Player Raids

Player raids are a part of life in the Team Challenge. However, someone has begun to hurt Tigers - a lot - with the latest set of raids. We lose about two players per day, silently, with no messages on the profiles. That fairly well balances the two or so per day that fall in from the open recruiting that I do in Diamond Slots, except that we are exchanging some powerful long-term players, for mostly new players.

We lose in that exchange. From the handful that I can readily identify, of the players leaving, I think there are two teams involved. But - the key - since I do not have all the players yet entered into my little spreadsheet, I cannot identify most unless they show in the Team Activity Feed at a time I am looking. Thus, I cannot really say that there are two teams (and only two teams) working to take our members.

Here is my best suggestion: If you are approached in chat, to leave Tigers, and join some other team, we need to know which other team, and what arguments are being offered to induce that switch. Most such arguments are either totally false, fabrications, or are fallacious - illogical extensions of what is true. It is possible to counter such inducements by simply publicly stating the truths that reveal those lies. Yes, I used that word - for some of the persons I think may be involved are known to me to be rude, obnoxious, and liars. First, though, we need to identify the false and fallacious, in order to find and show the truth.

Please let me (or the entire team) know of any such approaches to you, and of the source of the approaches.

***** I saw a departing player delete a recruitment message, while I was on the player's profile page preparing to post myself. The team was Wounded Warriors - a great cause, since my own son is an Iraqi/Afghanistani vet. I came really close to joining them, before swinging to Tigers.
When the player in question then left Tigers, and joined WW, I lost my last vestige of cool, and posted words like despicable, deplorable, unprincipled, and so forth on that player profile, with the request that those messages be copied to WW team forum. Then I said very similar things on the Tigers team page.

I had applied the concept of an honor code in terms of recruitment: I always checked the profile of the prospect, and proceeded to post the profile only if there were no other team present there, or if the prospect were from the ADA. Maybe that is a silly limitation, but it seemed right to me, that players for other teams - even direct competitors - could come and go of their own volition, and without my instigation. If a player were NOT on a team, then my feeling is, and was, that they SHOULD be on a team, and should be recruited posthaste.

I am rethinking that position. Perhaps it would be as despicable, deplorable, and unprincipled for me to post all the WW players with recruitments to Tigers, as it seemed to me to be for them to initiate such activity. Perhaps, though, that would be the only way to combat the tactics being used against Tigers. First answer comes from whatever leadership is established for Tigers, after TigerLadyJo is found, or not found. If the leadership approves, then it is likely that I will begin just that campaign at the first of next month. If that leadership is reticent to launch a base retribution, then I will not. The second answer comes in any comments left here, regarding becoming the thing we proclaim that we deplore; or engaging in survival by being the fittest.

Former Members Celebrated

The new month has begun, and with it, the recognition that some cherished former members have departed the team. Each has chosen to support a different cause this month, and each is engaged with great teams to support those worthy causes.

Sondra01 - Doctors Without Borders
Remy0514 - Doctors Without Borders
Classroom12 - St. Judes Childrens Research Hospital

Each at leaving, was in the Tigers' top 16. However, their contributions to the team were far more than the total coins each contributed. They were cheerleaders for the team, leaders for the team. and pranksters for the team. Further, they DID contribute massively to the coin totals for the team, so -

Thank you!

And, good luck with your new teams - it is too bad they cannot both win, since they compete directly against each other, but at least we Tigers don't have to face either of them right now.

Others may have also left, with whom I was not so familiar, but who will nonetheless be missed. To those not named, the best of luck as well, and show those new teams what a TIGER sounds like when the competing begins!

**** Update 20081203 09:50

The final shoe has fallen. I had been waiting to see if there had been a change-of-mind, but binkie523 has now moved over to Wounded Warriors. Thanks, binkie, for all the coins and support you have provided, and good luck with the team we plan to whip this month.

Recon Mission

I have not been out recruiting publicly today, and may not begin for a couple of days. Instead, I am attempting a huge, new, spreadsheeting of all our current members.

The coins are difficult - IWON lies about the coins when I view someone else's profile, and lies very inconsistently. Remy and I had some considerable difficulty determining how many coins each of us had, when looking back and forth - my copy of my profile would say one total, with a ranking, and her copy of that very profile, simultaneously refreshed, would state a very different total, and a different ranking. Same in reverse - I saw different coins and rank on her profile, than did she. (I am currently experiencing the same problem with Irankin - his profile jumps from adjacent, to 20 or 30 behind me, on consecutive refreshes of my profile page.) What I decided to do, was to accept the IWON coin ranking, and time-stamp that into the spreadsheet, to allow at least gross observation of change. It will take a full week to complete the initial spreadsheet. Then I have something that allows me to see if my profile scans have been right about the numbers of non-playing members, the numbers of super-collectors who have joined the team during the past week or so, and the effects of future recruiting on coins, as opposed to simply member numbers.

I see a lot of uses for the spreadsheet, once compiled; but if someone has an additional idea, the sooner I "hear" that idea as a comment, the better. I envision rechecking the spreadsheet against the member roster at least once a month, to add new members, if I don't see them as introductory messages in the message queue. I can, of course, count them by gender, sort them by gender, sort them by coin rank, or back to player name.

This all grew out of the dissatisfaction I felt about relying on scanning and sampling the roster profiles, as a means of finding out whether we are headed in the right direction, or toward oblivion as a team. (I plan to remain until only the ghost of Tiger and the ghost of Conley are still playing for the team - or maybe longer, if Tiger gives up first.)

**** I have added a field for IWON seniority. That will help decide whether this player is "lost" or merely very new.

**** More update: It may take me longer than a week to complete the sheet, for the first pass - no WONDER google calls their tool a "crawler". Part just over-estimation of the durability of my bottom in that chair, and part, the constant discoveries that require an adjustment of my routine for data collection and preservation. For one example, there are far more "Private" profiles than I had thought. After mulling, I decided to take the ranking for those from the mini pop-up that provides for calling the profile, so I have now back-pedalled and filled in most of those. Still cannot get to the IWON seniority, though, so . . .
The upshot is, that I will likely resume recruiting before I finish, for I do not think we can fully expect to beat our competition without resuming soon.