed in their place. Progress slowed down, and we've reached a point very similar to the one we had when the Senate was around, only this time, there is one crucial difference.
Back then, alongside the Senate was a dictator who did everything for the community. Although Pook would consult with the Senate before making major changes, he was still an autonomous independent body who acted how he felt best for the community.
We find ourselves in a different place today because, after transferring the majority of my roles into the ZL roles, there is no autonomous independent body anymore to act when the ZLs go absent.
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So here we are today without ZLs and without a dictator.
I pay for this place, and as much of a good idea I thought it was to create the ZLs and transfer power into those roles, it's clear that it didn't solve the original problem: People go missing. It's life. We all have real lives outside these blue walls and I can't fault anyone for enjoying their friends/family/jobs/worlds. I hope you all agree.
So, since I pay for this place, I've decided to shake things up. I do so with the intent to help the community. For those of you who see this as a gross abuse of my power as systems administrator, kindly refer yourselves to the monthly bill I pay for all of you to be able to play Allegiance.
Effective immediately I am abolishing the entire ZL system.
I am appointing pkk as the "Transitional Community Administrator" and am bestowing all administrative rights to pretty well everything upon him.
My hope is that pkk will be as effective as Pook was when he was the dictator of Allegiance. Quite frankly, that was one of the best times in our community's history and I believe his ability to act unilaterally without deferring to a peanut gallery was a prime reason for the success.
Looking back, I am also convinced that my primary goal helped and hindered Allegiance. There was a problem with Pook's dictatorship: when real world took over, he was unavailable to do any of the MANY tasks asked of him. To avoid this, my primary goal upon taking the reigns was to distribute these tasks to a variety of community members (the ZLs) so that no one man could be a complete blocker of progress. In doing so, I did make it so that many tasks could be completed without Administrative intervention, but I also made it so that when THOSE players left, there was nobody around to pick up the slack.
Anyways.
Pkk is active, he is passionate about this game, he understands how things work under-the-hood and he has agreed to take on the role. In my eyes, that's everything we need in a community administrator.
Pkk will have the full authority to do whatever he wants with Allegiance. He can decide to appoint a Senate, or Zone Leaders, or CareBears, or AssHats as community administrators and can delegate whatever roles/privileges he wants to them. Or he can choose to do it all himself. I trust he has the community's best interests at heart and that he will be honest enough with this community and himself to implement whatever changes are necessary to ensure Allegiance has an active administration at all times so that the stalemates we've seen at the end of both Pook's and the ZL's reigns don't happen again.
I will continue to pay the bills as long as I am able to, or until pkk asks that full ownership be transferred to someone else. I am also not going anywhere and will always be just-an-email-away to assist pkk with anything he needs.
Pkk, I am at your service
Thanks,
Your friendly administrator.
