In an earlier essay, I talked about STARFLEET’s problem with the illusion of prestige, and how it can attract sad people like moths to a flame. Short version: Hurt people hurt people. But there have to be more pieces to that puzzle, right? We can’t really have that many members lashing out because they’re upset with something going on in their own lives. Surely not everyone scrapping on an E-mail list has those kinds of problems. It’s just not statistically likely.
A lot of people are simply bored.
That doesn’t really sound like a STARFLEET problem.
Hear me, people of Earth: It is absolutely a STARFLEET problem.
We’ve talked about chapter support and why chapters aren’t getting it. One of the myriad problems with not having great chapter support is that eventually people will start looking toward the center. The less emphasis STARFLEET puts on chapters, the more emphasis it places on itself.
I’m going to say that again. I’ll even center it. And make it bold. It’s that important.
The less emphasis STARFLEET puts on chapters, the more emphasis it places on itself.
These members have been sold a product, and part of it is that they’ve joined the world’s largest Star Trek fan club. They’ll start to wonder why everything in STARFLEET is so glacial, why nothing seems to happen. They’ll start to think that hey, we’re in the largest Star Trek fan club, there should certainly be more communication from STARFLEET. There should be something going on. We should be hearing more from the Admiralty Board. We’re the world’s largest Star Trek fan club and no one is talking. What are they hiding?
Two important points:
- 5,000 members isn’t even close to the largest Star Trek fan club in the world, but I can understand why you bought into the hype. It hasn’t been true for a long time.
- The most active STARFLEET project provides you with an incredible opportunity to do homework.
I loved the episode of Star Trek when the Enterprise crew nailed the Algebra final.
Folks get frustrated and they get annoyed and they get bored. They’ll argue. I understand that some people have issues, but I prefer to think of my fellow STARFLEET members as good people. I’m optimistic. Yes. Some of them are weird. But even the weird ones tend to be genuinely kind people. I have seen evidence for this many, many times. STARFLEET members tend to be good people. But they get bored, and boredom fosters a desire for entertainment.
Historically, STARFLEET tries to have it both ways. It doesn’t embrace new programs at the international level that are interesting and engaging, but it doesn’t want to put a lot of effort into new projects to support chapters, either.
STARFLEET needs to look at every argument on a mailing list or every fight on the Facebook page as a failure. They need to pay attention, adjust the universal translator and see these arguments not as a personality dispute but as an opportunity for positive change. Write it down on a piece of paper.
September 14th. We’ve spent three days watching an argument unfold. Could we have prevented this by engaging these members with something cool a month ago?
I don’t really have a name for this, but I’m going to call it the Monopoly Theory. Monopoly is well-known for destroying friendships. But maybe the real problem is that people got so bored that rather than do something fun together, they decided to play Monopoly.
Some people will get so bored that they’ll play STARFLEET.
No one wins.