Ok, here's the longer post on the topic that I promised earlier. It just wasn't something I could write in the middle of a class. ;)

In my initial e-mail to my cabinet, back in the beginning of August, I highlighted that I wanted to make sure that ships had valid specifications. Everyone knows that I'm not an engineering geek. SSSF makes it so that I know where to find that tidbit of information I need, so I don't have to read through paragraphs of writing that's just going to make my head spin. As a player and a GM, I find being able to find what I'm looking for to be invaluable. I've made an educated guess that most of STF doesn't really love big fancy engineering terms and they're more like me. ;) So, that's why valid specifications are important to me and to my administration: they don't assume that everyone knows every bit of technobabble. One of the biggest complaints that I've heard in my five years in STF is that members just presume that other members know everything there is. This is one area that can be remedied.

Continuing with this, I spoke with each of the Fleet Commanders that had one or more ships with invalid specifications in their fleet in early August. As a result of that (and further brainstorming), the Kansas became the Entente and received a valid specification. I then gave Larry permission to follow up as EDir, since COs don't necessarily know they need valid specifications and Larry was offering to suggest new, equivalent classes and such. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know enough about engineering to provide that kind of support on a widescale basis. <G>

Bob IMed me fairly quickly after the e-mails went out with his concerns regarding the Columbus. I spent over two hours trying to work out a compromise that would be satisfactory to Bob, as well as ensure that the ship received valid specifications. I did personal research to see which spec fit with Bob's favored features on the Columbus-class as well as offered to try to get permission to update the class.

During the course of this conversation, Bob threatened to resign as CO of the ship over the matter, as well as making threats that he'd go to Command with it. Obviously, one of those was followed through on. Finally, at the end of the conversation, he said that he would switch to a valid spec and I went over some of the choices with him. He's now decided to take back his word on that.

Honestly, I'm at a loss here. As President, I'm committed to serving the best needs of the club, not only in the present, but in the future. In order to do that, every ship in STF needs to have a valid specification. I knew going into this that wouldn't necessarily make me popular. I've already dedicated hours of my time to trying to make this a painless process; I've even offered the numerous hours it would take to get the specification updated. But, that doesn't seem to be enough.

What I will do is keep my promise that this is your club. Therefore, I pose the following question to the membership. Yes, we're going to have two discussions at once. Eek!

As Emma and Bob pointed out, the President and the appropriate Cabinet members lack the actual authority to enforce a classification change on a ship. The only things that could be done, by the President, are to either remove the CO or to decommission the ship. Obviously, neither of those are a very good solution, but neither is the confusion that an invalid spec can cause, nor the sort of mudslinging that's happened in Command over the past few days. 

The move to SSSF was done as an internal EDept policy change, as opposed to an actual, edictified change. Does this need to be formalized into an edict?

Some pertinent legalese here is from ENERGIE: "This Department is tasked with creating, maintaining and *codifying STF-specific ship specifications* and technology for use by STF, and acting as an Engineering-related resource and knowledge base for STF members." (Emphasis mine.)

Once again, I feel it necessary to emphasize that I want this to be a *clean*, *productive* discussion. I realize that emotions are running high for everyone right now, so please take that extra moment to take a deep breath before making a response.

- Sarah