Weaponsmith Rank Hierarchy

Iohn de Mar wrote:

Novice: Be intimately familiar with the weapon construction rules in the most current MOA, construct a passable weapon of any kind and have it approved by a guild officer.

Guild Charter wrote:

A. i.Novice
a)Any person may become a novice member simply expressing interest in the guild
Novice members do not have voting rights, but may issue novice-level challenges, and receive accolades for challenges completed.

Okay, everyone who posted in the ranking thread seemed to agree with Iohns ideas for the ranks. I brought up the issue that, in our current Guild Charter a novice is pretty much a non-member: they can't vote and they can only issue novice-level challenges, and so there are no requirements for a novice as it stands now. In Iohn's ranking ideas the rank of novice has requirements. Nothing more than making a blue and knowing the MoA, but still, that isn't nothing.

We can
A: Call people who haven't achieved any requirements non-members (or something else) and have them become novices after completing 2 challenges (Make a passable weapon, pass an MoA test). We'd need to re-evaluate the charter sometime.
or
B: Call people who haven't achieved any requirements Novices (as it is in the Charter now) and keep the ranking that exists in the Charter. We'd need to re-evaluate the definitions of rank.


So vote! If you vote other, please post what other option you want to see/ suggest/ why you posted other.

*edit* The question is worded wrong. I meant what do we call people who are trying to rank but haven't yet, we haven't decided if they are "non-members" or not.

i think though my opinion really doesn't matter, that it is kinda wrong to make more ranks than is needed, we agreed that a novice is somone who shows intrest in it then so be it, besides we are not tryin to to make it difficult to join, we are getting away from why this guild was formed, it was formed to help improve the foam/armorsmithing not to give out ranks and titles. I think we are both overcomplicating this and deviating from the original point of the guild, but that is only my opinion which doesn't count for much.

P.S. sam quite editing the dam post....

Tyler, I'm only going to say this once. You're as much a member as anyone else, and your opinion matters. If you don't want to make any more ranks than there already are, vote to call the lowest rank novices (like they are now). If you don't want there to be any ranks at all, your opinion still matters, but I think you may be in the minority, especially since the Guild could very easily serve both as a resource to help smiths work together AND as a body regulating ranks in the weaponsmith and armorsmith vocations. The idea of having smithing ranks is, as far as I know, pretty popular (please correct me if I'm wrong about this), especially since the only benefit gaining a rank gives you is the ability to vote, which gives you the power to affect ranking. There are no adverse effects of not gaining a rank.

i dont' think i'm allowed to be a member seeing as how i'm apperanty a non-citizen

there's nothing in the charter that I saw that says that you have to be a citizen to be a member of the guild. Even if it's implied, I mean, you're close enough to a citizen that I, for one, have no problem with you joining.

what if we leave it alone? say that you can join, but have no rank. that way you are a member, but just without rank

I think that'd fall under the non-member category. This poll is worded very poorly. If we wanted another rank underneath Novice, I didn't know anything to put other than non-member, but they could be members and be unranked or w/e. The point is, we'd need to put requirements for novice in the charter (must complete X challenges, probably one or two). I like that idea a lot, actually.

It makes sense taht the lowest rank is a Novice, and novices have Very few rights and priviledges.

For what it's worth, i actually agree with Tyr here. A novice IS a non-member. There's no reason to get bent out of shape about non-members being able to hold rank. If it helps, think of novice as a non-rank. But Tyr makes an excellent point, we don't need to get too caught up with ranks and titles. The main focus of the guild is to further our craft. Ranks are just a way for us to honor and recognize those with more skill, experience, and dedication. Whether you consider "novice" to be a rank or not is really a moot point. It is not a title that carries any weight, in or out of the guild.
The bread and butter of this guild is going to be in writing and completing challenges. Any way you word it, your standing with the guild still ultimately depends on the tasks and challenges that you have completed, which is all that really matters.
Call the ranks whatever you like, after all, a rose by any other name...
And on that note, Svip has taken the time to write some excellent challenges for us, (here) and I think our collective guild time would be better spent discussing and working on those.