21 Apr
Staying Organized As A Clan Leader
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment, Website Managment | 0 Comments
Running a gaming clan can get overwhelming for just about anyone. If you pile your clan responsibilities on top of school or work, sometimes it can get down right impossible. The key to dealing with this problem is making the most of your time. If you only have one hour a day to work on clan duties, make sure you work for that hour instead of becoming sidetracked with other things. Personally, I have a hard time staying on track, so there are a few things I like to do to keep myself headed in the right direction:
To-Do Lists. Write everything down. Have a plan before you go in. If you take care of all the thinking ahead of time, you can cut out the awkward “Ok….what now?” waiting periods in between different tasks. Make your to-do lists semi detailed, but don’t go overboard with it. Give yourself a basic outline of what you want to accomplish for that day.
Establish Priorities. Make sure whatever your working on is the absolute best thing you could be working on at the time. If what your doing at the time isn’t going to benefit you the most, change it up. Save the less important jobs for when you have a bit of free time.
Keep A Notebook (And up to date) You’d be surprised how much keeping a notebook can help. Just to have all of your thoughts there in front of you sometimes saves you alot of mental stress when you’re trrying to get things done. Write anything of any importance in the notebook.
Of course staying organized is really more of a personality trait than anything else, but if you’re trying to make strides in the right direction then there are always things you can do to help yourself out.
14 Apr
As A Clan Leader: Keeping It Professional
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment | 0 Comments
No one wants to join a clan run by a 13 year old. If you want to attract new mature members, you have to act that way yourself, so my advice to you is to keep it professional. I’m not saying to throw all personality traits aside and not be friendly with your members, just try to conduct yourself in a professional manner when the matter is serious.
Too many times I have seen nerdy 25 year olds running immature clans full of pre-teens, acting as if they were the same age as their members. Remember, the way you conduct yourself will more than likely determine the type of members you attract. When making a forum or news post on a serious subject, try to use correct grammar and spelling. Act leader-like. You have to let your members know that you are indeed the right man for the job.
When some official happens or changes, always make a forum and news post about it on your clan website. Keep your members informed on your clan’s ever-changing policies and decisions. When the topic at hand isn’t so serious it’s fine to joke around and show your members your personal side, a leader of any organization always needs to be level headed.
Try to explain to your members why you made the decision you did. Present them with the negative and positive of any decision and explain to them why you reached the conclusion you did. People like to have things spelled out for them, and this makes them more likely to see your perspective on any subject. Run your clan as if it were a small business. (Which it is, you should be able to generate enough money to pay for the clans essential costs such as webservers, gaming servers, and website maintanence.)
09 Apr
Keeping Order During Clan Meetings
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Clan Managment | 0 Comments
As a former clan leader, I know how hard and frustrating it can be to run a clan-wide clan meeting. Once the discussion gets rolling there are always people butting in with disagreements and counter arguments. Many times, at the end of the meeting I felt like we had accomplished nothing. It became very clear to me that the next time we were to hold a large meeting, there would have to be some sort of order. Through trial and error, I developed these useful tips for clan leaders having the same problems I had run into:
1) Use a chat client that features moderation
I would personally advise that you use IRC. It is the most easily accessible and widely used chat client that features moderation. You need to be able to control the conversation if things get sidetracked or out of hand. If you can, try to find a chat client that allows you to allow 1 speaker at a time. I would advise against using AIMchat. While it is probably the easiest and most accessible for your clan, it has no moderation features.
2) Develop A Speaking Order
Things will never work with people speaking out of turn. In the chat room or on your forum, post a speaking order. You bring up the subject at hand, then go down the list and allow everyone to comment on it. If you feel you need a second go-through for rebuttles, don’t hesitate to do so again. Give everyone a chance to express their opinion in an orderly fashion. Hopefully this way everyone feels their viewpoint was strongly represented.
3) DO NOT BE AFRAID TO BAN
If a member continues to speak out of turn, and constantly disrupt the flow of the meeting after several warnings, go ahead and ban him, and explain to him the situation on AIM. Perhaps this will help him to see what you are trying to accomplish and settle down if you decide to unban him and give him another shot.
4) Be prepared before the meeting starts
Don’t just wing it. That will almost certainly lead to a disorganized and unproductive meeting. Beforehand, post on the forum asking your members what they feel needs to be talked about. Brainstorm yourself as well. Then write it all down in a notebook in an order that seems to flow, and go down the list. This will help you be productive and get through all the subjects in a timely fashion.
5) Upload the chat log for all to see
Show off your results. Let your members know that you really do value their opinion, even if they couldn’t attend the meeting. Post it up on your forum for comments/critisism. Factor in these new opinions before making any drastic changes. This is also great for showing your members that you are capable of running an effective, organized community.
02 Apr
The Basics of Starting Your Own Gaming Clan
Posted by admin as Articles, Clan Managment | 0 Comments
They say 75% of all startup companies fail within their first 2 years. This is also true with clans, only perhaps even more clans fail than companies. I would say the percentage is probably somewhere around the 85%-90% mark. If you’re reading this page, you’ve probably already taken into consideration running your own gaming clan. I will say, as a former leader of my own for around 3 years, this is no easy task. There are certain things you have to ask yourself before you begin, that will ultimately lead to either the demise or rise of your new organization;
Questions to ask yourself: (So you don’t end up wasting your time 
)
#1) Do I have enough time? To successfully lead a large clan in this day and age, you need to plan to devote at least the time you would to a part time job. Especially during startup. I would say that you should plan for a minmum of 20 hours per week, and as high as 40 during startup.
#2) Am I alone? You will never be able to get a clan off the ground on your own. Starting a clan takes a team-wide effort. You will need a minimum of 3-4 VERY dedicated members to help you get this thing on its feet. The more the merrier.
#3) Am I/my founding members mature enough? Age certainly comes into play as a leader. You have to be willing to put up with alot of bullshit. You will hear alot of complaining. Maturity is certainly a neccessity. I have never seen a clan sucessfully run by a 13 year old.
#4) Do I have the motivation to put in the effort? You can have all time in the world, but if you don’t do anything with it, you get no where. You had better plan for those 20 hours per week, to be 20 hours of work. If you sit around and chat for 10 of those you’re getting nowhere.
If you answered all these questions in the correct manner then you have just met the basic requirements of being a clan leader. There are litterally hundreds of other things that play into a clan being successful. Now, to get started:
First, decide what kind of clan you want.
You and your founding members must decide the basics about the type of clan you are preparing to found. All decisions are relative to what game you play. (Typically first person shooters like counter strike will not be looking for large numbers on the memberlist. Real Time Strategy and MMORPG’s also have different sets of core values). Do you want alot of members? Small amount? Will there be ranks? If so how many? Will you be using the standard miltiary ranks, or going for something original? Once the ranks issue is decided, then you must decide which founding members will hold what place in the ranking system. This can get sticky, so try to be as democratic about it as possible. I would suggest having only you, as the founding leader be the commander (or comparable rank), and perhaps let all other founding members be your general staff.
Tip: Save transcripts of all meetings, and keep them for a later date, or to post on your message board later.
Once these things are decided, you begin to create.
Open a website.
Make sure that you have your own .com/.net/.org domain for your clan, and a pay-per-month hosting plan. (This can be purchased at godaddy.com).
The website is the most crucial peice of any clan. The website, or perhaps even more importantly, the forum/message board gives your members a place to chat and get to know each other outside of the game. It gives your clan more of a community feel to it. Your site should, at minimum, have a page devoted to news, rules, members, and a message board for chatting. It is absolutely imperative that you have a message board. Oftentimes, your webhost will have message boards that can be automatically set up in the cpanel.
Make your website look as professional as possible. Do your best to make sure it is neat and orderly, and has a minimal amount of spelling mistakes. The more seriously you take yourself, the more seriously potential members will take you.
Find your place in-game
Depending on what game you are launching this clan for, there are certain steps that need to be taken in order for you to have a meeting spot for your members in-game. For Counter-Strike, and other first person shooters, you must purchase a server. But, for the rest of this article, I will assume you are a battle.net clan. In which case, you must get a clan channel. It really does matter if you have a Clan ______ channel, or an Op _______ channel. Just make sure one of your founding members can keep a bot sitting on ops (ops controls the channel, can kick/ban) 24/7. Make sure that you trust this person, and in fact, it is even best if you yourself hold ops. Make sure this bot is able to delegate out power to others in the channel.
Recruit.
Depending on how you answered your questions earlier reguarding the size of the potential clan, you begin recruiting in a number of ways. Most clans like to start off recruiting as many people as possible. Make sure to tell each and every recruit about your website.
Post on Forums about your newly founded clan, and let them know that moving up is an option.
Make recruitment games to reach out to new members. Always have your best player online at the time play the potential members.
When playing alone, make sure to ask anyone you encounter that is of the appropriate skill level, if they would be interested in joining.
Essentially, in creating a clan, you are a salesman. You dress up your website in it’s finest business attire to attract the most business-like crowd. You have to SELL your clan to every potential member, and make them excited to join. The best members are always the ones who were excited from the get-go.
All potential clan-leaders have been provided enough info in this basics to get going. Please refer to our other articles for more in-depth looks at how to successfully run your clan.
By JohnnyLocke
Clan-Man Administrator
