It's been a little while since I ventured out here with something on my mind. Having said that though it's also been a while since something has annoyed me enough to want to talk about it publicly and gather the masses opinion. Well... What's left of the masses that still come and say their piece out here. 

What I want to talk about is Witness statements. Maybe now my title here will make a bit more sense to you. 

Now I can't be the only one who has noticed a severe decline in the amount of witness statements turning up on leaders doorsteps these days surely. What I want to figure out is why the fuck this is? Not only did I lose my Right Hand Man a couple of days a go and not find a witness statement but I also as recently as a few hours a go lost one of my gangsters as well. Now, thankfully after some decent detective work by my Godfather Mako we found the shooter of my Right Hand Man Pandaemonium and put him in a grave but that still doesn't take a way from the fact that no witness statement turned up for him. Then going further back than that when lronSight was taken from us and iocaste by some odd disease. Iocaste makes it through alive only to be shot minutes later, no witness statement turns up. I couldn't give a shit whether he wasn't tagged due to the illness that took him from us originally. Someone shot him for a laugh and no witness statement shows up, again. It begs the question why? Here is what I came up with. 

Blind. Are the killers of todays world so damn good that they can stealthily kill someone so damn well that no witness statement will appear at all? That no one in their immediate vicinity has even the slightest inkling of what has just happened maybe less than 10ft way from them. No. I know for a fact that for every murder that happens on any of our streets if there is someone around to witness it. They damned well will. So that can't be it. 

Lazyness. So it must be lazyness, right? For every murder that happens on our streets that is not authorised by those that have the power to authorise it, a request is sent to all crewleaders, Right Hand Men and Left Hand Men to try and find the killer. Now here I am more than well aware that we are separate crime families and a lot of us hold separate allegiances to different people. So why on earth would a Right Hand Man from Brooklyn, New York for example send out a request to their district for the murder of a gangster from The Loop, Chicago? It's a matter of respect and honour. There will, and I guarantee this, be a time when that same district loses one of it's own and is in the exact same boat. If they're anything like me then they will have a great deal of care for their members and their safety as well as feeling like they themselves had been shot at. They would do what ever they could to find the culprit and show him why it's not ok to shoot at sponsored members of other crime families without express authorisation from their upper structure. We are men of respect and honour and when someone goes against this grain and shoots out of turn, it's within the best interest of us all to find which ever person it is that is disrespecting their families codes of conduct and therefore dishonouring their family. My point in all this being is, are people to lazy to look for the witness statement or going further than that are the upper structures just to lazy to send out a mass request to their members to look for the witness statement? Or are the upper structures now beginning to get to lazy to explain why it is important to do so, the benefits in doing so and the help it then brings to allies or potential allies across the country? Adding on to that even more and something I have noticed from personal experience is the forgetfullness to go have a word with your CA's and see if they have seen anything and more than that, getting off our arses and teaching those newer to this thing of ours how to go and lean on their CA's to see if they have the information required. A lot of people it seems are either very forgetful of this or are just to lazy to care. 

I personally have requested from my members and from our district a search for any witness statement that comes our way from another district. I do this out of respect and I do it because if I ever find myself in the situation where I myself will be in need of a witness statement request like I have been a few times over the last few months I would never expect other people to do for me what I will not do for them. I am seriously starting to wonder whether or not these efforts have been worth it though.

Stupidity. I am well aware that this gangster of mine was very inactive. I am well aware that a member of Drexler's crew was shot as well who was also inactive. Now, JohnSmith was a friend of mine. He also happens to be the partner of a very good friend of mine over in Las Vegas. John joined my crew as an associate with both of us being well aware that most of his time would be spent sorting out things in the old country. I was happy for him to do this as he was a friend and the expectation had been set prior to him joining my organisation. The fact that he was a bit inactive does NOT take away any loyalty I had to him as a member of Fort Izzel and any protection that I offer as being a member mine. Something in which I have unfortunately failed to do today probably due to someones stupidity. Here is why. We all know... or all of us who have been here for a while damn well know that each district operates what we call an inactive list. On this list is a detailed and extensive account of all those in our world who have become bums and dregs of society and that need to be removed. The majority of us have fun removing them, it is a lot of fun. However, this also means that you are training to become some sort of htiter for your family, which I am all for. We all need people to help protect our assets. But, being a hitter and being trusted to use your gun properly comes with a lot of restrictions and rules. Things like "Do not shoot anyone under 48 hours old or do not shoot anyone with a 4h tag or ALWAYS CHECK YOUR GOD DAMN FUCKING TARGETS." Maybe not exactly in those words but something to that effect. If JohnSmith was on one of your inactive lists which I am thinking is the most plausible reason for his death today then the people who run this list need to get a grip of it's users and find out what the fuck is going on. When becoming a hitter you create a routine. I am sure a lot of experienced hitters out there know exactly what I am talking about. Part of that routine is to bloody check your damn target and make sure it's not sponsored, dead or maybe even in a different location. It becomes a way off life. So basically get your bloody act together!

Now before everyone starts off with mistakes do happen etc, believe me I know. A certain New York Godfather can testify to a mistake I made just a month or so a go. The difference here though is that I had the respect and honour to own up to my mistake the very damned second it happened. I might not have shot an inactive member of his city but it was just as bad.  I was a Right Hand Man at the time and I was fully expecting to lose my life for it. You know what happened instead? The Godfather was impressed that I owned up to my mistake straight away and came to him looking to sort out any grievances and an alternative was worked out. By doing this I gained the respect of my peers and was able to carry on progressing through the ranks with only a minor set back. If JohnSmith's death was indeed a mistake I am near 100% sure the person who made this mistake is fully aware of it and instead of coming to me like an honourable man or woman they have decided to sit on their hands. Maybe even a friend of theirs caught the witness statement and has hidden it for them. Who knows. The point is, considering the compassion and respect I was shown by this Godfather would have definitely made my reaction sway a bit more leniently had I been in his shoes and someone else in mine. 

So there you have it, my ramble for the time being. Make of it what you will. 

I agree with you Jono,ws should be sended if crew leaders want them,but before some time I haved WS and they asked for,I sended but person that shot is still alive,so there is my question if you understand me?

To speak for some lower people who are not blind, lazy nor stupid, sometimes we just don't collect witness statements. This shouldn't be very surprising because of how deserted the Business District and other sections are. Very few people occasionally post there so that means that Street Smarts skills aren't improving and nothing can combat Stealth, which also means fewer witness statements and even fewer ones that people can actually work with. For our family, we have a person whose job is to collect witnesses statements and we send all non-NPC witness statements up to her whether they are requested or not.

I also believe a lot of people don't really understand the value of witness statements. I think leaders should emphasize the consequences that could follow you if you hide that information from your family a little more than they are. But even then, a problem is that you have no way of telling if someone is hiding information from you without taking extreme measures.

Though I'm not a crew leader, I can see how frustrating it would be if someone's kin asked how everything was going and if revenge was sought to where you'd have to just shrug your shoulders and apologize. That's very, very unfortunate and the kin deserves some justice if their elder was slaughtered for no good reason.

Personally, whenever I get a witness statement I  immediately research who the victim is and do what I need to do with it if necessary.

I suppose maybe sometimes you just don't get witness statements for certain situations..? I'm not exactly sure how long this has been going on but that's the nicest explanation I got, so it's up to crew leaders/RHM/LHM to confirm or deny that since they handle this stuff. Nevertheless it would be nice to know how long this has been happening for.

While I've been a little comatose on the streets of late, I'll happily rejoin what is left of the masses here to respond to what you're saying, Jono. 

Now I can't be the only one who has noticed a severe decline in the amount of witness statements turning up on leaders doorsteps these days surely. What I want to figure out is why the fuck this is

Personally, from the experience of my bloodline, a hell of a lot of leaders simply could not give less of a shit about witness statements. They just don't care. As Squishy has said, to not collect reports of who is killing who does give a distinct disadvantage, one would think, however many seem content to ignore this type of intel gathering. It might be that in this new age of districts, that traditionally several districts would share shot reports, or a hit room, or something of that nature, allowing people to quite easily figure out who is roughly where. It might be because these days we pretty much know full well who exactly is able to blast through a whole host of bodyguards. It might be because some can easily estimate, with all the extra attacks from TylerDurden and his men, who will be on what kind of strength. There is also the fact that wars these days are pretty much universally takedowns. For a long time now, war has basically just meant that the attacking side decimates the defending side in a single wave and only sustains casualties due to wackback or forced failure on a shot. So why goddamn bother wasting time and asking somebody to do a job that few would actually want to do, when the odds are that you don't even need to know at the end of the day? 

If the leaders don't care to collect every single witness statement that falls into the hands of their crew - which most that I have worked with have not - then there really isn't much surprise to me that specific statements aren't appearing at the click of any given leaders fingers. If we had a real and thorough culture of passing everything up, I think we'd find a hell of a lot more that we're actually looking for. 

Because you are a leader, Jono, you speak on this matter from the perspective of a leader. My line has lead before, and I understand from experience that it is frustrating as fucking hell to send out request after request and never get the information you need. That The Loop has lost another of our own today is heartbreaking, and that so many of our own have been allowed to fall, apparently without anybody seeing anything amiss happen, is quite simply troubling. However, I want to offer another perspective here about why leaders aren't getting the responses they would like to see from their witness statement requests.

Mail sent asking for Witness Statements probably accounts for about 75% of all the communications from any upper structure anywhere in the game that reach my mailbox. Indeed, there are some mornings I wake up and my mailbox is literally stuffed with witness statement requests. Some are hastily forwarded notes from others, some written by the leaders of my own district. Some I end up with multiple times. And - and this is the most inexplicable to me - some, I am forwarded by upper structures from outside of my district, people who literally, do not know me from Adam, but still see fit to stuff mail in my letterbox asking me for information. 

This might not be a popular opinion to many of the uppers out there, but when the vast majority of the communication I have with you is you putting shitloads of witness request letters in my mailbox, I'm probably not going to trip over myself to go on a hunt for that info. Maybe you do consider it lazy on my part. In fairness, it probably is. But I also find it pretty damn lazy on the part of the upper structures out where who don't get the information they want and yet don't seem to try to come up with any fresh ways of collecting it.

The late Godfather Starscream came up with about the best idea I can suggest on this. He mentioned something about his captains providing a notice board for their members, which they were required to read each day to stay up to date with the comings and goings of our world. Something like that could, in my opinion, be a more effective way than me being sent mail after mail over statements. 

Maria falls to the floor with a terrible fit of OOCitis.

Looking it this from an out of character perspective for a moment, I'd also like to point out that many players play MR from mobile devices. I don't know about anyone else, but I find playing MR from my phone FRUSTRATING AS FUCKING HELL. I have tiny little hands, but I press one button and it usually does the exact opposite to what I want to do. So I jump on, do whatever I need to do, and get back off again in the shortest amount of time possible. No way in hell am I trawling through personals to find witness statements from that thing, but I also like to have a read of my mail while I am on to check I'm up to date with things. Since WS's aren't really the thing I care most about in this world, I'm quite likely to read it then forget to check it later on when I'm at a computer. Having some kind of crew notice board would probably solve that issue too. 

Maria takes a few deep breaths and sits up, rubbing her head a little. After a couple of seconds, she jumps back to her feet, shakes her head in an attempt to clear it and re-order her thoughts, and continues. 

So yeah. I understand it's frustrating when the information you need doesn't pop up as and when you need it, but I do think that to attribute the answer to the people who are being asked for the info as being "blind, lazy or stupid" is exactly the best way for you to get the information that you want any faster. 

If the upper structures aren't getting what they want from their minions, perhaps it's time they sat down and thought about what they could do differently to make things more efficient. 

Personally, were I an upper structure member concerned about this, the first lines I'd think along would be having a crew notice board to replace endless mass mails, and when I DO send a request out, I'd consider not having it forwarded from so many people that reading a ton of crap to get to the important bit is needed. If you want others to not be so lazy as to ignore your request, the least you can do really is to write out that request yourself and not just copy and add to the words of others. If the leaders don't give the impression of giving more than the obligatory forwarding fuck about specific statements that suit them, I'd not be too surprised that others cease to give a fuck too. 

Jono my good man. It has been a question I've long considered really. Witness Statements these days are almost completely ignored in my opinion. Most people seem to simply see they got one, and sell it. Many perhaps not even taking the time to see who the victim, or indeed shooter, was.

I would hazard this comes into two of the parts you mentioned though. Lazyness and Stupidity. Lazyness as the people that receive them but do nothing with or just delete/sell them and stupidity of those that don't seem to know the true value of a Witness Statement.

Of course, the value of the Witness Statement is only relative to those that collect them. If the family doesn't employ a Witness Statement Collector, then what reason would the members have to collate and send them upwards? (Unless one of the aforementioned special requests are sent asking for a specific statement).

Tyrion listens to Vadette speak before taking time to comment on her words;

To speak for some lower people who are not blind, lazy nor stupid, sometimes we just don't collect witness statements.

Really though? To use a well known phrase, I'm blind as a fucking bat. I'm about 2ft tall and can never see more than someones groin, but even I have managed to personally witness 5 shootings today alone. One of which took a good bit of detective work to track down the culprits identity as he was a very sneaky individual that managed to hide the majority of his face, if not for the porn star moustache I might ever have recognised him (And people thought my trips to whore houses were a waste of money?).

I do understand there are people that perhaps aren't walking about the streets as much and thus don't witness these things happening, but I really believe that Jono is on the right track and that these people are seeing at least some shootings and simply just ignoring the need to do anything with it.

I also believe a lot of people don't really understand the value of witness statements. I think leaders should emphasize the consequences that could follow you if you hide that information from your family a little more than they are. But even then, a problem is that you have no way of telling if someone is hiding information from you without taking extreme measures.

This could be very true. Perhaps people like Jono and myself are too long in the tooth to notice that? Witness statements are second nature to the majority of people but I do accept there perhaps are a small minority that are fresh faces and have little understanding in this side of things; this could indeed account for at least some of the ignored statements.

I suppose maybe sometimes you just don't get witness statements for certain situations..

For every single crime, there is a witness. 

Vedette Facchinello takes a puff of her Marlboro Red. A ring of ruby red lipstick clings to the cigarette's filter as she exhales a lazy stream of toxic smoke.

Okay, I wasn't aware there was always someone who knew about a crime when it is committed, so I apologize for that. I just do not see the logic in hiding information from your family unless you're working against them. Whenever I and friends of ours turn in information, we get a praise from the higher structure of our crew, even if it's just a, "Good job!"...which is actually very nice and motivating! It makes us want to send more and more in. Witness statements, however, have the value of $5,000 and a lot of people might neglect the self-satisfaction that comes with turning in that information...or maybe they don't care enough which is very unfortunate.

I assure you, to speak for those in the lower structure again, we do our share of research which consists of knowing who is around at the time of an attack and forwarding that information to where it needs to go...of course maybe certain people aren't trained to do this as I was. It may be a matter of people not knowing the procedures to take when they receive a witness statement more than it is about stupidity or laziness. For example, when I first came to these shores I freaked out to FutureStealer the first time I saw someone murder another person, only to find out that said person was nothing of significance and what took place was a normal occurrence. He told me that type of killing happens often and gave me further directions in regards to witness statements for future reference. If it wasn't for FutureStealer, to this day I would have probably neglected some urgent witness statements because I didn't understand what they did, what they were for, and whatever else.

Maybe you get new faces who are told that certain whacks are normal and they aren't explained the differences between witnessing a whack on an NPC and witnessing one on a made man. I for one did not understand a thing when I first came to this land and maybe people who have been here for longer just assume that us new Mafiosos know what we're doing instead of taking the time to teach us.

(( I think this is a little too OOC but I'm not sure. However, these are the steps I was taught a month ago when I joined and maybe each crew should have someone who teaches new faces this at the very least:

1. Click on the victim's name and see if they have a crew tag over their profile.
2. Copy or screenshot everyone who is online at the time.
3. Go to Local Listings and copy those as well.
4. Get the witness statement with the date and time from your Personals. 
5. Forward all of that information to your witness statement collector

* If the person has a RIA/MIA/CA tag then you don't need to worry about it unless the CA whack witness statement is requested later on. If someone is not in a crew and inactive then it is fine. If someone is not in a crew yet active then forward it if requested (which it probably won't be). ))

Ghostdog listened to all what the people said before him. He waited respectfully asked permission to express his opinion.

With all respect, Sir Jono, it is completely understood how important is the collection of a witness statement. Nevertheless we shouldn't assume that the lack of those important statements is due to lazyness or stupidity. The average person will find 50% of people smarter and another 50% more stupid than him. The same is for lazyness.

It is in the people's behavior. No one can predict how they will act. That's another reason why we buy also from corrupted police officers statements. Money is a good motive for people. Perhaps if you could find a way to give a symbolic reward each time someone handles you a witness statement, this could be the solution to your problem.

There is a couple of things here that I want to touch on in reply to my initial comments. The rest of it makes a lot of sense and doesn't need me or anyone else to pretty say the exact same things but in different wording. 

So yeah. I understand it's frustrating when the information you need doesn't pop up as and when you need it, but I do think that to attribute the answer to the people who are being asked for the info as being "blind, lazy or stupid" is exactly the best way for you to get the information that you want any faster. 

If the upper structures aren't getting what they want from their minions, perhaps it's time they sat down and thought about what they could do differently to make things more efficient.

I really don't see any other reason for it and i'm not just talking about those not in an upper structure position. I fully believe and always will that if someone not in a position of power is not doing what is requested by their upper structure then it is a failing on the upper structures part rather than the members part. It is our job to teach, train and mentor those below us and help them to understand why certain things are important.  Rather than just send out a generic forward of a mail we were sent by someone from a different city. This is not how things are going to get done. This is not going to motivate your people to send up what could potentially be important information. 

The other thing I wanted to touch on is when I first heard about Starscream's bulliten board with in his HQ I was actually quite intrigued by it. It makes sense and if you can teach your people to make constant use of this board then it could come in very handy. So I am planning on implementing it myself. There is no harm in stealing a good idea. Scouse after all eh? As well as that...

It is in the people's behavior. No one can predict how they will act. That's another reason why we buy also from corrupted police officers statements. Money is a good motive for people. Perhaps if you could find a way to give a symbolic reward each time someone handles you a witness statement, this could be the solution to your problem.

You raise some good points Ghostdog. I remember this was the norm a very very long time a go. A reward would be offered for a witness statement. The more important the statement the higher the reward. The only problem this had was sometimes a witness statement would be faked or the culprit would claim it was faked. Then it is their word against the witnesses which then puts the crewleader or hands in a bit of a pickle. They should and most probably would trust the word of their own member over the member of another crew or district. It will add a new dimension to decision making made at the top level if this was again to come in to play. I am intrigued by the idea though so as recently as a couple of hours a go I have started implementing this again. Thanks for the reminder. 

Ahhh fair play. Thanks for that. I really did forget that the second is shown as well.

Apologies for the OOC interjection (perhaps best for a suggestions thread I know) but maybe if the deceased was not an NPC and sponsored, there could be an additional note or idiot warning that this information may be of some greater significance. This could enhance the chances the WS might stand out from the many that are received for NPC and other not so significant deaths. 

That's a valid position. Fair enough.

Achilles makes some sort of introductory action in order to set the scene for him to speak.

I thought about this for a little while and I fail to believe that people don't fully understand what's happening when they witness a killing. Anyone with half a brain would notice tags if they bothered to look carefully enough. From there, you're either too lazy to bother handing it in to the right people or they simply don't give a fuck about the person who's been gunned down. I'm more inclined to think it's the former since there are just too many deaths going around where we don't know who the killer is. Another reason for this may be because the allies of the killer may be shielding the view of any potential witnesses outside of their group (W/S Catching).

So how can we try and entice people into handing in their witness statements? Well, in times of old there would usually be a reward put up for any information on the death as others have said previously, the bigger the reward the more likely you are to see people thoroughly rethinking about the description of the killer.

It amazes me how many unsolved mysteries there are around random shots on either BG's or Mobsters. I feel like random shooting is becoming something of a trend. It's definitely something that needs to be addressed soon, as it's unfortunate that so many are getting away with it.

Fuckers!