The reason I mentioned having more than one discussion board on a fellowship is simple. If a player signs to 5 separate games at 5 separate fellowships then reading all of those general messages will be daunting, however if there is a game specific board that they can subscribe to at each fellowship it will make life much easier for them, and also perhaps encourage them to read the boards. If I sit down and see 50 new messages on a board and have limited time I tend to ignore the board all together and I am sure there are many other time limited players at this site.
At Goldtoken I am president or co- prez of 6 clubs now, 5 of those clubs play under the one club name but are separated into separate game types, with their own club page, and boards, this again makes it easier for players who wish to play one game for one club and another for a different club. I think one reader saw this as segregation which it most certainly isn't, it just makes it easier for team members to share their loyalties around.
I keep using Goldtoken as a guideline as it is the only site I have seen with this kind of team/club/fellowship thing before, but also I feel it is one of the strongest attractions that site has, and many of the good points would be well implemented here.
As to Harleys suggestion of big bosses getting tougher and insisting players join teams or leave, I am in agreement in this sense, I would personally prefer players ONLY joined my fellowship because they wish to play for one of our teams not because I have sent a player I dont know a random invite. I guess its up to Big Bosses to be responsible here. I would not like to see players getting random invites to join all the big fellowships as soon as they become members, then being thrown out because they haven't signed to play for a team.
Also I must mention at GT there are many clubs which are open to all members, for other reasons than to play for a team, in fact these clubs do not officially play any games, they exist for social and fun reasons. This will be an option open to people setting up fellowships, but they should make their intentions very clear so people do not join what they think is a fun club, and then get pressured into joining a team

Am I to understand now that the sole purpose of fellowships is strictly team play??..( either join a team or leave ) ... silly me... I thought it was a means of meeting new friends and some friendly competition ....

I guess thats a matter of choice for the boss! I emphasise fun at my fellowship, if you enjoy the game thats all that matters. Sure its nice to win but if you have had fun then you've won in that way!

What myself and MadMonkey were really wanting was ideas about the future of fellowships, what needs to be changed (if anything) in order for them to run efficiently.

Dream, for those who want separate discussion boards for each game.. depending on how many games they want to play.. wouldn't it be better/easier to have a different fellowsip for each game? That way you'd have a discussion board for each one. Would that work?

I enjoy all my games as you can see I carry many... and I join in all the internal fellowship tournaments... but to be forced to join teams in all the fellowships in which I am a member would in my mind be more confusing than fun ... If this will be the case please tell me now... so I can finish whatever tournaments I am now playing and leave whatever fellowships that I will not be playing on their selective teams..

Thats exactly what we're trying to say, to be in all the fellowships, and different teams in each one would be confusing. Nobody is going to force you to join teams.

well that is the impression I am getting .. that in order to be a member of a certain fellowship.. I have to be on a team there... .... the "either join a team or leave"... that that the "Big Bosses should maybe get tough about that".. can youi clarify these statements??.

Yes Harley it would be easier to have a seperate fellowship for each game, this is how most clubs seem to set up at goldtoken.
Lovelysharon, it is going to be up to each individual big boss how they set up their fellowships, and completely up to their members whether they wish to stay and play with their fellowship, I would like to stress that I dont think playing in teams should be serious lets beat up the opponents type competition, (well most teams I am sure won't be like that) there is lots of friendship and fun to be had playing for a team...ALSO...if you are signed to a team for a particular fellowship and choose to only play in the very occasional tournament then that should be ok too...I would never insist players "play" when they may not want to. I guess this decision will again be up to individual big bosses.
I am sure it will all sort itself out over time, there will end up being tons of fellowships to choose from, some for team comp, others just for fun, and the members will be able to join exactly what they want.

well all this is just adding to the confusion..I think I will wait until it sorts out before joining anymore fellowship tournaments .... don't want to get started and then told I can't play because I am not on a team..

am I the only one confused by all this???.

No, you're not, I'm getting confused myself!! LOL! :o)
Nobody will be forced into joining a team, or playing in a tournament that they dont want to play in. I'll get that clear now. And if a big boss demands players do this then he/she wont have many players for long!

What we were saying is that some people join loads of fellowships than never go back. One way of resolving this (maybe in hindsight it wasn't such a good idea, it was just kicking different suggestions around, seeing how they sounded) is to ask each member to join at least one team there. We all have lots of members and very few are in the teams.

As one of the 2 who started this discussion, i am making notes on it all, but have just had a thought......( odd, i know lol )
Does this mean that as at the moment there are 43 different games that we can play, therefore when we get 43 fellowships we can join every one ( so all rooks best start fellowships lol ) & play in a team for every one, seems one hell of alot of games when you multiply all that up. Thats with out all the games Fencer is working on at the moment.

one hell of a lot of teams to join... and whats the sense in joining a team unless you are going to play.... dream said she wouldn't force people to play in a tournament.. but they would be forced to join a team....... doesn't make sense to me... .. personally .. I would like to join teams in one or two fellowships and still be able to join internal tournaments at the others of which I am a member...

I totaly agree with what you say sharon, but i still think there should be a limit on the ammount of fellowships (maybe 4 is the input i am getting direct from people).
You have to start thinking about all the games that are being played at the moment & ppl keeping up with them.
As the site grows & gets better known i feel it is better to set some restrictions now rather than putting the server under to much pressure. Once the site has grown & fencer can get onto using a more powerful server, i can see no reason why any restrictions should not be lifted. We have to help out Fencer in a way to help ourselves as well.

LovelySharon, what we're concerned about is people spreading themselves too thin across numerous fellowships. Its not good for the player, the team, and especially the captain if their team players are not aware of games because they haven't visited that particular fellowship for a while. Quality over quantity and all that, we're just pointing out that its not necessarily a good thing that people can join every fellowship there is!

<I understand I perhaps have myself spread further than others... but I participate and visit all the fellowships I am a member of everyday... I think what is worse for teams and captains will be having team members who have no intention of joining tournaments but joined only to be part of a fellowship.. ( how is that quality?.. ) It is up to each team member to check on the goings on of their teams.. that should be ones responsiblity if they want to participate in team play.. ...

I also think what will be a big problem will be a team with 30 players challenges one with 6 ... who decides which ones get left out.. and why join a team if you never get a chance to play??>..

I thought the whole idea of fellowships was to create friendships and comaraderie among members and that team play was just a sideline to that...

I hope you do understand that I am not arguing with you on this .. just trying to keep a discussion going and trying to understand it all.. .... :)

It never occurred to me you were arguing! I'm not either! :o) Same as you, just trying to get my opinions down in a way people understand.. including myself!!

Most of what you're saying about large teams is down to the captains to make sure nobody is left out, maybe a rotating team, 6 play one fellowship and another 6 play a different one? I'm not sure how that would work out either. And these are the kinds of things MadMonkey and myself feel need to be sorted before the inter-fellowship tourneys start. If we just left it to work itself out there could be one huge mess 12 months from now and no way of sorting it out!

Maybe you're right that limited fellowship numbers would not stop the problem. If you're happy to be in quite a few fellowships and you can keep up with them all then I guess others can too. But not everyone is as self-controlled or organised!! I suppose it depends on how many people can keep track of all their fellowships and how many let it get out of control.

I put my vote to not limit the amount of fellowships a person can enter. (maybe limit a Knight to 3-5), but as long as a person can handle it. And if it because a problem inside a fellowship, I would think it would be up to the Big Boss to take care of it and remove users if needed. I see more problems with a limit then without a limit.

As this site grows, more Fellowships will be started. If lets say I'm limited to 5 fellowships, and a new fellowship comes along that sound interesting - I would have to quit one of the first 5 fellowships that I have been playing all along to join the new fellowship -- WHICH the new fellowship would be slow to grow because some people would already be at their limit.

As I suggested before, I think Pawns should be allowed to join 1 fellowship - AND possible only join 1 team in that fellowship. This way, they will be able to know how the Fellowships work - and possible even upgrade their memberships to get more.

A question for people who already are running a fellowship. (which I'll be starting one soon, but just have a couple of questions before I do)

1. Can you change the name of the Fellowship at any time?

2. Can you add / subtract the games the Fellowship runs at any time?

... those are my main 2 questions. I've been slow in starting my own fellowship because I have a couple of idea... and I keep on changing my mind with what I want to do. (and it things can be changed easly, I don't have to worry about it much.)

Thanks - BBW (BIG BAD WOLF)

BBW, yes to both! You can change the name of your fellowship as often as you like, and add/remove games as you like :o)

Hi, I am not one to speak much on these boards, but I would at this time like to interject. I truely feel that we need to set some guide lines, and rules on these fellowships and future team tournaments. We need to all have a same set of rules to guide us. Maybe fencer or harley or someone, help make these rules and guides and have them placed on the fellowship page, the one that shows all the fellowships and Games. We all need to be starting this on the same page or we are going to have a mess on our hands if we don't do this first.
I hope I am making sense to you all.

Hi Hannelore, nice to hear from you on here :o)

This is what myself and MadMonkey were saying, the fellowships right now seem to be a little out of control and not at all organised.
We DO need a few rules, or guidelines for us to follow and we'd like everyones idea's on what these should be.

We initially thought it might be a good idea to restrict the number of fellowships a person should be in, but the general feeling on that one seems to be a big 'no'! I can see why, nobody likes to be told they can't do something, especially when some are in several fellowships already and managing very well.

There are also a few concerns about having large teams, and the players not getting to play for the team because of the large numbers. We need ideas what to do about this.

What we'd really like is for people to come on here and give some sound suggestions, then we can put them all together and say to Fencer "this is what we'd all like to see for the future of fellowships, what do you think?"

Or... we could just leave well enough alone and see if it works itself out! LOL!

Hi harley.
I think leaving it alone would be a big mistake.
We need to set guidelines.
My feelings about belonging to more than one fellowship is fine. But I do believe it should be limited.
Three or sounds like good numbers. This will give new fellowships oppertunities to get new members to their own. With out saying, the current fellowships have a great advantage over new ones. We have most of the players tied up with us. If we continue to take new members, they will more than likely join "big" ones vs. a small one. I think maybe for know, the amt of members a fellowship can have might have to be "capped". It's the only way we can get others and new ones to grow.
What is your thoughts?

Thats not a bad idea Hannelore, restricting the number of members a fellowship can have rather than the number of fellowships one person can be in.
Of course theres problems with that too, Big Bosses might say its unfair, they need so many members for this that and the other... and there would also have to be a limit on the number of fellowships one person can run.

But it seems to me that whatever rules Fencer decides are best, there will be people who aren't happy with them.

How about this:

Set a limit on how many can join each team.

I'm not sure of a good number because I'm new to Fellowships, but lets say for example 20 people can belong to each game in a fellowship. Lets say one of the team members do not actively play in their game in the fellowship, the Big Boss (or Captain) can remove that user and open that spot up to a new person.

So if someone really want to be in a chess team, and it is full on one Fellowship, he would have to find a new fellowship that has an opening.

I don't know if limiting the number of people to one fellowship would be good - you would get some of the current fellowships full, and new members would never get a chance to join & chat in their.

i'm playing at goldtokn for over 2 years, and at one time i belonged to 3 clubs, i'm now co prez. of a club, but i still play the 4 in a row games with the original club i started with. we cannot be on a team for the same game in more than 1 club which i think is done the same way here. our clubs are broken into inner clubs for each game we play, if we are going to have a spider club challenge then that challenge is posted on the club bd. for our spider players, and so on. that really works well, cause a lot of players just join a club for 1 game type. a lot of the clubs are by invites and others say, everyone is welcome and click to join. right now i'm only in one fellowship here, but we don't have reversi 6x6 players, and when challenges between fellowships start here, i will want to be in a club that needs players in that game. i'm just posting this to perhaps give you some ideas. hope i helped.
ellie

LOL, I didnt know this board was here. ;)

Here's what I did, I belong to 5 or 6 fellowships, but I was invited to all within a day or so after I signed on. That left me feeling pretty much equally loyal to all. So I put a text file on my desktop (to keep track) and I have teams on each fellowship for only one game type and vairients. Like all Backgammon & varient games for Gammon Geeks, etc. I think that should keep me from conflicting with other teams that I am on in other fellowships, plus feel active in each of them.....

I was wondering when you would speak Ellie :-)
I think it is unecessary to limit the amount of fellowships a player can join, or how many members a fellowship can have. Players ulimately will only play in as many fellowships/ teams/tournaments/games as they have time for.
There are loads of clubs at goldtoken, but I believe when the clubs first started there was only a few big ones, which divided into more smaller ones, and so on. Ellie can fill us in on the details as she has been involved there from the early days.
At present the big fellowships have pretty much invited all the members here, and a lot of people have joined 3 or 4 fellowships, without knowing quite what to expect. If this continues then of course you are going to get confusion, and people won't know where their loyalties should lie. Arguments could quite easily arise out of all this. I know at goldtoken, to join most of the clubs you actually have to ask the president, invites aren't automatically sent out, thus you have players who do a bit of research for who they wish to play for, they might choose a club because they have friends there, because they play lots of challenges, they have good players, lots of reasons, but usually the choice is left up to them.
I put it this way, if and when Fencer decides to implement inter fellowship tournaments it will be much more fun for us all if there are more than 4 or 5 fellowships, more fellowships with smaller teams, will give us much better competition in the long run, and as more players join and select their fellowships then more friendships will be formed, players will also move around a bit, and fellowships will grow, players will leave and start their own, and so on.
Also as we have seen at Goldtoken there are clubs which have been formed for the purpose of tournaments only within that club, members can belong to any other club they like, I am co-prez of one there with 150 members which I formed to only play backgammon tournaments. There are also clubs formed for the purpose of sharing hobbies and the like, these clubs do not compete in outside tournaments either, so any member can join and not affect their team standing with their main club. There are lots of possibilites

The way we deal with which players actually play in inter club challenges there, is this:
A club may post for a challenge, or contact the president (big boss) directly. The will specify how many players they have, and the challenge details, ie. 3 day games, 2 rounds, (depends on the formats we get here)
Then the president will post on the club board and describes the challenge, how many players are required, and asks who wishes to play. If there are far more who wish to play than there are spots for, then we go find another challenge for them, another reason why the more fellowships which develop here the better.
Hope this helps :-)

well said, dream!

Thank you for that dream, but are we on goldtoken or brainking here ?? Fencer is trying to design this site well & for everyone & to make it better. If goldtoken seems to have the perfect idea, maybe we should just all play there instead (i know some of us do anyway). So the question being is do we want a games site just like GT or IYT, or create a better one ???

MM, I would think it means to take the better parts of each site and make this one the best.

yes thats exactly what I mean Eriisa...I use GT as an example because it is the only other site I have experienced with anything like fellowships, the best way to have a better site is to improve on what other people are doing, which is exactly what Fencer has doing in some areas so far.

I agree Dream.. my feeling is that we're all adults here, we can determine for ourselves our personal wishes, and know when we've joined enough fellowships, and will try not to spread ourselves too thin.

I wonder if the problem of multiple nics has surfaced here yet. If it hasn't, it will; it's one of the curses of Gold Token and one of the reasons so many good game players have left there for the Great Beyond.
Some of the Clubs at GT are strange and upsetting. Surely each of us has a perfect right of expression so long as it isn't patently and obviously offensive, but over there a lot goes on that, in my fairly liberal opinion, shouldn't. the result is that I can't recommend the site to kids as enthusiastically as I did.
Here we have these advantages: it's all new and fresh; Fencer started it as an improvement on current GT practice; and we can all, as oldtimers of the future, keep an eye out for mutinics, abuse and upsetting speech. We have the chance to keep Fencer's wonderful new place bright and happy and active!

I created a new fellowship a few weeks ago - my plan was to make it a BattleBoat only fellowship, and I was just going to wait until the game got here to start it up.

IT IS NOW OPEN EARLY!

I decided to go ahead and open it before the game gets here - that way we can start to get BattleBoat players there, and once the game is here - we will have players ready to join team and play fellowship tournament if they want to.

So far, I have only invited a few people - where I have seen them post about BattleBoats somewhere on this site. Other then that, without the game here - it is hard to know who like the game and who does not, so it is hard to invite more people. But EVERYONE IS WELCOME!

If you are a BattleBoat (Salvo) Player - you are welcome to join * BIG BAD * BattleBoats! Fellowship

BBW (BIG BAD WOLF)

Fencer,

Have you any idea when these "team" tournaments between fellowships will be finalised?, just not heard anything about them for a while.....

Cheers,

Bry.

when is the game comeing?

It is on Fencer's list - i'm not sure how high up it is, or if he's just about done or not. You'd have to ask him about that :-)

oh my gosh, after reading cubs post I went and read the first few posts on ITY in general discussion. I am registered there, but have never played a game or seen the discussion boards, being a recent player to this type of on-line game. I fully intend to show that site to any parent that I know and warn them about their minor children playing there! I certainly hope that BrainKing stays the warm, friendly place that I have been happy to experience in the last few days.After sifting through just a small portion of the posts in all areas of this website, it does not seem likely to swing that direction.

forgot to mention it was the "idle chit chat" that was horrid, the rest of the site seemed much different

noodleland already has a lot of players that plays alot of games.. we have numerous fellowship tourneys going now...you like to play alot?..im sure you have already played with some of our members elsewhere but if ya wanna come join us and play in our fellowship tourneys just come and request to join...or msg me and ill send ya an invite..you can never have too many players...so if ya wanna be a noodlehead?,,,just ask...ok you dont have to be one...just play with some...like me.....

It works for me. Have you tried to access it from the right column links?

Icon: Do you get an error message? Blank page?

Do either of the following links work?

LINK #1 LINK #2

When I click on Icons main fellowship page it looks like my favourite boards, my fellowships etc are listed on his green news section! All the bottom row of my 'normal' page is listed in there!

hum.... interesting. Everything looks OK to me, but then again - I'm not a member, so I don't see as much as you would.

Actually, on the main page the thing I would not see is the news message. Did Icon post a new news message soon before this problem started? Possible something in that got messed up?

Looks messed up to me too.

Just so people know - the problem should be fixed now (through private messages with Icon & harley)

And in case anyone is wondering, it seemed to be a problem with the "news post" - and after it got deleted, things seemed to work. :-)

And just to let people know something else... this guy is amazing!! LOL! I have no idea how he sorted this but through his magic he did! Thanks BBW!

Oh it was easy.

See, since I did not have access to the fellowship, and Icon could not see nothing (including inviting me for a short period of time), i enlisted harley to go the news archive part of the Chess analysis board (since I could not see it), find the "reply" link near the bottom of the messed up message, and give me the message ID#. I then took that number, along with the Fellowship number - inserted it into a "delete news message post" hyperlink (which only Icon could use) and send that link to Icon to delete the news post that could not even be seen by them! Once that news post got deleted, everything seemed to work fine. (Not sure what actually messed it up)

See... Not hard at all! <grin>

Nice work BBW.