vL is sort of the forum that we spawned off of.
Lately I've been reading both with about the same frequency, but there's a lot less riff-raff here.
The thing is, one of the first things we decided (after e1
) is that having static leaders is not a good idea. People might start disliking them, or they might become inactive. Also, I don't really like the concept of ownership. A clan, to me, is a group of friends, and nobody owns it. So we decided on democratic elections for leaders.
If you look at our initial leaders, you'll see something like me, Krazed, and Tuberload. Both of them go through long periods of inactivity. Tuberload because he has a lot going on in real life, and Krazed because he has a short attention span. And it's possible that, at some point, I'll be unable to fulfill my duties as leader for whatever reason.
Now, as I said earlier, vL has more riff-raff. This is largely because the leaders have other things to do besides look after a clan. They work, they have (presumably) social lives, they don't have the time that they used to to run the forum. That's fine, it happens. But the result is that people (for example, Topaz) can operating with impunity.
There is a downside, however. Grok, Adron, and Skywing are historical figures on Battle.net, and their clan was what it is because they're the leaders (for the most part). vL simply wouldn't work under our style. So you're sort of left with a forum that slowly decays as no leader can take responsibility.
I feel bad for "taking" members to x86, though. This clan was never supposed to compete with anybody (except, perhaps, e1
). When I created d2backstab.com, it was for the sole reason of protesting policies of scbackstab.com. However, when I joined/created[1] x86, it was because I didn't know of any group with the ideals I wanted. vL was elitest, and e1 was run by a power hungry dictator. Well, not quite that bad, but I didn't like how e1 was being run. I didn't feel the members were given enough say, which is why I went for the democratic style.
And by the way, I'm very proud of what x86 has become. Almost everybody here is great, and although we have some occasional disagreements, it's a strong group and I enjoy coming here immensly.
[1] Technically, Newby and darkness created it, but we didn't really become a real clan till I came on board. Go me!
