[DIGG] Leadership

[Clausewitz]

ADMINISTRATORS:
phil299 - Not a warfighter. Panics at the first signs of red, and calls upon aid from near and far. Easily "rattled" in this regard. The "old hat" on Staff; the senior Admin. His verdict is deferred to as the final ruling on most matters. Absolute hawk - once he sets his mind to war, he will stop at nothing. Believes wars are necessary to prevent "boredom" for DIGG. It was all I could do to contain his lust for war. I knew he trumped up the Empire war based on fraud attack reports, so it was an ace-in-the-hole I was able to have for checking his continued lust for war.

Recently lambasted Staff for my post-retirement infighting and actions/words. Led to a self-imposed "vote of no confidence". Drawing a hard line in the sand not to allow my initiatives and direction to be undone by those who opposed it but lacked the internal political clout to unravel my direction at the time. Facing steep political odds in his continued leadership.

Meatpopsicle - Senior diplomat. Defensive player. Rarely puts "serious thought" into matters, and not a strategist. Very active with the rank-and-file in terms of off-topic posts, and therefore one of the more "popular" DIGG leaders. Workload is non-existent. Peace dove words are his only contributions.

Loafnut (fhloop) - Veteran DIGGer. Recently downgraded from the Loafnut account to the fhloop account to give him more time for alliance management. Likely to emerge as a new "key player" in DIGG leadership.

Eats and breaths DIGG. Believes all islands once carrying the DIGG tag are forever DIGG - to be retaken through force if necessary. Serious animosity towards H|F for being forced to accept a ceasefire against a worthy adversary. Intent on returning DIGG to a state of war with H|F.

Lane - Traded into the shanewilkins account. Not a good player. Has thoroughly depleted what was once a "powerhouse account". Fails to maintain adequate military levels due to his ego leading him to burn his fleets faster than he can grow them. Zero involvement in alliance matters - only qualification is that he hosts the forums.

Clausewitz - As you know, I'm not only retired, but left DIGG. The consensus on DIGG Staff was that 2-3 would be needed to replace me based on the workload I took on. Vicious infighting pursued on Thursday/Friday, as Staff members began self-nominations. Among the self-nominees; Werddrew (all talk, no work), Fetttson (extremely young, only 15), Lemonion (burnt out, resigned from Staff Friday amidst the infighting), Uni (respected for running the IK_nuke account, but only a marginal contributor to Staff discussions).

ADMIRALS:
Honorary position. Not worth discussing. Gambit, rmellin, alanreeves (now "Malice" in-game) make zero contributions to alliance matters. Only rmellin is a particular good player - in fact, I would go so far as to say he is one of the best on the server. Frequently times attacks to land simultaneously, making stoner drops/fleetsaves impossible.

REGIONAL COORDINATORS:
A position that may very soon be merged with Admirals. Original intent was a position for veteran "Ocean Coordinators", to train new Ocean Coordinators, and oversee multi-ocean operations.

JRo - veteran Ocean Coordinator (OC). Same player-problems as Lane - burns lws faster than he builds them. At present, cannot muster a 100 lws suicide fleet. Moderately influential with Staff; ambitions for Administrator position.

scoots - moderate player, activity waxes and wanes. Not particularly active in leadership matters. A Regional Coordinator who behaves as an Ocean Coordinator.

OCEAN COORDINATOR:
This is where the rubber hits the road. DIGG is arranged in ocean-based fighting units. There are too many to name, with each ocean having 1-2 OC's, with 1-2 Lieutenant OC's.

Ocean Coordinators oversee and manage local operations in peacetime and war. Notables are Fetttson (o33), Mach_Starwind (o21-22), bod (o15), MarkD (o16), gravylookout (o51), and Mstrbob (o42). All are highly active in leadership matters. Fetttson has Administrator ambitions. All command great loyalty from their respective oceans.

OTHER NOTABLES:
DominicUNT - Diplomat in name only. A master of bravado, with extensive relationships within various other alliances. Much cloak-and-dagger work. A loyal friend, and perhaps now the singlemost influential DIGG member.

Jackrats - Master of DIGG tools. Hosts ik.woofcats.com, which contains DIGG's island-finder tool, espionage database, and claims database. Reduced activity recently due to RL priorities. Absolute colowhore with a Top 30 rank but the military of a Rank 300 player.

Makedius - Top 10 player. Former Admiral, from the days when "Admirals" did something. Extremely disgruntled, yet extremely powerful. Potential KoM recruit? Remains DIGG out of friendship with a few particular members (myself, doku, lummie) and for access to the tools.

doku - Kampf's brother. Extraordinary spear-counts (550k total, by recentmost census data). Longstanding suspicion that he was managing both the kampf and doku accounts. Longstanding suspicion that he runs scripts on his account. He has disavowed both acts (multi/scripter) when confronted.

IK_nuke - Being managed by two players, kek and uni. Merged uni's former account to spike up in rank. Uni is a Staff member, kek merely contributes with GM tools - they are rampant (I am probably one of 15% that merely uses a naked Firefox of IE to game). Both eat and breathe DIGG. The account contributes considerably to clearing islands for other members, and contributing stoners.

Lemonion - Recently resigned in the infighting fallout of my resignation. Was the lone Diplomat actually resolving issues. Extensive knowledge and relationships in-game. Seen as the only other Staff member that had a respectable "workload".

OVERALL ANALYSIS:
DIGG may very well take a new direction in my absence. Many Staff members (such as Werddrew) who I managed to marginalize/remove from leadership positions for being "armchair staffers" (all talk and no "work") are returning. Many of those who stand to fill the leadership-vacuum are hawks by all accounts, and seek war for the sake of profitable islands rather than something more "honorable".

The Ocean Coordinator position remains the lynchpin.

Ability to manage OC with Regional Coordinator and/or Admiral is defunct, and there are currently discussions to revitalize that front.

Administrator position is currently lacking anyone who actually executes the duties rather than delegating and/or advising. This includes "pety details" such as ensuring colo disputes are settled, awards are issued in player profiles, and forums are properly maintained.

Diplomat corps is a skeleton, with only Taffaz - young and inexperienced, without well-developed contacts. The wealth of knowledge and contacts was myself and Lemonion. They are scrambling to fill these positions, and seeking any warm body that's willing. There will be a surge of 3-4 new Diplomats with zero experience, zero contacts, and zero guidance to train them.

[Shendemiar]

Thats quite an analysis of Digg key personel. For me its such amazing to see how well people judge each other. I have difficulties understanding people even when they are before my nose for real.. I barely understand few of the most active Morkiners, almost all others are barely names...

I wish i could get my hands on your report of Morkin & Sons Ltd.

Could you post it if there is such or could you write one? ;D

[Shendemiar]

And back to the topic... so you consider it fairly certain that Digg might take a bit more agressive direction, and considering Pantheon etc. it might be probable in the future to have a big war? ( For Digg even attack war, possibly even "false flag"-operations? )

[Clausewitz]

On topic, I'd say it is uncertain the path that DIGG takes in terms of aggressive actions.

Their membership grows quite bored without war - many late-teenage players who want instant-gratification. Very few understand the strategy of building up for justified wars and having a considerable arsenal to exert your will, and continually burn down their fleets against any targets they can find. It is a constant battle to prevent that - or was for me, at least.

The direction of the alliance in terms of a war with Pantheon seems inevitable. DominicUNT and Lemonion (now resigned) would have been the primary "Pantheon has done nothing wrong, and they have some good people" voices, as well as Meatpopsicle's relentless dove behavior. Phil299 will desire was with Pantheon once he believes DIGG's fleets are again restored, and the middle-tier as well as rank-and-file players will follow it eagerly - war for the sake of war.

My goal, knowing it was inevitable, was to allow Pantheon to stumble into a war with another alliance - estimating that Pantheon will be eager to prove themselves against some target. Then, if DIGG so desired, they could join in at that time on the side of the victim of the aggression. A pre-emptive war on trumped-up justifications would merely result in another war in which H|F, E|S, MX, FOIMP piggyback against DIGG and take a run at them - of course, I warned the next time the Tripod probably wouldn't be so foolish as to take turns warring DIGG, and would likely do so in a more coordinated manner.

Short answer: Yes, I consider it fairly certain that DIGG will take a more aggressive direction, and it is more than "probable", but almost certain, that Pantheon will be the target. The only other candidate is H|F. However, the timetable for this war will be determined based on the internal politics - if Loafnut fills the leadership vacuum, the target will be H|F; if he does not, it will be Pantheon.

[Clausewitz]

shendemiar said:

I wish i could get my hands on your report of Morkin & Sons Ltd.

Could you post it if there is such or could you write one? ;D

Certainly. Of course, everything I have is from the "DIGG perspective", but I'll do DIGG's dossier on Morkin shortly.





Edit: ] missing from BB code.

[Shendemiar]

clausewitz said:

shendemiar said:

I wish i could get my hands on your report of Morkin & Sons Ltd.

Could you post it if there is such or could you write one? ;D

Certainly. Of course, everything I have is from the "DIGG perspective", but I'll do DIGG's dossier on Morkin shortly.

So much for the easy retirement days... first day you are asked to write conclusive report on whole new personel you have around you ;D

[Clausewitz]

Ah, this is easy Just sharing what I know, and avoiding sharing that which I acquired in confidence.

The day I have to start micromanaging Admirals, "Ocean Coordinators", and colo disputes is the day you can claim victory for nudging me out of "easy retirement days"

[ashimar]

Nonetheless it's impressive. I only write lots when I'm in the mood...

[Clausewitz]

NOTE:

The Staff infighting is spilling over to the rank-and-file. Apparently it's become some sort of Admins v Staff dispute now, and it's made the main forums instead of the restricted Staff forums. Starting to get a bit ugly, and the DIGGers are taking note of the apparent infighting.

There's heightened discontent with the failure to have a coherent response to the E|S onslaught, and the rank-and-file are pointing to the infighting as a major reason.

I wouldn't say this is the beginning of a civil war / splintering, but it certainly has some the prelude to one.

[Natmus]

Maybe E|S's final salute actually manages to break up DIGG?

Anyway, I also find the above analysis interesting. I have a theory I call "The Bellwether Theory", basically theorising that the enitre moral attitude and approach to the game is decided by a few highly active players that by sheer activity and words influence a great many other players in another direction.
The Bellwethers in the end decide if an alliance turns to aggresive, or becomes a peacefull one. I think Clausewitz, and Gauge before him, in large part were the Bellwethers of DIGG. Now, I look forward to seeing who the next Bellwether, or Bellwethers, will be.

[Clausewitz]

A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings. The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) in order that this animal might lead its flock of sheep.

I don't know if I like what you're implying, Mads

Phil299 actually shared a very similar theory, and used the same examples. He expanded on it a bit, adding that the high activity level and degree of passion the "Bellwethers" commit inevitably leads to burnout and a reclusive path.

I'm definitely watching who this next castrated ram will be with a bit more than passing interest, and will keep you guys updated...

[Natmus]

I borrowed the term "Bellwether" from a novel written by Connie Willis, by the surprising name of... "Bellwether". I could have used a similar Danish term, but I'm nut sure if many would understand me when I talked about 'lederfår'
A Danish lederfår isn't a castrated ram, but just the sheep that intuitivly makes the first move whenever the flock needs moving. (For some reason it reminds me of an old project where I help analyze the movements of starlings in large flocks, trying to determine how a flock decides to move from one place to another, or make a sudden turn. It all came down to the matemathics of behavioural patterns.)

Connie Willis' books are highly recommended by me, btw. Espcially 'Doomsday Book', 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' and 'Passage'.

[Clausewitz]

What I'm hearing from a few "loyalists" is that Loafnut seems to have taken up the torch.

DIGG-HF (GoW, 404, whatever...) will be DIGG's next war. It would take a significant offense for Loafnut to lose sight of HF.

[Natmus]

I will watch that war very interested from a nice safe spot with good view on the sidelines

[Clausewitz]

Should have some better insights into the DIGG leadership reforms in the next 24 hours or so.

I know Loafnut (fhloop in game) is the new "point man" for the Morkin relationship, and is struggling mightily.

He's asked for advice several times in the past couple days. I've told him that Europeans and Asians have a different style of "business relationships". In my dealings with indigenous military personnel of both continents, I've found that establishing a personal dialogue *first* is important, to establish a degree of trust, and that Americans are often perceived as aggressive, brash, and/or rude for cutting "straight to business".

He noted that, but said he's too protective of his personal identity to share even a first name (nobody within DIGG even knows it).

I find it rather amusing.