Poaching

[Biff Webster]

Recently, maybe a month ago, in the wake of a couple disbandment notifications, a list was created for the purpose of spamming recruitment letters to the recently homeless. Unfortunately I acted on the list too late and I sent a few messages to the recently homed. Apologies to all those affected.

After receiving a few "this is a cb btw" replies, I got to thinking: Just what is "Poaching", and why is it so taboo? Going with personal experience, I was "poached" twice. Once during NSO's spamming of Neutrals, and once by a sad little man who was upset about losing his privilege to lurk in GPA's public chat area.

Both of these attempts to gain me as a member seemed to have nothing to do with my membership. NSO's spam was either to test a long held convention on recruiting, or considering heggo's history as a former GPA member, just a fun way to insult Neutrals. The other was just a symptom of a larger fit over not getting one's way. What both had in common was that the object wasn't to actually get members, and to the best of my knowledge, no one took them up on the offer. So was it really "poaching"?

If the object of poaching is to gain new members for your organization, and the loss of these members being the most damaging aspect of being poached, is it poaching if it fails? It is obvious there is no way to force someone to switch AAs and apply, so wouldn't the fault of the loss of a member lie with the member who left? Is it an attack on one's sovereignty if for a nation to be successfully poached they must voluntarily change affiliation?

Why is any of this considered a casus belli? Convenience? Insecurity?

[Zombie Glaucon]

Some of us find it annoying to be barraged by fools who wants us to join trade circles on other colours when we're obviously in an alliance on our particular colour. Maybe it's like that.

[Biff Webster]

[quote name='Zombie Glaucon' timestamp='1282289086' post='2424238']
Some of us find it annoying to be barraged by fools who wants us to join trade circles on other colours when we're obviously in an alliance on our particular colour. Maybe it's like that.
[/quote]

Well if asking someone to leave their alliance is a possible cause to flatten an organization, wouldn't asking someone to switch colors and possibly harm few other alliance member's economy be worth at least a diplomatic incident?

[Bob Janova]

Directly recruiting from an alliance is just as concrete an attempt to harm them materially as attacking them and destroying their infra and land with wars. If you succeed, you're taking away numbers, stats, activity and a part of the community. Actively attempting to harm my alliance seems like a pretty good CB to me.

Everyone makes mistakes and the occasional message to an aligned nation is inevitable if you recruit a lot, and hopefully everyone can see that and not use the CB in such a case. But a deliberate and widespread attempt to recruit from an alliance – see the NADC war or NSO's attempt to recruit from the neutrals – is a direct attack and it's perfectly reasonable to respond to it as such.

[Hiro Nakara]

What happens if the messages relate to other alternatives rather than joining the senders alliance? :v

Also I don't mind recruitment letters being sent to me, I choose to ignore them or laugh at them or think man that's a good recruitment letter, I'll swipe ideas from that.

[Captain Flinders]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1282305846' post='2424390']
Directly recruiting from an alliance is just as concrete an attempt to harm them materially as attacking them and destroying their infra and land with wars. If you succeed, you're taking away numbers, stats, activity and a part of the community. Actively attempting to harm my alliance seems like a pretty good CB to me.

Everyone makes mistakes and the occasional message to an aligned nation is inevitable if you recruit a lot, and hopefully everyone can see that and not use the CB in such a case. But a deliberate and widespread attempt to recruit from an alliance – see the NADC war or NSO's attempt to recruit from the neutrals – is a direct attack and it's perfectly reasonable to respond to it as such.
[/quote]
Pretty much this exactly. I would consider habitual or widespread poaching a valid CB.

[Prodigal Moon]

I go back and forth on this issue. On the one hand, if you lose members to a standard recruitment PM, you only have yourself to blame for not creating a compelling enough reason to stay. On the other hand, trying to convince members of an alliance to jump ship and join your cause is basically sedition or subversion. I don't see why anyone would allow that to happen to their alliance - least of all from an outside force who has no affiliation with them.

Edited August 20, 2010 by Prodigal Moon

[sammykhalifa]

I've always thought that people have made more of it than they should. Hopefully your alliance doesn't consist of members that are going to jump ship just because somebody sent them an eloquent (or maybe not-so-eloquent) email.

That said, I could see how it could be a problem if it happens continuously. And I try not to do it myself, partly because I don't like annoying people and partly because it seems like a waste of time.

[FreddieMercury]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1282305846' post='2424390']
Directly recruiting from an alliance is just as concrete an attempt to harm them materially as attacking them and destroying their infra and land with wars. If you succeed, you're taking away numbers, stats, activity and a part of the community. Actively attempting to harm my alliance seems like a pretty good CB to me.

Everyone makes mistakes and the occasional message to an aligned nation is inevitable if you recruit a lot, and hopefully everyone can see that and not use the CB in such a case. But a deliberate and widespread attempt to recruit from an alliance – [b]see the NADC war[/b] or NSO's attempt to recruit from the neutrals – is a direct attack and it's perfectly reasonable to respond to it as such.
[/quote]

Wait. what?

[Goldie]

We had a protectorate very recently make this same mistake. But that's what it was, a mistake. If there is malice involved, then definitely get the tanks ready. But in a game where it is so easy to make those kinds of mistakes when you take information you receive at face value, a la an 'unaligned' list, then nothing should happen from either side further than a simple apology to the alliance.

[lonewolfe2015]

If anyone from my alliance is ever recruited away, I'll chalk that up as a win for Asgaard because it means one less member I cannot depend on. However, if anyone ever actively tries to take my members beyond a friend speaking to a friend, I will also consider that a threat to my alliance.

Recruitment letters that cause poaching are like propaganda during cold wars, if you send the letters to people unfamiliar with your ways then you could cause a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. Some letters might cause people to create a false reality about how things work around here and based on how each alliance runs it can be more harmful than others.

[JWConner]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1282305846' post='2424390']
Directly recruiting from an alliance is just as concrete an attempt to harm them materially as attacking them and destroying their infra and land with wars. If you succeed, you're taking away numbers, stats, activity and a part of the community. Actively attempting to harm my alliance seems like a pretty good CB to me.

Everyone makes mistakes and the occasional message to an aligned nation is inevitable if you recruit a lot, and hopefully everyone can see that and not use the CB in such a case...
[/quote]

I understand where you're coming from on this, but my question would be this...If you're starting a new alliance, how would those members be brought together to begin said new alliance? Would that not be poaching for the person with the original idea to go to his friends and ask them to join him with making a new alliance?

In essence, every new alliance is guilty of poaching if this is the case. I was accused of poaching when I began VA by doing just this, but in all reality, every single new alliance is guilty of doing this, no matter who you are. Unless your alliance begins with all unaligned members, and seeing how that's very rarely the case, shouldn't there be more valid CB's out there for poaching?

Just a question I've always had since I never considered what I did was poaching, and when I was on the other end of this (split off alliance from VA) I didn't consider that poaching. If a member of mine is willing to leave that easily, they weren't committed to my alliance to begin with. That's just how I've always seen it.

Edited August 20, 2010 by JWConner

[Ashoka the Great]

There's an honest mistake, and then there's a legitimate attempt to recruit one's members. Spotting the difference between the two isn't that difficult.

The first can be ignored, although there's no particular reason for it to happen other than laziness/carelessness. The latter is a reason to go to war, although war isn't necessarily the only option.

The reason the NSO got away with trying to recruit GPA members is quite simple. The GPA is unaligned. Had they responded to NSO's acts by declaring war, they would have been alone against the NSO and its allies. (Welcome to the 'problem of neutrality on PB'. Even when you're right, you're still alone. No 'blue helmets' riding to the rescue.)

[Bob Janova]

If you go around asking members of your previous alliance to desert and join you instead, then yes, that's clear poaching. If a group of friends decide of their own volition to start an alliance, then fine. That distinction is why you have to be extremely careful when starting a splinter alliance.

Freddie, I'm pretty sure that there was some drama about poaching during that war. I think it was at the end, when NADC was pretty much rolled, someone else (MCXA? I forget, it was a long time ago and not an alliance I cared about) send alliance-wide recruiting messages to NADC. Hopefully there's still some people around from Blue at that time who can remember what I'm talking about . Anyway, that's a pretty minor part of my post.

[quote]What happens if the messages relate to other alternatives rather than joining the senders alliance? :v [/quote]
You're still actively targeting the alliance in question, I'd treat this exactly the same, or even messages that are along the lines of 'Your alliance is terrible, you should desert it'. If your intent is to weaken the alliance then that's an attack and a CB.

[JWConner]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1282312519' post='2424462']
If you go around asking members of your previous alliance to desert and join you instead, then yes, that's clear poaching. If a group of friends decide of their own volition to start an alliance, then fine. That distinction is why you have to be extremely careful when starting a splinter alliance.

[/quote]

I guess my point is, where do you draw the line in that situation? I was a government member in CON when I decided to split. To find those interested in joining me, I messaged all of my friends in the alliance (which I had quite a few seeing as I'd made it into upper gov) but I was still accused of poaching as they said I messaged members of CON to join my alliance. I dunno, I think there's a double standard when it comes to poaching. In all reality, anytime you message a member of an alliance to leave that AA should be poaching, by the definitions that others have put in place. If those definitions were held as law, there would be a valid CB each time a new alliance began.

[Bob Janova]

[quote]To find those interested in joining me, I messaged all of my friends in the alliance[/quote]
I'd put the line lower than that. If you did that to my alliance I'd be pissed and call it poaching, too.

[Corinan]

Poaching isn't a very strong CB at all. You're essentially declaring war because your alliances members received messages. Whoop-de-mother$%&@ing-doo. If you're losing members simply because they're receiving recruitment messages, then guess what? They weren't very good members to begin with. Let them go.

[Lennox]

If NSO received recruitment messages I really wouldn't care. It'd trim the fat and get rid of the useless ones if any decided to leave.

[Ashen]

It depends on the circumstance. Some people are more sensitive to it than others.

For Example: Sometimes a nation decides to leave an alliance, or their previous alliance fails, and they advertise for recruitment. We had an incident one time where such an event happened, and within hours we sent a message to this nation with a proposal for joining us. Within those few hours they had already joined another alliance. They in turn talked (ran to and cried?) to their new alliance and this alliance (a rather large one) threatened us (a rather small alliance) with war for poaching.
My opinion was it was overreacting or a set-up. Either way, both that person and that alliance lost respect points from us.
I agree with the intentional poaching to bring economic or political harm is bad, yet both those that rush to war or bullying need to investigate before threatening.

[JWConner]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1282314713' post='2424490']
I'd put the line lower than that. If you did that to my alliance I'd be pissed and call it poaching, too.
[/quote]

So, if you call that poaching, then how do you suppose alliances form? Messages would have to be sent, IRC or ingame. There's not another way it's going to happen. This is my point. You can't claim that some are ok, but others aren't. If you say that messaging another person, who is currently aligned, then you're saying that all new alliances who've started with members residing in other alliances, are guilty of poaching.

[Cao Pai]

[quote name='lonewolfe2015' timestamp='1282310330' post='2424431']
If anyone from my alliance is ever recruited away, I'll chalk that up as a win for Asgaard because it means one less member I cannot depend on. However, if anyone ever actively tries to take my members beyond a friend speaking to a friend, I will also consider that a threat to my alliance.

Recruitment letters that cause poaching are like propaganda during cold wars, if you send the letters to people unfamiliar with your ways then you could cause a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. Some letters might cause people to create a false reality about how things work around here and based on how each alliance runs it can be more harmful than others.
[/quote]



Not really wanting to start a debate, but I see it is already happening. But lonewolf is spot on.

Poaching is like Tango, it takes two to do it. Therefore, you can't FORCE someone to join your alliance who is already in another, there must be some reason that they don't like their current alliance and are easily swayed by an outside alliance. The "poached" individual could feel at home at his new alliance, and become a productive member...or he could end up like he did in his previous alliance and become a nuisance to his new alliance. Either way, an alliance lost a bad member, and an alliance either gained a good member or gained a bad member. Either way, I do not see it at all as a "Valid CB" it's the original alliances fault for not appealing to their members enough.

[Kochers]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1282305846' post='2424390']
Directly recruiting from an alliance is just as concrete an attempt to harm them materially as attacking them and destroying their infra and land with wars. If you succeed, you're taking away numbers, stats, activity and a part of the community. Actively attempting to harm my alliance seems like a pretty good CB to me.

Everyone makes mistakes and the occasional message to an aligned nation is inevitable if you recruit a lot, and hopefully everyone can see that and not use the CB in such a case. But a deliberate and widespread attempt to recruit from an alliance – see the NADC war or NSO's attempt to recruit from the neutrals – is a direct attack and it's perfectly reasonable to respond to it as such.
[/quote]
If by NADC War you mean the NADC-BLEU War, the wiki doesn't say anything about a recruitment issue. Though it sounds vaguely familiar. Was it possible that they simply spammed NADC nations with a message of, "Your leadership has abandoned you!"?

[quote name='Corinan' timestamp='1282314881' post='2424494']
Poaching isn't a very strong CB at all. You're essentially declaring war because your alliances members received messages. Whoop-de-mother$%&@ing-doo. If you're losing members simply because they're receiving recruitment messages, then guess what? They weren't very good members to begin with. Let them go.
[/quote]
That's always been my personal belief as well.

[Hyperbad]

[quote name='Bob Janova' timestamp='1282305846' post='2424390']
Directly recruiting from an alliance is just as concrete an attempt to harm them materially as attacking them and destroying their infra and land with wars. If you succeed, you're taking away numbers, stats, activity and a part of the community. Actively attempting to harm my alliance seems like a pretty good CB to me.[/quote]
Intent to harm them and or doing something to you benefit without regard to how it impacts others? The two are very different which I think is irrelevant anyway partly because of the reasons others have posted and also because I don't [any more] really see sovereignty existing for alliances. It certainly exists for its members and that's what alliances typically respond to but the mere fact that members can so freely leave or return in most cases I think hurts the position of it being a strong cause for war. That isn't to say those claims don't exist. I just feel them to be rather weak.

[Mixoux]

[quote name='Corinan' timestamp='1282314881' post='2424494']
Poaching isn't a very strong CB at all. You're essentially declaring war because your alliances members received messages. Whoop-de-mother$%&@ing-doo. If you're losing members simply because they're receiving recruitment messages, then guess what? They weren't very good members to begin with. Let them go.
[/quote]

I gotta agree with this. If your members are that easily swayed that a simple message decides to make them leave, then there's some serious problems there in the first place.

[wickedj]

Dear lord i agree with Bob Janova, i feel dirty now. Anyway yes, mass poaching is a good reason for the poachee's alliance to kick your $@! but if forming your own alliance and bringing along a handful of friends isnt(how many times has this happened to Rok? Tetris, Apoc, uhm i think theres two or three more)