Boaby, I'm sure you've seen plenty of bums sleeping on the sidewalk in your day.  From the time their boat came in until the time they fell asleep on the sidewalk typically isn't 24 hours.  Hell, is often less than 30 minutes.  We have less than 30 minutes to sell them.  Not on one specific family, but on The Life.

I don't consider myself lazy.  Hell, the only reason I'm here is because I was approached over a year ago.  If I concluded after 30 minutes that it was all about the petties, I would have fallen asleep too.  Thankfully, I had someone send me a message, ask if I needed any help and show me the ropes.  In return for his hospitality, I worked for him.

A random message offering advice is what got my ancestors into The Life.  You can understand why I'd jump to the defense of a practice that, for me, was instrumental in my development.

Marley sits on the bench, puffing his joint, shaking his head, and grinning.

Recruitings for coaches! I still stand on that.

But just to be fair I make a suggestion as well. We could always wait until people turned Earner before they could receive invites to join crews, but they'd probably get whored for a week.  Then again you'd lose alot of them to laziness and falling into deep sleeps.

Marley stands up and walks off, but turns around because he forgot one thing.

Mon!

I, as a Boss in New Orleans have not approached anyone to simply send them an invite. Actually nine times out of ten they end up talking to someone else for an invite. Why? Because I point them towards the tutorial and anything else they might find helpful.

A lot of the new mafioso to this world don't understand the concept of how roleplayed requesting an invite should be. That's why I do approach them but only to make sure they learn a little about the game before accepting invites or just simply going idle and dying a week later due to inactivity.

As for earlier when I compared the 30 to 8 ratio I look at it this way. Back then there were say 8 crews, all almost full and maybe inviting every few days but the mafiosi that did play were more veterans. Now that our world has advanced greatly we have many HQ's that have room for new mafiosi that don't have the experience many of us do we usually do go forward towards them in more cases and attempt to keep them around. Whether it be by pointing them towards the tutorial/useful threads or simply by sending them an invite.

In no way do I condone sending a blind invite or even mailing someone saying "Hey, you need a crew to survive. I have open spaces and will send you an invite." Then moments later an invite shows up and they accept because they're tunneled into thinking they could die.

There is plenty of room to clean up the ways people go about their business. I don't accuse anyone of member whoring the least bit mostly because I'm busy keeping myself in line and trying to help those that are willing to learn. I'm just saying that it's not a shock to me that there's not as much role play to the invite process and that I don't exactly understand how it will be enforced.

Vito, we're obviously never going to agree on the practice but there are a few points that I'd like to pick up on.....

If those fresh off the boats want interaction, why can't they initiate that interaction?  They don't die by mailing as many high rankers as they can (or they don't in New Orleans anyway), they die by requesting multiple invites and subsequently disrespecting at least one family.

There is information on cities / leaders everywhere - the Streets, personal correspondence, friends of ours' suits and so on.  It's everywhere.

Yes, we're supposed to be a secret society.  Just in case the newly formed FBI are ever watching, we should all remember that.

As an example, when I decided to follow in my bloodline's footsteps and return to this thing of ours after a long holiday in the old country, I received one unsolicited invite and at least five letters mainly consisting of "Wanna join our kru?".  All within five minutes of getting off the boat.  No genuine offers of help and no-one really caring whether I was suitable.  Needless to say, I headed elsewhere.

From the time their boat came in until the time they fell asleep on the sidewalk typically isn't 24 hours.  Hell, is often less than 30 minutes.  We have less than 30 minutes to sell them.

As I said before, we need to very aware of our own role in cosa nostra versus that of the gods. Thug retention, for want of a better phrase, is something for city hall to be overly concerned with. Personally, I find it far more worrying for cosa nostra that we would jeopardise our operations by being reckless. Hopefully this retention will be helped by Ellis Island, though again, I've no idea about that beyond the odd whisper I hear. I would guess it is being developed in order to help thug retention though (amongst other things).

I can understand why you would defend it, yep, but that doesn't mean I would ever agree that it fits the life we've chosen.

I strongly disagree with approaching someone as soon as they jump off the ship, even if it is to offer advise. Why?

Take a look at this from any other percpective, I'm a young man dressed in a suit and I've landed in the city with my mind set on becoming a city trader. I will take a look at the local firms that are recruiting, approach them with my CV and try to sell my skills to them. The other option is I can stand there looking dapper waiting for the CEO of one of the firms to offer me a position. I suspect the latter would be a fruitless task.

In this world, everyone that arrives on these shores come with a view to becoming a mobster, much like the city trader. They too have to get themselves set up and admitting within a business or family, they should not expect a Don leader to approach them offering advice and tips. And on that note, I don't care what you claim your intentions are, you are hoping that person joins your city.

If you believe advise should be offered, I'm sure if a well written flyer was sent to city hall that will help thugs blend more smoothly into our society, we could get an official to deliver such a flyer to these civilians.

In my humble opinion sir, the real problem is the solution itself, how could we prevent member whoring and those sponsors from sending random invites or asking new arrivals to be their associates? we can't prevent a Made Man or above from mailing a new arrival coz they would find lots of reasons to mail them besides asking to join the crew.

I remember a couple of months back or so, I read in my grand father's diary that he was approached by a LH that asked him to join the family and since his leader didn't agree to member whoring he sent him a invite request form and asked him to forward it back to him.

My point is that people who are able to invite new arrivals will find many ways to make it legit and acceptable.
I am sure that most of our honored society doesn't support member whoring but some of them do member whore as they need more members which they are afraid they could get in any of the other 24 crews in our world, hence these crews will get stronger while theirs don't.
{$}ilvio

Silvio, as has already been said you will never stop 100% of those whoring. 

My point is that people who are able to invite new arrivals will find many ways to make it legit and acceptable.

The thing is, IF they were under orders by their boss that it wasn't legit and acceptable, then it simply isn't legit and acceptable and they do not have the power to make it so. Therefore, in running a workaround, they run the risk of being caught - whether that be through obvious number swells, lots of IA deaths, thug complaints of whoring (which happens and would happen even more if outlawed), or whatever - and subsequently dealt with by the leader they had been disobeying. Just because 100% of whorers may not be stopped doesn't mean we shouldn't deal with as many as is possible under whatever path the city heads decide to go with this whoring issue.

I can't agree more sir Kenobi, I as well would love to see member whoring stop to give more opportunities for the new blood to have a better life instead of getting in a family which they got recruited into and end up being IA and a useless count to the family's number of members.
{$}ilvio

Pedro, do you have a voice on this important issue? Judging by the 52 comments in 8 months, I guess not? I would love to hear if it you did, but seeing as you've snubbed it since Dec 21 when the rest of the city heads started discussing it, I guess not? There will be lots of fresh faces coming off the boats after the war too....probably best to wait until after then before any policy is cemented.

Name: Morgan
Rank: Don
Bodyguards: Extremely Well Protected
Status: Dead



Problem solved.

Too bad we did not get Paul_Vidi, his RHM have been whoring like crazy today.

Wow, people get really petty and desperate when they know they're about to die.

offering to help guide someone and give them help is not whoring them i offer help and advice all the time to nubes but never invite them unless they ask and a lot of them join other family's, i offer because  someone helped me when i first landed and it is the reason im still here....

From: Jewish_Vidi
Subject:

hey how are you Forgot?

If your a returning player welcome back....

If your new i can help :)

Jewish, must you really spam every new arrival on these shores with your veiled whoring? You are a right-hand man for goodness sake, why are you wandering around approaching every person that comes off the boat. Get some idea what the fuck you are doing here. The effort you've put into this generate template is also ridiculously lacking. You've now sent it to me twice in the last 12 hours with me on diff names, both times with 2-3 mins of sign up. That is an impressive rate of help you are getting through.

Sigh.

Fargot, who cares. I don't.

Being an Earner, I doubt it matters whether you care or not, Mejar.

Zuldazar hears the little debate going on from an alleyway where he was dealing his drugs

"Hmmm, I don't know what to say. It doesn't pacificly say 'Join my family' or anything. I mean yeah atleast hes saying welcome back in their an old player. And offering help if their a new player. The only down side to all of this is the fact that there isn't much thought put into it. No introduction of yourself and where you come from".

Zuldazar pulls out a peice of meat from his backpack and rips it apart with his teeth

"I mean if you put more effort into the mail and that then its completly innocent other then sending it someone within 5 mins of them joining. If I personally were going to mail someone doing that then I would atleast wait untill their atleast 1 hour old or so. That way they have had some time to get used to the basics themselves".

  Firstly one point to
those of you who have a problem with my family members and how they do things
you should come to me not take it to the streets. Personally attacking my
people I consider to be the same as an attack on me. My family follows strict
rules about recruiting that are set forth by our Godmother ScipitaRourke and
additional ones I have in place. So for you who claim that my RHM was member
whoring yesterday obviously you never got an invite to join my family. As for Jewish_Vidi
if you took a second to talk to him you would know that he is one of the few who
would truly help you. I myself will often write message to a new person fresh
off the boat to see what kind of talent may be or not be coming in does this
too make me a whore?  So you can see that
these people who wish to tarnish the name of the Wolf Pack by stating we are
member whores are completely false.

   One of the saddest
memories I have in regards to recruiting was a new individual who wrote me and
asked about joining the family. It was a well written and developed request and
you could tell it had taken him sometime. After talking for period of time I
went to extend him an offer and found him to be sponsored. I asked him why he
joined another family and he told me that he had not. He said I got someone who
sent me an invite to be an associate so I was glad to have a friend. He thought
associate meant to be associated like a buddy list, not a request to join a
family. This Sponsor had not even spoken to him and after talking with his CL
the sponsor was removed.

  To the merits of
which this thread was written there are many things that sound great in theory
and may not be practical. Yes member whoring has been a hot topic and should it
stop yes. The only way to police this would be by creating a standard that
everyone could follow and is cut and dry. In this instance unlike the -48 issue
it is real hard to draw the line in the sand. Each case will be full of "what
ifs" and I think that the individual CL's should take responsibility and
monitor it. Also if people are aware of someone member whoring they should
report it to their CL so they can handle it as they see fit. I think the
biggest problem is people spend too much time whining about it and not enough
time trying to change the behavior by speaking to their CL. I am for a policy
as long as it is clear cut and not subject to "what ifs".