Poaching from our ranks- NSO

[Lartize]

What a dick move... Trying to pick on a alliance without allies, are your buddies supposed to have your back NSO? Bad form I dear say guys.. I can only imagine what your alliance forum looked like while discussing this.

"So.. here is the deal guys.. I got a new idea, we are going to mass spam another alliance with recruitment messages."

"But isn't that known as member poaching, I am pretty sure it is... we might be attacked!"

"No.. we are going to do it to a neutral alliance.. then we can get all of our allies to attack them with us!" Wow guys.. you really bad some big ol' brass balls, Goodjob. I am glad you feel special now NSO, two points for you.. sadly this is like golf, so you are losing.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Lartize

[Phetion]

Pathetic NSO.

You're attempts to spin this are embarrasing. You lack any form of decency.

What happened to alliances respecting the soveriegnity of others. Especially those who keep themselves to themselves, and have not done anything to deserve such disrespect.

Just keep falling lower and lower NSO.

[Doitzel]

I've never understood the stigmas against recruiting from other alliances, but this is something much more than that. This represents all the inherent flaws of the dark path these Sith walk. Their tactics of preying on those they perceive as weak because they simply wish to exist without incident are what make them a permanent threat to us all. We are all weak at some point, though not all of us so constantly and extensively that we give in to baser desires. That you are blind to the self-destructiveness of the course you choose is why the Sith will always be pitiful.

You prove no "strength" with this kind of bullying. You prove only how truly weak and insecure you are.

[Starcraftmazter]

These actions by NSO are pretty disgusting, but then again...what more could you expect from Moldavi.

I would encourage the neutrals to take down NSO, because it is clearly an attack on the sovereignty of those neutral alliances who are being recruited from.

Actually - I have an even better idea now. I think those neutrals should start recruiting from NSO - that will surely make things right.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Starcraftmazter

[kingzog]

It's very late and I would like to save myself from reading a lot, so I'm going to assume this more or less summarizes everything:

1. NSO attempts to recruit from the Neutral Menace.
   
2. One faction of the Neutral Menace takes exception and comes here to demand three apologies from two people. (Yeah, I noticed that.)
   
3. Apart from a large number of people parroting "Bad show, NSO" and a smaller group saying what amounts to "Do something about it"....nothing really happens.
   

Now, if this is a correct summary, then:

1. Good God....why?
   
2. LOL
   
3. OK, then. I'm off to bed.
   

At this point someone is bound to say, "Well, how would you feel if Ivan Moldavi was trying to recruit people from Nordreich?"

I present, therefore, my pre-emptive response:

"Speaking as someone who trampled all over and spat upon a Doctrine bearing Ivan Moldavi's name, I now declare us even."

TDO has put themselves in an interesting position. They must now declare war on the NSO and hope that said alliance's allies refuse to intervene, or they must suffer the humiliation of having taken this public only to see their demands ignored and, perhaps, mocked.

The latter may represent some kind of moral victory, but that's hardly a substitute for the real thing.

TDO has a very real CB that will be recognized as such by 100% of the Cyberverse including, presumably, the NSO, but only if they actually use it.

Until then, it's a lot of chest-thumping....signifying nothing.

[JoshuaR]

Meh, I'm glad NSO did this. They are actually (OOC Playing to the ideal of their characters) making a move. I would hope the neutrals would respond, but if not, it only proves that others can also get away with this...

[RMarx]

Dear all,

As this is my first post on the main forums I would like to say hello! Down to business.

Analysing this situation a few factors strike me. As several posters have pointed out community is an important factor, as it is TDO’s greatest strength. Acknowledging this, a block mailed recruitment letter logically would have little to no impact, except perhaps as Heggo has pointed out, to weed out malcontents from TDO’s closet. Having read through this thread it has been made abundantly clear NSO cannot believe that poaching would work, because they are intelligent people. Heggo and Heft have shown why they are in the Darth Council, that they are savvy, and certainly that Heft has a good sense of humour. So what’s the real agenda?

Poaching, though not very affective at poaching, has created an almost ‘all win’ situation for NSO. TDO is placed between a Bloc and a hard place, they feel sovereignty infringed upon, yet cannot attack NSO or face obliteration from Frostbite. Nevertheless they feel wronged. To briefly digress and rebut Heft, poaching offends TDO, be it a ‘malcontent’ or pillar of community, because it is just that, a community. As long as a member adheres to TDO’s code of conduct they are a value, and a treasure. Strength does not come through uniformity, but diversity. This only addresses half the issue, for I have the question of ‘why do TDO care about poaching if they value every member and believe none will leave?’ to answer.

Well that’s simple, everyone hates spam mail. I never thought the situation would occur where I wished I was reading about how much sed pills could increase my penis size or being asked by a stranger in the Congo for my bank account details so that they can transfer a large amount of money into (which, naturally, I could take 10% of). Flippancy aside, poaching sets a dangerous precedent to allow.

So what can we do? Hold the line. NSO’s behaviour is out of order, not because they are doing this to my alliance, but because they are doing it. The morality, or rather the allegation of a lack of morality in Planet Bob has been raised earlier in the thread, almost in justification to NSO’s actions. This is not so, standards exist in CN, uphold them; say no. Hold the line.

Yours sincerely,

RMarx

[ramneta]

I don't think people here get it. It is not just the recruiting. Its the disrespectful content of the message they sent. If it were a simple recruiting message "informing" neutrals of their "options" it wouldn't be as bad. It would still be stepping on our sovereignty. I'm pretty sure NSO wouldn't like others alliances "informing" their members.

Reading the posts it seems that NSO actually wants us to attack them. Behind every bully there is a coward. They are so insecure they cannot make the first move. So when and if we attack they can go hide behind their mummy (forstbite).

That said, I have nothing but respect to other forstbite signatories and understand their commitment.

Unfortunately I am but one senator in The Democratic Order. So like everyone here I'm curious as to how this plays out.

Edited July 3, 2009 by ramneta

[pigsticker]

Well bart, I'd like to first begin by saying that I preemptively answered all of your objections in prior comments, comments which you evidently didn't bother to read. But to help out anyway, I'll reiterate those points:

1. Neutral alliances will not lose community members due to our recruitment- as I said earlier, we will only be able to peel of people who aren't a part of the community since only people who aren't really a part of the community would be enticed by a recruitment message. As such, we actually will improve the integrity of their community by removing the misfits and malcontents which are working to ruin it.

2. Safety in numbers does not apply to neutral alliances in the way you are describing. It takes a low threshold to ward off rogue attacks (no more than twenty are needed really) and an incredibly high one to ward off attacks from other alliances. In fact, because no true neutral alliance is part of a bloc, they will obviously be at a severe disadvantage should another bloc move against them. Since most non neutral alliances are in blocs, safety in numbers has no bearing on their security with respect to other alliances. My empirical evidence? See: the GPA being rolled as the number 1 alliance in the game.

And as a final note, you conceded through silence all of my other independent reasons for why the poaching was good- for instance, that it reassures their neutrality by removing subversive non neutral elements. That's not good for your argument.

just a quick question to your point 1 : Assuming TDO does the reverse to NSO by recruiting and proclaiming the virtues/benefits of neutrality. You can't blame them can you since all they are doing is to peel off people who aren't a part of the community since only people who aren't really a part of the community would be enticed by a recruitment message. In addition, it would improve the integrity of your alliance by removing the misfits and malcontents who probably will flee at the first sight of war.

Your stand and reply on this is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[R&R-Viking]

If this happened to GOD I'd bet the OP would look a bit different.

[Hypocrisy]

So to resurrect an old point, why is poaching bad? I trust all of my own alliance members are loyal and satisfied enough with argent that they won't abandon us simply because someone sent them an unsolicited general private message. I mean if people lose members to poaching its from one of two reasons; either A the original alliance wasn't meeting their needs be it resource wise, or community wise and they decided to try something new. If this is the case it means poaching would promote quality based competition between alliances and motivate alliances of a lesser caliber to improve themselves internally. This would mean poaching has a net good effect on the community. Or B the individual in question was just an inactive person who had no real connection to the Alliance anyway. In which case this further is positive as it is a natural way of purging uncommitted and basically useless members. Not saying I necessarily agree either way, but just to point that out.

Also just wondering how is this any different than wearing a "JOIN NSO TODAY" sig or whatever, or posting a recruitment thread in the public forums. Obviously your members know other alliances exist so its not like preventing "poaching" is shielding them from some unknown knowledge of other ways of doing things.

Moreover, why does this deserve a public post; the NSO it could have easily been asked to stop the poaching (whether it was sanctioned or not) without the need for a public show like this?

Because CN is populated by thousands of fluffy white animals and when poaching was first used as a CB in the early times, it really stuck. Pretty much the same reason everything currently 'bad' in an IC sense on Planet Bob is considered 'bad'.

But yeah, I wish someone would respond to this post.

This is hilarious. People are commending the NSO for recruiting from the ranks of alliances they knew wouldn't do anything about it anyway? Brave? Nonsense.

When NSO starts recruiting from alliances with a spine, I'll be impressed.

Sum of funnys was increased due to irony factor.

I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

Fantastic!

[Macaddict]

And by the way, I have yet to hear them articulate an argument against recruiting from their ranks- they merely appeal to arbitrary community norms. Consider it from a utilitarian perspective. Recruiting nations form them will not harm their ability to carry out their neutral policies, as one nation can be neutral just as well as 1000, whereas any nation we recruit from them will increase our ability to carry out policies, since more nations will allow us to project more power. We are helping ourselves while, in terms of consequences, are not hurting them. From a utilitarian perspective, then, what we did was quite a good thing.

I'm sorry but this is an absurd argument. A utilitarian perspeective would require the maximization of happiness for all, not just the parties involved. Your argument only functions under the flawed assumption that by increasing power NSO's power, the rest of the community will benefit. On the contrary, when NSO gains ore power every other non-neutral alliance will be hurt because the loose some power, and thus security any time someone else gains some.

Secondly, community norms are anything but arbitrary. They provide standards and guidelines for actions. They are necessary and essential because they foster order. When people know how to civilly interact, it makes for better relations

Nifty rationalization though.

[Bob Janova]

This is an absolute disgrace. I would be interested to know what NSO's allies think of this behaviour, particularly Polaris who used the fact that CIN had 'used the New Polar Order forum as a base for recruitment' in their CB for attacking CIN.

I can't believe that Frostbite supports open recruitment from sovereign alliances.

[Hypocrisy]

This is an absolute disgrace. I would be interested to know what NSO's allies think of this behaviour, particularly Polaris who used the fact that CIN had 'used the New Polar Order forum as a base for recruitment' in their CB for attacking CIN.

I can't believe that Frostbite supports open recruitment from sovereign alliances.

Would Gremlins be willing to issue an official stance on the current situation before Frostbite as a collective announces their support or opposition?

[Bob Janova]

Why would our position affect NpO's or STA's opinion on the matter?

[Hypocrisy]

Why would our position affect NpO's or STA's opinion on the matter?

On the contrary, I was wondering if their position would affect yours.

[Freelancer]

On the contrary, I was wondering if their position would affect yours.

I was wondering where your nation lives, care to elaborate? as I think you'll soon be banned.

[ChairmanHal]

I find all this "stern talking to" a complete waste of bandwidth.

Stop whining and do something other than trying to embarrass NSO over this. NSO isn't embarrassed.

This is an absolute disgrace. I would be interested to know what NSO's allies think of this behaviour, particularly Polaris who used the fact that CIN had 'used the New Polar Order forum as a base for recruitment' in their CB for attacking CIN.

I can't believe that Frostbite supports open recruitment from sovereign alliances.

I think you already know the answer. They don't. At least not from alliances that are as large as this.

Edited July 3, 2009 by ChairmanHal

[Valerius]

Why do I always get to the juicy stuff last?

This message is, of course, disgusting. Neutrality is not inherently impassioned; one can be passionately neutral, as I've seen before.

I also applaud the affected alliances' reactions and welcome the rejection of the usual methods of meeting this problem (not that any other option is available to neutral alliances). Hopefully this will set a precedent which all alliances will adhere to in the post-hegemonic world.

[shakes]

Great action! Let's stir things up.

Jihad.

[TheThirdMark]

NSO versus TDO would be an amazing fight. It won't happen, but it would be awesome all the same.

It would be weird to watch.

War loving vs Peace (not peace mode) loving.

Experiance on one side can surely as hell kick serious $@!.

[Hypocrisy]

I struggle to see how that would be an interesting match-up at all. NSO would be short-circuited in no time.

[Electron Sponge]

This is an absolute disgrace. I would be interested to know what NSO's allies think of this behaviour, particularly Polaris who used the fact that CIN had 'used the New Polar Order forum as a base for recruitment' in their CB for attacking CIN.

I can't believe that Frostbite supports open recruitment from sovereign alliances.

Actually we rolled CIN because they were recruiting from our forum WHILE MEMBERS OF POLAR.

I'm sure none of you remember this but before around Great War III it was quite common to recruit from other alliances. Once NPO started running out of cb's things like "poaching" all the sudden became verboten. I've read this entire discussion and I've yet to see a good explanation as to why recruiting someone from an alliance is wrong. To be quite frank that's how we built Polaris back in the day. I sent a recruiting message to everyone in the game. Nobody rolled us then, and that was before the Initiative or even the Axis of Awesome. I used to send out recruiting messages to NAAC members about once or twice a month. NAAC never went to war with us over it, and they would have gone to war with us over wearing the wrong color socks if they could have gotten away with it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is just another one of those stupid, arbitrary things that everyone thinks is a hard and fast rule of conduct but in fact it's something that no one can explain without going recursive. Stop living in the box NPO put you all in.

[Electron Sponge]

double post

Edited July 3, 2009 by Electron Sponge

[Tom Litler]

Up until this point I thought Viktor and Doppelganger were very esteemed members. My opinion of them almost wavered but upon further inquiry into the situation I determined that their actions were sad but necessary; as overall brilliant political move.

No apology will we given.