Forum:Federal States/Project Management Discussion
As you all know, over the past four years the number of coordinators for the Federal States project has grown from a single FSA Coordinator to a three-person team of regional coordinators. In that time, the project has continued to grow, but now in its seventh year is relatively old, mature, and stable. While there are several ongoing initiatives proposed in this forum, our current structure has not been able to move them forward. However, most of the "big" things in a collaborative project like ours -- major topography, motorway network, established major cities, etc. -- are already in place and have generally been agreed upon by the community for quite some time.
As a result, the admin team is interested in the community's thoughts on retiring the regional- and (inactive) national-level coordinator roles for the project. (Collaborative states and territories would be unaffected, and would still have their own coordinators to help guide their overall development.) Obviously this isn't to say that the FSA is "done" with national initiatives; far from it of course, judging by the backlog of proposals in this forum. However, creating, discussing, and implementing these initiatives would be done more organically by the community. Wangi and I would continue to handle territory applications/withdrawals and would be available to call proverbial "balls and strikes" in case conversations require moderation, or national-level approvals (e.g., military facilities or new motorway numberings), and to step in if any initiatives would violate OGF rules, but similar to the success of the Deodeca project next door, the FSA would have a less formal meta organizational structure in favor of letting stateowners and regions collaborate and work things out on their own.
This is not a final decision; on the contrary, this forum post is intended to gauge support (or opposition) to the proposal, and to have an open dialogue about any questions or concerns. If, for whatever reason, you do not feel comfortable discussing this in topic a public forum, you are welcome to send me a private message. Additionally, there will be an advisory question on this topic on the (private) omnibus ballot, currently scheduled to get sent out to all active FSA mappers next week. --TheMayor (talk) 21:33, 22 August 2025 (UTC)
- I like the current coordinator system, and I initially only brought up changes because I didn't know if anyone else would want to run for eastern coordinator in my stead. The coordinators might not be as active in building up the country as in the past. However, they're still there and people can reach out to them for help and advice. We shouldn't get rid of that. Will note that coordinators don't have to get in the way of organic collaboration, either. --Fluffr Nuttr (talk) 19:47, 23 August 2025 (UTC)
- While I have no qualms with the coordinator system, I agree that it may not be necessary at this stage in the project's life. Having done it for a while, I see little that a coordinator does that is not already handled by respected people in the project or by the admin team. This likely would not affect anything in the near term, but I do think phasing it out is not the worst thing we could do. In other words, I am fine leaving it in place, but I have no objections to moving away from it either. — Alessa (talk) 21:13, 29 August 2025 (UTC)
Based on feedback and overall project progress, wangi and I have agreed to temporarily vacate all three regional coordinator positions for at least the next six months. We thank Fluffr_Nuttr, Ruadh, and Alessa for their service in their respective positions, and continue to strongly encourage the regions and all stateowners to continue to coordinate and collaborate moving forward. The more recent increased activity on the wiki forums is promising, and we will continue to encourage more dialogue and decision-making here. As there were no submissions for new National Park System entries this cycle, there will be no private ballots sent out; however, please note that there are several active votes through 13 Sep on other initiatives here in the forums. We will re-assess things in advance of the next scheduled omnibus vote in February 2026. -TheMayor (talk) 13:21, 31 August 2025 (UTC)