Does this count when a player turns off sponsorship when he sees, "Contact" at the top of his screen? Or only when he just plainly doesn't answer when his sponsorship is on?

When your sponsors ignore associates and get shut off

Seems you need to have it turned on first. 

Just for clarification though it does sound like it is this way. The jail starts at the sponsor and if no action is taken then the next time the sponsor triggers the admin jailing his crews upper structure would be jailed, and it escalates each time the sponsor re-triggers the jailing?

Sorry not admin jailing mayor jailing

I understand the idea behind this; make it really inconvenient for those at the top so that they shout at the people below them, so that those people follow up on sponsors. However, using "inconvenience" as a tool on a game which people are playing for enjoyment is ultimately counterproductive. If it gets to a stage where I'm getting thrown in jail repeatedly at really inopportune times, I'm not going to be having fun anymore and I'm going to just stop playing and watch TV or something instead. I don't think that helps either.

So, rather than punish the players we have into trying to encourage new players to stick around, I still think automation would be a solid alternative with less negative impact upon the playing experience. 

If you're being thrown in jail repeatedly, you are failing at your responsibilities as a hand, no? I would think the Hand in a Godfather crew would take the first jailing as a sign that some sponsors needed some ass chewing. Maybe that's just me.

I still think automation would be a solid alternative with less negative impact upon the playing experience. 

Not sure if I understand what you mean by automation? The process of recruiting is very much manual, all the automation that we have is the boards. If you can even call that automation.   

Yea it would be best for that to not happen if it does it just become a game were crews fills their numbers making it less interactive between member and newly joined recruits which take away some of the unity that a mafia family should have.

As opposed to automation, this isn't half bad. If sponsors are consistently failing to do their job, clearly they shouldn't be sponsors. If it takes Mayor Jailing an important member of an involved crew, so be it.

It seems to me the problem lies entirely on those who are able to give and remove sponsorship, heh. Don't want the risk of you or one of yours getting jailed? Micromanage a bit better, think a little longer before you set someone as a Sponsor... 

We're already seeing a noticeable decline in players, particularly old ones not wishing to be around. If the rate of failure to retain new accounts remains to decline...we really won't have much left before long. 

Bleep bloop :/ 

TheDonBot perhaps some of the reason older players are leaving the game is changes like this one. A lot of the changes around sponsorship, taxes, rebuild mode etc are reasons why I no longer want to go bold or even bother being a hand and eventually becomes a question of why even play.

As much as I hate to agree with giraffe features, when a game is no longer fun why play.

Perhaps instead of punishment of upper structures, sponsors should be rewarded by the game for doing a good job making people WANT to be a sponsor and not "THE GAME DEMANDS X AMOUNT OF ACTIVE SPONSORS OR FUCK YOU"