I should add, we were founded by a group of libertarians, as well, and the clan still holds many of those same values, and will continue to hold then, as long as I am a leader of the clan.

But one question, far more important than the clan question:
Are you okay, conservative?

Edited 12/29/2015 06:00:38

I'm fine, I'm just venting lol. I like to scream and yell, it's my thing. I'm just disappointed on the path my clan chose to take and I am only making such a big deal out of it because I care about AOE. I feel certain it will end in disaster or stagnation.

Hi Zephyrum, I'm interested in this, but I don't know enough about what happened (in either case) to understand the points you're making. You seem to have some ideas about pitfalls/price of democracy in these kinds of online groups; that's what I'm interested in. Especially your last comment about the difference between a country and a clan. What has been going on in these clan dust-ups, maybe in a tiny bit more detail, so those of us out-of-the-loop can get an idea?

It was aimed towards AOE members, they'd know what I'm talking about :P

Clarifying, the wolves had this sort of democratic system ourselves, and it was pretty good as the elections and stuff were clean and such. Eventually, one of the people who happened to win kind of did basically nothing, so drama showed up, people came with that "IMPEACH IMPEACH" thing, and fights started to ensue.

One of our core group's most active and skillful players, Shyb, got pretty tired of all that drama, and eventually he just left for AWF. Because everyone liked shyb, that had a great impact, the same one that is happening here with The Conservative leaving. Excessive drama shows up, some people miss him, some others are secretly relieved by it, and some leave soon after.

(EDIT: It's worth noting that, after all that drama, we decided to take the simple route and ditch democracy, it just kept disappointing people further and further when attempted in WarLight clans. In a short amount of time, all the leavers returned to a less drama-filled Wolves, with the exception of Shyb himself.)

And how does it show 'where democracy gets badly hit'? Thanks in advance. :-)

The big difference between a clan and a country is, pretty simply, in clans, you have a "leave" button. In a country, you have to go through a lot of bureaucracy to leave it.

So if you disagree with your leader's standings in a country, you're locked, good luck. That doesn't happen in a clan. People leave as they see fit.

Democratic or not, there's always someone who disagrees with their leader. Always. In a "democratic" clan in WarLight, if that happens, the person just leaves. Basically, if they disagree with the majority, they just ignore the majority and go away.

Because of that, democratic clans *always* have a large amount of leavers compared to others in WarLight.

Edited 12/29/2015 06:10:10

Well the USSR's gouvernment system is quite authoritarian, but it worked very well for almost a year now and that does not seem to change soon. We are a very active community and, although we are focused on RP and Diplomacy games, also have a 1v1 clan league (which is more or less capable). Disputes or kicks are rarity.

If you are interested in history and diplomacy, this clan could be perefect.

Tempting offer Master, I will consider

Well the USSR's gouvernment system is quite authoritarian, but it worked very well for almost a year now and that does not seem to change soon.

Being authoritarian is not a bad thing. It's a great thing. On the inside, I envy you a bit.

It's the most stable form of government for sure

Agreed.

Edited 12/29/2015 07:11:19

To be honest, drama is quite fun. It's part of the struggle of politics. It's a sign of a healthy democracy.
Unless, of course, people try to seize power. Then it becomes a shit-hole.

Drama happens because there are people trying to seize power. So it's kind of impossible to avoid it :P

Drama is fun on some places, but definetely not warlight. Warlight's drama just gets kind of out of hand and is just generally not productive. If it was a truly competitive game and such it definetely would be more fun.

@Zephyrum: Thanks, that does help illuminate things. :-)

Democratic or not, there's always someone who disagrees with their leader. Always. In a "democratic" clan in WarLight, if that happens, the person just leaves. Basically, if they disagree with the majority, they just ignore the majority and go away.

Because of that, democratic clans *always* have a large amount of leavers compared to others in WarLight.

Do you consider this a good thing overall, or a bad thing? Do you think it is realistically possible to come up with a democratic clan that covers enough bases (like having a procedure for dealing with an inactive leader, in your example) that it could overall attract more people than it has leavers at any given time? In other words, do you think it's realistically possible to have a functional democratic clan? (i.e. The democratic part is functional; I know there are lots of clans that are 'functional' if not necessarily 'democratic'.)

Democracy would only last until someone stops being democratic...

The most stable government on Warlight is Darklords, Dictatorship with only one person with MR, there is no way that whatever little government they have can be taken over.

Edited 12/29/2015 08:52:01

Well the USSR's gouvernment system is quite authoritarian, but it worked very well

Well at least it fits you clan motif out of curiosity how many real commies are in you clan?

These Senate's and attempted at democracy seem quite fun but they're destined to fail eventually. They also come off as the product of a love for bureaucracy.

Also what does the head proctor do again?

How does the Minor proctor recruit people with out MR rights

Why can the head procator campaign for senate and procator?

How many people have MR? Just the Head proctor or all of senate?

(The constitution still doesn't answer all these questions)

Continuing the derailment of this thread, I'd like to say what type of management I think is most efficient in a clan. While authoritarian systems are efficient, what if the one leader proves to be inefficient? Autocracies are only as good as their leader.

In the case of CORP, we did have a supreme ruler that could (in theory) do whatever he wanted, when he wanted, and overrule anybody else's decisions. He didn't use these powers (frequently), and now he's effectively gone into inactivity. So, we now no longer need his approval for making decisions, and he is now the "nominal leader" of the clan. He still has MR (in true CORP fashion), and he is still in the Gunjikomon Council chat, but (in all honesty) the clan wouldn't be different without him.

Why do I think an oligarchic system is better in our case than autocratic? I think so, because we all agree that we wouldn't want one person calling the shots. Ideas are frequently discussed about amongst 4 people, before a small vote happens, and they are put into effect. Gunjikomons have exercised full power before, and that usually brought CORP down shit lane (examples: When Prab removed Copper in suspicion of being a Juq alt. When Ox removed muddles for... y'know). At this point we all agree that having no supreme leader isn't right for us.

All of those clans are miserable offshoots of The Lost Wolves. Wanna stabilization, join TLW.

Oligarchic/Polyruled Autocratic Clans work best because the most trusted people, chosen by the leader, make the decisions instead of the whole clan voting, which can lead to a 45/55 split with trolls (trols or trolls?) on the winning side leaving many people unhappy.

The true power behind the CORP commonwealth is ox's ambitions of dictatorship.

Blabla bla, how can you talk about unotable things like that. How can be a leader important. Usually he can do nothing, exceptions are payment things (ts severs or like that). Thats all for what a leader is really there. If a "leader" goes crazy, you only ignore him or kick him out of the clan, simple like with all the others.

Furthermore, it makes no sense anyway, that there are so many diffrent clans. And warlight miss a realtime chat were people can meet for a game and to know if someone is there or not. Its nearly impossible to make competetiv games this way. (clan wars) We miss a ladder for this anyway. Clan ladders.

Since nobody seems to want to help you, USSR would take you. We're organized, have little Drama, and relatively active. Send Darth Grover or Kyger a PM.