[Bashae]

As many of us know, SeeD is a very large clan but with little active members on the forums. Many have suggested the abolishment of the Garden System like myself, but Cspace says it would destroy the meaning of the clan as the SeeD which is taken from FFVIII revolves around this. Therefore, I have come up with a new idea.

The creation of new gardens.

What happens here is we create a new forum for all the new gardens and such. When this is done, the active members (or new members) move to the new forum and move into new gardens.

There are some complications in this, such as 'What if I like my garden as it is?' What could happen is that the leader of the old garden can simply create a new garden by the exact same name.

This way we can see the activity within the clan and have a fresh start, while maintaining the VIII SeeD view and the Garden system and history.

Might be adding more onto this later, but this is all I have to say now.

~Reikin~
The Missing GF

[Unknownentity]

I kind of like teh sound of it... but i don't quite get it... :S

[Cspace]

That's why we labeled certain Gardens as Inactive.  If a Garden has not been active in a long time it is labeled this way and no new members should be placed in it.  When members in these Gardens return, they can transfer to a more active Garden therefore freezing the labeled Gardens and energizing the others (at least that is how it is intended to work).  We may need to label more this way because we haven't checked in a while, but this system solves the inactivity problem to the same extent without having to reorganize everything, delete members, or cause confusion with a new or rebuilt system.

If we eliminate the sub-Gardens then we are also eliminating our lower level of leadership requiring the first step to be General... And without grouping there really cannot be anything below General without having a complicated system that will end up becoming obsolete.

Gardens are not really intended for events or anything though.  Gardens can function independently and have events and competitions, but the overall purpose is to divide the clan into manageable sections so the scope of every leader is not the entire clan.  Also without as many Gardens there would be fewer who are considered leaders, and this will make the leadership a lot narrower and increase the image of power.  If we dissolve Gardens and rebuild them it will be a much more massive undertaking than many would think (it isn't just changing the order).  Deleting members is not happening though, I promised members that if they join they can remain if they decide to leave Runescape and possibly return later, and I am not going to back down on my word to solve a problem that can be solved otherwise.

Garden activity is not really as important anymore, we have other groups that can renew themselves such as Mercenary Groups and a future Party System which allow members to run and enjoy active sub-groups of SeeD without relying on the leadership to organize groups for them.  The Garden system is not really our "Organizational Method" as a whole, it is a means of grouping of which some aspects of our leadership require.

I personally think there is too much focus on the Garden System, ever since our beginning it was never a source of activity or anything. The possibility always existed for events to incorporate Gardens, but if I'm correct only a few really tried to use them throughout our existence.

As I said, other groups are there to provide activity, including the Mercenary Groups, upcoming party system (like the partner system), Specialist Groups (once revived), and others. These would be designed to be perpetually active - as long as the clan is active and members are interested. The Garden System is more to organize members and provide a fundamental basis for leadership by dividing the clan into smaller parts (and freezing those who are inactive). Due to Sub-Garden inactivity we established Gardens which encompassed all of them, for those interested in using the Garden system for events or anything else. It will be impossible to manage the entire clan in a way to create perpetually active groups of 10-or-so members, it would require a lot of unnecessary work and take the fun out of SeeD for many. The maintenance is way too high. Commanders were supposed to focus on these small sections if possible (representing members), and these small sections were created with the idea in mind that they could be grouped for further levels of leadership (to provide a scope) and for events which would require that type of division.

By dissolving or re-organizing the members in Gardens we would accomplish nothing, all the members would remain but we would just move them around. Instead of moving them around we can group Sub-Gardens together, maybe even create a grouping system with a more defined scope than the current Garden System (along with it, just another layer of organization). This would solve activity problems and give Gardens the ability to renew themselves on their own.

The purpose which we had for Sub-Gardens in our first couple months was replaced by the three-Garden system. This removed the necessary weeks of work to reorganize everything (which would end up being on intervals, repeated as the need arises). As it is now with the Inactive flags, two tiers of fundamental organization, and the current freedom of members to move around to other Gardens, this system is accomplishing the goals given to them when they were first established.

Also, as some have done in the past, there is nothing wrong with creating a Sub-Garden and advertising activity. If someone wishes to create an active Sub-Garden with active organization, events, or anything else, the possibility is there and wide open. If members wish to be in a group like that they are free to move. For those who don't care about the system and just want to be in SeeD (there are many who could care less about the Gardens), they could pick one which doesn't promote activity and just leave it like that. The activity of the Garden System as a whole should be no worry to individual members, just their own Gardens if it is a concern. Therefore by creating or joining an "Active" Garden the Garden System would be active for them, while leaving the inactive members in inactive Gardens.

The FFVIII image has been decreasing over time, that's not really a concern of mine. Gardens could be given a completely different name and the system would remain the same, they really have nothing to do with FFVIII other than the name. Also, there is very little activity on the forums that can realistically be generated by the Garden System as a whole. Any active Sub-Gardens which are established can provide that, it won't require massive re-organization of everything we have now; just some active members to get together and create their ideal Gardens.

Not refuting your ideas or anything, just saying why some aspects of them are either not realistically possible or could be accomplished differently. Also stating some misconceptions about the Gardens, members now are treating them differently than they ever really were. Sorry for the long post, just a lot of points to cover.

Addition: Also, in terms of the Garden Forum, the actual Garden forum is the one with the three main Gardens in it. The Sub-Garden Forum was archived because we planned to no longer focus on Sub-Gardens as greatly, however enough wanted it to remain so I moved it back up. I am thinking of moving it back down because Sub-Gardens can be addressed in the main Garden forum, too much confusion is coming from it regarding their purpose and I believe that it is because we have two forums for practically the same thing.

[ticktockclok]

Meh, I see no use for gardens. Might as well put them in the archives. W00t, I, for a few minutes, control the 5 main forums!

[Goto]

And if you don't want to have anything to do with them, thats fine.

Cspace makes some good points. Final decided to make his own garden, although it isn't really a garden now I suppose (people from other gardens are joining, and since gardens are an organisational thing for keeping track of members people can't be in two). So now it seems to be some sort of official 'group', on a seperate forums. If you want garden activity, the Guardian Force boards might be pretty much what you're looking for.

There aren't really that many advantages to chatting specifically in gardens, we're a pretty close-knit community here in any case.