A Krazy Kastor Kerfuffle

[Eric]

I was once in a alliance... Titan forced us to disband.

 

I don't like Titan very much (although they brought me here to the BEST ALLIANCE EVER (terradoxia), if not forcibly.

 

I hope that Cobalt gets to roll Titan, get poachers like them outta Orbis.

[Kastor]

I was once in a alliance... Titan forced us to disband.

 

I don't like Titan very much (although they brought me here to the BEST ALLIANCE EVER (terradoxia), if not forcibly.

 

I hope that Cobalt gets to roll Titan, get poachers like them outta Orbis.

When was this?

[Buorhann]

Just FYI, if a member is able to be poached, you didn't hold that member's loyalty to begin with.  Instead of blaming the alliance that poached your member, look to your own internal handlings to see where you failed.

[Crust]

What's the difference between raiding and poaching? Or are you all just using it as a synonym?

 

Edit:

Or wait, is it like contacting another alliance's member to convince them to join your alliance?

Edited June 15, 2015 by Satisfriend

[Alataq]

 

 

It's Kastor, or is it Kazy; it goes by Henry now. Well anyway, here's the break down. For reasons highly unintelligent, Kastor has taken to poaching from well established alliances. GPA, us, and no doubt others. He poached from my first protectorate, and probably the more recent one, although the world may never know or care.

 

At the heart of this matter are two points. First, for the poaching, Henry agreed to pay $8 million as restitution. I wanted $10 million, but we discussed and negotiated, and arrived at $8 million. The second is that the person he poached is in debt to Cobalt. Danger owes Cobalt  $26,575,000.00. As a member of Cobalt, you are sent millions to build and improve your nation. We have not had many people actually leave Cobalt, so this is relatively new for us. Allilee left and went to found our Protectorate, so of course we forgave his debt to us. We had a couple others who I'm blanking out on right now, but they too had their debts mostly forgiven. We had two people join after the merger, receive money, and then leave. They repaid their money within hours of leaving. And then we had King, and that's another tale entirely, but again, we got the money owed to us.

 

Last night I had a highly unpleasant conversation with Henry, where we finally agreed to he and his alliance would pay $34 million by July 6, 2015. That's a very fair amount of time. He boasts that his alliance takes in $11 million on "tax days" so three tax days, and you've got it done. If a couple bigger members chip in, then it takes even less time. More than fair, more than reasonable. As is practice, I like to alert the alliances I have embassies with on what's going on, so I updated them first with what was happening, and then with the fact that Henry agreed to pay.

 

This morning I found a wonderful message waiting for me. Apparently, Henry has reached out to a top alliance and has offered them $20 million in exchange for them "scaring" Cobalt off, and signing an ODP. This alliance came to me, benefits of having pleasant relations, and assured me they weren't taking him up on it. That got me thinking. If Henry can afford to pay $20 million to get an alliance to scare us off, why can't he afford to pay $34 million over three weeks? Is it mismanagement? Or maybe he just doesn't want to honor the agreement he made.

 

Whatever was going on inside his head, here is where Cobalt now stands. Henry and his alliance, Titan, owes Cobalt $34 million. I have instructed my Warmaster to begin drawing up plans, and Henry has a choice. Pay $34 million by the end of this week, or on Sunday my alliance will begin the first wave of coordinated raids to recuperate the promised money. I informed him in query, he ignored me, I informed him in his channel, and he banned me. I therefore am informing not just him, but everyone here. I ask everyone who would like to join in the festivities to contact me, anyone who would like to support our cause to send donations to our bank or my nation, or if you're considering protecting him, please, just don't.

 

Ever so warmly,

Grealind

 

So if you leave cobalt, you have to pay all of the money they ever sent to you as aid?

[Kadin]

What's the difference between raiding and poaching? Or are you all just using it as a synonym?

 

Edit:

Or wait, is it like contacting another alliance's member to convince them to join your alliance?

Poaching means stealing members from another alliance, basically.

[Cody K]

Demanding reps for a poaching is ridiculous. Think of it like a business. If a competitor is able to successfully recruit one of your employees, are you going to go running to them and complain?

 

Looking for repayment on recently disbursed aid is one thing. Demanding reps because you're sad a member left is another.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Cody K

[Cody K]

Poaching means stealing members from another alliance, basically.

You can't "steal" members. They're not a commodity to be purchased, sold, traded, or stolen. They're individuals making a conscious decision. Nobody forced the nation in question to leave. He/she accepted an offer that he valued more than his Cobalt membership. Nothing more, nothing less.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Cody K

[Kaiser Baldarius]

I might actually have to go with Titan on this one. As much as I dont want to. 

[Kadin]

You can't "steal" members. They're not a commodity to be purchased, sold, traded, or stolen. They're individuals making a conscious decision. Nobody forced the nation in question to leave. He/she accepted an offer that he valued more than his Cobalt membership. Nothing more, nothing less.

That's funny, I don't remember asking for your opinion.

[Cody K]

That's funny, I don't remember asking for your opinion.

One rarely wants an opinion when it does not align with their beliefs. Unfortunately it is something we all have to deal with it.

[Kadin]

One rarely wants an opinion when it does not align with their beliefs. Unfortunately it is something we all have to deal with it.

You don't know what "my beliefs" even are. I answered a question and you decided to hop onto your soapbox.

[George W. Bush]

God damnit I have to side with Cody K and Titan in the same thread?

[Tali]

God damnit I have to side with Cody K and Titan in the same thread?

I laughed way too much on this one.

[Luna]

You can't "steal" members. They're not a commodity to be purchased, sold, traded, or stolen. They're individuals making a conscious decision. Nobody forced the nation in question to leave. He/she accepted an offer that he valued more than his Cobalt membership. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Brooooo, I see why some alliances are so !@#$ed up. 

[Cody K]

God damnit I have to side with Cody K and Titan in the same thread?

Even worse you just used my name in the same sentence as the word Titan! This entire thread is icky.

[Jacob Hanson]

#1 Since "Poaching" Is such a grey area for all of you; If you contact any member of an Alliance asking them to join your alliance. It's poaching. As a long respected status quo, Nations on "None" have always been fair game for recruiting. Poaching is the LOWEST form of recruitment, and personally if you have to resort to messaging other alliances you should probably just delete now. People should come to you for how you operate, your reputation and prowess. (Like being a bunch of poop-deck loving scallywags)

 

#2 Titan is clearly just trying to dredge the bottom for points.

 

#3 Titan has had its members join a variety of other alliances before quickly dipping to there AA. We noticed it on Arrgh and a few other Alliances. So I hope this "poaching" thing isnt actually some sort of spy ring  

 

Jacob

 

P.S.

 

Henry, Mind sending me a recruitment message; I would love to know what you say to these people. 

Edited June 16, 2015 by Jacob Hanson

[Crust]

Poaching means stealing members from another alliance, basically.

 

Thanks for the explaination. Kinda funny that that's the word being used, since poaching used to be the illegal act of hunting the king's game, which was his property. So in this case the members of an alliance is the alliance's property?

 

Either way, the consequence of losing prestige for poaching another alliance's members is enough in my opinion. It's a desperate and sad attempt. Demanding money from a poaching alliance is almost as embarrassing. This is sadness on all fronts.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

Demanding reps for a poaching is ridiculous. Think of it like a business. If a competitor is able to successfully recruit one of your employees, are you going to go running to them and complain?

 

Looking for repayment on recently disbursed aid is one thing. Demanding reps because you're sad a member left is another.

 

That is a terrible analogy... That exact reason is why companies have non compete clauses that you sign as part of your contract so other companies specifically cant do that.  When they do try, the company can sue the crap out of the employee, and prevent them from joining the new company, or get compensation if they do.

[Tenages]

That is a terrible analogy... That exact reason is why companies have non compete clauses that you sign as part of your contract so other companies specifically cant do that.  When they do try, the company can sue the crap out of the employee, and prevent them from joining the new company, or get compensation if they do.

 

That really depends on where you live though, doesn't it? There are any number of jurisdictions where non-compete clauses are very heavily restricted (most of Europe as I understand it, several US states as well, various other countries) and there are also jurisdictions where they're outright banned (California, India).

 

Derail aside, I do agree comparing members to employees is not a particularly apt analogy.

 

However I agree with the sentiment, and I've expressed in several situations over the years, that a furor over poaching is by and large ridiculous. Members join alliances of their own free will, and the have the right to leave for whatever reason they deem fit. If that was because another alliance said "Hey come join us", or "We'll give you cash if you join" or whatever else, it doesn't matter imho.

 

That being said, if your member can be swayed away by the "poacher" then their loyalty wasn't particularly strong to begin with, and you're better off without them. By the same token, I wouldn't want a member who joined because he was "poached." If he wasn't loyal to his old alliance, why would you believe he'll be loyal to yours.

[Avruch]

That is a terrible analogy... That exact reason is why companies have non compete clauses that you sign as part of your contract so other companies specifically cant do that.  When they do try, the company can sue the crap out of the employee, and prevent them from joining the new company, or get compensation if they do.

The purpose of non-compete clauses is to prevent employees from using trade secrets / inside knowledge of the company / stolen tech or information etc. to give a competitor an advantage. That doesn't really seem to be an issue here. And as Tenages mentioned, "restraint of trade" contracts are widely restricted and in many cases banned simply because its generally recognized that they are mostly unfair. In common law and applying it to this context, it would probably only be enforceable against government members or an alliance leader and then only if they agreed to it in advance.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Avruch

[Ashland]

Just... just to be clear, how did he get 26 mil in debt?  Because, like, did you count the taxes he paid against that?  It's not like he was in your alliance, taking your money and doing nothing.

 

Also SRD has a huge misunderstanding of Non-Competes.  The biggest thing a non competitive clause says is that you can't take business with you to another company or a company you make.  That's the big sticking point.  Some of them throw in that you can't work a month after resigning from your current job.  If it's longer than a month or two, tops, if you're really high level, it gets thrown out of court like 90% of the time as being unenforceable.  And yes, you have to agree to it beforehand.

 

And yes, poaching isn't a big deal.  People will go where they want.  Kastor tried to poach a couple people from BoC.  They didn't go.  We didn't give a crap.  I tried to poach someone from Titan.  They said no.  Ironically Kastor got a bit bent out of shape, but whatever.  BoC obviously doesn't want someone running off with debt, as was the issue here, but as long as we gave you the money a while ago we couldn't care less.  Like, we're not going to hold you to money we gave you 3 months ago or some !@#$.  But if you took out ten mil the day before leaving, yeah, that's not cool.

 

At various times Rose, Guardian, CU (that was a while ago), and maybe a couple others have tried to poach me.  I didn't accept their offers (I was actually already in Rose when abbas tried to poach me to Rose the last time; awkward for everyone involved) but it wouldn't have been wrong if I did.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Ashland

[Kaiser Baldarius]

This whole situation is bad. I dont like it one bit.

 

For once, I dont think Titan deserved this.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

As for non competes, it is entirely on the company that has it, and how much of a dick it wants to be, I had a fellow engineer at my work, that came from our direct competitor and they took him right to court to challenge the non compete he had signed when he started working at his previous company.   A company if its so inclined can be real dicks too like they were, since they have significantly more money than a random joe, and can drain a guy dry with legal fees.

 

As for how important or how much of a hindrance poaching is, its entirely up to the alliance that is getting poached, some alliances don't care as we can see here, and some care a lot more.

[Buorhann]

Also, how is it poaching?  You're not exactly "stealing" a member from an alliance.