Stepping out into the streets, Kates begins a discussion.

In the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas, I'd like to begin by trying to diffuse and acknowledge certain things before I begin the body of my speech.

First, quality is certainly more important than quality, but only to an extent. It's better to have one excellent diamond than five shitty diamonds. But it's also better to have a few hundred pretty good diamonds than one excellent one. Unless it's the Hope Diamond. Even then, you're pushing it.

Second, there are many different types of people in our world. Some people can't shut up if they're paid to do so. Others rarely feel the need to open their mouths in public. Some people love the streets, and some avoid it at all costs. I think we can agree, however, that even the most succinct and quiet leaders should still be somewhat active in the world, whether the majority of their discourse takes place out in the streets, in the bars, or in the privacy of their own HQ. Like it or not, in this place if you're wearing a bold suit you're expected to remove yourself from the ivory tower every now and then. At least, you used to be. But if you disagree, that's a legitimate question for later.

            Clears her throat.

            Now, within an hour or so, this data is accurate. It outlines each CL, their number of discussions or topics started (Original Posts), their number of contributions (Posts), and their contributions per week (Posts Per Week). The number of weeks in their first month is rounded to maintain accuracy, with 4 weeks for every month following, and one week for July.

            Furthermore, there are people who often contribute to "drug prices" discussions. This certainly isn't a bad thing, but it did throw off the numbers. I asked each leader over 20 per week whether they sometimes/consistently spoke in a drug price discussion. If they answered yes they are marked with an asterisk, and that should be factored in when viewing these numbers (there are some extremely inflated totals in this group due to drug discussions, and there are some people that may do it, but not often, and so their total is almost entirely accurately represented). Tie has received 3 asterisks.

CLs Who Do Not Post in HQ Drug Thread

HydroPhonic               24        313      337/28             = 12 per week

Death-Knight              28        605      633/15             = 42 per week

Return_Of_Ghost       20        43        63/7                 = 9 per week

Marietta                       121      1270    1391/47           = 30 per week

Rhuarc                         17        99        116/15             = 8 per week

PedroRourke               12        26        38/5                 = 8 per week

Aurora                         12        205      217/29             = 8 per week

Premier                        18        159      177/19             = 9 per week

Brandon_Heat             13        46        59/3                 = 20 per week

JamaicanMob_Marley  8         100      108/5               = 22 per week

ThomasRourke            58        315      373/36             = 10 per week

Deimne                        9          175      184/8               = 23 per week

ScipitaRourke             9          101      110/5               = 22 per week

Gizaro                         7          79        86/9                 = 10 per week

Odd                             21        187      108/15             = 7 per week

MrFCUK                    3          36        39/13               = 3 per week  

CLs Who May Post in HQ Drug Thread to Some Extent

Sidious*                      18        215      233/10             = 23 per week

Sherlock*                    7          56        63/3                 = 21 per week

Judge_Holden*           6          142      148/3               = 49 per week

TM*                            11        341      352/7               = 50 per week

Tie

Tie***                         14        81        395/5               = 79 per week

After giving people a moment to reflect on the numbers, Kates begins to speak again.

            Certainly interesting to look at the numbers. But there are, I think, a few important points. First, as I mentioned before, pure quantity itself is worthless if you've got nothing to back it up. Looking over the data, I see men and women with huge contribution counts, yet I can't ever really recall them making consistently good points in the streets.

And on the other end of the spectrum are men and women who may not have overtly impressive numbers, but whom I remember repeatedly making important and memorable speeches. If I may be so bold as to single someone out for the first time, ThomasRourke is an excellent example of this latter type- a man who may not be as talkative as some other leaders, but who consistently, intelligently, and memorably contributes to important discussions. I also know of multiple leaders on this list who, while they may not bowl you over with their numbers, are among the most admirable, loyal, dedicated, and irreplaceable members of this thing of ours.

And so to conclude, a few questions.

1)                          How important do you think a public presence currently is with regards to selecting leaders? Do you think a leader actually need a public presence at all?

2)                          Thoughout history we've seen leaders that say a lot without saying anything important, and we've seen leaders that speak rarely, but it ways that greatly contribute to the world. How important is quantity when it comes to evaluating the street presence of a leader? How important is quality? Is there a perfect balance?

3)                          Other than the fact that Tie has the ability to fuck up everything to the amount where he necessitates his own subdivision, (just kidding),  is there anything that sticks out about the data above?

4)                          Other comments? Should I not have bothered doing this? Why or why not?

My opinion, as long as the crew knowns they can go to their boss with whatever beef they may have, and that they won't hesitate to do whatever they need to so the situation can be resolved. I've always believed that however someone runs their crew, is their business. The Crew Leader will speak on whatever subjects they feel their opinion has to be heard. There's a lot of pressure on the shoulders of Crew Leaders, they operate however their life allows.

1) How important do you think a public presence currently is with regards to selecting leaders? Do you think a leader actually need a public presence at all?

This is a very interesting question, one I have often debated in my own mind and switched sides often on where my opinion resides.

I believe that any leader, or ever leader, should have the ability to go to the streets and talk to and with the community. Having clear communications within the HQ is vital for any family, but if ideas, opinions and important business matters can't be taken to the streets by the leader... our community as a whole will suffer.

I'm a strong believer in quality over quantity. If a prospective leader has proven their abilities, even if it has been in the privacy of the HQ, it is the authing leaders confidence in their ability that counts. I'd never require a prospective auth or captain to jump on a soapbox before they would be considered for a role, but I would never consider someone for a role if I didn't believe they could handle it.

2) Thoughout history we've seen leaders that say a lot without saying anything important, and we've seen leaders that speak rarely, but it ways that greatly contribute to the world. How important is quantity when it comes to evaluating the street presence of a leader? How important is quality? Is there a perfect balance?

In my own humble opinion, there is no importance on quantity. It all comes down to quality. I don't believe any CL should ever 'seek' to find a balance.

If a topic is worthy of an opinion, they should give it. If not, why speak at all. We live in a dynamic world, where new topics are constantly thrown at us. If a leader doesn't feel any of these topics are worthy of discussion, well, you have to worry about them.

3) Other than the fact that Tie has the ability to fuck up everything to the amount where he necessitates his own subdivision, (just kidding), is there anything that sticks out about the data above?

It does suggest that I love the sound of my own voice. Having said that, I do have a beautiful voice. My years of living in New York have not tarnished my beautiful Irish accent passed down from my ancestors... so I feel I would be doing this thing of ours an injustice were I not to share it as frequently as possible.

*Gently hums to himself so he can enjoy his own beautiful tones.*

4) Other comments? Should I not have bothered doing this? Why or why not?

I only have one thing to add... Penguins rawk!. That is all.

hmmm you know it is possible to have quanity and quality...just because they have said alot doesnt mean it wasnt as good as those who have put less speeches just because they have posted alot it seems you have implied there speeches are not good...

I'm not sure if that comment by Mr. Visali was aimed at myself or Miss. Kates... but either way, I'm happy to address it.

Nowhere has it been implied that quantity means a lack of quality. The point being made was that a lack of quantity does not mean a lack of quality or a lack of presence. Should Mr. Visali have inferred otherwise does not mean that it was implied. In both my own response and in the original data provided by Kates nothing of the sort was implied.

Kates gave the example of Godfather ThomasRourke. A man who graces the streets when required, but when he does makes one hell of an impact. While the 'numbers' might suggest a less than average level of participation, his street presence is at a level that many of us can only aspire to one day achieve.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Godmother Marietta. Her numbers place her firmly near the top in terms of frequency of activity here in this thing of ours. Would anyone dare try and suggest this means the quality of her speaches is low? If they do, it is a laughable suggestion. Her words grace the soapboxes of any of the seven cities.

Quantity does not mean quality. That said, pointing out such a fact does not suggest, imply or should not lead to the inferal that quantity means a lack of quality either.

I think I dedicated more than enough time in my original speech to my belief that talking less does not necessarily make you a bad leader, and that talking more does not necessarily make you a good one. What I'm trying to answer, by opening this up to the opinions of all, is, among other things, how much street presence currently matters, why or why it isn't important, and what sort of relationship there is between quality and quantity of street contributions. Personally, my own thoughts are this. A man who has a large quantity of contributions in the streets but a lack of quality is worth little. A man who has quality public contributions but a lack of quantity is worth much, much more. And a man who has a high number of quality contributions is worth the most.

Interesting topic Kates, of course I would expect nothing less from you. Can you imagine the super powers our children would be imparted with? The Earth would wobble off of its axis of coolness and go spinning right into the Sun, dragging that poor Moon in its wake. I expect the resulting supernova and subsequent loss of income for Godfather Premier and Godmother Marietta would make you and I the least liked members of our respective families in the here-after.

Opens his moleskin (reputed to have once belonged to Henri Matisse) and glances at his notes before launching into answering the first question.

How important do you think a public presence currently is with regards to selecting leaders? Do you think a leader actually need a public presence at all?

"When a leader comes into the streets, representing themselves well, it instills a sense of confidence in all of their abilities. A discerning public would pick up on their public persona and conclude that their private matters are handled with equal aplomb. The public wants to put their leaders on a pedestal, and expects us to live by higher standards. We Talk the talk, we should walk the walk. That may not equate to walking on water but one should aspire to set the standards we expect others to live by. You lead by example, as the saying goes. One need not possess the silver tongue of a Proust, or have the mental acumen of a Schopenhauer to be popular, but knowing that a given leader can use words as their weapons equally as well as their gun makes them the total package in my eyes. Charisma is often sold short as an attribute for a leader. To me, the ability to draw people to you is an essential trait in ones makeup. When kindness fails, there is always the fallback bullet to the head approach. Both will endear people to you."

"...as for the second part of the question, is it necessary, I believe the answer lies in the middle ground. It's always nice when leaders take time out of their busy schedules to share their opinions on issues, or impart their wisdom regarding their own ventures. It's nice, but it is a bonus. Leaders operate in secrecy, hammering out policies that directly effect us all. If some want to put their heads down and get things accomplished it is well their prerogative. Should we laud those that come to the streets with florid speeches but do little while vilifying those who would rather see their aims met while staying out of the limelight? There's room for both in these cities. It takes all kinds. What makes life interesting is the differences between us, not the similarities."

Thoughout history we've seen leaders that say a lot without saying anything important, and we've seen leaders that speak rarely, but it ways that greatly contribute to the world. How important is quantity when it comes to evaluating the street presence of a leader? How important is quality? Is there a perfect balance?

How important is quantity? It means little if nothing of importance is said. Should we all want to be known for our logorrheic outflow rather than influence? Quantity without quality is somewhat akin to getting three rbi's in the course of a game while someone else hits the winning home run in the bottom of the ninth. Sure, you contributed. Way to go Sparky. Yet someone else is still the hero. Aspire to be that memorable hero, not a serviceable journeyman. Now is there a perfect balance? we could well argue that until we are blue in the face. To me there is always a perfect balance. I would rather have someone leave me wanting more than be looking at my watch waiting and wishing for it all to end. We've all been in a position where we were in church on a Sunday and you're getting hungry. It's close to noon, you've had to sit through the sermon, three testimonies, and had praises and blessings fall down like hail for the better part of an hour. When it's finally time for communion you can't wait to to get out of there. That's not the way it should be. You should enjoy the time you spend, whether in worship or listening to a leader give a speech. It's predicated on what you say and how the message is delivered. Don't be boring, don't waste our time. Inspire us instead"

...is there anything that sticks out about the data above?

You mean stick out like a sore thumb? Like say ignoring other pertinent data? You've focused on leaders who may speak to their family's members regarding their drug business while wholly ignoring other subjects that they deal with daily in their head quarters. How many times has a leader congratulated a member of his family for attaining a new found status in this thing of ours? Did you take into account the number of times a leader has thanked a member of his family for contributing a generous donation to the family's well being? How about those who praise fallen family members and pay their respects in house?"

"Postulating a theorem without including all critical information only leads to compromised end results. I don't know of anyone one else who had the pleasure to speak with you Kates, but I wasn't asked about anything but my discussions regarding our drug trade. If your aim was to insinuate that most of a leaders given speeches to his or her family could be contributed to this one factor than I believe you have missed the plot, as the majority of these speeches are soon forgotten and swept away."

"As always, nothing but love in my heart for you Kates. Thank you for bring this out to be discussed."

I will be the first to admit, that most of my replies, are replies to drug information. Indeed, to some, it does make me look more important, but that isn't the only reason I do it. Just because a person is now a CL, doesn't mean that they are above speaking about drug information. A CL should always be dedicated to their goal, why they want to be a CL, but guess how one does that? With money. How does one make money? Aside from doing their own drug runs, they make it from their crew.

I join in, because I am not some man who, now just because I have power, means that I am above my crew. I'm not going to sit back and say "go find drug prices please, while I sit back and don't help you out."

There is no real perfect balance. A CL should have a presence in the streets, something I realize, and will openly admit to, needing to work on. But that doesn't mean they should stop talking in their own HQ. My point is, you do what needs. Don't worry about what others think about it, just do what you gotta do. I need money, so I help my crew along with making me that money. I also need a street presence, which is why I'm out here today, building the presence that I should have had all along.

Addresses Tie's shorter comments before pondering the Judge_Holden's extensive remarks.

Mr. Tie,

My intention certainly wasn't to make you defend yourself- I apologize if you inferred any negativity on my part at all. My goal was only to make sure there was a modicum of the accuracy to the data. As I said, though I don't do it myself, there's certainly nothing wrong with posting in drug price threads.

I also wholeheartedly agree with your point about balance. A leader who pays attention to the streets to their detriment of their HQ is certainly not one that I would admire!

I understand Ms. Kates, I actually want to thank you for bringing this to the attention of people. I feel that, what you've found, should be shared with the entire community. I wasn't defending myself, so much as letting my opinions be known. I apologize if I came off hostile, in any way whatsoever.

I completely understand your point, and I was just giving you my take on it.

Also, a very brief addendum. TM should not have an asterisk, as he has made me aware he's only spoken in a drug "thread" 10 times in his life, which I had originally misinterpreted as a more frequent contributions. My sincerest apologies, TM.

My personal thought is that quantity is totally irrelevant. As it has been mentioned, quantity could mean lots of spam or lots of excellent, in depth consideration. But since there is no way to know, it should always be disregarded.

Quality is the judge of a leader. Quality of posts gives you several important things:

1. Quality shows the level of intelligence/maturity needed to be a leader.

2. Quality shows that the person is willing to take the time to make things right.

3. Quality shows that the person actually has an interest in the topic being discussed.

Drug threads for me are a given. It helps everyone in the family do better, so I frequently contribute. Though I know some CLs simply don't have the time. However, I wouldn't consider a drug thread to be an example of lack of quality in a post. The quality is in the motivation to help, not in the text in that case.

Thinking about Judge_Holden's speech, Kates offers a reply.

Well to begin with, I'm certainly not planning on having children anytime soon. I'm only 25 and I've got a lot on my plate as it is. I barely have time to date- nevermind diapers.

Anyways, regarding the actual topic. I largely agree with you- your eloquence and wisdom is enviable. However, there is a point at the end I'd like to clear up.

I made my extremely rudimentary calculations to get a rough idea of the lay of the land, so to speak, and to try to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between quality and quantity. With regards to my limited scope, I don't believe I left out anything of import. I'll explain my rationale, which I hope you understand.

As I stated before, I thought it would be interesting to analyze and reflect on a very rough sketch of how often each CL contributed to public discussions on the average week. The reason I asked leaders about their drug business discussions is because I, while I acknowledge the utility and practicality of these discussions, consider them (what's the new name for that meat?)... Spam-ish. I didn't want these spammish contributions throwing off people's interpretations of the raw data, so anyone who could have potentially been involved in one of these discussions was given an asterisk. As I've stated repeatedly, I have no issue with drug discussions. But my goal was to get a roughly accurate view of each CL's level of actual public activity, and participation in a drug discussion could potentially distort the reality of the situation. So the asterisk exists as a way of saying "to some extent, this leader may contribute to a drug discussion". For example, Mr. Tie has consistently made an effort recently to build a street presence, and I've greatly enjoyed his stories and comments. But he's certainly not speaking almost three times as much as Godmother Marietta (any attempt to do so, I believe, would kill most of us), and I wanted people to be able to interpret the data accordingly.

So to conclude, my aim was to raise intelligent questions and try to increase my own understanding. It certainly was NOT to imply that "most of a leaders (sic) given speeches to his or her family could be contributed to this one factor".

To quote my original speech "If they answered yes they are marked with an asterisk, and that should be factored in when viewing these numbers (there are some extremely inflated totals in this group due to drug discussions, and there are some people that may do it, but not often, and so their total is almost entirely accurately represented)".

In other words: there are 5 (later amended to 4) leaders who, to some extent, participate in these drug discussions. I also made sure to say that having an asterisk MAY mean that their numbers are inflated due to this participation, but that there are other people that only do so rarely, and so their totals are essentially accurate.

The reason you weren't asked about anything other than your drug discussions is that those discussions are the only ones, whether I'm correct in my opinion or not, that I consider to be somewhat illegitimate with regards to the public presence of a leader.

I apologize, as I believe this reply is a bit rambly. But it did merit a reply.

Beowulf, while I certainly agree that quality is worth much, much more than quantity, I don't think quantity can be totally disregarded. If you're measuring a leader based on their public presence alone (which is only one aspect of the true measure of a leader), a CL with ten excellent posts per week is surely better than a CL with two.

I also am not saying that drug posts do not fulfill a quality purpose. I'm saying that, when measuring a public presence, the lack of effort and thought in these posts do not help accurately represent actual contributions to a public discussion.

Kates,

I think it depends on where your priorities are. If you want a leader who is very public, then yes quantity is relevant. However, that depends on the premis that a leader must be public. Sometimes, silence is a virtue in our world. Talking at the right times, might be better than talking often -- even if the quality is high.

Just my thoughts,

Thank you for your thoughts, Beowulf.

Grins, and wonders if Judge_Holden will ever reply. And if he still wants to have babies with her.

These are very interesting statistics, but so many factors affect these figures that I don't think we can draw any conclusion about them.

There are many people who have a heavy street presence, then others that spend most of their time in the Business District, then many that spend it in their HQ. Some leaders may not be very interested in making public his opinions but makes sure that all his members are aware of his thoughts.

How about the leaders who use the coffee shops as their main means of communication with his most trusted associates?

Then I can think of people that after the first wave of the debate feel they have nothing new to add so they don't open their mouth just to hear themselves talk. That also eliminates the possibility of even saying "Yeah, I agree with what has been said" because that's the kind of response that many people mock.

I think all we can have is our impressions of certain people. There are people who we make sure to pay attention every time they open their mouth and there are other that mostly entertain us but don't contribute much to the debates. I don't think these are the things that can really be grasped with numbers, although statistics are always an interesting read.

Thank you very much for the work you put in this, Ms. Kates.

From a certain perspective, of course it matters. I think the large majority will agree that some sort of verbal activity is an absolute necessity, regardless of where it is undertaken.

What I would say though, that as a measure of a Crewleader, a tally of the members they are unable to keep alive may be a more useful count than how many appearances they've made; but either way it's a subjective issue!

Anyway, what do you know? You're just a Wise Guy!

You see Tallien's business card. All it has on it is:

~T~

Rourke saunters into the streets wearing a pink feather boa and high heels, both items having been stolen from Tallien's closet. He listens to the street and gives his much-appreciated opinion.

I agree with FlyingMonkey being a Wise Guy.

You notice Rourke's business card. It is flashier than Tallien's and is much more expensive. All it has on it is: ~R~