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# System prepended metadata

title: Paradise Station Staff Structure

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# Paradise Station Staff Structure

## Section 1: General Organization

Paradise Station's staff structure will be broken up into 3 equal branches: Administration, Development, and Server.

Organizational Level operations will be managed by the leadership board, as described below.

Each branch will be autonomous, only reporting to the board.

## Section 2: Administration Branch

### Leadership team: Head Admins
#### Permissions
In game: All minus +MAINTAINER, +DEV_TEAM, +VIEWRUNTIMES
Operations Permissions: None. May be granted upon request to and at discretion of the Server Host.
Discord: Admin
#### Duties
* Leadership and Direction of the Administrative Branch
* Ensuring ban appeals, player complaints, and admin complaints are resolved in a timely manner
* Enforcing administrator guidelines
* Moderating interpersonal conflicts within their branch of staff
* This role is to be held IN ADDITION to the role of a Game Admin
* Head Admins will serve a 2 month orientation phase, followed by a one year term in office, concluded by a 1 month phase out period.
* After 1 year in office, a poll will be held among the admin team to see if the head admin will serve a second term. If successful, an election will not be held.
* Head Admins are not able to serve more than two consecutive terms 
#### Hiring
##### Eligibility 
* Any Game Admin with at least 3 months tenure.
* Game Admins who have retired must have 1 month tenure post retirement.
* No significant disciplinary actions as a Game Admin
* There is to be 3 Head Admins at all times
##### Process of Selection
* One current Head Admin will oversee the election process
* Once the process of Head Admin selection begins, there will be a 1 week time period for eligible Game Admins to declare candidacy.
* The following week, voting will occur.
* Voting will be done via single transferable vote.
    * Each full game admin will rank the candidates.
    * if 51% of 1st choice votes go to a candidate, they will win the vote
    * If less than 51% of first choice votes go to any candidate, the candidate with the least first choice votes will be eliminated from the election. The votes of the Game Admins that voted for this candidate will then be cast for their second choice. This process will repeat until one candidate has 51% of the vote.
    * This process is repeated until a candidate has 51% of votes.
    * In the event of a 50/50 tie, the board will make a single tie-breaking vote.
* After the conclusion of voting, the newly elected head admin will take office within 48 hours.
##### Removing a Head Admin
Head Admins may be removed via a Vote of No Confidence
* This is a simple yes/no poll. Only full Game Admins may vote. Voting will last for 3 days (72 Hours).
* If 51% of votes casts are in favor, the head admin is to be removed within 48 hours of the poll ending, and the selection process is to begin.
* If the Vote fails, 30 days must pass before the same Head Admin can be eligible for a Vote of No Confidence. 

### Member Team: Community Managers
#### Permissions
No new permissions are granted with this role
Discord: Manage Emojis
#### Duties
* Coordination and Oversight of In-Game events
* Engaging with the server community on a regular basis
* Cooperation with development to collect feedback on community matters, then relaying findings to server staff
* Organizing and leading community meetings at LEAST every six months
* Managing the mentor team, including hiring, removal and disciplinary action.
* All duties required of a Game Admin
#### Hiring
* Any Game Admin with at least 3 months tenure.
* Game Admins who have retired must have 1 month tenure post retirement.
* No significant disciplinary actions as a Game Admin
* There is to be 3 Community Managers at all times
### Member role: Game Admins
#### Permissions
In game: Everything minus +PERMISSIONS, +DEV_TEAM and +MAINTAINER. Note: permissions can be altered on a case by case basis by the Head Admins or Leadership Board.
#### Duties
* Standardized enforcement of the server rules both in game and on the discord
* Running events, both small and large
* Handling ban Appeals and Player complaints within 14 days of posting.
* Inactivity periods of 90 days or greater may result in automatic retirement
#### Hiring
Completion of a trial admin phase.
### Member role: Trial Admins
#### Permissions
In-Game: +ADMIN, +BAN, +DEBUG, +REJUV, +STEALTH
Operations permissions: NONE
Discord: Audit log, Kick/ban, manage nicknames, manage messages
#### Duties
* Standardized enforcement of the server rules both in game and on the discord
* Handling ban Appeals and Player complaints within 14 days of posting.
* Learning the function of administrative tools
* * Inactivity periods of 90 days or greater may result in automatic retirement or failure of trial period.
#### Hiring
* First, an applicant will complete application on the forums when opened to the public, or with vouch from an active Game Admin
* If the applicant lacks any disciplinary action in the past 6 months, and the majority of the head admins vote in favor, the application will moved to the second phase: interview and a Game Admin team vote.
* A Head Admin or appointed Game Admin will perform an interview with the candidate. This interview will be performed over text. 
* Results of the interview are to be posted into a forum thread in the admin section
* 51% of active Game Admins must vote in favor of accepting the applicant. 
* If this vote is successful, the candidate will be promoted to trial admin
* 50% or less of votes in favor will result in the applicant's application being declined.
### Member Role: Mentors
#### Permissions
In-Game: +MENTOR
Operations Permissions: NONE
Discord permissions: NONE
#### Duties
* Answer mentor help tickets in game
* Set an example for the greater community
#### Hiring
* Any player with no formal warnings in the past 3 months and "reasonable expirence" may apply to join the mentor team.
* Mentor applications are to be posted on the forums.
* Applications may be opened at the request of the Community Managers, or an individual may be invited to apply by any Game Admin
* All active game admins will vote yes/no on a poll in the thread containing the application.
* 51% of votes must be cast in favor for the application to be accepted.

## Section 3: Development Branch

The development branch is outlined here: https://www.paradisestation.org/dev/policy/

### Member teams include:
Headcoders (leadership)
Maintainers
Review Team
Issue Managers
Design Team
Mapping Team
Sprite Team
Lore Team

## Section 4: Server Branch

### Leadership Role: Server Host
#### Permissions
In game: +EVERYTHING
    * +PERMISSIONS may only be used at the request of another head (coder or admin)
Operational Permissions: Full Database Permissions, TM access, VPN access.
#### Duties
* Managing server back-end resources
* Ensuring the server provider is paid within acceptable time limits
* Ensuring server cybersecurity
* Coordinating with the Development Branch to ensure security components are updated
* Acting as the final authority on all back-end or technical security decisions

#### Keyholder Policy
The Host must designate one emergency key holder. This individual must be approved by the Leadership Board
* The keyholder will have root level access to any and all Paradise systems if the host is unable to continue their role due to circumstances such as death.
* Should the keyholder retire from staff, a new keyholder is to be appointed, and access transferred within 24 hours
* The server host must maintain documentation of all systems in the event of an emergency
#### Hiring
Unanimous vote of the Leadership Board

### Member Role: Server Dev
#### Permissions
In-game: +ADMIN, +STEALTH
Operations Permissions: VPN access
#### Duties
* Manage server back end resources
* Ensure server cyber security 

#### Hiring
Unanimous approval of Host and leadership board.


## Section 5: Leadership

* The server as an organization will be lead by the leadership board
* The board will consist of
    * One Head Admin
    * Development Lead, or Head coder if not avaialble (see Dev structure)
    * The Server Host
    * The Finance Officer (Non-Voting, see below)

* The Leadership board will be responsible for the overall management and direction of the server at an organizational level
* The board should not interfere with the actions of a branch unless requested by that branch, or there is significant risk to the server requiring intervention
* The board should meet at minimum monthly to discuss the state of the server and ongoing issues
* Each branch's leadership team will internally appoint their representative to the board.
* The Server Host MUST represent the Server branch
* The Server Host may relinquish their vote to the Finance Officer. This may be rescinded at any time.
## Section 6: Staff Discipline and Activity
### Activity and Retirement
Any member of any branch may ask to retire at any time. A member of a branch's leadership team should give at least two week notice of their intent to retire.

There are two states of retirement
**On leave:** Retirement with the intent to return in six months. Permissions will not be changed. If the staff member fails to return in six months, they will be presumed fully retired.
**Retired:** Full retirement and removal of permissions. Depending on the circumstances, retired staff members may request un-retirement at any time at the Discretion of their former branch('s) head(s)

**Activity requirements**
All staff members should be active in the community at least monthly. Failure to be active in the community for 6 months will result in retirement or removal from staff. 

Leadership positions should be active in the community at ABSOLUTE MINIMUM on a weekly basis.
Other certain roles may have stricter timeframes.

### Staff Disciplinary policy

Discipline of staff for violation of each departments policy will be at the direction of that departments head.

#### Admin/Server branch Disciplinary Policy
After one major policy violation, a staff member may be removed outright, or placed on probation for 6 months.

If a second gross violation occurs, they are to be removed from staff. 

Minor violations may be handled with a warning, though no more than 2 should be given within a 12 month period.

##### Examples of policy violations
Minor: Actions unbecoming of a staff member, such as toxicity in the public discord may be considered minor infractions

Major: Abuse of permissions for gameplay advantages, threatening administrative action, etc.

#### Special Case: Head Vote of No-Confidence
Any Staff Member may initiate a Vote of No-Confidence with the intent of removing ***their*** Head (*Administrators for Head admin and Developers for Head Coder*) from their position. Staff members may NOT VONC a head of a branch they are not a member of. This must be done via a discord or Forum Post with a Poll in the correct Forum Section for that branch, and must contain:
* A second Staff Member who will vouch for the Vote
* A detailed reason for calling the Vote
* Examples of any behavior that illustrates the above reason. Evidence is NOT optional when accusing someone of wrongdoing.
After the Vote is called, it must be announced to that branch's Staff via the correct Discord Staff Chat. The Staff then has three (3) days to cast their vote
The Vote is considered successful if 50%+1 of the votes are cast in favor of demoting the Head. The Head is then returned to their previous rank, and a new Head Election/promotion is called
Should the Vote fail, no further Votes against that Head may be called within a period of one (1) month

## Section 7: Staff Policy Changes

All policy changes are to be presented to the staff team at large via a thread in the staff discord OR the forums. Changes involving a single branch needs a 51% vote in favor of that change by that branch's members.

A change effecting multiple branches or general policy requires a 51% majority vote made open to all members of Paradise staff.

## Section 8: Discord Permissions