TOG Recruitment Procedure

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Hi all

I am really enjoying my time in TOG WAR, Darklands. Great folks.

The reason for my post is I am wondering why recruit the way we do? Why the Recruitment Thread where we must obey the Five Rules of TOG ?

It's a mature guild and it seems a little unusual to have new members swear on a list of 5 sacred texts, like I used to swear allegience to the Queen when I was in primary school

Is there a need for this? I personally would have preferred a more friendly recruiting process where I didn't feel like I was joining a collegiate secret fellowship.

TOG rocks, but I felt a need to share my feelings on this.


Thanks all

[BattleScoob]

I understand what you're saying and in the main I can see where you're coming from (notwithstanding I'm a Freemason as well ).

The short answer is because regrettably over time, we've found a need to make it so.

The slightly longer answer is that it's done for a few reasons:

1. TOG is one of (if not the) largest online gaming community in the world - with over 30 gaming Divisions (ie - a very broad range of games) and 33,000+ folks signed up. As such, we need to try and provide a set of rules that's a "best fit" for an international group as widely dispersed and varied as those that join TOG are.
2. The rules that govern your membership in TOG have been developed over time by Divisional Captains, Advisors, Moderators and with final say by the Administrators. As with many rules in the broader community, they often come about 'post event'. That is to say that a rule's put in place to prevent an issue occurring again the in the future. That has been the case here too.
3. Agreement with the rules provides some measure of checking that a potential member has actually read them - that said, I appreciate that there's a plethora of potential members that say they do but actually don't at all.
4. Agreement with the rules mitigates risk later on when an issue is put to a member - in other words, as with most jurisdictions "ignorance is not an excuse".
5. Being such a large community, spread over so many games and in so many countries, it's fair to say that although we aim for our members to be mature gamers, not all are. Having a statement that says you've read and agreed to the rules, helps us to point people back to "their beginning in TOG" and what they agreed to do, when an issue does arise.

While I do appreciate that not all people signing as TOG members would find the rules and "agreement process" palatable, the answer is "don't sign up if you don't like it."

Hope that answers your question / provides a bit of clarity.