Some notes.

[ShadowFang Blessed]

There have been things i have noticed, not recent things but things that have been happing for awail now.

I have seen alot of people not listening to the NCOIC/OIC/Preatorian Gaurd. as well as other things.

Now, i have been a member of this organization for a long wail, a year and a half i belive.

I have seen alot of numerii/newer people dissrespecting a few of the older veterains, by not listening to what they say.

If someone is in command you should listen to them, no matter what.

if someone is in command and has been in the ordo for more than a year, you should REALLY listen to them they have more experiance than you and know what they are doing.

Another thing, i have seen calls go out for back up, and people respond in group chat, but dont come onto sim.

This is the fastest way to enrage a shadowfang and the fastest way to get me to CIR you.

If this keeps up i will start handing out CIR's. I dont give a damn who you are.

My last problem is people going AFK on base, if your afk and the alarm sounds and you come back and defend. fine.

but my suggestion is, if your going to go AFK and know you wont be back for awail, please, go off base.

i know im rambleing abit but, youll have to forgive me, i havent slept much.

if anyone has any suggestions please put them on the table.

[Aryte]

I approve of this message.

[Hunter Abrams]

I will agree on a few key points.

1. Listen to the OIC/NCOIC/SOG. For one you don't really have a choice if you stay on sim.

2. When a call comes out don't keep talking or for that matter argue with the person rquesting help. Those tat argure in group chat (you know who you are) thats your best ticket to getting a CIR. Just get on base if you want and help.

3. if you go afk just do it in the base not on the walls. Going afk makes our numbers still look big and deter attackers

On second thought that was all the key points.

And here is my point please do not just log in and say "hai guys im OIC now" Please use the proper way and inform the current OIC/NCOIC of you intentions through IMs.

[Ron Bleac]

Another thing, i have seen calls go out for back up, and people respond in group chat, but dont come onto sim.

This is the fastest way to enrage a shadowfang and the fastest way to get me to CIR you.

If this keeps up i will start handing out CIR's. I dont give a damn who you are.

You do realize that some people simply have more important things to do in both SL and reality? Not everyone can respond for a call to help even if they respond in the group chat. They may run into something unexpected, and you have to admit it yourself that sometimes things just sneak up on you. It is not our right to force people off of something else they deem more important. Even so such an incident is not worth a CIR. As a soldier you sometimes have to function without reinforcements, without reserves and without any knowledge of what may become of you during the next few hours. My suggestion? Deal with it, grit your teeth and sail into the storm. If someone tries to argue, ignore it. They're throwing away protocol and will be dealt with later.

I understand that orders are orders.

But keep in mind that people have priorities.

Along with that I'd like to address the issue of newer people not following orders. It's understandable when you're coming from a different military and have in the past been in a position of authority. I would go as far as to say that challenging orders, within the heat of battle or out of it is required (this does not mean that such an order should not be followed). All of us make mistakes, Numerii, Principales, Veteranus and Tribunus are prone to mistakes because we have one common factor. We're all human. It is perfectly acceptable for a soldier to question his orders, but questioning them should be handled through the proper channels (IMs). If your men do not understand your orders, it is the officers fault. Same goes for insubordination. If you are incapable of dealing with it, then maybe you should politely ask who's doing it to drop what they're doing and go behind the walls.

These are all issues that can be easily dealt with, but luckily enough I've seen loads of new people co-operating with the orders of the current NCOIC/OIC. They're all doing a brilliant job, and I don't know where the problem mentioned in the OP originated from.

[Trinity Heckroth]

Ron raises alot of good points. However, in the heat of battle, questioning ones deployment orders should not be on the top of the list.

If the OIC/NCOIC gave an order like "Go into the red zone and have fun," then, obviously, that'd be a different story.

As far as the group chat thing, if the call goes out and you respond with ";p," I'd expect you to show up. Conversely; if you responded with "Sorry, I'm being attacked by flying monkeys and am unable to respond," (or something to that effect, stating you're not able to show up) I'd go "Damn, ok," and would count you out of the list of reinforcements for the forseeable future.

[Lupus Mielziner]

i fully agree with shadowfang i got some situations myself that people continued to shot a neutral person after 6 announces from me as NCOIC in coms not to shot them and needed to yell on them in ims to make them noticing it .. or trashtalk on personal levels wich overstep limits in normal social levels and go more to pesonal inslut wich where not just run or joke .. in the way how they sayed it .

also i agree with the afk on base sometimes its hard to keep track how many people you got and i want to point on a event . 2 weeks ago i was Defence NCOIC Desreck was leading a defence command to AN with few people and in the time we got some random hostiles on titan too as zerowinged asked me for some people to go defence mercz and i wasnt able to give him any numbers of people very fast because most did not respond or respond randomly not looking like active and 2 of 12 people on base where actually on Defence againtst the random hostiles it needed several minutes to sort out whos active and who not on base because we got afks on the wall infront of the wall between the walls and in the outpost. it wasnt a very nice situation for me not to be able to give zerowinged anykind of status or people he could take , after the random hostile stoped to attack us zero could take the few people wich where known as active to defence mercz.

and i was making several calls in coms to check activity all the time and on the best time i got 4 of 12 speakning up wich took part in the defence or took temp part in defence. so i would sugess even if you dotn leave the base go into the armory to got afk to ensure your afk cause its very hard to definit you as afk maybe or not if you stay around in the open field

[Sera Otoro]

ill put my two cents in...

i have been in the ordo for a year and 8 months now, and ive seen a lot of things similar to this... whenever i am OIC, i tend to keep everything in order with an iron fist from now on due to what shadow has said... this pretty much shows that i am not going to tolerate lack of respect or laxity of anything else from anyone in the ordo, but then neither should anyone else have to deal with it then theyre OIC or NCOIC... when they give you an order, unless its an order that seems out of place in our handbook, you better follow it...

if you have RL getting in your way, then go do that first, because as we all know RL comes before SL, but be sure you either log off, or go AFK in the radar room (since thats the furthest you can go to the corner of the base)... but if its an abrupt leave, just log out of SL, it only takes one click of the red box at the top right corner, or two if you have to confirm you want to quit SL...

another thing that annoys me is when people are out of tag and uniform to go somewhere, but take a few minutes to head off to wherever it is they need to do... if youre going to go somewhere, prep yourself to change and leave immediately after doing so, its not that hard, plus it prevents any unnecessary questioning...

now similar to the above, but when there are hostiles... ask yourself this: "is what i need to go do elsewhere in SL more important than the safety of titan? can what i need to do elsewhere wait for a little while?" now im not trying to be a harsh bitch on this, but when we require people to help defend, you should be there whenever possible, if i recall correctly (cant here since im typing this from work) in the handbook it states that you must answer muster calls, unless you have a good reason to not be able to... hanging around in allied territory, a roleplay sim, or a club, or something that doesnt need your immediate attention, those to me, are unacceptable reasons to not answer...

OIC pointers this time... if you are OIC and need to go somewhere, whether it be something important on SL or perhaps anything RL, then please be sure you pass on OIC to someone else... ive seen this happen too many times where they have not bothered to pass it on, though if it was an abrupt RL call and had to jump off SL for RL priorities immediately and not be able to hand it over, theres not much that can be done about that, but if you have a spare second, then just try to say it in vent or quickly over coms...

calls for defense over the group chat... i cannot count the amount of times i have seen people in the group chat, and within seconds leave it and not bother coming to help and give a reason why... i would understand if it was something important or perhaps too important to give a response, but to have 90% leave and give no reasons every single time i see a call go out, is highly suspicious, as if they dont really care... something i feel we need to crack down on...

lastly, the respect part... i dont even need to explain this much, if you cannot respect your fellow ordo members, then this isnt the military for you... we strive on maintaining a professional image within the military community, and everyone plays a part in that, not just the higher ups...

thats all i wanted to say for now...

[Merk Thor]

We could have a cool AFK sign like seras OIC sign :D

Or some monitorthing that tells oic that u are afk if not moving for 5 minutes or something. I think the above idea is better :p

I do agree with everyone here, and i am sorry if i sometime have done that.

[Tiridates Mikadze]

I know what to do with insubordinates, just feed them to me.

[Desereck Creeggan]

but my suggestion is, if your going to go AFK and know you wont be back for awail, please, go off base.

This point has been made time and time again and has been unheeded by all. This is a strong argument falling on deaf ears (this point).

Besides that I agree with everything ShadowFang has said.

now similar to the above, but when there are hostiles... ask yourself this: "is what i need to go do elsewhere in SL more important than the safety of titan? can what i need to do elsewhere wait for a little while?" now im not trying to be a harsh bitch on this, but when we require people to help defend, you should be there whenever possible, if i recall correctly (cant here since im typing this from work) in the handbook it states that you must answer muster calls, unless you have a good reason to not be able to... hanging around in allied territory, a roleplay sim, or a club, or something that doesnt need your immediate attention, those to me, are unacceptable reasons to not answer...

I have disagreed with this rule, and will always disagree with it. If I want to go off sim and visit my friends, I don't give a damn what anyone says, I'm going to go visit my friends. A muster call is just that, a muster call. If someone goes over the group chat saying "OH GOD CS IS ATTACKING WITH 30 PEOPLE AND I'M THE ONLY ONE HERE" I'm.. probably going to respond but if the call is "Hey uhh. We've got a brazillian here." and I look at the map and there's 30 of you, I'm going to stay right where I am.

The ONLY place I see this rule taking into effect is if I'm hanging around Badnarik, fully armed and running around playing gestures with some mercz and say Heather logs into Badnarik, sees whats going on and then sees me.. I'd be in quite a bit of trouble.

Now if I was at a club my friends own relaxing and chatting, there's no grounds to hold me on.

[ShadowFang Blessed]

Thank you all very much for your input, I may get off my butt here soon and make more notes if i can remember what i want to rant about but, yea thank you very much, if anyone has anymore please feel free.

[Wolf Shaman]

The AFK issue has been around for a while, and numerous ideas to battle the issue has been brought about, but nothing has been officially inacted. Typically people go AFK in the Outpost or Armory. Some have sugested keeping the AFKers to the Armory or the moon base.

Having held the night shift NCOIC plenty of times and trying to judge activity at times by the dots is not always reliable, and you have some people who are semi-afk on the wall. I tend to go by the dots outside of the outpost are typically the ones active, even then that's not often an accurate count. Most often the "who's Awake" is the most reliable. Sometimes you got people who are semi-afk and may miss the comm message but are listining to that alarm to sound and start sending rounds down range.

IMO, as long as people go AFK inside the outpost, and not on the line our outside anywhere, then I'm personally happy.

--------

Disrespecting, Ignoring, Disobaying the NCOIC/OIC Bugs me alot. I've seen it happen on multiple occations, and it's not just the new guys, I've seen senior ordo, People who've been around alot longer than I have, Ignore the night shift NCOIC.

True Example: Late night shift, Got a couple attackers and someone "accidentlyed" them with illigal weaponry. NCOIC Says over comms that they did not authorize explosives, and told them to stop. A couple seconds later over vent you hear "Ooops, I accidentlyed them again, oh darn." Not once, but a few times after the initial and following orders to decist the use of the weapon.

For the above example, I contacted the NCOIC and stated to them that I would support them and offer to put my name down as a referance for a CIR if they wished to generate one, to which they chose to decline to create one, but appreciated my support in the matter. In the future, I may be inclined to issue one myself.

Some may think that an NCOIC does not hold the true authority of a WO or Commissioned officer. The lower the rank of the NCOIC in question (~E5) the people on base who out rank them and yet do not hold the posting of NCOIC may think that they can get away with things due to their time in service, seniority in rank, or perhaps their relation with Aryte (I.E. E6-7 with an E5 NCOIC). To the best of my knoledge (and without digging through forum posts and handbook at this time due to being on my brother's laptop) the only real persons that I know of who can do things in such a mannor is the Praetorians. Even so, they offer the professional courtisy of announcing their intentions over comms and/or Vent so that the OIC/NCOIC is properly advised of the situation. In every case that I have seen a praetorian act in such a way, they have announced their intentions in one form or another.

Anyone holding defense command is in effect an officer of the watch. They are given temporary powers that may or may not exceede their current rank. Most importantly is the case of the NCOIC who are charged with making officer grade decisions in the manner of defense while the officer cadre is unavalable or off base/line. The Imperator himself has clarified this fact for us here. So what they say defense wise goes. Just as if a WO, Commissioned Officer, Praetorian, or the Emperator himself gave it. The IC stands for In Charge.

----

Call to Arms.

Yes, this has been a problem. Not so much in the fact of people not showing up late night (most cases the defense force can handle attackers up to equal in size. I have personally taken part in actions that the defenders has been outnumbered and held the hour long defense to just a pair of breaches of the green line. Ordo has Quality warriors within its ranks. While most of the time we can keep them back in such a manner, there's times where that's not always the case.

Case in point: Geodan; He's a compitant fighter. He's been able to breach the walls solo with a modest garrison force on the walls. One time he came attacking, and we had like 3 active defenders at the time. A call went out over group chat for reinforcements to help keep him out of the base, as he had already breached it once before the call went out. One of the replys that came back was quite disheartining: "Come on guys, We're Ordo! You can handle it!" Needless to say, they did not show up on base, But many did. They were Ordo. The person who replyed with that message was not in my eyes.

At the time I worked 2 SL CSR jobs. Currently just 1 ouside of Ordo. There's times where I'm stuck or called away to help a customer or hold down the shop during heavy traffic times. If a call comes out, I either respond with "I'm tied up with holding down the shop atm," or I simply dont respond and keep the tab open or hop in vent so I can track the progress. If things are hot and heavy, and I finnish up w/ a customer or one of my co workers comes online and can hand off to them, then I'm on base and shooting as fast as I can TP home.

In a nut shell, if you cant make it, let the people on the other end know, or at best, dont reply. Quite frankly, if you reply with something like "you can handle it!" You're pretty much CIR bait.

[Dempster Duncker]

I think this issue has more to it than just rank clashes or general disrespect.

People in Ordo are generally here for two reasons. One being hardcore military roleplay, the other being the tight social atmosphere. Some go for both. We're all here for fun, but this fun often times means something completely different between personnel.

One problem is that the people who are here for the roleplay tend to take things very seriously. While this is not a problem unto itself, it almost always clashes with the people who are here to just make friends and enjoy themselves. And while we are all bound to the same regulations and code of ethics, and nobody should blatantly disrespect one another, it is not surprising that sometimes problems will arise and that personalities will clash. As Ron said we are all simply human, and it is natural for people to see differently.

However it's often an unavoidable scenario regardless of the situation for a group of our size and scope, with many different nationalities, interests, and senses of humor. The issue is that Second Life is a videogame, and sometimes people get disconnected from a sense of moral obligation or responsibility when interacting with other people. Sometimes people need to be reminded, but it is a delicate situation where yelling and threatening may seem to be effective at first, but doing so triggers long-term negative effects.

The best course of action would be to work with these individuals on a level they would understand, rather than throwing threats and waving CIR forms in their faces. The latter which will honestly get you nowhere and is not only detrimental to building tolerance and respect towards you, but causing the person to develop a general distaste for the entirety of the group. Gaining respect of your peers and subordinates does not always involve reigning over them with an iron fist, but rather with an open hand. Nobody wants to show up to a muster call if they feel like they're going to be yelled at.

There will always be jokesters, pranksters, and general mischief. Being such, you will always get the best results by sharing in their humor and novelty. After the amusement wears off you simply tell them to tone it down. Every situation warrants its own method of correction, but only the most extreme cases warrant extreme corrective measures. Patience and understanding, while not as immediate as yelling, will net you the best results long-term between you, the person in question, and everyone else.

As an example of patience, one early morning I spotted a Numerii fresh out of schola. He apparently got himself a new weapon, and was firing down-range into Chronus, testing various features of the weapon. I approached, I commented on how neat the weapon was, and we talked a bit more together, sharing in his excitement. After letting him fire off a few more rounds into Chronus, I politely suggested to him that he should test his new weapon on the firing range, which he happily acknowledged and vanished to the range with a big goofy happyface.

The outcome would have technically been the same had I jumped down his throat and warned him of breaking rules and regulation, however his personal feelings towards me would have turned sour, and his general respect for myself and others would have diminished significantly. If someone is doing something wrong, use your best judgement on the severity of the problem and the amount of discipline that needs to be administered. There's no need to go over-the-top and be excessive.

Curia Reports, in my opinion, should only be utilized in such extreme situations where behavior is of an excessive nature and cannot be corrected under alternative methods, else we start to lose talented individuals due to common incidents that can be easily resolved without involving official punishment.

[Desereck Creeggan]

Sometimes people need to be reminded, but it is a delicate situation where yelling and threatening may seem to be effective at first, but doing so triggers long-term negative effects.

Example of what /not/ to do if under attack. I had this discussion with someone before where they were screaming over COMs "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ASSES THE FUCK OUT HERE AND DEFEND". I told them such mannerism repels people from listening to you. The nearest I'll ever go to threatening someone is "If you don't stop ... .... I will CIR you". It grabs their attention and steers them correctly. Example: If someone walks up to me, tells me to fuck off, then expects me to listen to them.. chances are I'm going to respond exactly the same way and walk away from you. If someone walks up to me and politely tells me to stop/leave I politely respond and will comply. Simple as that.

If you REALLY need to say something to someone, take it to IMs. I've been personally disrespected on COMs before while OIC, and while aggrivating I simply gave a "Stop. Now." comment and then IM'd the individual. If I disagree with something going on I will grumble and gripe in real life, and leave Titan if I have no influence over the situation.

Another one of my quirks is when someone comes up to me when I'm doing something, and someone comes up to me (such as building) and goes ">:[! DEEEEEESERECCCCCCCK!" without even taking the time to /ask/ me what I am doing or /why/ I am doing it. I summarily end all of said conversations swiftly.

Everyone here has made thoughtful replies, and I <3 you all for the brainstorming/sharing of content.

[Trinity Heckroth]

Agreed, des. The "I'll shoot you if you don't" method only works for Ruin.