Introduction
Hey all! I am a 21 year old real-life firefighter and EMT, and I’ve been exposed to every branch of emergency and public services literally my entire life. I’ve always been one to put as much effort as I can possibly afford into my volunteer opportunities, which includes my online presence. This means that I will do actual work for you and your community if you give me a home. I also have experience in all levels of education, and my professional standards are very high. Any tasks related to office technology would be easily accomplished. The final thing I would say is that I am an extremely organization minded individual. Consulting on organizational structure and health is a strong skill of mine, and much of my free time is spent designing optimizations for organizations, fictional and real.
I’ve been at this search for the right community for over 3 years now. Many mistakes were made along the way. I have been a member of DoJRP (an experience I’d rather forget), Lonely Island RP (now gone, though great while it lasted), and StatewideRP. Simply, a wide variety of FiveM communities miss major marks. Usually it’s something to do with overvaluation of the community, power trips and bureaucracy, immaturity, or general ignorance toward and from community members. Before I decide whether I need to embark on the harrowing journey to establish a community myself, I figure I’ll manifest something to see if what I’m seeking is already out there.
If you solicit your community and it fails any of these marks, I’ll be sure to let you know. I may be willing to work with communities as a consultant on a case by case basis.
Community structure
- Clear and well-defined hierarchy. This could mean “only admins are staff” or “supervisor roles are staff” or something similar. No wishy washy “only some supervisors are staff” or a million levels of admin.
- Activity requirements must be (1) flexible, (2) non-existent, or (3) on the extreme end of liberal reason, without membership treated like a job. Examples of this would be (1) “we appreciate our members who are active more than 4 hours per month, so here’s [insert activity incentive]”, (2) “we value our members’ time as much as they value their own, so we simply appreciate any time spent with us”, or (3) “we know you’re a generally active member, so as long as you don’t go missing for months, it’s okay”. This should also come without the expectation of filling out forms, LOAs, or any other sort of “time off request/notice”—it’s a video game, not a job.
- Mature leadership that respect the organization. It’s not enough to respect the people, you have to respect what you’ve built and the very structure that the people fit in.
- Members are allowed to use their skills to better the community. Communities in which members need to wait for “vacant positions” or win a competitive selection process to contribute are communities which will not succeed.
- There must be a robust accountability system. Bullies should not have free reign based on their status. There are too many staff/admin bullies in communities to allow actions to occur behind closed doors. There must be a watchdog. Avoid “we’re figuring it out and we’ll make a release about this later”. Transparency is the best policy.
- Preferred: No “owner” rank. Co-owners may be acceptable if it’s truly cooperative, meaning every owner in the community has equal say (i.e. no owners with “co-owners” below them; only multiple co-owners or multiple owners), just like the real world.
- Preferred: Negotiable if willing to accept consultation. The organization must be freestanding, even when most or all positions are vacant. Your community should not fall apart because a single member or group of members was/were the foundation. The organization should have been designed from the ground up, with room for adaptation with growth or shrinkage.
- Preferred: Events but no required scheduled patrols.
Server features
- Menu based only (e.g. vMenu). I struggle to see the fun in RP when you have to grind for everything anyway. Plus, who wants to go to work in a video game after work?
- Massive changes to the UI are a no go. It takes hours to learn the game in the first place, even more to learn to RP. There’s no reason players should have to relearn a custom UI to play effectively on your server.
- In game chat stays in game. I don’t want to be dealing with an auxiliary proximity voice chat like the weird TeamSpeak and Mumble plugins. There’s a reason text and voice is available in game.
- Be sure all server features work. If a feature doesn’t work with your server, it needs to be removed until it does. There’s not much of an excuse for partially functional servers.
- Preferred: Let’s avoid Christmas tree vehicles. Mkay? Realistic configurations are prettier anyway.
Infrastructure and documentation
- Basic documents should be easy to locate, and ideally public. This includes rules/guidelines, community requirements, FAQs, public rosters, and SOPs if any exist.
- Publicly accessible documents should be up to date. Either have a plan for an old version to expire when the new one is ready, or don’t take down the old one until there is a guarantee on the new one. There should be no “oh, we’re working on that, it’s a WIP”.
- “Radio traffic” channels need to exist in some form. The preferable ideal is having two platforms for different communications (e.g. Discord for closed communications and TeamSpeak for radio).
- Preferred: Document organization is structured and decentralized. If the top person in the community leaves, or a department head leaves, or any other member leaves, the documents should not go with them. Creating a system where multiple people have access and safeguards is necessary.
- Preferred: Learning resources for community members. Community members should not be required to wait for a trainer or a class to better themselves in the community.
- Preferred: An easy way to donate. I have no hesitation with regards to donating financially to your community when I have the money available. This is an expensive project, and I understand the dedication that goes into founding and creating a community.
I’m not seeking any particular position in a community either, unless we’re discussing consultative services. Even then, it is only in the capacity of an outside consultant. I so hope to be proven wrong about my pessimistic feelings that such a community does not (yet) exist. I’m a learner, and I’m searching for a “forever home” of sorts with y’all. Hoping for the best!
Discord: dross#1913
Email: ff.dr.rp [at] gmail [dot] com
Previously titled: Dedicated member looking to be adopted into my forever home