Reevaluating [RB]'s association with [ZoS] Alliance

[FoxBat]

Actually it would just make my life harder since I think the majority will be less clear albeit present. From people I know a new poll would yield 3 stays and 6 leaves with 3-4 other votes in uncertain category, and probably alot more votes period for the abstain option, and that assumes everyone that already voted will vote again. If we make a new poll, I'd hope we wouldn't need to spend a week on it, as most of the discussion among those not convinced one way or the other has died down at this point as Sylva noted, and the uncertainty is probably making ZoS nervous. But is anything less than a week-long poll fair if only to give people time to re-vote?

Let me also point out that if you search back, joining this alliance was actually a surprise KoP foisted on most of us, telling us to "give it a try" and we did for a whole year. WB calls it a "formality" because polling is a bit of a hippocracy here. I think the substance of KoP's objection to the latest ally drama was less about whether it was a fair vote, and more that there was not adequate time for (theoretical) loud objections to be registered. This approach may also have risen in the face that it's harder to get other guilds in an alliance on-board with our sometimes chaotic consensus method.

[WarBlade]

Wasn't it already agreed upon that this poll was premature and that we were gonna need a new poll anyway?

Also i still didn't hear a reason why leaving the current alliance would be better for RB then staying in it. I also had the feeling that the ending of the poll doesn't matter. WarBlade already said up front that the poll was just a 'formality', which basically means RB would leave no matter what would happen.

I find myself puzzled by the assessment that it was premature. This discussion has been bubbling for a year now and we've finally reached a point where enough people wanted a decisive finale to it that it was silly to just make do with the status quo. What the poll was, as far as a formality is concerned, is taking a snapshot of the opinions to make sure that leaving is really the will of the majority. Seeing as that does seem to be the case we might as well get the ball rolling with the next step: Forming a new alliance.

So far I haven't encountered objections to a new alliance, only the suggestion that some might object. If anyone feel that needs to be debated as well, then we can table that also.

Especially, there weren't enough options (e.g. "stay alone", "found new alliance" etc.) and probably some people voted when they would have preferred to abstain.

I've already mentioned that. I tried incorporating those ideas and quickly realized that I was trying to shoehorn about three polls into one with the main question of staying or leaving getting obscured by all of the "if we stay" or "if we leave" options. As I see it the options that you bring up are the subject of a subsequent decision making process that comes after we withdraw from the ZoS alliance.

[Roland]

And did you leave cause you didn't want to stay in the ZoS alliance or did you leave cause you wanted to push RB to speed up the decission making process?

It has been stated, by members of Arch, including their leader, that they were going to leave regardless of RB's decision, provided that there wasn't enough opposition expressed in their own poll. We were merely a catalyst, a coincidence. We did not push them to leave, and they did not push us to leave. To even insinuate flies in the face of everything that everyone has stated on both sides, including in this very thread.

I respect your desire to stay, but the majority of us here, both old and new, have spoken out and feel that Alliance drama in this Alliance is not something we want to deal with any more. What you do in regards to the decision is up to you; you can choose to stay with us, and move on with us, or you can choose to leave us and join one of the remaining Alliance guilds. That is entirely up to you, although I don't think anyone here is going to push you to leave us. You may get more than a few "Please stay!" votes, though.

[mucco]

Warblade: It's the opposite. How can I decide if we have to leave or not, when I don't know what the guild will do after that?

This poll was good to see if there was the will to leave ZoS. At that time it was impossible to know what the options after leaving were, therefore it was right to set a "yes or no" poll, IMO. Now there are different paths we can choose. We can stay with ZoS, form a new alliance with Arch and keep it a little alliance, or we can try to build up a big one, or find and join some already existent alliance.

Sciros already said he'll continue looking for other alliances we can possibly join. What is going to happen if he finds one, and RB doesn't want to get in? Will we remain alone? Maybe it would have been better to remain in ZoS at that point...

If it emerged in a new poll that the majority wants a little alliance of close friends? Will Arch agree? Is there going to be other drama?

Just my doubts. I, for one, would like a new short poll set up, at least.

[FoxBat]

This poll was good to see if there was the will to leave ZoS. At that time it was impossible to know what the options after leaving were, therefore it was right to set a "yes or no" poll, IMO.

I'm not following your reasoning here. How could it have been "right at the time" to set a yes/no poll when that poll is ultimately invalid anyway?

I also believe Warblade and some (but not all) others were aware of the other potential options, and I agree that in the face of an uncertain future, the "leave" vote has to be a "willing to leave no matter where we go" one, and the "stay" vote include "will stay until a better option presents itself." If we need a new poll, then it should be explicitly along those lines. Assuming there won't be issues with getting people to revote in a short poll, I doubt the outcome will differ much given the number of "yes stay" opinions we have heard, but if more ask we can go ahead with it.

[Sylva Firewind]

What may be capture by a new poll with a third slot say "abstained" is a true picture of whether it is a majority decision to withdraw from the current Alliance. If the yes/no votes are less than the total of abstained votes you create a situation where the minority is deciding for all.

I don't get much out of the current alliance but don't put much in either so it balances out. Creating a new alliance does have its appeals so long as we collectively create a desired end product that does not turn into our current dillemma. It appears that the ZoS alliance has lost a few of its original guilds demonstrating that we are not the only ones who have lost interest in current alignment.

[Roland]

I'm in agreement with Fox and WarBlade. I do not see a need for a further poll to decide where we should go from here. As has been stated, polls within RB are really an inside joke. They are rarely taken seriously, and for this very reason. It is impossible to include all possible options / outcomes within a single poll, and thus pointless to have one. Hence the "formality" comment by WarBlade.

The issue, to me, has been settled already. Both in the poll and through much discussion (both in and out of the game), most are in favor of leaving the Alliance, including those who are too new to our Guild to remember past issues we've had with the Alliance. Many of those people didn't care one lick or another about staying or going, except to state that they were not in favor of staying if it was going to affect our Guild negatively (i.e. drama). Those who are opposed to leaving outright have not raised significant enough arguments nor cause for concern to sway the rest of us in our opinion on the matter. All the "discussion" from those in favor of staying has been speculative and argumentative, rather than concrete and constructive. The best argument I've seen from the opposition is "You haven't given it enough of a chance," and "We're too small, and we'll miss the larger pool of players to form up with in-game."

To the former, I say yes, we most certainly have given it a chance. We've given it a year's worth of chances, and no last-minute Committee (that had to be FOUGHT for just to even create!) is going to change the past. As many of us IMHO believe, the past dictates the future: if they haven't changed now, they aren't going to change. To the latter, all I can say is we survived for a long time without any Alliance. That's not a very convincing argument, nor am I trying to make it into one. What I can say is this: if we leave the Alliance, we don't suddenly sever all the friendships we've made. I see no reason why we would suddenly cease to exist to everyone. Yes, we will lose the central communication tied to the game, and it will take a little more effort to get people from other Guilds to join us, but it is far from impossible. We lose convenience, not friendships. And if we do lose friendships within the ZoS Alliance over leaving? Good riddance, I say, because any friend who sides with a name over a person is not someone I want to be calling "friend".

No matter what happens, we will persevere. We will adapt, we will survive, and we will thrive. Our future as it concerns an Alliance may be uncertain, but the rest of our future is the same as it ever was. This is not the end; it is a new beginning.

We are not dictators here. We will not force you to come with us. The choice to stay or go lies within each of us, and each of us shall make our own decision as to where we want to go. If you truly want to stay with the Alliance so much, you are free to join them. No bad blood will be spilled between us and you, unless you harbor it. You will always have a home here with us, so long as you treat us with the same courtesy and respect that we have always and will always show you. No one here wants anyone to leave the Guild, but we will not force people to stay. To do so goes against everything we believe in and stand for.

We have all spoken our minds. The majority of us, AS INDIVIDUALS, have decided that we, as a single person separate of the Guild's whole, want to leave this Alliance and all the drama it has harbored for the last year behind us. We want to forge ahead into a new future, however unknown it may be. We will move together as a group of seprare but like-minded individuals, not as a collective whole made of a single mindset. The RB tag is universal. It is not tied to a single game, a single "Guild", a single anything. We will always be RB, no matter what flag we may fly under.

I've already said my peace on the matter. I am not out to convince anyone to do anything. You all have free will, and you are all encouraged to use it. Do not fret over what everyone else wants. Decide what YOU want, and go with it. You won't be leaving anyone behind anymore than we will be should we decide to leave the Alliance. Our bonds shall not be broken over the trifling of losing a common "name". RB's banner transcends such petty notions. It is the very spirit of our name: Realms Beyond.

I've already gotten more long-winded than I intended to, so I will end this here. I wish you all the very best in whatever you decide to do. To those who choose the same path I have, I shall see you on the other side. To those who choose a different path, I wish you the best, and know that you will always have someplace to call home within our hearts.

[FoxBat]

What may be capture by a new poll with a third slot say "abstained" is a true picture of whether it is a majority decision to withdraw from the current Alliance. If the yes/no votes are less than the total of abstained votes you create a situation where the minority is deciding for all.

I feel that's already the case, so let's say it is. How should that kind of decision be made then? I've argued that general apathy means the alliance isn't doing enough for enough members. One could argue instead that general apathy means the status quo is acceptable to those members and not worth the trouble of changing. How would this be decided?

[Hawkmoon]

I feel that's already the case, so let's say it is. How should that kind of decision be made then? I've argued that general apathy means the alliance isn't doing enough for enough members. One could argue instead that general apathy means the status quo is acceptable to those members and not worth the trouble of changing. How would this be decided?

I'm rather confused on how to resolve this issue as well, so that everyone feels like an accurate snapshot of the RB membership's opinion has been registered.

Just for the sake of argument, let's make an analogy - with general elections in the US. In the last general election, less than half of the eligible voters in this country actually did vote. One could make the argument that because the majority did not vote, then the minority was deciding for all. Yet we don't call those election results illegitimate because of low voter turnout. An eligible voter who chooses not to vote is ceding his/her right to influence the outcome, and letting others decide for them.

It's the same here - an RB member who abstains is letting others make the decision for them, because they (apparently) don't feel strongly enough about the issue. If they felt strongly one way or the other, even if it was based on "the status quo is fine for me, and I don't want the hassle of changing," they could have voted to stay in the ZoS alliance.

I interpret the (presumed) large number of abstentions from voting in this poll as an indication that those members really don't care one way or the other, and so we can't use their (presumed) satisfaction with the status quo as a guide to what the guild should do. They will (presumably) be just as happy with RB as a solo guild, or in a new alliance, as they are in the [ZoS] alliance. Unless they speak up, we can't say with certainty what they'd like to do. Even without voting, they have the opportunity to post their thoughts in the issue in this thread - and we have not been exactly flooded with such posts.

I realize that my feelings on the issue are likely biasing my interpretation, but I really don't think that making a new poll is going to yield any new useful information.

[WarBlade]

The poll has closed.

Results

Stay: 4
Leave: 11

Not many votes, but at the very least we have gained a summary of the disposition of the guild that resembles the discussions in the game.


Abstentions: Unknown

It appears that this has been a popular choice for various reasons, probably outweighing the people who wished to remained with the Zealots of Shiverpeak, but the true count remains unknown.


Observations: People who have been with Realms Beyond from before the release of Guild Wars were predominantly in favor of withdrawing from the Zealots of Shiverpeak alliance. People who have been active in the guild for a short period of time, from between the release of Factions through to the present day have tended to be in favor of remaining with the ZoS alliance. People who fall between these two extremes with regards to how long they've been in the guild have expressed a high proportion of neutral or close-to-neutral viewpoints.