I don't want people around that see linksacks as rank, or any form of rank thereof. That tells me they are more concerned with themselves rather than the team as a whole. Every team has a captain, but if people are going to see the LS as a organization in which you can move up and gain power, then fighting is bound to occur. This usually starts with a disrepectful remark to someone that feels that they should have more respect than others.
Tivia, you have my vote, but only if you can maintain the Team disposition. Pulling rank, is a nasty action that never ends well for either party.
We are a Team, We are Equal, We work Together, We have Fun. That is what I want to see.
As long as you can prevent the story "Animal Farm", then I say the job is yours. Oh and you have to be able to break the shell reform if we are violated beyond repair should someone.... you know, pull a Titan server. If I have to live through that again I swear you will never hear the end of it. I'm not completely against non-tail types having a sack, I just think they need to be put through the ropes for a long, long time, before we can trust em with it. They also need to understand that mithras come first. I just don't want people to have to burn up time messing with alts when they could be improving our pride.
So how about this: Tails only until we need to change. That way it isn't imposible and we maintain the flexability you asked for, and nobody has to go out of their way to do extra pointless stuff.
First up, I just want to give thanks to all of you who didn't leave MithraPride for dead, for stepping up and taking control where I failed to provide. You all have my utmost respect.
I've managed to setup a test site, complete with a copy of all the data, with which to figure out how to ensure a smooth upgrade to the boards here. There have been some tweaks applied, not all documented (actually, probably none documented), so it's going to be an interesting process. It's been a busy week though, so I've not managed to get beyond that. Perhaps later today I'll be able to actually attempt a test upgrade, but it's not fair to y'all to have to deal with my lack of time/will.
MithraPride is the community's now. It's not mine, not Firemyst's, not Creve's, and not Tigara's. I would love to see it flourish once more, but y'all deserve better than I've given you thus far. If someone else would like to try their paw at maintaining the place, I'll see what I can do about setting you up with FTP access to the test site first (and then later the live site), and with enabling raw access to the database. If y'all would rather scrap the boards and start over with a fresh install, I can do that too. Whatever you decide, you've got my support.
I definitely agree with your assessment, Tivia, and I'm willing to get on your bandwagon. I also want to do everything I can to make the group successful. I've got a degree in business management and I've been an officer in a WoW raiding guild for a couple of years.
Let me know what you'd like from me.
-Keerith
See you later, space cowboy!
[FFXIV: Keerith Galeo, Priestess of Ormagöden]
"Can't bend what's made of metal / We're reinforced with steel / We never will surrender / We never kneel." - Made of Metal, by Dream Evil
Golddess is going to let me play with the test site. As soon as I can get it to where we need it, we'll move it to the main site, and then we'll start pulling kitties in.
Ok then, here is my proposal for how we should go forward (tentative given I am by no means officially leading this yet).
Concerning the role of Leader, my take is and always has been that the position is one to give overall direction to the team. It is not a position to be dictating to everyone how they need to play. As mentioned earlier, I am also of the belief that a "pulling of rank" is not the design or intent of the position most of the time. There are like many things exceptions to that, I would intervene/pull rank or whatever you want to call it to resolve a conflict in the better interest of the guild as a whole for example. However most of the time the core members should be able to resolve conflict without my intervention.
The term officer/sackholder is a little different in FF vs other games, as such I recognize it needs to be handled differently. Most of the command structure would be more of a verbal thing and recognized on the forums (Something that I feel the use of should be strongly encouraged of all members). Just because someone holds a sack for example, doesn't make them part of leadership per se, just someone who we feel is trustworthy enough to not abuse it. Please bear in mind, I use the terms officer/leader and such a little loosely, more of points of reference then anything.
How I propose the shell operates;
Shell owner/leader - Tivia
Responsibilities - Keeping the overall peace in the shell, providing an overall goal for members to strive for, resolving conflict if core members are unable too, assigning linksacks or removing if called for.
Notes: While I will be the leader, I cannot remove members without consent of a majority vote of the core members, nor can I make changes that impact the team as a whole without that same vote.
Inner Core - These will be members who are trusted with the most responsibility. Primarily event leaders/organizers, recruiters as well as conflict resolution within the shell. I overwhelmingly prefer this group to be made up of long time MP forum members early on as you guys have the most experience with how MP is and should be. However those wanting to be Inner core will need a reasonably regular play schedule so they are in tune with the daily goings on. I prefer to have no more then 5-8 IC members depending on how large MP becomes.
Outer Core - These will be members who are still highly responsible, but don't have enough play time to be involved in every aspect of MP. Overall the same responsibility as the IC, just larger in number. I prefer to have anywhere between 10-15 OC members, mostly based on Shell need. Generally I would like to have 1 Core member for every 10 regular shell members. This core will initially be comprised of members that I bring over that I feel are up to the task.
Core General responsibilities - In general the Core members are the driving force of the shell. You guys run the guild and make the overwhelming majority of decisions. Decisions will largely be done by vote, with majority vote winning. If things get large and complex enough, I will implement a weighting system for votes. If there ends up a deadlock on the vote in the core, then my vote will be the deciding factor. I however cannot override the decision of the core.
Linksack Holder - General member whom I or at least 3 core members feel is trustworthy enough to hand out pearls.
General Member - Self explanatory
Probation member - While I believe that MP should continue a fairly open door policy, at the same time the virtue (Or lack of) of the internet dictates that new members fall under some scrutiny. All new members will fall under a 30 day probation period where members are merely asked to keep a good eye on them. A discussion thread will be placed on the members boards during this 30 day time and if nothing comes up that would warrant removal, the thread will be locked, archived and the person considered a full member. I expect the FF community being a cut above the typical that this will rarely be more then a formality.
Simply put, I view MP in FFXIV as a core driven linkshell. I have found this works very well even in end game guilds and is my preferred method. I simply dislike 1 person dictating how everything goes, but at the same time i dislike a system that doesn't have someone who can take control in the rare event that it needs to be done. I firmly believe that MP can cater to nearly all types of players in allowing people to have a place to socialize as well as allowing power gamers a base to operate off as well. That said, I do hope we manage to build a power gamer base who tackle end game content. I have systems that can cater to that as well and keep the teams under the same mantle even with different objectives and game styles. Done right i fully believe that casuals and end game players can game side by side. So long as the end game players don't feel like they are being held back by the casuals and so long as the casuals don't feel like the end gamers are forcing something on them they don't want, all should be well.
I understand your concern; you don't want someone busting in and hijaking the LS. We don't give everyone a sack though - just people we trust, as many as possible.
If Mithra Joe is a casual, one-night-a-week player who nonetheless is a great upstanding player then I don't think there's anything wrong with letting him recruit. If someone groups with a good, fun player it's nice to be able to say "we could use you in our guild!" And hand over a pearl instead of asking them to wait around for someone else to be free and drop by.
My brother used to play WoW with me. He wasn't an officer and didn't want the responsibility, but he could still recruit and some of our best members came from his friends list. He had a knack for finding them.
-Keerith
See you later, space cowboy!
[FFXIV: Keerith Galeo, Priestess of Ormagöden]
"Can't bend what's made of metal / We're reinforced with steel / We never will surrender / We never kneel." - Made of Metal, by Dream Evil
The three groups are done pretty much for the reasons brought up by Ziyu. Also the numbers are purely speculative based on expected numbers of members. Basically as mentioned the goal is approx 1 core member per 10 regular members. So as a "rough" example, 10 core members would equal about 100 members. While that seems like a good saturation of sacks. However given the nature of FFXI and how spread out play schedules can be, that can make getting new pearls out difficult. I know i have been in much smaller linkshells with 10 sack holders and sometimes getting a pearl to a new member was an exercise in frustration.
Again though, the numbers at this point are purely speculative. Clearly when the game gets started, I expect that the core will be on more then enough to cover. Part of what I am doing here is laying groundwork for long term recruitment and retention. Also as to "Titan" concerns, there is every indication that the shell system in FFXIV will be more robust. This "should" mean that we should have a good deal more control over pearl sacks and pearls.
If possible I'd like to get access to the test DB as well.
Ever since the Zanovo incident I've put the forums on 'lockdown'.
I'd like to see if the new security features permit opening up the forums again.
Aside from that, a little project I stopped earlier with Tianshii was the removal of 0 post (spam) accounts, which proved too much since we had to remove all these accounts individually.
I'm hoping the newer ACP has a query where I can remove all users with <1 post that registered before ... so to speak.
I can in VB.
I'd like to see what the posibilities are in the newer version.
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[21:36] <MarkovBot> Markov2.0, sanity is boring. FFXI: Asura - 14/22 jobs @99
Can't view the test site right now. I error out 90% of the time, so when I do manage to get in I can access a handful of threads mostly because they are cached.
If the new site is PHPBB Shirai, I run a number of those forums myself. I can help you tweak them to open the site and stop the bulk of the spamming. I found a nifty little trick that you basically create a "Spam forum" and it is obvious and avoided by regular members, but spam bots just eat it up. It works well because it keeps them out of the regular forums. There are other ways to address it obviously, will get to those as needed.
"Outer Core - These will be members who are still highly responsible, but don't have enough play time to be involved in every aspect of MP. Overall the same responsibility as the IC, just larger in number."
Outer Core should be more about people who have established themselves within the linkshell, and deserve to be seen as a more adult member.
IC Should be mod status within the forums. Keeping an eye on the larger view of things.
In enlistment terms. (Navy to be specific)
Lets see someone in the leadership position to be the MCPON (Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy). Guy's in charge of everything, but doesn't have the means of keeping an eye on everyone.
So he enlists Chiefs (E-7 through E-9) to help keep an eye on things in different places. People who have been in, and know what to do if things go wrong.
And then Petty Officers (E-4 through E-6) guys relatively new compares to the more senior members, but have been around and know what goes on.
I don't care what the structure looks like, required that everyone is on equal footing. As soon as someone starts a spat that they deserve more than the other I'm going to have to raise hell about it.
Any responsibilities taken up should be considered voluntary and non-beneficial.
Tirial wrote:I don't care what the structure looks like, required that everyone is on equal footing. As soon as someone starts a spat that they deserve more than the other I'm going to have to raise hell about it.
Any responsibilities taken up should be considered voluntary and non-beneficial.
^ This
Anyone in a "leadership" type position found abusing it will find themselves very quickly no longer in said position.
I will write up rules and details and such at a later point. That post was really just a high level synopsis.
How much is there TO abuse, though? It's not like this is a job or something mandated by the Government. Just a group of people enjoying the same entertainment. Participation, both in the LS and in events, is voluntary. Leadership (-n this setting at least) isn't given - it's earned. If you don't like the way a player runs their events, go to someone else's. About the only thing I can see being abused is invitations, and hopefully Tivia will have the ability in game to kick offenders.
I think we really only need one rule - be respectful of the other players.
Hrmmm... Addendum: it'd help if we had set times for events so everyone knew what to expect, but that's more of a guideline and could be determined later.
-Keerith
See you later, space cowboy!
[FFXIV: Keerith Galeo, Priestess of Ormagöden]
"Can't bend what's made of metal / We're reinforced with steel / We never will surrender / We never kneel." - Made of Metal, by Dream Evil
I'm willing to lead the pride again. I felt I did a good job after Creve left and lead us into the largest expansion of kitty linkshells we had the pleasure to enjoy. Sure, I work hard, but I play hard to and think I have what it takes.
If you disagree with me, I'd rather know upfront, but I let someone else lead the pride into retail and had to pick up the pieces. I would rather get a clean slate this time. I mean no disrespect to Tivia. I like the plans already in place in this thread, but I would like to be given the chance again.
