What Government Structure does Paradise Station Follow?

[Sirryan2002]

As most of my threads do, this discussion started in the discord. What structure of government does paradise station follow? just to be clear, this is a light-hearted analysis not me dissing our current staff/decision making structure(which is fine as it is) and is more of me having fun(so please don't take any of this in a wrong way). The more I dug into this the more it became clear that it's very complicated to compare a gaming server to a brick and mortar government.

I've put a bit of thought into this, there are two(three-ish) main groups that serious authority over decisions for the server. The Host(server/database things), Heads of Staff(all things administration/partially the hiring of staff members), and Maintainers(codebase). So our server is "broken up" into three different branches.

Heads of Staff: Heads of staff have the most authority over the server, they have decision making powers as well as control over the docket(a.k.a what issues get voted on). However, they are limited by a few things. Staff hiring is voted on by the staff and not solely by the Heads of staff. They share power over what changes are made to the codebase and can be vetoed regarding decisions towards DB/Hosting. Finally, there are three of them, each limiting each others power. Game Admins and CMs also play a role here but I'll get to that later.

Maintainers: Maintainers have the most authority over the codebase and contributions made to the server. However they are limited by Head of Staff vetoes and minorly the opinions of PRRs and Contributors. 

The Server Host: has supreme decision making over Server Hosting/Database decisions but is limited to just that for the most part.

Each of these three branches of our server have control over key parts of it but with tangible limitations in their powers. They are limited by eachother, it is separation of powers, which is a democratic principle. However, I don't believe our server is wholly democratic/republic due to that the decision makers of our servers are put in place by staff and not by decision of the playerbase for the most part. I believe politically we are a "Constitutional Oligarchy" where a smaller group people on top make the decision but are limited by eachother and by server policies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by Sirryan2002
yee

[AffectedArc07]

 

I powerpointed it up and tweaked it to how it runs, as far as I know

[AffectedArc07]

12 hours ago, Sirryan2002 said:

Heads of Staff: Heads of staff have the most authority over the server, they have decision making powers as well as control over the docket(a.k.a what issues get voted on). However, they are limited by a few things. Staff hiring is voted on by the staff and not solely by the Heads of staff. They share power over what changes are made to the codebase and can be vetoed regarding decisions towards DB/Hosting. Finally, there are three of them, each limiting each others power. Game Admins and CMs also play a role here but I'll get to that later.

 

12 hours ago, Sirryan2002 said:

Maintainers: Maintainers have the most authority over the codebase and contributions made to the server. However they are limited by Head of Staff vetoes and minorly the opinions of PRRs and Contributors. 

 

Heads of Staff and Maintainers share the same authority/weight in making codebase decisions, with a few exceptions:

• Heads have no vote on fix or refactor PRs
• Heads can object on design solely, maintainers can object on design and implementation
• Heads cannot veto a PR singlehandedly, nor can maintainers unless:
  • The PR has copyright/legal/license issues
  • The PR is going to cause horrific issues to the server down the road due to implementation
• The server host has no decision in pull requests, apart from an implementation veto regarding technical matters. They cannot veto on design principles.
  • Examples include tooling that runs server side, extra libraries for the server, data storage methods, etc etc

 

The three arms of the staff team (Heads - Host - Maints) tend to govern themselves and subordinates, however the heads have input in hiring/firing in each arm, and can be seen as the general overseers 

 

[necaladun]

Looking at things in terms of a Government has a huge flaw - we aren't a country. The players aren't citizens. They can leave at any time, and come back. None were born here, all association is purely voluntary. We have no control over their lives outside the game. No one can be executed, imprisoned, or fined. We can't tax people. 

We're also subject to the rules and laws of other countries - we don't have sovereignty, and have to follow DMCA and GPDR and Githubs/BYOND ToS and all that jazz.

The comparison is somewhat a irritating one to me, because it belies a certain entitlement and responsibility that is just not there. This isn't a country, it's a gaming server started by some like minded friends. Comparing it to a country starts to bring morality and politics into play in people's discussions, and that taints things. People start to feel their 'rights' are violated. Admins get called Nazis or Dictators or all kinds of shit because we banned someone from a game. People talk about 'freedom of speech' when we tell them not to use slurs.

The best term for our form of "Government" is "Online Gaming Server". It's not a form of Government any country has ever had, because countries and gaming servers are radically different things.

 

[Sirryan2002]

3 hours ago, necaladun said:

Looking at things in terms of a Government has a huge flaw - we aren't a country. The players aren't citizens. They can leave at any time, and come back. None were born here, all association is purely voluntary. We have no control over their lives outside the game. No one can be executed, imprisoned, or fined. We can't tax people. 

We're also subject to the rules and laws of other countries - we don't have sovereignty, and have to follow DMCA and GPDR and Githubs/BYOND ToS and all that jazz.

The comparison is somewhat a irritating one to me, because it belies a certain entitlement and responsibility that is just not there. This isn't a country, it's a gaming server started by some like minded friends. Comparing it to a country starts to bring morality and politics into play in people's discussions, and that taints things. People start to feel their 'rights' are violated. Admins get called Nazis or Dictators or all kinds of shit because we banned someone from a game. People talk about 'freedom of speech' when we tell them not to use slurs.

The best term for our form of "Government" is "Online Gaming Server". It's not a form of Government any country has ever had, because countries and gaming servers are radically different things.

 

Well I certainly did not intend for it to be viewed this way. I was just bored and thought there were some interesting connections between our staff structure and government structures. Perhaps I should have clarified more that this was just me playing around with some ideas rather than defining our server in a negative way and that my view certainly isn't what you think I may have been propagating through this post(even if it accidently comes off that way).

I know we aren't a country or "government" but we can certainly draw some fun similarities between the server and body such as those. It just sparked my interests and I hoped it would spark some fun discussion(which it has) :)  Clearly I need to be a bit more verbose in my intentions with this post so I've clarified a few things.

[robveelben]

I always felt that gamming communities or servers work more like a company then a goverment and think it is funny when people compare them as they are very different in nature paradise give us a service and holds the right to that service we can choose to agree or disagree (depending how you disagree it may be considered or your kicked out) the way how admins and suchs work is mostly on a voluntery bases as a employee of the server. While the heads are in essence the ceos of the server.

 

This is a very simple explaination to how I see it. Most communities work more like a company then a goverment and this is a very general statement to many other server/ gaming communities on the internet.

[necaladun]

7 hours ago, Sirryan2002 said:

Perhaps I should have clarified more that this was just me playing around with some ideas rather than defining our server in a negative way and that my view certainly isn't what you think I may have been propagating through this post(even if it accidently comes off that way)

Sorry if I came off a bit harsh there, my sincere apologies. I do get it's just playing around! I've had too many people over the years act as if by playing on the server for 10 minutes they're a citizen and the admins owe them something. Idiots invoking the amendments of the US constitution makes my eyes roll so much I have long term ocular damage. On top of that, people demanding things like 'transparency' at time has invoked a certain entitlement one has to the Government that rules you, as opposed to the nerds who post memes in their private staff chat (yes sometimes about players).

A company is a better analogue, except we're a company that gives things away for free....so that's weird. We don't have a profit or loss or anything - the goal isn't to make a profit, so more akin to a non-profit company.

Oligarchy works for the small group structure, that selects who can and can't joint it - although that is usually one that's emerged from other groups. In this case the oligarchy is like the...founding members of a new colony on a new planet. 

Constitutional I think is a bit wrong because it overstates how the rules and structure contain us. We don't really follow it that closely and just use it as a guideline.

Technocratic would work for some of the maints, because technological skills are so vital to the position.

Due to the small size, I think we're more akin to tribal structures. 

 

[necaladun]

Also what we are now as opposed to earlier is interesting - the early days were just outright dictatorship. Before we even had 'head admins' or any structure, I had the title "El Presidente" for awhile. It was a lot easier to run things when the staff team is a dozen people. Staff were hired at a whim with no accountability, and there was absolutely no rules for how staff have to operate. Some of our earliest ban reasons are things like "lol no go away".

Did you know there are 97 people in the staff discord? If you include the people who were staff before the discord/left it entirerly, we've had over 100 staff over the years!

[Sirryan2002]

I think y'all got it on point with us being more of a "company." Also if we're more of a tribe structure, I motion to replace the Head of Staff title with "chieftain"

[Gatchapod]

On 6/3/2021 at 8:13 PM, Sirryan2002 said:

I think y'all got it on point with us being more of a "company." Also if we're more of a tribe structure, I motion to replace the Head of Staff title with "chieftain"

Then the host should clearly be renamed to the firekeeper.

Fire goes out even for a second and there's a major uproar. Gods forsake the tribe as it collapses, one half of it breaking the sacred taboo of IC in OOC and the other trying to flay the firekeeper alive for failing his vital duty.

[AffectedArc07]

11 minutes ago, Gatchapod said:

Then the host should clearly be renamed to the firekeeper.

Fire goes out even for a second and there's a major uproar.

Why do you think I get no sleep and always seem pissed off