First Treatise on Linkshells

[Royal]

How long did it take you to write that?

edit: Page 2 in a legendary thread.
This page for rent: 1m a month sent to me.

[mikazuki]

so basically what you're saying is that linkshells should be run on quasi-military lines because normal players need to be commanded if they are to act responsibly and with co-operation.

praise the lord!

[Not Kuno]

Amazing.

[Shuemue]

I agree with much of that. I think there's a little more scope for democracy if you have the right core membership, but in general I'd join that LS.

[spooky]

A job well done. It would be good if there were some kind of agreement all major linkshells on a server could agree to for things like kings camps. A bit like a treaty.

[Xeno]

posting in epic thread

[Aladwar]

Posting in an epic stickied thread.

[Vedder]

Posting to the legend.

[Daahan]

posting in possible legendary thread.

Not quite sure if this will be qualified as a "legendary thread," but I'm glad at least some people are reading it.

I think someone's been reading Aristotle's Politics. Am I right?

nope. Machiavelli, dante, erasmus, thomas more, cicero. I could have written normally but I decided to make it a little fun.

Don't agree 100% with everything

like what? I want to know.

i didn't read any of that yet but my god... just come back to the game.

wut :wink:

Your thoughts on Trials seem kind of odd to me (the part of them not being pearled while on Trial). Typically it's just as important for a person to attend events as it is to see how well they fit into the LS. I understand your point about people possibly trying too hard to fit in, but at the same time I think it's still important to get a general idea of how well a person can mesh with the LSs community

yay discussion time.

I think unpearled trials work because you need to see whether or not the person is an idiot before letting him in to the LS. There are lots of people who can post an application that looks excellent and sometimes little might be known about that person. But since the app looks so good (i.e. lots of jobs and good gear etc etc) the linkshell might decide to trial that person. I think you get the idea of whether or not the person meshes well with the LS community when you put him on a probationary period. That way, he's full time with the linkshell and you get the opportunity to learn something about him/her without having to fully cater to them yet.

so basically what you're saying is that linkshells should be run on quasi-military lines because normal players need to be commanded if they are to act responsibly and with co-operation.

I think command is too harsh a word. Yes, I do mention that a the Leader should have a final say in all things and that's for a good reason. When you are able to get a great Leader that allows the LS to progress and be successful (remember, this is very hard to do, yet very possible), then there will be less division in the linkshell. I don't know if you missed it or not, but I do clearly state that interaction between the members and the Leader is absolutely important, and a lot of what the members have to say should influence the Leader in his/her decisions.

I think there's a little more scope for democracy if you have the right core membership,

I want to know what your scope is.

i felt like there was a part2 waiting to be written and i wanted to read it already.

Actually, I intended for there to be a lot more sections but after I realized how long it was getting, I decided to stop there so it be digested easily.

I plan to write on some more subjects, just don't know exactly when I'll get to that (hence the "First" Treatise)

[Shuemue]

I think there's a little more scope for democracy if you have the right core membership,

I want to know what your scope is.

For example, my LS's recruitment process. Firstly an applicant must be approved by the Leader and the admin team. If it's approved, it's then put up for voting by the general membership. All applicants must have at least one vouch who'll speak on their behalf. There is no set majority needed, the thread has a poll and discussion and it quickly becomes obvious whether they'll fit in and have a suitable proportion of yes votes. Ultimately the Leader and admins can make exceptions and have the final say, but it generally works well. It's not 100% perfect, the odd one or two always slip through the net, but it suits our LS. On very rare occasions the Leader and admin team will bypass the voting process and insta-pearl someone, but they'll still be subject to the usual trial conditions. A month without lotting on abjurations etc.

[BerenTebogo]

I think this is pretty perfect, solid leadership is the key.

LS should be run like how an office run, even if you dont like it you listen to your boss cuz he's got the final say and he'll fire your ass.

But there's always room for suggestions and discussions (memo's / bulletins, lol)

[Malaquist]

Overall it sounds pretty good buuuuuuut...

The only situation in which council leadership is effective is when each council member shares the same ideas and opinions, and, as we know, this situation is extremely rare, if existent at all.

It's rare, but doable. I tend to lean to councils rather than single leaders because of the sheer lack of unbiased or principled (read: not lazy) single leaders, but in retrospect I suppose it's harder to find 3 competent and unbiased people that all agree with each other than it is to find 1.

During a trial, the applicant is not given a pearl to the linkshell. Either the Leader or a sackholder should contact the applicant throughout the course of the trial period and inform him/her about events. If the applicant is free, he should show up to these events and demonstrate his skill (I do not mention personality here for a reason and I will discuss it shortly).

This is a good idea when it works, but I've seen way too many shells that either say they'll trial a member and then forget about contacting them (really only an issue with irresponsible leadership) or that let discussion about events go on entirely in the LS, meaning that the trial member is totally in the dark without a pearl. The best way to approach this would probably be to encourage party chat as much as possible, but for big events with a lot of people where you need to use a shell to organize multiple alliances, this doesn't really work. I've seen shells use Dynamis pearls for communication with trial members at big events, it's a little awkward but still less so than having your possible new recruit wandering around the shrine aimlessly because you assigned them to a group without telling them where that group was going.

I like running social shells better because I can kick people and assign insulting forum titles at will and no one is going to care. ('-'*)

[Krandor]

Your thoughts on Trials seem kind of odd to me (the part of them not being pearled while on Trial). Typically it's just as important for a person to attend events as it is to see how well they fit into the LS. I understand your point about people possibly trying too hard to fit in, but at the same time I think it's still important to get a general idea of how well a person can mesh with the LSs community

yay discussion time.

I think unpearled trials work because you need to see whether or not the person is an idiot before letting him in to the LS. There are lots of people who can post an application that looks excellent and sometimes little might be known about that person. But since the app looks so good (i.e. lots of jobs and good gear etc etc) the linkshell might decide to trial that person. I think you get the idea of whether or not the person meshes well with the LS community when you put him on a probationary period. That way, he's full time with the linkshell and you get the opportunity to learn something about him/her without having to fully cater to them yet.

Fair enough. I kind of like having people around in a more fulltime basis while testing them out compared to just bringing them in for events and not seeing how they respond during downtime (people asking for help with xxx NM during their first week in the LS typically = fail, but if they were operating under your system we would likely never see that). At least from my viewpoint skill and compatibility with a LS are two different, though both important, factors to determining whether a person should stay within the LS. I realize that in the case of maybe a friend of a LS member applying or similiar situations those two can get fudged, but from a leadership standpoint I want to see if they can operate in the LS without fucking up our (not-so) peaceful existence.

I agree pretty much 100% with Daahan's comments about base leadership of the linkshell. I've gotten flack from people both in and out my LS for saying stuff like this, but depending on the LS, probably 75-80% of the members are just sheep really, and won't do anything unless told to, and in general the more leaders there are within the LS the less things will get done, since some of them will just attempt to rest on their laurels and let others do the work (I have technically been guilty of this of a few times, but it's a conscious decision more often then not to see if newer officers in the shell will be willing to step up and lead). It can become a burden for said leaders when more of the overall responsibility is laid on their shoulders, but commonly results in a more smoothly flowing LS based on it's day-to-day activities.

[mikazuki]

I don't know if you missed it or not, but I do clearly state that interaction between the members and the Leader is absolutely important, and a lot of what the members have to say should influence the Leader in his/her decisions.

a national military works to protect citizens usually, that's the basic concept of one, the citizens elect their leaders who form a military and command it, if the citizens are the military then the objectives of the military are those of the citizens, therefore if the linkshell as a whole wants to do promathia missions rather than camp kings - the leader would then figure out a plan for doing promathia rather than directing everyone to camp kings. this is the first type of feedback a linkshell should have, having a democratic basis for its objectives - some linkshells would be formed on the basis of doing 'sky' 'dynamis' 'assault' or similar, and in this case the feedback is not necessary because everyone knows what the objective is. where you have a shell that has grown from a social shell or has completed it's initial objectives then you should correspondingly find that new objectives are decided democratically.

in the second instance of feedback the objective is decided and the leader will then consult the linkshell members on how it is to be carried out if they have expertise or significant knowledge of the objective and the strategy/tactics required to complete it, in addition members would be encouraged to find faults within the tactics and strategy they are being directed to carry out so those methods can be improved or replaced. for example a BLU leader will take advice from the main THF (or whoever the main pullers are) on how to handle the dynamis pulls, so he can intergrate these activities with what other members are doing.

the leader's role in this organisation is to give a firm direction and a single viable strategy for the linkshell to follow, this includes things like approving memberships, persuading people to carry out operations that will accelerate future operations when the immediate benefit seems unclear, or making rulings on who can receive a particular item (ie. who gets their relic first).

as a lot of people have said, the main problem is getting a linkshell leader of sufficient quality; however if you have one person with the correct qualities (and therefore you choose to be in their shell) you don't need three, having additional qualified people means you should have excellent sackholders.
also a clear seniority structure for those sackholders should be in place, where:
1. leader(shell)
2. jimmy(sack)
3. janey(sack)
4. jonny(sack)
jimmy holds precedence over janey and jonny, janey holds precedence over jonny; and all (pearl) holders do not have authority with regards to strategy or over other members but are aware if all officers are absent they are encouraged to perform an operation with a temporary elected leader but without official sanction for any results.
furthermore there is operational command structure such that:
1. main job for op(pearl or other)
2. second job for op(pearl or other)
3. leader(shell)
4. jimmy(sack)
such that in the instance of an operational matter the expert makes the decision and the officers trust the expert's judgement and should rarely if ever countermand the decisions made.


note that some leaders do this by intuition, in some shells everyone agrees anyway, but when you have to bring people together and make them a cohesive force, a plan for doing so is a powerful tool.

[Mashu]

like what? I want to know.

This, mostly.

if people have problems with each other, it is better to let those problems exist rather than trying to settle things

I agree with your point that not everyone has to like/love everyone for a linkshell to be successful, if the linkshell is productive in what it sets out to do. But if there's an issue outstanding between two members, that has to be resolved before it snowballs into a larger one, especially if these members are competing over similar gear. Otherwise you leave yourself susceptible to these members creating rifts in the linkshell.

[theo]

Posting in an epic thread, and...

lots of people thought hitler was a good leader, amirite?

not surprising it only took half a page for somebody to mention hitler. gogo forum stereotypes.

On topic though, I enjoyed the post. I have to say I agreed with almost everything said, even though my LS doesn't quite fit into the ideal. But after almost two years in my LS doing things the way we do, I have to say that your pretty spot on.

One of the things I was confused about was not giving a pearl to trial members. We use LS chat to coordinate most of our events and such, especially if there is more than one alliance... a trial member in dynamis with no pearl in my LS would be hopelessly lost lol.

I was also surprised that there was nothing mentioned concerning drama queens, I had expected to see that mentioned in the idiocy section. If there is one thing that has done the most harm to my linkshell, it has been the occasional drama queen. It didn't help though that our early leadership was too soft and tended to cater to these people. Well, not necessarily cater to them, but we still let people get away with murder imo. We're a lot better now, and I think we're improving every day, but some old habits die hard don't they? Once you let the seed of drama grow, and people start to realize they can get away with it, its reaaaalllly hard to turn that ship around.

[Guyverarmor]

I think there's a little more scope for democracy if you have the right core membership,

I want to know what your scope is.

For example, my LS's recruitment process. Firstly an applicant must be approved by the Leader and the admin team. If it's approved, it's then put up for voting by the general membership. All applicants must have at least one vouch who'll speak on their behalf. There is no set majority needed, the thread has a poll and discussion and it quickly becomes obvious whether they'll fit in and have a suitable proportion of yes votes. Ultimately the Leader and admins can make exceptions and have the final say, but it generally works well. It's not 100% perfect, the odd one or two always slip through the net, but it suits our LS. On very rare occasions the Leader and admin team will bypass the voting process and insta-pearl someone, but they'll still be subject to the usual trial conditions. A month without lotting on abjurations etc.

Exactly shuemue, I agree on that side of democracy for a LS.

Other than that, great post Daahan, 5/5 man. It is clearly shown why you are the first Pope of Yin

[Shuemue]

Exactly shenmue

Not shenmue >_>

[Guyverarmor]

sorry ._. lol

[Daahan]

I like these responses. Sorry I can't post as much at the moment because I'm writing a research paper (just hit page 22 ugh) so when I finish we'll discuss further.

keep those posts coming.