Ashin

That's a good question. Practically speaking (see what I did there?) I think that the few times when we have concerns about a recruit, they tend to be pretty widely shared. I can remember a few times when most folks found someone to be fine, but one person had a personality conflict or bad experience. In those kinds of cases, I think it becomes the responsibility of the Vet(s) to communicate with each other. For example: "hey - I know that you recently sponsored Ashin, and I want to let you know that I had a pretty bad encounter with him over the weekend." Etc. That is going to be a general theme: with the new privilege of recruitment, Vets will need to take more responsibility for the outcome.

As I start a new chapter in my life, as we begin a new year, and as South of Heaven approaches its fourteen-year anniversary in November, it’s a good time to reflect on our gaming community and extended family, talk about where we’ve been, and think about where we may be going. Historical Context While South of Heaven has always been a multi-game community, in our early years we had one leader and only one Chapter at a time. When the group felt a game had run its course, we would turn the lights off, encourage everyone to come with, and begin anew in a new title. Back then, it made sense that Veteran eligibility was primarily based on your willingness to follow the guild from game to game. It wasn’t until our brief but enjoyable Aion chapter that we first considered the possibility that a Chapter might exist without me. I burnt out more quickly than expected, and there was a group that wanted to remain. So we invited a new rank, Chapter Lead, and Huntyre became our first - keeping the lights on in Aion, which would prove most fortuitous. The guild's first truly multi-Chapter experience was prompted by the launch of Guildwars 2. I had always intended to lead the guild in that game myself. But instead I was completely taken by the raid team we were assembling in WoW - a team that took years to build and remains one of my proudest achievements. Fortunately, the Aion Chapter brought us Fera. After a few long talks over coffee & tea, I decided to entrust her with the entirety of GW2, from start to finish. Her terrific success building that Chapter lead me to eventually share the title of Founder with her. Since then, others have stepped up to lead. Dar has organized SoH in WoW long after the raiding Chapter closed. Tyrlis stewarded the GW2 Chapter toward its end, and also lead the EVE Chapter for its first year. And none of us has been quite as successful as Midri, whose FF14 Chapter has the distinction of being the most enduring in the entire history of the guild (still strong, after four years)! Things Have Changed Through all this growth, we have always set high standards for our leadership. We have also been very protective of the right to recruit, in order to preserve a uniform standard for membership and maintain our “brand.” Over the years, many of you have kindly expressed your appreciation for the excellent organization, management and leadership that this guild provides. However, one of the wonderful things about a community this long-lived is that we’re all growing old together! Careers and education have advanced. Weddings and babies have happened. All the things and more. As a “real life first” group, we of course embrace all of it. But as a result, each year there are fewer of us to lead, and we have less time to do it. Additionally, I feel the MMO genre has somewhat stagnated. It has become harder to get excited about new launches, all of which appear to be variations on the same theme. It’s also become more challenging to manage the time and recruitment effort required to really excel. Things Must Change More I've come to believe that, if we insist on maintaining the same structure that served us so well in the past, we will surely fade away and die as a guild. Therefore, I called for a Leadership Retreat this past weekend. Our objective was to re-think South of Heaven and design a new structure that would allow us to grow and thrive under these new conditions. For the remainder of this post, I will provide a rough outline. We will create official rules threads to explain it all in more detail, soon. Introducing Cohorts “Cohorts” will be a new form of Chapters, designed to be more flexible and more casual. They require at least three Veterans to be present and playing the game, one of whom must come forward and volunteer to serve as Game Officer. The Game Officer’s primary responsibilities are: (1) to liaison between the folks playing the game and the guild’s Leadership Council (more on this later), and (2) to ensure that the overall experience for those playing the game is consistent with the high standards of the guild. Specific liaison duties include: pitching an initial proposal for the Cohort, requesting communication services (Forum, Discord, Mumble channels), providing updates to the Council, seeking Council feedback as needed, and ensuring the Cohort is properly transitioned or closed if he or she can no longer serve this role. A Cohort may exist in any kind of game; it needn’t be an MMO or even PC-based! There will be no minimum time commitment, and Cohorts will be eligible for “promotion” to Chapter status as they grow. Lastly, Cohorts will be allowed to recruit. Recruitment will no longer be controlled exclusively by Chapter Leads, and will instead become the responsibility of Veterans. Veterans, Magnified! As I alluded earlier, the historical concept of Veteran was based on a guild with one leader and one Chapter. We have long known this definition was obsolete, and the Senior Member title was our way of putting a bandaid on it. At last, we have properly gone back to the drawing board and redefined the rank entirely. Moving forward, Veteran will be a merit-based title. Veterans will require at least six months in the guild, and they are expected to demonstrate exemplary character, conduct and loyalty. Any member of the Leadership Council may nominate someone for Veteran promotion, and the Council alone will determine who may have the title. Veterans will be allowed to sponsor any number of new recruits they wish, whenever they are playing in an active Cohort or Chapter. Recruits become eligible for Member rank when they have: (1) played with an active Cohort or Chapter for at least one month, (2) demonstrated active communication with the guild outside of the game, and (3) received a second vote of confidence from any other Veteran in that Cohort or Chapter. Promotion polls will be eliminated. Current Chapter Leads have the option to adopt the new system or grandfather the old one. Anyone who is currently a Senior Member, Veteran or Ghost will be reviewed by the Council and considered for new Veteran status. Due to the new criteria, we cannot promise that everyone will maintain their current title. After the review is complete, the Senior Member and Ghost ranks will be eliminated. Instead, we will move to a simplified system where Recruits & Members who have not shown a certain minimum activity on forums or in Discord will be periodically purged, and Veterans will maintain their status indefinitely. The Council Initially, the Leadership Council will be comprised of all former and current Chapter Leads. We think it is vital that members of the Council have experience organizing and leading the guild. Practically speaking, this also means that the Council will be comprised of folks who have demonstrated a commitment to and love for the guild that have been proven over many years. The Council’s primary duties are to preserve the health of South of Heaven as an institution and promote our amazing community of gamers. We will oversee Veteran promotions, administer communications services, and serve as a sounding board, resource and moral compass for anyone who is willing to step up and lead. The Council must also add new members over time, with a strong preference for those who have served as a Game Officer or Chapter Lead. The Council, Chapter Leads and Game Officers will meet in Mumble at least twice a year, and additionally as needed. Any Council member may convene a meeting at any time. Guild Meets One other area we identified for improvement was establishing guild-wide activities. Some of our members (shout out: Grieve) have already taken the lead in organizing regional, in-person meet-ups. We think that’s great, and we would love to see more of them. In addition to encouraging meet-ups and general usage of our Discord and Forums, we want to start organizing online activities that will be open to the entire guild. The basic concept will be to pick a free game and invite everyone to hang out in Mumble for one night or even a weekend to play it together. Our goal is to work toward having these once a month. Closing Thoughts In summary, I’ve used a lot of words to talk about how things have changed, why we need to change, and how we have reimagined our guild to thrive under these new conditions. The core concepts really boil down to empowering Veterans and establishing a formal Council to steer the guild as a whole. We hope the new structure will encourage a new generation of leaders, keep our community engaged, and provide a path to grow our membership moving forward. I’m personally excited to see what our Vets do with Cohorts - I suspect I’ll be surprised (even challenged) in ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. Please share whatever thoughts, feedback or questions you may have.

Omens were recently buffed, and I'm pretty intrigued with them currently. Is there a "late" Taco Tuesday on Wednesday, too? How many days of the week are you eating tacos? We know nothing of such things...

You did. I just accepted it this afternoon. You'll receive a welcome mail that points you to our new recruit orientation thread - you can also see it by accessing our EVE Online forum. Welcome to the corp! After finishing Stranger Things 2 (weak start, strong finish) I'm slowly dabbling in The Punisher. I'm a bit hot/cold with Netflix and all their Marvel stuff. Love Daredevil but have loved each subsequent series less and less. Iron Fist was bad, but also required if you wanted to keep current with the whole "Hand" subplot. Punisher seems to be good so far, if a bit slow to build up. (Opinions. I have them!)

This is my question as well! Welcome to our forums - looking forward to flying with you soon.

Welcome to the corp! Looking forward to flying with you.

Welcome here! That was a great intro post and gives me a sense that you would fit in very well with this group. Is your character currently in / able to join the Caldari Militia? What sort of software does your company make? I am looking forward to flying with you soon! I do feel obliged to warn folks that our Friday fleets tend toward sloshy.

Congratulations (and our thanks) to the following EVE Chapter members for promotion to Senior Member: @Gartius @Iron Guerilla @Practical @Shiror

Hi spacefriend! I'm not going to add to your backlog of questions, and I'll get your access set soon (seems I can't find the Admin CP on my phone).

Recruit accepted!

lol Big Menzana

I don't know what Big Red is.

Hey RK, Valence B. here - enjoyed (briefly) chatting with you on Sunday. Sorry I had to cut it short, but it was definitely time for some food. Looking forward to further talks soon. We've had pretty good luck with Texans in this guild, so no worries there! When you get a chance, please send me a PM here with your full API, so we can get that step out of the way. You can use this link, and please select the "no expiry" option: https://community.eveonline.com/support/api-key/CreatePredefined?accessMask=4294967295 This is also a good time to review all your API keys, and delete one which you are no longer using.

Congratulations to @Gartius on promotion to Member!

Hello stranger! First, welcome back. I know we spoke in game a bit, but I want to give you a sense of our process here, so you can decide the best next step for you. For folks who pass their trial period and become full members, but later go inactive, we typically welcome them back with open arms. They are taken in for a brief "re-orientation" / condensed trial, and quickly promoted back to their former rank. In your case, you vanished in the middle of your trial period and were not promoted. We are still happy to consider your re-application, but there is a caveat. We would want to make sure that your playtime will be consistent enough to attend at least a fleet or so each week, and earn your promotion to member. We'll give former trials a second chance. But not a third. So I'd ask you to comment on that, describe how you see your playtime, etc., and make sure we're not going to wind up pulling eachother's chains. We have a bunch of meetings lined up this weekend to sort out our next big projects, deployments, etc. So I am reluctant to take a "new" pilot in right this moment. I know you're already in Branch - have you got some out of corp pilots to mess around with for a few days while we get ourselves organized?

Welcome to the corp!

She's right, as usual. However, there's still a pretty cool story behind the name. You'll be able to read it if you wind up joining the corp. I've gone through most of your background check - thank you for sending it. That, combined with Tyrlis' conversation with our alliance leaders, makes me feel pretty comfortable with you. Don't worry about any stigma associated with the other character you purchased, and thanks for being honest with us about that. Since it was a different character entirely, you could have easily just tried to hide it. So I appreciate that. The biggest remaining concern I have came from a review of your skills. Although you have a good amount of SP, you actually can't fly very many of the pvp ships we use at all. Hardly any! It seems in some cases you are missing a few key fitting skills to upgrade various modules to T2. In other cases, you may need to train some hull or weapon skills as well. Now, this isn't a problem for me. But since you mentioned your past impatience with the skill queue, I think this is an important point for us to discuss. We would expect you to pick some primary ships from each doctrine (could be dps, logistics, command, or advanced ewar/tackle) and train toward them during your time with us. And it might take a little while before you'e mastered them all. What do you think about that?

Congratulations to @Hirab and @Susitna on their promotion to member!