Basics For Players And Team Members

This is not an exhaustive list of tips and hints - just the skeleton of how new players, or new team players, can best use the facility of IWON. It may serve as the orientation that IWON should provide, but does not.



First things first: In order to play most games on IWON you will need a computer capable of running Sun Microsystems java & the Adobe flash player; and some of the games will require the Adobe shockwave player as well. Following are my best links to download those required pieces of software, which you probably should download anew if yours are older. The second link covers both of the two Adobe players. There is also an alternative to the standard Internet Explorer - Mozilla Firefox - which offers significant advantages. (It is the ONLY browser I currently use, because it is FASTER than IE; offers stupendously better blocking control, not only for "pop-ups" but also for all those silly movies and other ads that would add dozens of precious seconds to each change of window on IWON. ) I even find fewer crashes on Firefox, although other users may find IE to be more stable. Mileage may vary. The last of this set of links leads to FREE Firefox and FREE Adblock Plus.


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http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

http://www.adobe.com/products/

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=Adblock&cat=all&advancedsearch=1&as=1&appid=1&lver=3.5&atype=0&pp=20&pid=5&sort=&lup=

Once all these are installed, the games should run pretty well, and you are ready to begin exploring and using IWON as shown in the following tasks.


Second Things: If you are joining FROM an organization, such as Diabetic Connect, be sure to state that on the team page when you join !!! There may be friends and colleagues already on the team who can help you, become IWON friends with you, even just gossip with you. But unless both of you always use the same screen-name on all sites, you will not know each other unless you identify your organization when you join that team. (See #4 below if you have forgotten to leave this message on the team page, to discover how to get back there later when you remember & regret.)
Regular Basics:

1. Find your profile page. It is listed in the IWON toolbar at the top of whichever IWON page you are using now. That page is critical to you, for at the bottom is the current message queue. Anyone who wants to tell you something, or ask you something, will use that queue, unless they happen to run into you in chat on a game. Read those messages, delete afterward if it is private or offensive, or leave undisturbed - the newer ones go to the top, so keeping the older is not a problem; it might even allow you to look back and see who said, or get a player name (which will allow you to visit their profile page - item 2 - to leave a reply to something you didn't answer earlier.) IWON will store about 1000 messages for you, newest always on top. At the bottom of the stack of visible messages, on the right corner of that box, is the link to "view all". Only 3 messages are usually displayed, but the rest can be easily viewed by clicking that phrase. If there are enough messages to require more than one page to display them, page navigation will appear when the link is clicked.
IWON has now introduced a floating personal data bar at the top of any IWON page: that bar includes some links to things you might need to do (spend your coins, identify games to which you have access at your level (some are locked until a certain number of lifetime coins are earned)) identification of what level you have attained on the new level system, based on lifetime coins you have earned; and messages pending.

Note that the little "messages pending" link near the top of your IWON home page or profile page, is not exactly "messages": it is related - but still very different. That opens the profile page, if you are not already there, and pops up a dialogue with different tabs for different types of messages. There are Friend Requests there; Team Challenges (invitations to join the inviter's team - often accompanied by a REAL message posted at the bottom of your profile page); My Challenges (challenges issued to you by other players, to beat a specific score on the named game); and Other Notifications, which I have been unable to identify. To the left edge of the pop-up, are some other navigation links, to allow you to edit various properties of your profile page. At least some of the time, the "messages pending" link will change color when an invitation or a challenge is entered to you, so that you will spot it and respond.


There is still no notification of actual messages, still hidden at the bottom of the profile page. You must check those by going to the profile page, and then to the bottom of that page. (Easy way for me, is to click the mouse anywhere on the blank spots of the page, then hit the "end" key. That jumps me directly to the end. The "home" key then takes me back to the top when I wish to go. Annoying when you make the trip, to find none, but probably better than missing something that might be urgent because you forgot to look. For me, I invite so many people to "click my name (or avatar) and post a message on my profile page" that the trip is necessary several times per day. You may find once to be sufficient.


2. Visit another player's profile page. Do this just to see what is there.
A) In game chats, click the name in the list of players at the top of the chat box. That will open a pop-up box with some details of the player involved. In the darker bar below the avatar of the player is a link to "View Profile". Click that and the profile of the player selected will replace your own profile on the page you have open. Or, HOLD DOWN YOUR SHIFT KEY and that player profile will open as a new page. Look around, maybe leave a note for them. If you wish to leave messages on the profile page of other players, it is wise to let them know in game chats, if you can. The sad fact is, that at least 55% of IWON players do not know they have a message queue, nor if they suspect there is one, where to find it. (The 55% is an early December 2008 number, but likely remains fairly constant as experienced players drift away, and new IWONers supplant them.)
Other options from the player list of the game chat include "Mute" - someone who is being annoying to you can be "muted"; and "add to friends" - if you meet someone in chat whom you wish to talk to more often or more privately, that link will invite them to become your friend. They must accept (if they feel the same), and then you will have each others' avatars available to click to directly from your own profile page, in your Friends. [ Max friends is 500, including all outstanding invitations. ]

B) You can go to another player's profile page by clicking the player-name under their avatar on messages left for you. That is handy when you need to answer their message. I also simply save old messages, in case I later need to follow up something with that player. That also helps me remember (I'm getting old) who said what, when, and find what I may have said in reply - if they also save messages.
C) You can go to another player's profile page from the team page - the feed notifications, the messages posted to the team page, and the founder - the name in any of those is a link to the player's profile page; plus the members of the team Top 16 scorers for the month (the avatars at the bottom of the team page) - only the avatar icons are linked . Beneath the Top 16 is an option to "view all members". That opens the pictorals of all the members of the team, with navigation at the top of the section; the members are listed alpha-numerically by player name; but only the avatar icons are the links here. (While you are snooping at the bottom of the team page, check out the bottom edge of the stack of messages - right edge - and note the "view all" there. That link opens navigation to go back through earlier team messages, each offering a link to the author of the message. )
3. Invite a friend. This is a little strange, but you cannot directly add friends. Instead, you must invite them to be friends. At the top of their profile page, over toward the right side, down just even with the left-side player name, are the titles "My Profile", and "Add This Friend". To issue the invitation, click "Add This Friend". That is not exactly what happens: instead, that player receives an invitation to be your friend, which may be accepted, or ignored by that player. If the invitation is accepted, then after a short while, their avatar will appear on your profile page, just above the "My Notes" near the bottom of the page. Similarly, YOUR avatar will appear on THEIR profile page in that area. The avatars and the names with them, are links to the profile page of that player - just click them, and you jump to that profile page. That makes easier the problematic ability to reach an acquaintance to leave a message. If you do leave a message, that player does not even need to find you in "Friends", because on the message are displayed both your avatar (NOT unique) and your IWON player name (unique to you). Thus the message contains a means of accessing your profile to supply a response.

4. If you are a player for a Charity Team, you should see the name of your team in the Team Challenge banner in the middle of your IWON Profile page; and near the bottom, left edge of your IWON home page. That name is a link. You may click it to visit the team page. And, it works with the shift key as well, so that both pages can be open at the same time. Visit your team page not less than every other day. That is one of the most important parts of being on a team. Winning coins for the team is OK, but there are many other things to contribute. Leave a message from time to time, just cheerleading for the team. Congratulate someone on a proud accomplishment for the team. Brag a little about what you did. Offer suggestions. Offer complaints, about the team, about IWON in general, about specific games that seem to you to do you wrong. Someone may have an answer that relieves your problem; or an explanation that your suggestion is/is-not, a great idea, because. You will have already seen the team page at the time you joined the team - please leave a message there at that time, to introduce yourself, and let the other players know you are one of them. If you are joining from an outside organization, forum, or community, that should also be included in your introduction, for you may have many colleagues already on the team who will want to welcome you and help you.

Spend a moment to find out how that team communicates other than the team page - a team email account, a blog, a forum, all team members live in one house, or whatever. Then get into that communications network.

No matter what the other means of communications - they are important, but this is essential: Visit your team page not less than every other day!

5. If you are NOT a player on a charity team - why not? It is free! You still get all the coins you earn, you still get every prize you win, you just play! It is helpful! This is your chance to contribute to a cause that you love! This is your chance to provide your choice of charity a check that is far larger than most of us can write - and you get another chance next month, too!
Even if you contribute a check to your favorite cause every month, this is a chance to do even more. It is easy! If you were to wish to join Tigers Against Diabetes, just as an example, there is a link at the right side of this page that will take you to the Tigers Team Page - where you would see a big "Join Now" button to enroll in the team. Similarly, if you are looking for the National Charity Division diabetes team, there is a link there for "IWON American Diabetes Association Team Page". If diabetes is not the cause you wish to support, there is another link there, to the "Team Challenge." That page open up more than 800 causes of two types: the National Charity group, on the left, and the Community or Member Created group on the right.

Whatever your cause, there is sure to be a team playing for it. BUT - be sure to go to the team page first, to read the mission statement! The name of the team is a pointer, but only in the text of that team page can you find out whether this is the team for you. Then read some of the team messages to see what sort of things are discussed there.

Check out as many teams as you need, to be sure that you join the team you want to help - then JOIN! If you later change your mind, it is also easy to leave the team, or to join another team. Your coins earned while a member are still yours, although the team with which you earned them continues to get to count those; but your very next coins earned after changing teams accrue to the monthly total for that new team as well as to your personal account.

6. Guard your words in game chats. I have a terrible problem ignoring false or malicious statements - I just cannot - and so, I run my "mouth" right back. That is not a good thing. Wisdom tells me I should simply mute the offender (click the player's name in the list of players, and a small box pops up, with an option to mute player). Sometimes, I do. I try to remain truthful, despite my anger, but can be provoked into the use of angry words - thus far, always toward only the offender, and restricted to "liar", "lying", "lies".
Never, never, derogate or demean a competing team, nor, if you can, even the liar present from that team. And if you find yourself engaged despite your best attempts to avoid a conflict, then be adult enough to say "enough!", and leave the chat. (Options, at the top of the chatbox, opens to show "Close Chat" as the last listed option. Oh, and please remind me whenever you run into me in chat, to be careful what *I* say.
Also, always question the wisdom of publishing your primary email address, or other elements of your identity, on IWON. If you set up a throw-away account to register for IWON, that might be a better choice to give out in chats, or to Team members. EVERYTHING typed anywhere on IWON is public domain, and therefore the fact that you type it on a known friend's profile page does NOT prevent it from coming back to haunt you. Some "persons" on IWON may even run scripts to filter huge numbers of messages for email addresses. If you give out your real name, even as I have done, do so with care. Be certain that you have protected your financial information from the summing of separated pieces of information that may be gleaned from your IP address, your real name, your email address, and any other crumbs you may drop accidentally.


7. If you play for Tigers Against Diabetes - or even if you play for our competition - visit this blog from time to time. No State secrets here - just a gasbag venting, at worst; and perhaps some new information for you to use, at best. There are many other articles here, so check a few after finishing this one, or after you decide this is too basic for you. The titles of those other articles may be a better means of finding the ones that you need, than the dates. The dates are often actual, but also often "forged", as is the date for this very piece, to push them to chosen spots in the once-consecutive newest-first blog sequence.

Please leave comments - this is not my personal rant, but more a chance to share longer statements than are possible in the game chats or on the team pages. Although there may be plenty of personal rant here from time to time, the best use of the blog is for YOU to tell us what YOU think. Beneath each article is "Comments". Just click that, and use it to read what others have said; then tell us what YOU think! You have no limit on length, but please, keep that clean if you can. I will read it sooner or later, and my delicate "ear" will lead me to delete any which I view as attacks on other teams or players, or excessively bleepable. Everyone is welcome to comment - again, no passwords, no armed thugs at the door.

8. Check out some of the other articles here which are intended to be useful to all:

Help? HELP! Do you need help with IWON help? Are you up for an adventure?
http://tigersagainstdiabetes.blogspot.com/2009/01/iwon-help-requests.html

Coin count problems? CURE for coin count problems
http://tigersagainstdiabetes.blogspot.com/2009/01/coin-counts.html

Tigers only:
New Chat/Forum
http://tigersagainstdiabetes.blogspot.com/2009/01/tigers-new-chat-forum.html



9. Members of Tigers Against Diabetes may also become authors here. Simply post that statement of desire as a comment - probably to any article, but best to this first one. Include a few details: email address, and playername. It may take a day - I have not done that yet - but I will include you as an author, with full rights to compose, title, post, and edit your own piece.


One final piece of advice: always remember that games are supposed to be fun! The object is for you to have fun. If you find yourself being pushed to do more or differently for other purposes, even to help your cause succeed in the Team Challenge, step back and evaluate carefully. Remember how to have fun. Decide how the additional or different behavior affects your ability to have fun. Then do what you need to do to enjoy your play.

Tigers' New Chat / Forum

The new chat / forum is fully functional now - so get thee hence to logon or register, and start using the chat to meet some of your team-mates! The forum is less lively, but is the repository of the game tips you may be looking for, pictures and profiles of many current Tigers, the agendas and voting opportunities for directing the team's future, and a plethora of other informative or entertaining posts by many different members of the Tigers team.

The site is http://tad.nplum.com/?L That is a direct link to logon and registration, whichever you need to do. Both are on the same page.

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Those members who have already logged on to the chat or forum are all set - you know your userid, and you have reset your password so that only you know what it is.
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Those seeking to join the chat / forum must register.
That is pretty easy: First, decide whether you want to receive (rare) email from the team. If yes, use your real email address for the first answer required. If no, use "xxx@nplum.com" with "xxx" = playername. Although every effort will be made to maintain a site worthy of a "G" rating, members of this site must be at least 13 years old, so select the appropriate dates for "I was born on". As long as that is longer than 13 years ago, it is possible to decrease your age if you desire to do so. Some may want to be 39 again. You will have to decide for yourself whether you are man or woman.

Now, something that is critical: the username MUST be your IWON player name.

That is because the security check will begin with searching for that user name in the roster of Tigers Against Diabetes. In order to have the account activated so that you may chat or read the Forum, that user name MUST be on the roster. Normally activation is less than a day, but there is no instant access. The password is yours to set, and remains invisible even to the staff at the site. It should be 6 or more characters, all common keyboard keys, and alpha-numeric is recommended for your protection from keyboard problems. Of course, the same password must be supplied again, as the confirmation. The balance of the information is yours to dispense or fake, as you see fit - but is somewhat useful to your team-mates in deciding how to deal with your schedule. EST & PST have some overlaps, but also a large amount of inaccessibility for the other.
Be sure to enter the Verification Code into the box for code. Be sure to check to accept and agree to the user agreement. (read that by clicking that title) Now your registration is complete, so click continue. If the registration was successful, you will now see a screen telling you to check your emails for an activation code. That email process has been disabled so that the server is not kept busy with email bounce-backs. There is NO activation email forthcoming! (The same is true of password resets - there is NO email! Instead you should post a note to my profile or on the team page, requesting activation. I am pretty easy to find on the team page, so click my Tiger & tell me that you want to be activated. I will then check the userid - which is already verified by that post on IWON, as you, against the roster of Tigers Against Diabetes; and if it is there, activate the account. *********************************************************************

The site is http://tad.nplum.com/?L That is a direct link to logon and registration, whichever you need to do. Both are on the same page.

Once logged onto the site, please look at the top of your screen. There are names of destinations there, which are access links. Click & visit your own desktop, to do such maintenance chores as updating your password, completing your profile there, deciding about your desire or willingness to receive email from the team, which would require you to update the email listed for you, or deciding whether to upload a picture at that time.

Then, look around: check out some of the other pictures present there, so that you get a sense of to whom you are chatting, when you begin to chat or use the mails function. Read some profiles, to see what information there might help you understand some of your team-mates. Next, check out the Forum to read some game tips, or just to see what topics are posted there. Among the Subjects (over to the right side of the screen) is Weekly Agenda. That is where the pending and past agendas reside, and for the past three weeks, the ballot is attached to the agenda for that date. If you are there to vote, look for the date of the current Saturday, click that title, and you are reading the agenda. When you feel ready to vote, the ballot is right at the bottom of the agenda, so high-light and copy the ballot between the rows of asterisks. Go (carry that copy with you, of course) to the empty text box titled "Reply", & into that box paste the copy you have. Now simply edit that box to add your vote(s), & at the bottom, your player name. For the most part, the site will identify your reply by associating it with your player name anyway, but since sometimes I blow up the agenda & destroy the ballot copies there (I have begun copying them to my HDD since the last such incident) when I rebuild the agenda & ballot & replies, those will all carry my site signature. Thus, your "signature" is an essential element of the process despite that site association with your (or my) user name.

At the top of the page, those titles are still there. If you have no mIRC, you can try the chatrooms shown on the web site. "Tigers" should be in a space by itself, separated from all the other rooms, & right at the top of your screen.

Finally, you are ready for chat. Have a great time, and if you are unfamiliar with mIRC, ask on IWON or in the chat, about bubbles_71 's schedule for starter tips and training. You might also ask about acquiring a copy of the mIRC script, which provides a far better chat experience than the web version of the same chat. She will make the arrangements to provide that to you. A real email address is required for that process, since you will receive the copy via email.
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If you need immediate activation to attend a leadership meeting in the chat, post a message on my profile on IWON - I will review those every hour during the meeting, & you will be activated as soon as possible.


Success! You Are Able To Use The Forum & The Chat. Log on, and ENJOY!

The site is http://tad.nplum.com/?L That is a direct link to logon and registration, whichever you need to do. Both are on the same page.

Coin Counts

It is ever more clear that there are a multitude of problems with the IWON accounting of even individual coins accumulation. That is exacerbated by the absolute certainty that some of the individual coins are not being properly credited in the MVP races, and possibly not to the team for which one plays. I have had a personal case of near-certainty that my first day of play in January did not add to the team total, and wound up leaving, then re-joining Tigers in order to gain the certainty that they were from that point, credited. Although the team feed has improved so greatly that it now has become useful, there is still such a lack of transparency in the individual totals versus the credits awarded the team from those individuals, that I feel a need to push an earlier informal proposal for a solution to this issue.

This proposal has the advantage of allowing individual players to monitor their contributions to the team. That will relieve us, and IWON, of the vast number of complaints about what those contributions are. Better, when there is a problem, if this proposal is carried through to include the daily totals, both the date of the problem, and the extent of the problem, become visible to the individual. That is a detail of vast import in defining the cause of the problem and seeking to resolve it. It would allow the individual to file a useful complaint - errr, "question" with support, and allow them to look at a specific portion of the log for confirmation or explanation.

Following is the text of the question filed to IWON support:

'090108-002647'

Highlighted by recent problems with team credit for individual player coins, we need a new tool from IWON. I suggest on the profile page, near the Team Name link, that those who are members of teams have a gadget added to show the current (MTD) coin credit contributed to the team by that player. Ideally, it would have a popup either showing or offering, a table by date of the days that month, with a coin total contributed for each.

That would relieve your support of the uncertainty of whether an individual's coins were credited for a given day, and would allow the player, upon review, to specify precisely the date in question, together with any supporting evidence (s)he may offer that the total is incorrect. The elimination of numerous ill-founded, or ill-documented, complaints that I know are being filed on this very issue, would offset the work involved in installing that feature.

Since there are most assuredly some of those complaints that are indeed well-founded, whether or not well-documented, those would be visible to address, leading possibly to getting the numbers right, and the process for accumulating the numbers right, for all time. Sorry, that sounds as though it might threaten downsizing the support staff - but there are so many other problems that require focused effort, that there is surely no immediate danger of staff cuts due to this implementation.

My next step is to see if some Team Founders and/or leaders from other teams will join Tigers in pushing this suggestion (unless I find a better suggestion from them, or other reader's comments).

Would YOU Like To Write An Article?

If you have an item of interest for the team, or just want to vent - YOU can post an article on this blog - which has the advantage of allowing longer pieces than chat or the team page - and express your point. So state in the comments to this item, together with your IWON player name, and I will get it posted.

There are, of course, limits: nothing obscene, please; no demeaning characterizations, nothing derogatory about teammates or competition. Be brief, be clear, be clean - and I will post it.

IWON Help Requests

You are playing on IWON, & you think something is wrong: the game is somehow cheating you, or your coins are not being registered, or you do something HUGE, and the team totals or your MVP score, don't budge, even after a refresh and a wait past the 15-minute cycle for some updates. OK, time to complain!

Near the bottom of all IWON pages, in the small print of that bottom bar, is the title "Help".Click that, & you are off on a Marco Polo journey into the enchanted lands of "Who can fix this problem?"

Note with dread the bleached skeletons of past travellers as you approach the outskirts of this strange kingdom, littering your passage through the traps & toils of "Top 5 Questions", "How To Play", and the enticing "Technical:". You will not fall prey to such obvious time-wasters, for you have a complaint, and you are seeking someone to fix the problem.

Travel instead to the very bottom of the page, locate "Contact Customer Support for Assistance", and click that.

A new vista confronts you, the enchanted city at the heart of this mystical land. First, you must provide some details: your email, a topic (my usual is "Technical", for most of my complaints are not about simple glitches such as the game froze, how do I get the coins I had won, once I x that game out, and restart?). You may choose any that seem more similar to the precise complaint you wish to file; if in doubt, "Technical" is probably the best overall choice. Next, the title of the IWON game, if the complaint is specific to only one game - most of mine are not. Your IWON username=playername, so type that in. Security Software: if your issue is connections, or inability to load any games, this might fit: otherwise, choose from the list, but ignore the choice once made. (Note that Spybot DOES NOT LIKE IWON, and should that be your security software, or even running on your system, you may have serious problems with the site.) Select your Operating System from the drop-down menu, mostly some version of Windows. Finally - you arrive at the castle at the center of this city: "Question:". Yes, we know you came here to complain, but, be nice: this IS the royal court & there must be a question that presents your complaint as reasonable, and which with some details describing exactly what is happening, and a date/time or dates/times, will allow the IWON personnel to locate the incident or incidents in their computer logs.

Provide the information first, then refer to supporting documents, screen-shots, or whatever you have that will substantiate your interpretation of what IWON has done to you. The more detail, and the more supporting evidence you present to the court, the greater the chance that the King will agree to hear your complaint. Copy the text of your complaint to notepad. No special need at this time to save that document, which is as yet incomplete; however, it is sometimes a wise thing to save, just in case your machine freezes. When you have finished copying the text of the submission, click "Continue" at the bottom of the box into which you posted your complaint - errr - "question". (One never complains in the presence of royalty.)

That is but the first step to submission, however.If your "question" is long, which mine always are, and involves a lot of fact-gathering to provide the sense of security of knowing that everything in the "question" can be backed by documentation, or is explicitly stated to be an approximation, you may find yourself confronted now by the challenge from the court guards - "submission failed due to timeout" was, I think, the most recent phrasing of the insistence by IWON that this process cannot allow you to reach the King's ear. What that means, is to use the back button to the page containing all that text over which you labored so long as to earn the "timeout". Then you must refresh that page. Now you discover that the text is vanished, and you are back to a blank starter page. This is why we saved the text before submission, though, so a few seconds to re-answer that collection of the inane that IWON passes off as pertinent data, and copy back the text from Notepad to the blanked box, and you are ready once again to "Continue".

The next page will offer some alluring distractions in the apparent hope that even the intrepid supplicant will leave the court without ever actually pleading a case - those mechanically chosen links to things that might resemble your "question". Ignore those links for now. Were you to pursue them, you might either get lost, and never complete the submission, or, finally finding your way back, find that you have once more earned a "timeout". So then you would need to back up all the way past the text box, refresh, and start over. At the bottom of that list of links, click the button "Finish Submitting Issue". NOW you have submitted your "question"!

Copy the "reference number" from the screen to the Notepad copy of the question text, NOW save everything, and begin to wait for the King's messenger.

In a day or so, you will receive an auto-reply message from IWON at the email you provided, which is not intended to be an answer, but only an acknowledgement of the "question" you have filed. If you did not copy the text you submitted prior to submitting it, or did not get the number assigned by IWON, those will be included in the acknowledgement. I save those, in a separate email folder, for easy reference & access. In a while (10 days to three weeks) there will be another email - this one is the attempted answer. It may not be what you wanted, and sometimes will appear totally irrelevant to the "question" - but now you have the means to reassert your question.

Repeat the process above - DO NOT reply to their email to you, for those replies appear to be ignored. Copy in relevant information from the original "question", add refutation or rebuttal to the answer provided. BE SURE to cite the reference number of the original "question" as the header to this "question". I will not guarantee that a linkage will be established, but the very mention of that earlier submission will help them to see that you are not going to accept any nonsense without protest.

You will be assigned a new number for the new submission, so you will repeat the entire auto-response, later response, decision, and possibly even a third submission before you ever get a response that answers the question, or at least states clearly that your self-interest does not permit you to understand the answer already provided, and you are therefore beyond all help. You may then decide whether you wish to pursue the matter further.

"Steal" A March: A Fresh Start

Acute observers will note the addition of a link to a page of (gasp) a competitor: A Fresh Start.
The link leads to a public page from the A Fresh Start site, and represents the most comprehensive yet concise explanation of some mechanicals of IWON that I have seen. I would estimate it to be a must-read for newcomers to IWON. So, although I yearn to steal the content, instead I will simply link to it on their site. I have asked the leader of that team to acknowledge and approve the use of the link, and the coverage of the link by the article, and have received approval.

TigerLadyJo Found!

It is official! Marie_Team_IWON posted today, January 16, that the November check is ours, and that IWON has contacted TigerLadyJo to dispose the check for 2nd place.

marie_team_iwon
Jan 16 09, 2:21 PM Just wanted to congratulate you on winning 2nd place in November! We were able to get in contact with tigerrladyjo recently and were finally able to make it official. Thanks for your patience through this and congrats on another big win! :)

That will help quiet the whisper campaign about the problems that Tigers has faced, for the largest problem has always been that whisper campaign from some of our competitors.
There are some who have played nice, and for one, ricaucoin comes to mind immediately. If I were not a Tiger, his team (Heavenly Angels) would appeal to me, largely because of ric.

This announcement will free the Tigers recruiting efforts by relieving them of the task of first disputing the blatant lie, that "TigerLady took off with the first check." That base & tired canard still confuses many of those we would wish to recruit, or at best, leaves them doubting, unwilling to commit to Tigers Against Diabetes. Sadly, although I possess copies of five or six different press releases supporting the delivery of that check to the ADA, in a variety of formats, there are none so far that I can post here to allow that truth to condemn the liars. That is why we need to ensure the widest possible publication of the news - and try to reach those who ignore all the IWON postings, in particular. Some IWONers keep their heads down, ignore everything - except the rumors and scandals that run in the game chats.

Further, we are relieved of the pall of uncertainty to which even our own players are prey. The need to make every move with contingencies accorded to all the possible outcomes of this hanging nuisance has been a dreadful weight, and a weight I gladly will shed. Perhaps the relief and joy will also shine in our recruiting, for this is a great relief. We are free now to move forward, with no issues pending, no hidden weight to slow us.

How do we move forward, then, and in what direction(s)?

Recruiting:

First, we need to spread the news. No Tiger should enter a game chat with "hello" as the greeting to the chat. "We found TigerLadyJo" would be a lot better. Or, credit where credit is due, "IWON found TigerLadyJo." Goodbye at departure should become "We found TigerLady, and we get the November check for the ADA!" If you like, go ahead and moon the crowd on the way out. Probably best that you refrained at entering. If asked, tell what you know: "The ADA got the first check, for September. TigerLadyJo is in contact with IWON & we understand that check has been sent to the ADA now."

Then proceed to recruit the crowd to join Tigers: we need help, and it is fair to say that, even if the crowd may include members of competitor teams. Let them know that you wish to focus on those who are not currently on charity teams - so that everyone can have a chance to let their coins support causes they believe in, causes that they would write a check to themselves when they could, but that this is their best chance to add a lot of zeros to the check, all for free. Remind them that it IS free - they still collect and spend the coins they win as they always have done, but that the team they choose to support also gets to count those coins in the competition to win one of the checks. Invite them to visit the blog - if you have the url available for copy & paste, that helps - but if not, simply have them google us. Either way - all one word, tigersagainstdiabetes, or "Tigers Against Diabetes". The blog shows up in both lists. Let them know that the first article is pointed at ALL new players, ALL new team players. No passwords, no restrictions on use of the material. [This way, you can both recruit for Tigers, and also for charity teams in general. It is important to add that note of having yourself made a reasoned choice among many worthy causes - an altruistic note, for the betterment of all, but with the head involved in deciding which team.]

If you find some good candidates among those whom you chat, it is OK to click their name in the player list, and add a note to their profile, too. Some may not yet know about the profile notes, but will eventually discover them. Others may be impressed by your follow-through, and come to the team page to check Tigers out. If not in the chat, then in any postings that follow, be sure to point the recruits to the team page as well as the blog.

Chat / Forum

No matter what we do in the January competition, this month should teach us a lesson or two.

Each month, the race gets faster.
Size is not everything.
Team unity is critical.
Size is still very important.

We cannot hope for any future wins unless we address those lessons. We have to get a lot better this month, if we are to have a shot at money this month. Then we have to get a LOT better with each passing week of the next month, to have a chance then.

We cannot rely on the same top-16 to carry us to victory, although I am sure they are trying. We cannot revive ALL the part-time or inactive players, either. So, we must - MUST - stop getting hammered by our competitors in recruiting. Some of them doubled our recruiting for this month so far. Those were the slow recruiters. Even Bell-Ringers grew as fast as we did, & they are not trying to recruit. If we are to succeed, recruiting becomes the first step. We have to hustle the game chats. We may need to spin a few on games we don't normally play, just to catch a different crowd, more players new to IWON. OK, they are not going to start as top-16 contenders, but we can manufacture top-16, with enough raw material. That is what the tips and the team-page competition accomplish for us.

More later.

Friday Tigers Barndance Social

Friday night at 9:00 PM EST, the members of Tigers Against Diabetes are invited to a social event unparallelled on IWON - a barndance social at the Wild West Slots. We hope that all will attend. Strictly BYOB - there may be minors present, and public drunkenness is not encouraged in the presence of minors.

Tigers Against Diabetes Gets Info

Hi Conley, I got your message- I don't know where Tigerladyjo is but if I hear I will be sure to pass along. As for the team, if we cannot contact the team creator after a certain amount of time we will work with the remaining team members to institute a new leader and award the prize.

Message dated Dec 09 08 06:23 PM

Although mostly, a denial that IWON knows any specifics, this is a crucial message for the team.
Please note that the author of the note is not named - I deleted the name from the message that I post here - although I believe (him) to be a Vice President of IWON - not of the mother Corporation.

There is much there to chew, and work on ourselves:

"after a certain amount of time" - certainly by Christmas, there must be some move by IWON with regard to any check due for November play.

"to institute a new leader" - (my) presumption is that the new leader would deal with IWON as would the original founder: with the right to make decisions for the team, the sole right to assign the check(s). The same plusses and minuses as the current setup, except that we then know where that leader is, at least for now.

"work with the remaining team members" - not clear to me, exactly how that would be done, since we as a team cannot reach more than a few of those members. Perhaps IWON would use the email addresses on file, to correspond with those members, and notify them of the right and need to participate? More likely, IWON would rely on the team page to serve notice, and solicit participation, just as might we, but with tools including the header information? If only the dozen who regularly visit the team page are included in the process, and in the decision, that is not exactly a team decision.

Tigers' New Chat/Forum

As some have suspected, bubbles_71 & I are working to try to set up a team chat & forum. We intend to restrict membership to only current team members. bubbles_71 has graciously consented to run the chat, and to take care of security for us. 3 cheers for bubbles!

Among the things we want, is to make it easier than the Yahoo chat rooms are, to acquire membership, and log in. Yahoo insists that the user provide an email address, and some personal details; and endure a wait for processing, before receiving an email to allow access. Alas, we find the same to be true at Chatshack (the volunteers who are helping us set this up - thanks to bubbles - are affiliated with Chatshack.) However, at least with Chatshack, we may be able to bend that bar just a little, so that (if everything I envision works, and there are no unforeseen problems) we can easily manufacture exactly what Tigers need to get in.

The credentials required, would be only a current Tigers playername, and a mass password which we will provide, but which will need the member to reset it after entry. Recording of an email account will be strongly recommended, so that the team can communicate when necessary. However, that email record would not be enforced at least for now. Subsequently, that would be where team messages would go. Fairly simple, and many of the accounts can be done fairly fast. I estimate that I can do them almost as fast as I can copy&paste the playernames into position. Well, the rest of the process eats a couple of minutes per Tiger. If all is good, I can probably manufacture a couple hundred accounts per day, and bubbles may be able to help to make that faster. That would mean we hope that IWON stalls another 5 days, to allow us to be ready, before dropping a major choice on the team.

Possessing that much information, the player would approach the link (which we will provide, through IWON - most likely on the team page header), with the credentials to request entrance. Non-members and members alike, would see the Greeting screen with some assorted links, and a little text. Members would request admittance (we have not yet totally set the routine for that), and enter either the team chat, or the team forum - from each, the other is accessible. There is a picture gallery, so be sure to bring a current photo of yourself to post - or not, if you are ashamed to be seen with the rest of us. But you can.

The forum allows us to have a truly private place to post information, whether hints & tips for games, discussions of future plans, debates about team policies, or whatever we choose. I expect that, if not at first, ultimately, all Tigers will be able to post articles there, when they feel the urge. One of the first I will add, is the question of how to deal with IWON in regard to the check that they must soon deal with us about. Possibly that one leads to another article, proposing some sort of new leadership, interim or permanent, and whether we can induce IWON to accept a hydra-type beast, a leadership council, with perhaps, one member designated by that group to deal with the current & any future checks. I am almost sure that IWON will want the legal safeguard of having that single individual be the speaker for the check - but may be flexible as to other dealings between IWON & Tigers. Others might have the task of dealing with IWON help; of managing internal teamwork; of seeking opportunities for recruiting non-IWONers to join the site & hopefully, our team; or whatever that council determines. I have thus far located only three (3) team members willing AND able to assume posts in that council, so I feel we are at least one member shy of a complete set. There are several willing, who are not able; and probably many able, but not willing. We need both for that position.

The chat allows us to speak to one another as with the team page, but with some extra tools, should we choose to apply them. That is one place we could actually conduct a vote over three shifts, about some of the items we might discuss / debate / fight about in the forum.

Both the chat and the forum would be invisible to non-members finding the Greeting page - they would meet only the external links (the ADA, the blog, some other organizations). Members should see the Greeting page with an opportunity to sign in.

Much is unclear, until we actually have it running, and some members set up in accounts. I will update as I can.

*****UPDATE

We have a few more than 300 Tigers set up in the forum / chat now, & some have already visited the construction site, to change passwords, email acccounts, etc. The more who do that now, the better for them, and for the Team. A last-minute rush to get those details cleared up may strain the resources of this operation, if there are problems in the passwords assigned, or other problems. We should attempt to get as many through the logon and clean-up as possible, as early as possible. We may face an IWON deadline on some decisions that remain for now, pending.

The players with playernames beginning in a number, "A", & "B" are set. Half the "M"s are in, and some of the "L"s; the top 16 are all in; most of the active posters on the team page are included as well; the balance will follow as rapidly as we can. If you are not certain if you are in, the best way to find out is to try to log on periodically. See the Tigers team page for instructions.

One note for those attempting to log on: lowercase alpha characters. CAPS - upper case - will probably not work.

Another note: there is a function to allow mIRC entry to the chat. I do not know how, I do not know if it even works. But it is there. If not now, we will try it soon, and let you know - so if you are a mIRC-er, we have you covered. If you have already done the logon trial, and the cleanup, go ahead & try it for yourself.

Final note for this update: I am the dummy in this group. If there is a problem, I can probably fix your password. For more complex problems, see bubbles_71. She is usually on the forum / chat site when she is not on the team page. If there is something she does not know about the process, I have not yet discovered it - and she knows the personnel who do the things she is not allowed to do.

Even worse, I will be undergoing a battery of hurriedly scheduled tests from about 8:00 AM to about 5:00 PM EST on Saturday - today. So I will not be on either site. That means ONLY bubbles, for most of Saturday. I will be on one or both sites for the remainder of the day Saturday. Must. Get. Coins. Must. Get. Coins.

*****UPDATE

We got all the Tigers built as members, and have had the Official Grand Opening. The chat was just sensational, and I think a lot of members who were expecting a clone of the IWON game chats were quite surprised and impressed. We managed to solve some connection problems for the few who had them and had a robust session.

More than expected, fewer than desired, showed up to change passwords (and maybe emails) to ensure their ability to participate if we need to choose leadership in a hurry. We also got a couple of articles posted to the forum, just to show that we could. And bubbles_71 is tinkering with the photo albums - there is a technical glitch right now that keeps all members from being able to post pictures of themselves into the Tigers album. We hope to resolve that issue by next week.

Also, *I* did get to meet several of the Tigers whose names I knew, but whom I had not really dealt with at length, and that was another high point for me. I think we grew a lot closer as a team due just to the encounters in that chat session. I wish that every Tiger would rush to the next event, for the experience of meeting, greeting, and chatting with their colleagues on the team. Nothing more is scheduled right now, although I keep pushing the chat/forum to the members on the team page.

I will likely push again at the Friday gathering in the Wild West Slots. That is a whole other article, though.

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.

Blog Experience Wanted

There are openings here - unpaid openings, of course - for anyone with experience creating a blog, following a blog, subscribing to a blog, or even just regularly reading a blog. As a tyro in the process of setting up a blog, there may be substantial need for guidance - did I pick the best site on which to blog? (Blogspot)

What is the better choice for our team members - subscribe or follow?
What are the comparisons of subscribe and follow that the readers need to know, to choose?
What is the best subscription service? (There are about half-a-dozen offered.)
What are the limitations of blogspot that are going to prevent us from accomplishing the stated (or unstated) goals of the blog?
Are there free sites with fewer or less intrusive limits?

I think you get the gist of what we need to know - and if you know, please comment!

Or, better yet, ask to become an author on the blog - even if we move it to a different site - and tell us the things we need to know, in a single, gigunde article, or a series of articles.

Obsession Or Fun?

With all the talk about scoring lots of coins, chasing MVP awards, and beating our competitors, I think maybe we lose sight of one of the major goals of playing online games: have fun! For those who are addicted, the competition itself becomes the fun, if there is fun in that world. For most players, though, I suspect that often we look at the coins, see that we are still short of max, but decide "I'd rather be somewhere else!"

Maybe ANYWHERE else, when Word Pop has just "cheated" you (or me) by dropping five tiles on the only column that has more than one tile in place, and claims the life was lost even though you (or I) can see that there was room for six tiles, and one spot is STILL empty.

Fortunately for me, my schedule is flexible enough to "walk away" for a while, perhaps to work on editing the HTML here or to recruit, and return later, when my anger has dissipated. Not everyone has that luxury, and maybe that is the time to say, "To heck (or whatever) with the max - I'm done for today!"

What do you think?

The Race Is ON!

It certainly will be interesting to watch the shakeout as all the power players go for the MVP lead beginning at 3:00 AM this very night! In addition to the past leading competitors (most of them, anyway), there are now about 19 more super-collectors in the running. The final outcome will likely depend on two factors:

1) Who takes the most coins from Spin2Win and PrizeMachine. Those games appear to reside outside the casino limits, at least on most days.
2. Who has the most friends to sell-a-friend for coins. OOOPS - that is TELL-a-friend, isn't it?

I expect that maxing casino, non-casino, and search will all be basic to even approaching the team top 16. I won't be there, despite my recent string of doing all but the search to the max every day for the past 15 or 16. I just WON'T sell my one friend - and couldn't get any coins for my son's dog, anyway. (I think he still views me as a friend - at least when I feed him in my son's absence.) Plus, I mostly USE search, as opposed to seeking to max out the coins there.

I will watch (with envy, of course) from the sidelines, and content myself with recruiting, and recruiting others to recruit.

Why A Blog?

Tigers Against Diabetes is in a crisis. This blog is designed to offer an opportunity for the team to meet that crisis, and emerge better - and victorious - for having confronted the crisis.

For November, 2008, we are being throughly thrashed, although we have begun to rebuild ourselves to become more successful in the future. Now we need to afford the opportunity for a larger number of players to contribute beyond just those coins, but to extend to all the varied talents and capacities that must be represented in our more-than-900 membership.

It will look dire when at the first of December, we discover that four or more of our mainstays have left for other teams. That is, players currently in our team top 16 will leave us. That will eventually appear even more bleak when we see the margin by which we lost November's check, and count the members of our primary opponent versus our membership.

We certainly will miss both the coins and the leadership / competitive spirit, of those leaving - and I personally want to thank them for the great job they have done with and for us.

But - several things make the picture brighter in the future than it would now appear. First, we have already picked up a dozen players or more, just as prolific as those known to be leaving. So - we are not really losing, or even merely changing - but getting better despite those losses. That has shown in the fact that over the past week, we have moved from 34,500 coins per player per day, to now beyond 37,500 - and fully recovered all that we had lost at Thanksgiving as well. Additionally, the gains in overall membership have been substantial, so that we have a better base for internal improvement. Moreover, we have the opportunity to continue that same growth for the foreseeable future, and if enough of us pitch in to recruit, to expand that rate of growth prodigiously. As we must, for the opponent has a larger current membership, and a per-player-per-day rate of about 39,500 coins.

Next, the character of the recruits is changing somewhat: not only am I, at least, focused more on better IWON coin rankings, but I think that we have already absorbed the majority of our "lost" members, for I believe that most of them were early recruits to the team. As the Team Challenge has matured, there are fewer outright newcomers to suck into the team, before discovering that they are not a bonus for us. Now, I think, we can see weekly, maybe even daily, growth in our rates of coin collection, due to the new members.

Throughout this blog, feel free to comment as you please - except keep it clean - and find the issues or ideas that YOU want to discuss - or let me know, and we will either make you an author of the blog, or at least get that idea/issue published. Read articles, read comments, take surveys - then stick some feedback into a comment and leave that.

Something else: If you are an experienced blogger, I need some recommendations about pushing subscriptions or follows to the membership - should I, which reader / service, pros and cons of each, and so on.

Gooooooo Tigers!!!!

Update: perhaps time-of-day, or maybe everyone is resting for a fresh start on the new month - but only 36,000 coins per member, per day, as of 11:30 EST, November 30.

Update to the update: at 1:46 EST December 1, we are still at 36.000 coins per member, per day, for 931 members. I think that may jump up, though, when the several new members since yesterday, have a chance to contribute coins - which were likely limited yesterday, even though the members are in the divisors. I did not update the comparator for our opponent - too tired to care, since it is a foregone conclusion that they continue to thrash us.

Lost Boys Reconsidered

I have been running through a large number of team member profiles the past few days, and have found evidence that I was wrong about many of them. While I had thought them to be merely less frequent players, it appears after that scan of profiles, that many - maybe most - of those in question are total non-players. The ones I have looked at have been unchanged during a span of perhaps a week - and look to be very minimalist at best. If no coins accrue during a week, and there never were any significant coins, then even if the week is a vacation, or an illness, the player with no visible history is not likely suddenly to become a powerful contributor to the team.

I have come to believe that some of those "lost" players have indeed lost - their password, or their internet access. They remain on the rolls until IWON decides to purge them, but are essentially already gone. Others may represent either players who discovered that they didn't really enjoy online games, and may at best become very infrequent players, or players who have attempted a second identity, and found that to be too much trouble. (I gave some thought to a second identity, before the maxes were raised. I never started one, but came close.) Both of those categories are devoid of profit for us, but may sometimes kick in a very few coins.

Perhaps the best treatment for those unreachables is for us to stop trying to reach them, and ignore them until they do something to once again attract attention, or vanish completely from IWON.

Meantime, we apply that effort instead to go after new players more intensely. In line with that conclusion, we should soon begin a more comprehensive recruitment effort than the few of us currently engaged, can provide. EVERY member should begin by recruiting IWON friends. There is already a relationship, so recruitment starts off a lot more smoothly than would a "cold call" from some wordy blowhard such as I. I suggest viewing the profile of the friend - just hover over the avatar on your profile page, and a mini-screen pops up, with links to "view profile" and "recruit". HOLD THE SHIFT KEY, and click "view profile". If there is no charity team listed there, this is a prospect. (I do this to people whose profile is near mine in the IWON coin rankings, so I have little chance of catching another "lost" player - and you can do that, too!) When viewing your friend's profile, do look at coin rank - as a means to find those who, first day on IWON, six weeks ago, and the only day ever on the site - invited or accepted a "friend". If the friend is active, with a coin rank that does not use six digits, go for it! Whatever your message of recruitment, it is effective to follow up a week later, just as a reminder. More on copy-and-paste for those messages, in another article. Marie is checking on the other link I mentioned, "recruit", to see if that works, or ever did work, and what it should do when it works.

Copy-And-Paste For Recruiting

Copy-and-paste is a powerful tool for messages. Whether in chat, on the team page message forum, or on another profile in the process of recruiting, this can be the only way one consistently provides the message one intends to provide. There are a couple of things to know, before you start, however:

1) The different areas in which one might post vary as to treatment of Word format, rich text, and text, but ALL of them do strange things to special characters that Word and rtf embed. Only text is apparently universal among them.

2) That means, that even if you use Word, or WordPad, to compose your message, it is not a good idea to simply save that, and begin to copy it onto IWON. The necessary extra step is to first "save as" .txt - then THAT file can be the source of the copy before the paste.