How to sort out the inactive soc members?

First of all I know that there is a topic for societies but I only saw there recruiting topics.

As a society leader I would like to keep my soc clean, but in the same time I don't want to restrict the members like login every day/week/month or you are fired.
I asked MA if possible to get a list with society members last login time, or just to tell who is already inactive in my society. Not too often, say twice a year.

12 Oct 2008 Entropia Support:
Dear Participant,

We cannot give out any information concerning other Entropia Universe accounts, so unfortunately we cannot help you with this.

Kind regards,
Entropia Support

Now what can I do? How the other society leaders are solving this issue?

i think the way it is set up sucks. many online games i have played at least lsit the last time a player logged in. in many others members of your society/clan/etc are autoadded to the games contact list and you are able to see whether they are online or not.

the way entropia is set up is pretty archaic in my opinion.

This is a good idea, posted in another thread:

Butch C said:

make it a soc rule that a member must keep the date in his soc terminal info within your time frime for pruning, so they must regularly update the date at the terminal

Then you can just click thier info and if the date is older than say 2 months, delete them.

A soc member came up with that idea, not my brainwork

but yeah something from MA built in would be much better

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Pip said:

This is a good idea, posted in another thread:

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Thanks +rep

u can do like this. If u won't play for a while just tell the other on the socs website. that's how we do in H-E

If inactivity is an issue for you then make sure your members are aware that after a certain amount of time the will be kicked from the society. Soc forums would be a place to make this statement. As a cadet society, my guess you want to find active people for your main soc?

NotA on the otherhand normally has several people inactive at a time, but we are a group where activity is not an issue. You often find people will go inactive for a while if rl catches up, but they still pop in from time to time.

Is this off topic, but I keep thinking of one guy;

Jimmy Stryker

Full name was something like James Jimmy Stryker (I think)

Used to see him all the time in-game, globalling and such..

Now nothing..

Where did he go?

Gone..sold out..what?

If he's gone, does he remain listed in soc?

Anyone know?

Just curious

My society has introduced 2 different methods to watch activeness, to keep our society 100% active.

First thing i do is require all our members to do a monthly attendence. Each member has a member description page at the society terminal where all of my knights are required to put the current month and year, if a members attendence goes more then 3 months with out an updated i demote them 1 rank every month until they are dismissed or their attendence is updated.

The second back up i have available to me is our society forum. All of our knights are required to register on our forums, Being a forum admin i can see alot of their information, including their last forum log in, and their email address if i need top contact them.

Personally i think MA should add the attendence into ur member information automatically updating it everytime you login. But until that happens u just have to do it manually.

One would think that if you are active, you would know who is inactive.

dj. said:

What I said

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seems he checks in every so often, not much but

and Yes Xen, I agree

One would think that if you are active, you would know who is inactive.

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i would have to disagree here, for example my society the knights of calypso consist of over 120 active members, some are from north america some from the british isle, some from eastern europe and some from australia all different timezones, now i consider myself active, im on everyday for atleast a few hours if not a good 8 hour shift and even still with being thata ctive i dont ever see some of my brothers on the otherside of the world. All our Australian players are online while im sleeping or at work.

So its hard to just go by who u see online cause u cant be online all the time, and its not like everyone logs in all the time i know some members that are just a few hours a week. Very hard to catch them online at all.

Thaddeuss said:

i would have to disagree here, for example my society the knights of calypso consist of over 120 active members, some are from north america some from the british isle, some from eastern europe and some from australia all different timezones, now i consider myself active, im on everyday for atleast a few hours if not a good 8 hour shift and even still with being thata ctive i dont ever see some of my brothers on the otherside of the world. All our Australian players are online while im sleeping or at work.

So its hard to just go by who u see online cause u cant be online all the time, and its not like everyone logs in all the time i know some members that are just a few hours a week. Very hard to catch them online at all.

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Ok, a group of you who are active, should know who is inactive.

"When's the last time you guys saw Joe Blow?"

"Few months ago maybe"

"Ages"

"Who?"

Anyway, I think that many members is far too many, but to each their own. I guess you guys do need some kind of system.

We enjoy larg number of members to keep the society channel active, always having people on to help each other.

Before implementing the attendence system we have thats what we use to do, we had a group of 5 or 6 knights that would have a meeting go through the member list and say u seen this guy lately no ? dismissed..

but doing that was even still alot of geussing...i remember alot of replies like
" i think i saw him last week maybe.... " sooo MA give us an automatic update last login date info in members description info.. pretty pretty pleasE!!!

That`s a good question I see how it would be harder for a large society as opposed to smaller ones. The demotion before dismissal idea is a good one giving time before cutting someone loose. Of course there are members who are you could say grandfathered in or some that are expected to be gone for a period of time. Then newer members get held to account a little more and after a month or two get let go. It`s a hard call.

That's why you have Colonels (or second in command); between the Soc leader and the colonels you should be able to figure out who's active and who's not.
And... as others pointed out you need rules in place about what's considered active, and what are the consequences.

@ dj... I heard some rumors a while ago (few months) that Jimmy Stryker gave up on EU; I don't know any more details unfortunately .

Violet said:

If inactivity is an issue for you then make sure your members are aware that after a certain amount of time the will be kicked from the society. Soc forums would be a place to make this statement. As a cadet society, my guess you want to find active people for your main soc?

NotA on the otherhand normally has several people inactive at a time, but we are a group where activity is not an issue. You often find people will go inactive for a while if rl catches up, but they still pop in from time to time.

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Hungarian Cadets is basically a training soc for the Hungarian Trox Killers, but I also welcome those who are online rarely and still want to play sometime, just fall out from the other soc because their rules.

Xen:

I am online daily, but can't be online 24/7

Why not announce on your website that you're to kick all inactive players or those that seem inactive but if someone gets kicked by mistake then to re-apply and they will be accepted straight back.
The ones who either want to be in the soc or that are gonna benefit your soc will be re-applying, those ones who dont.....fuck 'em

Is it not possible to check this through X-fire now?

I don't see any problems personaly, since if me not online then Kilkara is there or the other active socmembers can tell when they have seen someone logged last time.

Yeah, the huge timezone diffrence between Sopron and Kisvarda local times can cause serious problems in your case

Maybe an ingame offline capable pm system with read confirmation would be nice...

Also running a socwebsite and 'spamming' inactive members with emails used to work for us.

I would watch for people you don't see online often and ask the soc "have you seen so and so online lately?" if nobody says they have, boot to the head!

This is indeed a tough question...

Everyone who joins the Hounds has to start as a Rookie. We treat this phase as a 3 month trial period. If a new member is largely inactive for that period then they get booted, no problem...

It gets more difficult with established members who have not been around for a while. There are several Hounds on extended periods of AWOL, and it is mighty tempting to boot them, but something stays my hand...

Particularly since more than 1 were Founding members...

I am keen to build the GloryHounds into a top 50 most skilled soc, and that won't happen if we're carrying passengers. And that brings me to another point... What happens when a highly skilled soc-member chips back to n00b? Should they get to remain a "Colonel"? ("Advisor" in our set-up). What they have effectively done is lower the average skill of the entire soc, and this should not go un-noticed...

Several socs have a Cadet-soc attached and this is a great idea. If a main soc member turns himself into a n00b, well fine, but they can work their way up from the bottom again...

On the other hand though, they do have years of experience, and surely it is This that makes them an Advisor, not merely skills...

See, it's a nightmare...


Reading many of these posts has inspired me to do something about many of the absentees though... thanx for all your input

What happens when a highly skilled soc-member chips back to n00b? Should they get to remain a "Colonel"? ("Advisor" in our set-up).

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This really depends on how your society gauges a members value in the society. it sounds like yours goes by skill? so in that case yes id say demote them down to the appropriate rank for that skill lvl.

In TKoC I gauge members value alittle different i look at a players knowledge of the game, activeness, and willingness to assist other as well as socilaize within the society. Skill is rather unimportant to me when i look for members to promote, because just cause u got lots of skills doesnt mean u know a thing about the game. i know plenty of people that got 50k skills after a month or 2 just from mad depo's so ithink skill is a rather deceptive way of gauging a players capapbilitys.

What they have effectively done is lower the average skill of the entire soc, and this should not go un-noticed

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if ur trying to get in the top 50 i would say demote as many members as u can get down to 10 15 at most, put in a higher skill requirement for the soc.
We created a HQ TKoC that has a 75k skill requirement to get into. we did finally get on the 50 top skilled list for about a week at #49 with i think 11 members until one of the colonels on TKoC side got promoted up to HQ right at the 75k minimum bumping them back out.