Rooting Out the Weak Links

[sting]

As LOC approaches the member cap, I'd like to make some of my own suggestions.

It has been discussed that LOC should make an expansion clan. While it may make you think "Wow, we're doing really well on recruiting, we should expand so we can keep doing so," there are some things that I personally feel need done before this takes place.

Firstly, while 100 members is a lot, you must consider the members that are not up to par with what you would expect of a member.

The most important things you would expect of a member is that they are reasonably active, at the least. After checking the clan's web profile, I find that there are 17 people who are not active in the clan within the last two weeks. There are 26 people who are not active in the clan within the last week. I recommend that each member who is not active within the last 2 weeks be immediately removed, unless they have given you prior notice that they are on vacation or have another viable reason as to their absence.

While I do understand that LOC may not be an entirely ladder-based clan, there are limitations that should be placed upon the custom gamers. I feel an icon should be mandatory of each member. Most potential new members will consider the skill level of the clan before they decide to join. As I'm sure many of you will agree, peons do not reflect well upon us. Of course, I don't think that we should remove all our peons without any notice; I think a reasonable deadline, say 2 weeks, would be a good enough amount of time to expect them to reach this requirement.

After these two most important of changes are made, there will be at least 30-40 more vacant spots available to recruit new people into. If this were to happen, we would have to place a strict requirement upon new recruits; say, an icon and at least some activity in the current ladder season.

Let me know what you think.

- Sting

[sneezysausage]

sounds good to me, except I think we should talk to someone before kicking them, and ask them about why they were not on for two weeks if possible.

[ZerG_OverlorD]

I think its a good idea, I have been pondering the same thing aswell. Similar actions will surely be taken before loc will do any expanding or bring back up requirements or something like that. A filter of the clan may take place... And I totally agree with you. But not all people should require an icon. People can have 24 of hu, orc, ud, ne, and random (also can have 9 tourny wins.) Thats like 120 wins right there, icons dont mean much of anything. But I see where you are going at, some people in the clan I think dont really should be in. This isnt anything very important at this exact moment but this will likely be something considered. Nothing bad is actually happening within the clan around this time. Our clan solo rank is going back up (as it should be, keep soloing!) we are still staying active... Everything seems to be going smoothly. But a filter of people who some people may feal shouldnt be in the clan may take place when the clan reaches 100 members. I suggest everybody stay active so you arent one of those people. Although, its not certain that there will be a filter, so dont get scared

[bihar]

Well, it seems that a very vocal, and somewhat influential group within the clan is advocating changes, even legislation, to increase activity, ladder activity, etc.

No point denying, I am one in this group.

Thank you all who have posted in this thread so far, excellent points have been brought up.

Let us however calm down a minute and asses our current situation.
Right now, we have 90some members, and we have done much "weeding" in the last couple of weeks. People who have not shown up for more than a month have practically been removed already. Sting's statistics, that show that about 60-80% of our clan can be considered active, is not at all bad news in my book. I, for one, would actually not draw the line at two weeks as Sting suggests, but more at like one month. Simple activity (logging in) I consider excellent at present.

Another point raised was the level, %, and icon issue. I am very liberal on this question, what I am more concerned about is clan ladder activity.
This theme has been around for a while now... Should we encourage/ enforce clan ladder activity with suggestions/ requirements?

I am not sure... However glad I am when I see our ladder rankings going up, my happiest hours in clan LOC are the ones when we have lots of accounts in the channel, discussing, bullshitting, playing, you know... living. If an atmosphere generated by requirements destroys that, I will vote no. Clan LOC is a diverse clan, and some people simply do not like to play ladder other than RT. Why? Ask them, but we have to face this empirical fact. Besides, our ladder standing is also good in my book. Of course, it can always be better, and top 100 in solo looks like a reasonable, yet psychologically significant goal (we are 106 at present).

I do think we should keep encouraging clan laddering activity, maybe even with legislating requirements for grunt status in the clan, but kicking an active, fun, respected custom player from our ranks, would be worse than it is good for.

Once I am at it though, let me say something plain and clear: Shamans should indeed set an example for any policy we wish to encourage. As long as we have shamans who are not on our ladder boards, or they are on them toward their very end, anything declared or wished looks like a joke.

I would also like to hear our chief's take on these issues.

Bihary

[Blackreaver]

Everyone's opinion will be taken into consideration.

[tim]

i aint dead?

[sting]

I, too, find a lot of the fun in a clan to be just casual conversation in the channel. So at the least, inactives will need to be removed at one point.

"sounds good to me, except I think we should talk to someone before kicking them, and ask them about why they were not on for two weeks if possible."

I completely agree, but my initial reason for bringing this up is the assumption that they will not log on again, or at the least, not soon. I suppose a three weeks or so limitation would be a good compromise before they are considered MIA.

"People can have 24 of hu, orc, ud, ne, and random (also can have 9 tourny wins.) Thats like 120 wins right there, icons dont mean much of anything."

I wasn't really going for the whole record sort of thing -- I was more aiming for what people will initially think when they join the channel. I don't typically like to remove people from a clan because they don't like to ladder, but are enjoyable people to have around. I'm sure, though, that not all people that don't have icons fall under this category. So at the least, our less clan-involved people could be considered in this manner.

- Sting