Reinstatement of Gatekeeper Method

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?

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.

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.

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

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. ;)

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/

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!!

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.

A. I completely understand the return of the "Method," but I am so glad it won't last long.

B. Engineering personal provisions are out? This is why you shouldn't try to deck your whole boff roster with fleet armor.

C. Is there a particular number limit on items this time (i.e. one ship per person, 8 weapons, 1 engine/shield/deflector, etc...) or is it just a general "discouragement" for the armor, weapons, and engines provided by Engineering Personal Provisions?

Thanks again for the heads-up beforehand, and being inclusive in the decision-making process. It really means a lot, and I love my fleet because of things like this. :cheer:

I see method and keep thinking "Rhythm Method" Can we call it the Provision Protocol?

Quote by mrgig00

C. Is there a particular number limit on items this time (i.e. one ship per person, 8 weapons, 1 engine/shield/deflector, etc...) or is it just a general "discouragement" for the armor, weapons, and engines provided by Engineering Personal Provisions? :

This has been brought up and is being discussed.
Tell me, what do you think would be a good limit? Or would a limit be a good idea at all?
This is an open discussion:) looking forward to your input

I think it might be a good idea to start out with limitations on some items, just so we can build up our supply of engineering provisions. Once we're stable again we'd be able to lift some of those restrictions. My 2!

Quote by Araa

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.

You favor the more cautious approach? Not the way I remember it. In our last round of this debate, there were calls for caution and you were having none of it. The more cautious approach was to avoid this eminently-forseeable state of affairs in the first place. We can debate what got us here, but your overabundance of caution wasn't one of them! LOL.

In any case, does this mean that this discussion has finally moved on from "trust and egalitarianism and liberty" and "allow anyone in the fleet to buy directly from the stores" and "I'd totally leave the door open" then? Thank the gods!

And, always thinking of our desire to continually improve the fleet, there may be a lesson in this outcome.

Ya think? You were the one who said "I tell ya, whenever the lowering of the gates eventually does happen, it'll be the biggest non-event there ever was." Just dying to hear what lesson you think there is in all of this...

As you may recall, every member involved in our previous discussion was concerned about this happening and suggested ways to avoid it.

That's not how I recall it at all. Luckily, we don't have to rely on our recollections, we can go back and read what people wrote. And that is not the way it was. People were saying things like "you can't walk in to the provision store and empty it" and "because our provisions continue to increase over time, so we don't really need the quotas" and "I do not see the harm [] if we opened up access to the fleet store" and "personally, I feel there's so little actually worth buying in fleet stores that it shouldn't be [a problem]". Oh, look at that, we can also cut-and-paste what they actually wrote! The wonders of modern technology!

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

Baloney. They did exactly what you demanded they do.

I am glad we have gone back to the "gatekeeper" system, because it eliminates the risk of raids on the store and and discourages over-consumption. Also, it was working just fine before and didn't need fixing. I hope and pray that we keep it that way for good. We cannot run enough projects to provision a fleet of 500 people without strict controls. That is not opinion, that is math. Supply will never, ever meet the demand in a fleet this large. And that, John, is the lesson in this outcome, in case you were unclear on that point.

Oh, and just one more time for fun...

Quote by Araa

I tell ya, whenever the lowering of the gates eventually does happen, it'll be the biggest non-event there ever was.

As a temporary stop-gap measure I feel it is fine to re-institute the Gatekeeper..Protocol (nodes graciously at Aikune@whitonmyoji) until that department is back up to manageable levels. If it should arise again I would support this measure again if necessary but hope that with a few adjustments it will not need to be. This issue is no ones fault and a simple miscalculation in the supply vs. demand of certain fleet provisions. Now that we know we can adjust our fleet projects according to offset the imbalances.

Crows of righteous victory and vindication from the new system's nay-sayers aside bless their hearts, this truly is not the end of the world and can be attributed to simple oversight and mitigating factors that did not originally exist.

Nick clearly stated that the reason for the shortage was most likely the lack of adequate provisioning due to other active projects in other areas. Only one department of the fleet store had trouble so if statistics can be considered viable math, the new system had far higher percentage rate of success than failure and was not necessarily the result of greedy players.

We've also had a tremendous influx of new members (Yay new members! :cheer: ) since we've instituted this change and many of them were not fully aware of the previous Gatekeeper system and the great deliberations we engaged in to change it and why. Since we had so many new members at a time when the provisions were unable to be quickly and easily replenished so lets chock it up to a few growing pains and move forward.

Araa did in-fact propose a longer wait period than was decided and so did I and many others, and we were all a little surprised at how short the period decided was.

Another factor to consider is the fact that maybe so many more players (not necessarily new ones) made use of the fleet store under the new system, who under the old Gatekeeper system apparently did not. It could be considered a clear indication that many of us were uncomfortable in asking for permission from an officer for access, many that did not speak up on the forums for one reason or another.

The fact that only one department is temporarily depleted is no cause for the kind of reactionary, pugilistic rhetoric designed to change people's minds by scaring them into a more conservative stance bless their hearts. But I suppose we're all products of our environment in one way or another. I am very happy to have been invited to offer my opinion on this matter along with the rest of our wonderful community and have full confidence in our ability to solve this minor but still important issue.

Hee hee hee, think we can get an even longer thread? I'll be brief...

@Voleron - Sorry, you're totally right and I used sloppy language. We're not totally open, I was just poorly expressing my feeling that the two week + vetting barrier is lower than I'm really comfortable with. The bigger question is, does anyone think fraud is one of the causes of the problem?? Any weird registrations/departures? If it's not happening, then we can happily ignore the entire concern!

@Traull - Good question... my feeling is that we only put a voluntary quota on the one class of provisions that is limited exhausted. And since that's just ground weapons/shields/armor, I like the idea of returning to a max of 4 items until the provision count is stable. Then we slowly increase the number and ensure no one's using them for their BOFFs. [Edit: Just realized this is pretty much exactly what bullocaj said]

@ToddO - Yes, you do get to do a bit of an 'I told you so' dance, as the most conservative voice in the debate. But I still feel that this was the right decision with a net gain for the fleet. Resources are now being used and enjoyed rather than sitting in a bank, and the administrative burden has been lowered for everyone. And it was kind of a non-event in that we're only temporarily out of one provision; not a big deal and a normal part of the growing pains of the process. We'll hopefully be back to normal and supplying everyone as soon as the fab bottleneck issue is out of the way, potentially with some additional precautionary constraints in place [TBD]. Stay tuned, success is on the way!

Quote by Araa

we're only temporarily out of one provision; not a big deal and a normal part of the growing pains of the process.

Not temporarily. We cannot run enough projects to supply a 500-member fleet. As I said, this is math. So here is the math with greater specificity:

There are 4 different engineering personal provisioning projects. (One costs 200,000 dilithium for 10 provisions and is not getting filled even when we do run it, so I'm not counting that one.)

There are three others, each of which takes 20 hours to complete once we fully fund it. So the MAXIMUM number of times we could run each of those projects in a week is 8.4 times. That assumes that we instantly fund each project as soon as it is available. If we did that, and ran no other projects at all, we would make 378 engineering personal provisions each week.

And those 378 engineering personal provisions would cost us:

15,120 Fleet Marks
1,344,000 Dilithium
1,008,000 Expertise
10,080 Data Samples
6,300 Industrial Energy Cells

Those are the costs per week.

Now, considering that this would get us 378 provisions to be shared by 500 people, what are the chances that we are going to get people to contribute at this level? So we can safely project that we are never going to get anywhere near 378 provisions produced per week. Moreover, the interface doesn't allow us to run those projects that often. Let's say we managed to fund and complete each project 3 times per week (which would only cost 480,000 dilithium per week): that would give us a production of 135 per week.

On the demand side: Let's say each fleet member buys one thing a month from the store. A fleet ship weapon or whatever. That is a demand of 125 per week. Very close.

Now, what if Cryptic comes out with a new ship? Like a couple of Dominion carriers or a Breen cruiser or an Ambassador-class. Crazy, I know, but bear with me. Suddenly, people are buying alot more than one thing a month. Even if people only buy an average of 2 things from the store per month, the demand will consistently be double the available supply. This is why our ability to supply the store with provisions is never going to keep up with demand in a fleet this large. Math.

These numbers are still going to be there even after our other projects are done. It is a permanent condition. Not temporary. And that is why we need permanent controls on the store so that we can regulate access and make sure that provisions are available on a fair basis. This existed and worked before, and it will work again. But it must be permanent and it cannot be less than the full "shopkeeper" system we had before.

You have a simple choice: the inconvenience of finding a fleet captain (or other responsibe empowered party) when you want to get into the store versus perpetual and chronic shortages. There is no magic compromise where you get to avoid both of these, not in a fleet of 500 members.

We'll hopefully be back to normal and supplying everyone

It is starting to feel like it does when you are arguing against climate-change deniers or birthers. We cannot supply everyone! So stop saying that.

specious [ˈspiːʃəs]
adj
1. apparently correct or true, but actually wrong or false
2. deceptively attractive in appearance

Yeahhh... Math was never my strong suit but thankfully logic and reason always have been. Logically, if other fleets our size with our active player base had this problem, best believe they'd have made a huge racket on the forums about it by now. Has anyone heard such murmurings and if so could they please provide a link on the STO forums? If not, then one can reason that since other fleets get along just fine with balancing their provisioning projects, so too can we. Once we get to tier 5 I'm sure all of this will blow over but I really encourage others to please add your opinions as you have been invited to do so and your input is important. :)

Quote by Jacien

Has anyone heard such murmurings and if so could they please provide a link on the STO forums?

You're right. I haven't seen anyone talking about this on the STO forums. Not even people from our fleet. Who from our fleet has gone on the STO forums to complain about our lack of provisions? Not me. Not you. So I guess that having this problem doesn't really guarantee that the result will be a "huge racket" on the forums. After all, if we aren't making a fuss about it in public, then one can reason that other people don't do so, either.

If not, then one can reason that since other fleets get along just fine with balancing their provisioning projects, so too can we.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Your statement is engaging in argumentum ad ignorantiam, which is a informal logical fallacy. Strong suit? Really?

Once we get to tier 5 I'm sure all of this will blow over

You were also sure that opening up the store would lead to no problems. I believe your exact words at the time were that "a valid and apparently popular argument is being made that the system could stand to be reformed without incident". Yet, here we are, debating how to deal with the resulting incident.

@Todd, my math comes out very, very differently than yours, as I think the demand side is far smaller than you expect. For example, I haven't had anything from the store in months and don't intend to. What were we running before using the gatekeeper, a demand of 10-20 eng provisions per week max vs. a 160/week supply limit? Seems easy to do, and if demand has shot up, guess what, that could be a sign of the success of the new program. Unless we all believe the shortage is due to fraud/overpurchasing, the lack of that one provision could be a great sign that members are enjoying the base and it's benefits more than they were. Then the simple question is, can we meet demand?

And rather than get caught up in using very different assumptions to drive our math, it`s easy to test this stuff empirically. We just get rid of the fab bottleneck, issue some guidelines to the fleet ("don't go crazy with the weapons people") and do a few weeks of (not 250k dil) provisioning projects to estimate the latent demand. Simple, and no one gets hurt. Then we check in in a couple of weeks and see what we do next. It's totally normal for these kinds of program changes to need a few iterations and adjustments along the way.

And as a reminder, all the other provisions are working fine and with no admin at all... so let's see if a few tweaks can solve our little problem first.

Let's try to keep this discussion on track. I fully recognize that this is a sensitive topic for many people who had strong opinions one way or another, prior to us trialling a new policy with respect to the fleet stores.

That being said, I think that it was important for us to proceed with the trial, because without at least attempting something different, we couldn't be sure exactly in which area or to what extent, we'd face provisioning challenges.

Like Bao, I haven't purchased any fleet weapons for my ship either, nor do I plan to in the near future. I suspect that there are others who don't care to make those sorts of purchases from fleet stores and others yet, who don't have the fleet credits or dilithium to make the purchases they might like. Of the 450-some fleet members in Stonewall, I don't suspect that all are at max level or even know about the fleet stores. It's because of these extraneous variables that a non-gatekeeper trial was the only way to provide those answers to the membership, so that everyone could weigh in with their opinion on how to manage the fleet stores moving forward, while having as much information as possible with respect to the pros and cons of both methods.

I kept a close eye on our provision levels throughout the trial, and it wasn't until my check on December 31st, that we began to encounter challenges in keeping up with demand in the engineering personal provisions. This means that we've been out of provisions for three and a half weeks or so. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a disastrous situation, and it's something we'll be able to recover from in short order. I think that the knowledge we gained in return was worth this minor and temporary inconvenience.

We'd very much appreciate receiving as much input from as many different members of the fleet as possible on this topic, but if the thread degenerates into personal attacks, it's likely going to discourage people from joining the conversation.

Being part of a large fleet means that we reap the benefits of being members of a big community, namely having access to high tier fleet equipment before many other fleets. Sometimes that also means that there is a cost associated with being but one voice in a chorus of 449 others, in that our personal views and desires may not always be reflected in choices that are made by the membership at large.

Let's make sure that we're polite to each other in these discussions and welcome as many others to join this conversation as possible by keeping things civil and not monopolizig the thread, so that our way forward is truly representative of the will of the membership.