How long is a piece of string?

[Arminius]

How many people should we admit to FoM? I'm just concerned that it's getting rather big and unwieldy, and some members seem to have gone rather quiet, and not all have taken part in recent activities.

As we still have no organisational structure, I am worried that we're actually weaker than it appears. Perhaps it's time to reflect on aims and structure a bit?

[magiter]

I believe that the ideal number is 25-30, after that I would be tempted to close the alliance to any members to keep the size manageable.

I had also noticed that some members don't have much to say. Is there some way we can check on the last time accounts were logged in to the forum?

[2kcastle]

Clicking on someones profile will tell you the last time they logged into the forum.
I'm not sure about the number of alliance members, i think it depends to an enormous extent on the members themselves, but i agree that we seem to have some members who dont participate or interact.

[SkulkrinBait]

I think we're fine for now, I also think some of the exsiting members will be "pruned" when we next go to war, so I'd like to keep recruiting until we get to 35 and then we can reconsider.

[eproxy]

Certainly no more than 35 though... once those get 'pruned' we should expect a true and contributary member base of around 20. Organisation could be improved but do we have the people willing to put the effort in? Those who would be most suited to it may not have time due to the IKUK server.

As for the actual length of a piece of string my own personal belief has been this; shorter than a ball of string.

[Cesium]

Now I'm assuming that this question was prompted by the fact that FoM got ahead of Morkin in the rankings, am I correct?

[eproxy]

Morkin aren't as vain as that If its any help I had no idea what rank we are/were yet still believe that any amount of members much more than 30 reduces effectiveness. If there was a large enough loyal base of members (~60) it would be, in my opinion at least, most efficient to have two seperate alliances, preferably geographcially orientated.

[mmupatton]

Like a FoM-SW and FoM-NE? Not sure it would be managable anyway, but worth a thought...

[Arminius]

Of course I don't care about rankings. It's just that there are some very active FoM members, and quite a large passive silent group. And I don't quite know what to make of them. And the more people are coming in, the larger the silent group becomes, and then we don't know where we are.

Morkin's strength has always been that we knew we could trust each other to strike when required. I must admit that I'm not convinced FoM is as strong as that. Presumably a number of people are only here for protection and would not actively engage if asked. I'd be pleased if you prove me wrong on that...

[Shendemiar]

I dont see problem going larger, but we must reserve the right to kick bad members.

[Harlequin]

Perhaps "silent" members of FOM could be encouraged to open up a personal thread and provide a quick update of their dispositions?

FOM admins/senior members could send pm's in game to this effect I guess.

[Sol]

I think it's best to keep the alliance around 30-35...anything bigger gets really messy. When I was in SoH they made many fruitless attempts to organize due to the size of the alliance and like someone mentioned earlier, most people in it only wanted protection.

Perhaps the best thing to do is have a waiting list for future members?

[Shendemiar]

I would like few more conflicts to sort out the bad seeds ;D

[Sol]

shendemiar said:

I would like few more conflicts to sort out the bad seeds ;D

Evil...

Yeah that might also work too.

[Arminius]

A competition... the strongest members try to steal a colony off you. If you can hold on to your colony for x days you stay in, otherwise you're out.

Now that'd be evil