Possible organization ideas for the Squigglies ummm longer than I planned....

I got this idea from reading this thread by our favorite Wrench Ninja
    Paul and a few others suggested we should organize... not a bad idea really.  Especially given my experience in MMO's organized guilds/corps/clans are generally more successful than "hang out groups"  IF the members buy-in.
    Should we organize in this or a similar manner we would need to start getting clan events going at some point as well.  My hope is that an organizing would lead to this naturally.
    
   Obviously I'm making two assumptions here.  
  The first is that the community clan wants to be organized, and the second is that our primary competition is each other.  There's also a third, that the members find this assortment appealing, should they not all I ask is that they allow me to don proper Pyro attire before they commence flaming.

  As I was listening to the Control point podcast today an interesting (but painfully obvious) point was made.  'If you don't have a leader everyone is just playing their own game."

   Thus I propose building a chain of command of sorts for the community clan, to be used for in clan challenges and events.

I'll arrange this based on 2 reasonings
   A:  Using the standard TF2 server size as a unit size
   B:  Accepting an 8 person tourney roster.

   The base server size is 12 which leads to a unit size of 12.  Assuming 60 clan members yields 5 seperate units of 12...  sorting into 15's may be better but I'll be super optimistic and assume the 12.

  Since I'm a hopeless nerd I'll us some organization culled from Battletech with a deemphasis on military ranks.

  Each clan member is termed in game as a point (ie: 3 points down or some such)

  Four Points form a Squad which is led by a Lance,
    Three Squads form a Section lead by a Hammer (or sergeant but I'm trying to keep away from actual military terms... failing horribly)....  
    The 3 sections form a platoon led by  a __________  (lieutenant I guess, can we come up with something better?)  This officer leads one of the 3 sections.
     Stuff the Platoons into a company commanded by _________...
 What this gives us is a distinct command line to use in most server situations.
  Under this system the Lance is the primary unit structure, with the Section also being a major factor.  Getting 12 people to work together is really hard, but packets of four may not be too hard.

  Under this system each platoon has :
     One Platoon Lead (also commands a section, and his/her Squad), 2 Section Leads (each also directly commanding a Squad), then Six Lances with a Squad each.  Making for 9 "ranks" per platoon.  I would suggest that only the platoon leads and higher be considered clan "officers".
 
    I would suggest we consider labeling one server as team stacking allowed to facilitate the "units" working together under normal pub play.  This would hopefully assist all community players in working together since you would (hopefully) side with your Lance/section mates.  Also community events would be organized along Section/Lance lines.  
  
  Now this is all fine and good but leaders need to be chosen.   Personally I would rather avoid having tryouts for this, however that's certainly an option.  I suggest a nomination and voting system be the primary system of selection.   I would also say that RedBull and Voss are the De facto CO and XO respectively.  This means that each

It sounds interesting, I really don't like more than a 3 rank system personally though... seen more lead to much complaining about gaining a rank. I like basicly the upper officers (Voss, Redbull etc) then the basic officers, then everyone else. Anybody with officer status should have some responsiblity I think, be it to help recruiting, scheduling, being the whiner filters (problem with people go to them instead of straight to the top), or anything else that is needed.

Now, the officers will obviously carry more weight in their specific area, but I think that everyone else should have the same say, with the top having final say.

Though the "Stacked Pub Server" sounds like a pretty sweet idea.

So i just woke up and read this thread, so pardon me if i am misunderstanding.  Basically your suggesting that we nominate, and elect officials or leaders to facilitate more organized community functions, and events.  I think this is a brilliant idea, and what you have here is a good start to a more organized and functional clan.  I do agree with Kerinthious here that we shouldn't have more than a few ranks, just to keep things a bit simpler to start out. 

Nominations are a great idea, as long as there is an organized way we can put it to a vote.  It will be tough for me to vote for just one considering how great a lot of you all are.  But there are def some obvious choices that will stand out in our minds.  If the people who are nominated accept, the voting will commence, and we should end up with 5 leaders. 

Whether or not we create sub-ranks is up to the community, however I am with Kerinthious on this.   If there are cases where the leader isnt around there should be a second in command to take on the role. 

As for the soldiers, perhaps we could give out awards or post high marks for people who are doing well, and contributing positively to our group (best soldier, most dominating, sentry gunner, wrench jockey etc). 

Just a few ideas, make what you will out of them.  I think organizing a group of gamers this size is a good start to giving us an opportunity to get to know each other better, and to have some fun as a group.

This sounds really good and hopefully, just maybe, the squigglies can get into some little scrims here and there maybe?  It would just be difficult considering the amount of community clan members we have.  Separating into these little 5 platoons could help too, unless someone doesn't like their leader and starts a dark and terrible rebellion...in any case i'm up for this...and on that note.

Other than RBR and Voss, I nominate Octon (that massive beast).

How many didn't see that coming?

Im up for a dark and terrible rebellion: VIVA LA REVALUATION!

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I sadly agree with that quote and as of right now I will be stepping down and actively searching for a new leader of the {} clan, I'm not a leader and even worse I don't have much time to insure the clan is running the way it should. I apologize for my failure and hopefully the clan can have new life with a new leader.

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Voss i believe that you've done the TF2F community so much good just in the time that i have been here.  It takes a lot of love for the community to admit that you are not a good leader, but that is not so. However, if you feel that someone else could "lead" the community clan, you should be taking on a different title, that reflects your dedication, even if only on a tight schedule.

I do not feel that we need such a complex organization such as that proposed above, but our {}'s should represent the prestige of being dedicated leaders of the TF2F community.  Sure, a select few need to be appointed to organize our activities, however Kerinthious summed up my idea well.

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  Wow...  I really hope you didn't take this post as a shot on you Voss.  If you did, I apologize as it certainly wasn't intended in any way to mean that.  I certainly don't think of you as a failure.

@Kerenthious:  I see your point, my main reasoning for multiple "ranks" was due to the fact that the community clan could potentially grow quite large.  And to always provide a "leadership" figure on the Stacked Pub.  Less is More is probably a better way to go at least at the beginning.  I just got on a spam typing roll and couldn't stop.

@Failtruck:  That was the basic idea, since as I said our competition is more "within" due to our structure.

  Undoubtebly this needs a metric tonne of work to make it fit with us.   But we're up to it I'm sure if it's the way we want to go.

i'm down to help out with this idea in any way.

also, if we're gonna start making teams and such, it would be nice to have a thread or something that easily organizes who is best at what class, etc etc, so that if we want to select teams for something, we can pick balanced teams based on that list... since there are a lot of members, i know for myself at least, it's difficult to remember what class most people excel at.

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Hmm, the only wrench I can throw into that is with the over seas members (not sure how many we officially have) that if they get put on a team with a bunch of others not in their time zone, they would probably pretty much never get to be able to do an event with their team. Or even those with odd play hours. Put them on one team, and hopefully both teams would be able to find one day of the weekend that most could make it. Then kind of balance from there.