Ozstriker steps out onto the street, greeted immediately by a massive crowd. Word must've gotten out that he was going to show of his guns today. 'Just a quickie then', he thinks to himself as he roles up his sleeves and cracks off a couple of poses. The ladies - and Bald_Scouse_Virgin - go wild.

Recently, I set up a little competition, not only to increase activity within all bar districts, but just to allow people to have a little bit of fun. Not to my surprise, there was little participation. That's ok. Personally, I don't care if it's one person or 100 people who participate, as long as someone gets some enjoyment out of it!

I do wonder though, "Why so little participation?", especially when so many of the "gifts" in this scheme were pretty easy.

Oz realises his sleeve is still above his bicep. God they're beautiful. He pulls his sleeve down.

Often, if Crew leaders don't come to the streets to communicate, announce new rules or kick off debates they are called mutes. Infact, once upon a time their head would be called for. Of course, we all know times are changing....to my displeasure. But then you have to wonder... why should they bother coming to the streets to try please people, if the response is always minimal?

So the question I have is this. What would get you excited? What do you look for from a crew leader trying to engage the masses. Do we just have to accept that things aren't what they used to be? If street presence and engaging the crowds don't matter anymore, what defines a good leader for you? Is running a tight family and having no street presence enough to get you remembered? Is this really the way forward? Should we be paying more attention to the "presence" of auths?

I could carry on but I think I've asked enough questions for the day!

Although I think it would be nice to see leaders coming into the streets every day and making a name for themselves, I believe it is better to be a 'mute' and a good leader, rather than someone who is out here day and night who isn't such a good leader.

I do agree with you however, it would be nice to know what would get people more active in their participation in the streets and other districts in this thing of ours.

I would like to think that I will always share my opinion on a matter which I bring a new view to, however as I'm sure you know old friend I'm not the kind of guy who comes to the streets for the sole purpose of trying to engage the crowds.

V smiles at Oz and his beautifully crafted biceps and carries on his way

I judge a CL in the quality of his members. Most if not all will direct a wannabe member to one of their subordinates anyway. As long as the members are intelligent, have a sense of humour, and are friendly I judge the Cl to be of a similar nature. So what if he doesn't come to the streets every 5 minutes to whore his reputation. Some great leaders only ever speak when needs must. Some will talk your hind leg off. Horsaes for courses really. Takes all kinds to make this world go around.

I was really lucky, Don Bovine is a good Cl, in my limited experience, and Master Kenobi is the man. I'll probably steer some of my prodgeny their way if I'm lucky  enough to find a Panda female to share this thing of Ours with me. I based my decision on their Members, particularly Ron-Jeremy and Frankie_Gogolak, and my decision proved to be correct. Both these men are different. Ron is quiet in the streets, Frankie when he's in town is a prolific speaker, almost as much so as me, yet I think both men would make awesome CLs.

Panda pauses for a moment before realization strikes him like a juggernaught.

Apologies for the apparent Kenobi love fest, but as I'm new to these streets, I am kind of limited in the examples I can draw from without sounding completely mad.

I was rather enjoying your competition Consigliere Ozstriker. I dug around a bit, but didnt find anything. The thought of the competion, and the goodies that came with it where excellent. I for once figured this competition would have been a much bigger success. 

Some leaders are quiet, maybe too quiet. I for one can stand here and tell you that Im not the most vocal of the leaders within our eight cities. I see and hear all, but I rarely speak up. I tend to keep my thoughts to myself, passing along the information I wish to share to my crew to further educate them. Maybe I should take a good hard look in the mirror and ask myself if I'm doing the right thing or not. Should I come to the streets and stand on a milk crate every time I have something important to say? Maybe so, but even that may not make me memorable. There are a few leaders that Ive never seen speak a word. I don't think that makes them bad leaders. They're just not fans of public speaking!

As time goes on, I see things becoming more money driven around here. Granted, my crime life is young compared to many others, but I have clearly seen a shift towards physical gains since I took up a life of crime. Money is what people are reaching for now in most cases, not a well known street presence. I should not include everyone in that statement, there are a still a couple handfuls of people hitting the streets and letting their thoughts be known. To them, I applaud you. To the quiet ones, people like myself who do not speak as much, maybe we should give it a shot once in awhile. Who knows what will happen.

Panda notices the awesomeness that is Ragnarok, but at the same time notices the small dig at his beloved CL, Don Bovine, with the Milk Crate gag. He smiles to himself and takes a mental note, but says nothing. Don Ragnarok is not the only one who sees and hears all.

Ozstriker - the majority don't want anything, they just want to be left alone to do whatever they want. It's difficult to say how we got to that rotten state but there's one easy cure - HOOF TIME.

Listens to the thoughts of leaders and mobsters from the streets

I focus my efforts on my family and my business, anything other is only done when time is available. I reply to political and business related information. I believe a leader must be able to talk when needed, and be a good listener. Being in the streets every day is not needed, it will attract to much heat and before you know it, we are all in jail - bad for business.

Those not Made in our world, should be focusing on earning a name, getting their face known to those higher then them in the criminal world, so they should be active in the streets as a routine part of their job to being Made. Leaders should not be easily found making speeches on the street for police heat, but it is always nice when we see a news bulletin and information from the heads of each city from time to time, for the small time mobsters up.

Pucky loves a debate..

Pucky loves to see someone getting won over or having a hard time pointing out his/her vies..

Pucky loves an interesting topic that can make his mind working..

Pucky loves arguments..

Pucky loves discussion with sense..

Pucky loves to hear wise people saying wise things.

Pucky loves to see people who act cool not really wins..

Pucky loves people who make sensible but brief statements.

did i mention i love debates?

You can exchange the word love to want, to answer one of your questions oz.

-Puck-

Ozstriker,

I applaud your stance on this issue my friend; and what an issue of concern it should be for the masses.  It is in my opinion that the status of leadership is nothing more than the "filling" of a void.  The dynamic we once knew to be a regular part of business is now all but lost.  Most leaders today concern themselves with their button men, their hit-squad chiefs, and inner-city diplomacy than the greater debate and politics of our time.  I often wonder if this is a result of bad decision making or lack of care for this thing of ours - it's actually quite the opposite. 

In fact, the reason our current times are so stagnant and placid is a direct result of learned behavior.  Leaders understand that the less they speak, the more obscure their opinions, and their direct absence of activity will no doubt contribute to their longevity.  In essence, people have learned that maintaining a limited presence on the streets and elsewhere is the key to success.  This is unfortunate, but a grave reality.  

I also believe it is not up to the masses to change things around here, but the Gods themselves.  So perhaps instead of pointing the finger at the leaders which are but a mere symptom and consequence of a greater problem - we should spend our time praying and appealing to the greater divine authorities who time and time again have made promises of listening to our voices of concern.... yet we still see no action. 

The truth is my friend, this will not change.   In fact everything will continue in this circular trend of long peace, decadence, strife, more decadence, more peace, and then future strife once more.  New people will rise to become bold suits, but the majority with blank stares and faceless expressions.  The term "family" would be better off limited to the crews hit squad and leadership as these are most often the only members who concern themselves with one another.   It is no lie or untruth that the majority of members in most families are numbers to be counted and shields to be used in times of war.

There are many men in this community who would attribute this problem to the underlings in crews and families of our society, but this is hardly the full measure of our problem.  In fact, most problems can be attributed by lackluster leadership altogether.  The time of poignant political behavior is over - enter stagnation and decay.   This is much to our frustration, but well outside the realm of our idea of "control." 

I think City Leaders are doing a great job, they protect, and thats the main reason you need a city leader. Yes being mute can be bad, but it gives the CL a little shroud of mystery, in which I like.

The level of participation might seem low but the potential is out there. I haven't been around much to speculate about the changes over time, however, I may have a simple answer to this concern. Perhaps it's simply a conflict of interest. Maybe the competitions, speeches, events, etc haven't been that quite interesting recently. As a community we can try to take a different approach but you still deal with the fact that people might just not be interested to participate. The only solution I see towards this is to keep trying.

I don't completely with agree with EzioMedici's comment about the gods, but I do believe it may be time for them to help out and give us alittle jump-start. We are all equally at fault for this because they too have to deal with the same problem we're dealing with and that's trying to get people interested enough to participate. I look towards the gods for an answer because they have more resources at hand. But that doesn't mean their responsible for this. For example, look at the great outcome with the jail breaking competition awhile ago. Sure they had glamorous prizes to offer but I think we have enough intelligent people here to put our minds together for a cheaper and better solution. If I may offer some advise, before even starting a debate, speech, competition, etc, ask yourself 'Is this really going grasp people's attention and interest?'. It might seem like an easy question but it's hard to answer without being biased.

In regards to a CL's street presence, I don't believe it's necessary at all for a CL to come out in the streets and preach to the masses. They took this duty to serve their family and city. As a general approach, they are required to keep a body of people fundamentally sound. Now we're all smart people and know quite alot about this thing of ours so I'm not going into detail of how running a crew/family is done. However, I'm trying point out that coming into the streets to show your face to the masses is not 'required' to be a CL. If a CL is a running a respectable family and means well to other surrounding families, then I think it's complete shit to hear negative comments about leaders when there not seen in the streets.  After all, some leaders are busier than others and don't have time to speak among a large number of strangers.

I remember a time back when I was making my own name (I understand I'm going back a fair old distance but keep with me) you only had a finite amount of time within which to shine. Even the Dons who happened to be the best of the best had at most a reign of 5-6 months and their underlings far shorter than that. This made the general public hungry. In order to be noticed you had to work hard and catch the eye of those in power, who actually employed certain criterion before they gave up prime real estate for headquarters. In the modern era, people aren't hungry; in fact they are practically gluttons. Everything is handed to them on a plate and they don't particularly have to work for anything. This begins with the very first moment that they set foot onto our shores and are bombarded with invites, continuing with handholding right the way to the top. I'm disgusted that we spoon-fed Joe Nobody to the point where he takes a shit and we treat it like he's just dropped a solid gold bar out of his bottom. This paradigm has to stop if we are going to see any sort of progress on this front.

When you take the stabilisers off and people are hungry again, you'll see them biting your hand off for these sort of opportunities to shine, but I seriously doubt they'll bother before. Why should they? I mean they have no need to shine; they are given whatever they like with minimal effort for the most part. We are not in a state of 'don't excel, don't progress', we aren't even close. Until we are even out of the 'don't be stupid, you'll get whatever you like' mentality, this will continue.

The reason our current time is so stagnant and placid is because the standards dropped. Attribute the blame to whomever you like but at the moment it falls to the city heads, the Honoured Society or whoever may have the authority to change things, to actually do so. At the moment I impose a variety of requirements upon my members in order that they understand what they rank they've earned or would like to hold entails and means. I would be staggered if half the people currently occupying the senior ranks understood them and what they should represent. That isn't the Gods fault; this is a failing in our own shoddy promotions.

Again, the fact that some leaders reward keeping your nose clean and little else with the highest honours possible is no fault of the Gods and any pleas for this sort of thing should be rightly ignored. We have the ability to govern and discipline ourselves, the failing there is ours. Similarly, acceptance of anonymous leaders, mute leaders or incapable leaders is wholly our fault. It was not the Gods who gifted them the headquarters it was the head of that city.

I assume you're referencing the unassailable position of the top men and women in your reference to changes required by the Gods (i.e. 1000000000000000000 BG) but at a street level, the majority can be changed by us.

The term 'family' within New Orleans is not limited to the HSL and leadership, far from it. I cannot discuss the inner workings of other families across the country, because I don't know the intricacies of their business any more than they would of mine (aside from the kind soul who brought my HQ to the streets). I mean it isn't difficult to promote family, interaction and mutual dependence from within your HQ, part of the issue is those at the top just hit the promotion button the moment it appears. Within New Orleans you need to have built a name and a reputation within the city before you can get to Made Man. You have to have made your bones and then you must garner the support and acceptance of the other members of the Kenobi Crime Syndicate.

Everything is controllable, assuming the Gods do not step in to prevent it. I mean I could demand $1,000,000 a day from every Gangster on the streets. There is nothing to stop me other than my own lack of power to pull that off when confronted by other leaders of Godfathers. Just because leaders of the past decided on a formulaic and inept way of running things, does not mean this has to be the only way to run things or how to act. Everything is changeable provided you are prepared to implement the change yourself. The simple truth is that most people are incapable of reaching the top and if they do manage to get there they focus more upon staying there than changing anything drastically.

I'm not entirely sure it is your place to question the leadership of our cities, being a Wise Guy and thus not even a full member of The Outfit; however your input did have merit so I'll overlook that faux pas.

~G~rin.

I wanted to address a couple of the points that have been made here, without trying to repeat what Grin has already said.  I have to say, however, that speaking as the son of a man who spent some time in New Orleans, I am excited about what the Godfather and his leaders are doing in that city.  Good for New Orleans.  I love to see them shine again.

Now, back on topic:

V - I don't think the two positions you talked about have to be mutually exclusive.  I don't think you have to be mute to be a good leader, and I don't think if you have a street presence it means you aren't a good leader.  I think all leaders should have a street presence, and that a street presence contributes to you being a good leader.  That's not to say it is written in stone that you can't be mute and be a good leader for YOUR people.  Others may believe you can be a mute and be a good leader.  I don't happen to be one of them.  I don't mean you have to be out here every day contributing a unique speach and/or commenting on all speeches of others, but it does mean that you should be out here to contribute to the community in some way.  That's just my opinion.  And while I don't have the power to compel other leaders to have that presence, I don't have a problem coming out here to tell them they should be in the streets.  What they do with that information is up to them.

There were some other comments made...Ezio...I would ask you not to speak for all or even most leaders.  I am certain you don't speak for me.   I've never had a problem coming out here, and never had a problem disagreeing with other leaders.  My most recent example of coming out to the streets to spark up debate was when I discussed recruitment.  I've also addressed other issues, including this very topic, and many others in my time here.  I don't go around and make sure every other leader agrees with me regarding the subjects I choose.  I choose subjects that are important to me, and areas that I see that need change. 

I'm not necessarily concerned about longevity.  That's not to say I wouldn't want to be a leader for a while.  I absolutely would like to continue in this role, but I do think I have responsibilities in this role.  One of those responsibilities is to talk about areas where I believe changes need to occur.  And one of those areas is in the street presence...not only of the leaders, but of everybody.  So, expect to see more about this later from me. 

For now, let's not lump everybody in together.  We are all different leaders, with different thoughts and different agendas.  Don't presume to know my thoughts or my agenda...unless, of course, you are in my head.

_{I just wanted to say we are all friends here i hope it would be a good idea to know each other more you know keep the peace talk more just maybe you might find a good friend but yes i do preffer a mute leader who is a good ledar instead of one who is always on the street and is a bad leader.}

I for one enjoyed looking around the various bars etc. It was just unfortunate that I was pipped each time by Lucky Mr Mario. These things happen. Maybe next time I will be there first. Always enjoyable to look around and communicate with others