Suggestion: Member Cap

Idea brought to mind by Karlfischer -

Looking at WG's fast growth, I think we could maybe implement a member cap.

Now what would it imply - it would mean limiting the amount of members in WG to a certain amount.

It could be 100, 125... I don't know. Having too sudden a growth to gigantic proportions is generally bad for a clan and can ensure a fast fall - EG: DDay.

Secondly, the CWA is for now limited to 100 attendees, we're bound to have a limitation some day, it'd be awkward sending off members at a full out.

Why, you may ask?

-The entry into WG would be a bit more competitive, thus displaying us as a quality clan, detaching ourselves from the "mass recruiting" image some have of us (we were voted among one of the "Best Recruiting Clans").

-Our community would be tightly knit.

-We would have a very active base, since the membercap will bring motivation to be as active as possible, and inactives very quickly singled out (we're talking people who never come on IRC and very rarely to wars, don't care about the forums etc...).

I'm not sure if it could be a good idea, hence the suggestions forum. Opinions?

It sounds like a good idea. Most clans that mass recruit fall. We need to make sure our current members are loyal and stuff.

Agreed , our cap should be at 100-120 because you can only bring 100 people to wars.

I think this would be a good idea, but the idea of activity should be kept in perspective. I myself am practically never on the IRC simply because I lag so badly when I use it, it much more of a burden than a blessing to me. However, I make up for this by going to every war I am available for, as well as every event I am online for and am generally on TS when my internet allows it.

I'm sure this will be kept into consideration anyway, but I just wanted to say this anyway.

This would be quite good for the WG image, because I remember back when I was really active (some 2 years ago) when we had wars, people always made their decisions about our success based on the number of people we would bring, not on the talent and quality of our fighting. If we're able to cap ourselves at 125 members and continue to win wars people will really know we're not just growing, but we're getting better. That would be a great push in the right direction.

In my eyes right now I think that the entire application process needs to be rethought and reworked. If we want to have a tighter knit community then we need to tighten up a little bit on the application process. With certain changes to Applying we can ensure that we get to know the Trials better and that we are sure we would want them to be a part of this family.

I don't think a member cap is necessary.
WG has always been a clan that thrived under circumstances where there were a ton of members. I think this clan has the potential to go up and compete with the big clans in wars and have a good community in the process, and putting up a member cap can only hinder that.

Sure if there was an issue with community in the present then you should look at fixing it, but if everyone is feeling welcome and getting along why tamper with that? Ride it as high as you can go.

Also I feel like trying to prevent another Dday is the wrong course of action. You can prevent mass leavings by making everyone feel welcome, not by simply stopping people from joining.

I think it's time to stricten the application process, like it used to be, to limit the amount of members coming in.

This would do us more good than having a member cap.

115 or so, anymore and community starts to suck again.

You need to get attendance figures and run them against total member count. You won't get 100 to wars unless you have at least 140 members (very vauge). Smaller wars, probably 170.

But yes, the more members there are the harder it is to keep the community strong. I'd probably stick around 120, with slightly tighter activity regulations.

But also bear in mind its possible to be a successful clan with 300 or more members, it just requires a reliable and effective staff team, along with a strong community.

Reading all the points made by the people who have posted, I believe a good approach would be to change our Application system.

With a tight system, like one where all members have to vote on every application, would allow us to have quality players joining the clan. This would not necessarily stop our growth in numbers either.

When to implement the change would be the debatable point, but I'd say when we're doing well in terms of events and activity and when we reach the 100 mark, thereabouts.

I somewhat agree. I don't see ourselves being there quite yet, but I'd say we need to encourage much more activity. With 85+ members, we should be able to pull more than 49 to a war. But I wouldn't set a limit to any less than 110.

Having a member cap does not mean the clan will be weaker.

The idea of a member cap is actually to stimulate growth by creating demand for WG membership. We need to cultivate the image of an elite clan that is difficult to get into. Granted, this will take more than a member cap; we need to keep doing well in wars, be active, and have a strong community. Fortunately, all these things go hand in hand with a member cap. Once a member cap is in place and has been reached, members will be reluctant to leave WG if they know they might not be able to get back in. For ex-members trying to get back into the clan, a few spots might open up for them eventually, but even then they will have to compete with all of the others who want to get into WG. The predicted result of a member cap is that we will hang on to our current members much longer. If that is the case we can expect us to do better in wars since most of our current members will be well experienced at wars, and we will not be constantly trying to train new members. Activity levels will be higher since we can choose our new members based on how active we think they will be, plus we can give inactive people emeritus in which case there needs to be an opening for them to rejoin as an active member. Community will of course be stronger because we will have a more stable and active member list and people will know each other better.

The member cap is not really intended to be permanent. Once we feel demand is strong enough, we can say we are adding some extra spaces to our member cap. We could start out with a 100 member cap now, and if we do that as we get closer to reaching the member cap we should see a burst of applications as people try to compete for the remaining spots. A month or two later, we could raise the member cap to 120 if we are getting alot of applications. However eventually we want to stick to a member cap that I would recommend be somewhere between 150 and 200 members.

120 adelias does it and their reqs are u ahve to know 3 members for over 6 months. Thats what you call community excluding the RSC muck ups. They are all about fun and trying their best as a single unit and not 120 members.

If we were to have a 120 member cap i would support this idea. Tbh having too many members people start to think they dont have to attend someone will replace them and thats not right. Some people did that in EoS and we had only 100 members roughly.

It increase community. And dats what keeps the clan alive

150 Max, and start doing activity sweeps once we start pulling 100+ people to wars

The thing is, having a set number seems overly strict.
One of two things possibly happen that you probably don't want.
1. You hit the cap, someone with a huge amount of potential wants to join. You have to decline them because it is your rule and a great member joins another clan.

2. You hit the cap, someone with a huge amount of potential wants to join. You choose to let them in and look like a hypocrite for not following your own rules.


The inherent flaw in the idea is the thought that all good members are willing to wait, and those who don't are disposable. That is not necessarily the case. Some great members simply lack patience.

The idea of changing applications around is fine, I think it would work. It happens all the time, so I urge you to not make it TOO tough. A voting system is always good because members get their say in who should be in the clan.

The cap system is flawed though.

I say just have a very strict registration process - Make it so it takes work to join, but not time. If you make people wait for an indefinite period of time, they probably will go "F you", and leave for another clan.

I figure the requirements should include a reasonable working knowledge of English(along with an agreement NOT to use TXT-speak/1337-speak on the forums), and knowing our history(Have a few questions about it on the application)[If someone cannot take the time to go read our website, they don't need to be here].

I figure once we reach a certain mark, the new rules will come into effect, and as new people come in that meet my requirements, older ones who don't will leave over time, leaving us with a bunch of well-spoken people who actually care about the clan.

-RobbieThe1st

I dissagree with the part where you said capping 100 members at full outs, this would be stupid because that would make some members wanting to leave, they come to a war and find out they cant go (maybe getting up at an early time just so they can make it), and when they get there they are told they can not come.
Im pretty sure this would not compliment the clan but cause many problems. What kind of problems? Well firstly recruiting problems, if people find out that we have a cap for full outs a trial guardian would probably be told to leave over a proper WG member, thus making the trial guardian think its pointless.
Besides the fact we need as many opts as we possibly can get at wars, yes we may have 100 ppl at a war but we could still do with more, it would show a well active clan and thus getting more recruitments. Id say cap the members at about 150. But i dont think you should not allow people to attend wars that is a silly idea in my opinion

~Devy

ive got to agree with TMAL

just have a better eye on those whos inactive and those who dont care.
and rule breakers, dont deal lightly with them

just tighten alittle up on some stuff, and its a good cap right there, cos i cannot belive were all active

maybe give those under 100+ f2p cmb a deadline to get it? and actully stick to it?

look at the ideas good luck

I like the idea, i say we stop it at around 110-120 just to make sure that the members are loyal tbh

This idea works provided there is no fear about numbers being the less priority but rather community takes precedence over all else.

It works most effectively IMV when numbers grows large, disallowing the communal scope to spread thin, because it WILL. And when the number grows low, you focus on your strong low numbers than trying to look for more, its about people more than anything.

There will be very potential members who happens to want apply when the numbers had grown and there's no space. It is true, that when someone potential specifically wants to join a clan only, they will wait - even probable they might go join another clan only to spend time but come back to relinquish on their application when the opportunity is open. Yes, it may not apply to every potential members, who might have already lost patience, say for weeks and months. However, when we define what we think is potential we need to be very clear ourselves - what kind of qualities are we looking for?

The downside, it seems, where potentials are concerned - say levels, or experience cum knowledge - potential members as such easily can fall into the lot that won't wait that long. Then again, the upside as a result of this downside, is when you do get those who wait, it absolutely means they mean it when they join. However, those who get in by then may not necessarily have great skills or levels or even experience but they can highly possess alot of character, simply from the point of patience and why they had waited that long.

Knowledge and experience can be built but character is something you get it or you don't. Patience is not a quality you get from many in general, when you do have it - it means a whole lot more than patience.

Quality over quantity. And quality that's not measured by stats, technical knowledge but rather of very sound and strong character defined by the reasons they waited that long to join in the first place.

Then you do have to decide, what kind do you wish to have?

If, we keep harping about numbers even though ironically this is about capping, it is about being in service to what's more important to it - quality.

Unfortunately, in the common law of relationships between anything - quality to quantity is always in a tangent relationship (edit: more like a curve, lose one point to gain a point for the other). Unless you insert a 3rd or even more support to hold a forever parallel relationship...that requires absolution (not about sharing balance) of communal + skills + levels teaming - is that possible? To a large extent - NO.

Then you must decide, again - what is important? Quality or quantity. You cannot have both, one must be forsaken for the other.

It is almost impossible to ask for both, that would be, daydreaming.

P.S. Afterthoughts - there's more to it than meets the eye when this is implemented, if it is. There will be a whole new system needed to deal with the ups and downs, plus the decisions on what to do with various scenarios that results because of this. BEFORE this is implemented, the structure MUST be formed and rethink. Be very secured for a start and cannot be implemented in haste. Otherwise, it will backfire into a complete mess and you lose faith on something that has vast potential, but can be abandoned, simply because there's lack of tact it dealing with it before it spread its wings.

P.S.S. Oh btw, I like this idea, very much.

* Had edited in expression, uhh very tired sorry lol

I would never want to suggest anything which hurts WG's community and I do realize that too many members could do that. But do any of us know the right amount to set a cap at?

What if WG had 300 good members and everyone was happy?
Why should the cap limit WG to a third of that?

Right now there is not a problem, so why try and fix one?
If there comes a time when community shows signs of slipping, then THAT is the time to close applications for a while. Right now instigating a cap would be preventing a problem which might never happen.


WG has goals of pulling certain amounts of members to wars, I can see the IAs and talk to people about it. Right now 50-60% is about the max that the clan is pulling. 50ish out of 92.

If you set the cap at 120 for example you are limiting the clan to pulling 65 or so members max. No matter how many activity requirements you put in place, that is pretty much going to be the amount you get, not many clans do better than 60%.

So say that happens. Is WG ok with 65 people?
It would look bad in my opinion to just up the cap everytime you feel like it. If you set something like that it needs to be taken seriously or else there wont be a point to it.

All a cap does is hinder growth.
If you want to hinder growth or if hindering it is necessary then by all means instigate a cap. I just don't see why you would want to kill the current momentum.



And Valdremia.
The focus of your argument is the belief that the best members are willing to wait because they really want to be in.
That is putting patience at the top of all personal qualities and that isn't necessarily justified. There are other things equally important to patience which good members possess. If someone is not patient they don't automatically turn into a bad member.

We'd need like 150 if we had any chance of maxing out our CC. When we reach a certain amount of members, maybe like 100 or so, we should start declining more and more people. I dont think we should COMPLETELY block the flow of people

For as long as I know, WG has always been a community where anyone with the requirements are free to join.

150 would be a good cap because think of how great it would be if WG did have 100 or more members come to a full out, and it will only fail if the members that join are not active on the site and in the chat. So keep a lot of inactivity sweeps and it will make sure that a lot of recruits won't kill the clan.

If there are 10 applications a week then I would go with that.
I do not like the idea of setting a cap and then moving it. That seems to me like it could look bad. It would make it seem as though we put the cap on simply to rush people and then raised it when they got here.

I think the cap should be relatively permanent. Of course it can be changed, but that shouldn't be the goal in my opinion.

I 100% support.

Seriously, before i left for a bit there was around 10-20 members at a pk etc. I loved it, it felt like a close community. Recently i went to the war where 50 (49 to be picky) members attended. It was crouded and i felt a bit left out :/

Member cap = V.good

Well, it is overall a good idea. I mean DD is such an important example that people need to think about.

But... About app's...

We need to make applying to our clan a battle. I do not believe that we should just let them intro fro 3 days and apply and join. I was told when i joined that being in WG is an honor, and it is not easy to get in. Lordy told me this himself. I attended every raid for the 2 weeks i was trail/intro. Anyways.
We need to make people joining to have a competition to be a part.

It's just my thoughts...

90 members by today's standards is already quite large - and the skill potential (efficiency) of these 90 members is not nearly close to what it could be. It's no use having 150 members if a clan of 70 can beat them.

I think we should simply leave it the way it is at the moment, but do start trying to slow down growth to avoid having too many unexperienced/unstable arrivals - this can be done with only a bit more strictness from the App Managers/Council upon accepting the apps, it doesn't need a rework of the app system or a member cap.

I think we should *start* going towards being more demanding in terms of apps.

well with what all you write My thinking is that with a cap there be no room for me to stay You might want to sort out your skillers that came to WG

I am working on my combat but even if it lvl 120's I'm just not good at war

*dont all be replying to this either It is just my own feelings*

Bad, bad idea.
Efficiency-wise, yes it's alright.
But morals.
Don't forget morality.
We should never shut the doors on people who are eager.
I made WG a clan for all.
Requirements are enough of a deterrent.

Let's be as inclusive as we possibly can.

Yeah I've kind of made it clear in my head that a member cap wouldn't really be ideal. But if we continue at this rate of growth (10 members per week) it IS going to be a tad damaging, in the long run.

Agreed.
I think we should be more strict on our intake rather than give a cap.
If there are truly dedicated and polite people willing to join that won't cause heaps of stress, we shouldn't stop them.

The basis of the idea is good. But as we can see, the intricacies of it encompass many elements.

170 to me it seems, is the ideal max. cap before it grows into the "weak zone" comparing the ratio of quantity:quality. But, this is a figure based on guts, experience and reliance of knowledge to past events - which, surely relies alot (not all) on the analysis of the veterans of the clan to really know better.

If you can compile a chart based on that quadruple x for you, it will serve you very well.

In retrospective, we cannot ignore "trend".

This means, besides setting ideal numbers to our vision we must also be very aware/sensitive towards the factors influencing the ups and downs of, update, RS and the clan world.

That means you are dealing with manpower economics here. An absolute idea that requires diligence to bring it to its full power.

Personally, I am agreeable about tight application when opposed to too low a cap will bring about detrimental effects. However, I do think when we define "tight" applications in those circumstances, which area are we looking at?

- Overall in combat?
- Overall in skills?
- Overall in overall?
- Overall in maturity?*
- Overall in waiting period?*

*I've placed a mark there because these forms mandatory considerations they work in par with the idea which is very based on communal qualities against the numbers.

Answers to those questions will determine your skewing of the applications (if its adjusted accordingly) according to realistic applications at that time.

Rachellove certainly made a good point. With that in mind, it seems members cap should not be based on making decisions based on applicants' combat/skills - these are numerical gauge. But rather the quality of the apps as in * (mostly). Just my view.

Currently, we have 94 "active" members (judging from the current ML updated) if the activeness in show ups of events is still apparent at this stage we are still very safe. My guts tells me 120 is the spawning ground to start applying this and nurture, before we start increasing in 10s towards anywhere near 170.

At 170 reached it will be a time to decide if it performed its expectations. I don't think we should think too far ahead of ourselves at 170 point mark reached, when we do not know yet how are we handling it right between 120-150 for "higher times".

I do think if we are to do this, we should use the knowledge based from implementation between the fluctuations up to 150, to be confident in dealing with 170 cap, the "ideal" max.

At low times, 100 might be a good point to start for a seasoned clan such as WG. That means, you don't need any caps below that. But it can be used as a point to decide if we are ready communal wise to start heading towards the "big" numbers. With 100-120 as your breathing space for low times. However, we shouldn't be loose about our quality of apps. Anything lower than that I do not think requires capping monitoring. And allow 100-120 as the "flow in" period for exceptional apps to bring the clan forward easily into 170 max.

Having said that, to consider HL and Snow's point on quality apps - if we marry the 2 intentions, we can simply disregard all the concerns about in-betweens number caps and concentrate just on quality apps for anything below the 170 mark for example. To make it simpler. But once that cap is reached, to start implementing this idea, we need to be mindful and not fearful about avoiding to break that cap.

Otherwise, it defeats the purpose to even think about this in the first place.

well, idk but maybe rekindle the sectors a little bit? maybe?

if not that we could have like an fa group. Enough applicants don't make it past trial before they leave, others just leave b/c. So in essence maybe an fa system of some sort or apps only open 2 weeks out of 4 or 1/4 or 1/3 or something. idk. Thats my take.

Edit- Btw, I no council and lordy hate this but tbh, maybe a little bias cant hurt. Those who most actively participate/have been in wg get 1st dibs over others. I mean there is always going to be a little bias, and in things like this i believe its needed.

I'm against the idea of a member cap.
As Eugene previously stated, Wg has been a clan for everyone, If someone wanted to join Wg because of its community and brilliant experience but they couldn't because WG had a member cap?

I don't feel comfortable with that.
If we do get as large as 150 Members, I believe we can sort it out.

Let's see what can we do?

We can be more strict on Applications, which has been suggested in the Application Manager Forum & it has been implemented, App Managers, check the forum if you haven't done so.

If we can keep the clan stable, cutting out flames & grudges before they start to get bigger, and increase the bond between members, we wouldn't have to deal with the clan getting too big & destroying itself, because it won't.

The Staff - The staff have been getting pretty old now. I'm not saying they are getting rusty and of no use to us, they are as energetic as ever, with WG in the golden ages, who wouldn't be. However, as you all know, they won't stay forever. The Staff will be in dire need one day, meaning they will look towards the community for potential. Placing a cap on the members could ruin a future staff member, and halt the potential.

Right now, we hit the 85 member mark a while ago, but we still only managed 49 to the full out. We need to make people aware & active again. I know there are a lot of inactives that need to be dealt with.

Let's keep WG free for everyone, like it has been for the past 4.5 years.

~Abs

say that to the people that are in love with the clan but dont reach the reqs ^

I agree with Abs on this and SQ, they are given ample time to reach the Reqs and it's pretty easy to do. WG is a family, and has an outstanding community, if people want to join because of this yet theres a member cap your gonna upset alot of people and maybe set out to destroy the clan, this is just my opinion.

Yeah this is a great suggestion.
It's sparked incredibly intelligent debate and I am proud of the thinking behind what some of the members have written.
It's really asked us to question our standards, morals, and limits.

If we reach 150 members say, we just raise the req.....

Simple.

Raising reqs has a history of bad things coming soon after
I'd say encourage people to train and continue to take on members but leave the reqs the same.

DI used to have like a 2 month after you app thing to get to know people, prove yourself