Welcome to the Neutral Corner.

This week's question is:

What determines the relevance of an alliance? Is it all in the opinions of the alliance you ask?

All alliances are relevant, no matter the size. What they do with that relevance is what determines what reputation and swing they have in Planet Bob. Some have more potential than others of course-it's a lot easier for a 600 man alliance to become "relevant" than a smaller one-but that hasn't stopped smaller alliances, even, nay especially the 1 man alliances from becoming equally relevant on the world stage. Basically, the best way to get known is get out there and do it. Anyone can do it. There's no reason why any alliance shouldn't be "relevant."

So people make others see them as relevant?

Is relevance directly proportional to reputation? As in, an alliance that is known (for Good or Bad) is considered more relevant than another?

There's no set of rules that determine whether an alliance is relevant. Some are and some aren't.

More or less. You can't make someone think something, not forcefully, but your actions and words do determine what they think of you. Do stupid !@#$ and people won't think well of you, be a good ole chap and people like you, that sort of thing.

Reputation is a part of relevance. Reputation is basically "what do people think of you." It can be positive or negative, but reputation is reputation. Both are equally relevant, it basically comes down to being known. And again, anyone can get known, it just takes the right stuff to get it done. The New Pacific Order is known because it's been at the top of the world for a long time. IS is (well, was) known for the recent Popcorn War and their general conduct on the OWF. Any size group can have a reputation if they work at it and strive for relevance.

Well said Locke

EDIT: Well Said may seem a bit too short

For our purposes each alliance is a 14 yr. old in the school food line.
Examine the LunchRoom.
Divide into 12 unequal sections.
Paint with primary colors.
Dial in 120 dB of Careful With That Axe Eugene
Our 14 yr old must decide which other alliances are relevant and attempt to sit as closely as possible to a relevant alliance cluster.

A large part of relevance is related to the amount of ordnance you can bring to the table. That doesn't just mean the NS of your alliance, although that's important, but the 'effective NS' of you and your allies. For example, TOP is extremely relevant, because it has 15M real NS, it punches above its weight and it has powerful allies. GPA is not very relevant, because despite its 8M real NS, it has no allies and given its last wartime performance it would only fight as if it had say 5M.

Another important factor is your reputation, both here and in private channels. That's harder to quantify, but a person who is seen as consistent and not too biased is taken more seriously and is more politically relevant. You can see this with the NPO before the Karma war, when they were incredibly militarily relevant (to the extent that everyone shaped their foreign policy around not getting on the wrong side of it), but because of the impression they gave on these boards of being self-serving or very biased, the NPO point of view was pretty much ignored here, unless it was taken as a military threat. Some alliances (e.g. WTF) deliberately do not become 'relevant' in that arena.

Flashy flag, dashing and daring do of the membership and a wee bit of everyone else caring about the names and/or occupations of those involved. Swashbuckling is always a plus and fair maidens are obligatory. Jazz hands only if you can pull them off.

- jazz hands -

- chaaaaaaa!!! -

I hate to boil it down to such simplicity, but the answer can be summed up in one word: Effort.

A lot of the above responses discuss what parts of an alliance matter to relevance (reputation, ordnance, membership numbers, intent/goals, etc.), but the simple fact is that these are all indirect determiners. Effort is the prima causa of relevance on Bob. The more effort an alliance puts forth (in, respectively, FA, war, recruiting, government, etc.), the more relevant it is. It's generally easier for a large alliance to become more relevant, because more people total typically means more active, effort-producing people. Even with a lot of nations doing the minimum, an alliance of several hundred is likely to have more people putting forth some genuine effort than an alliance of several dozen. However, a small alliance without the military strength that Bob discusses (or even a single person), can still be quite relevant geopolitically, if it/he/she produces a larger-than-usual amount of effort. Vox was a good example of this.

In other news, this is boring, and I probably shouldn't have bothered writing it, but I'm not deleting it now.