User:Ieahleen/Sandbox/PreviousVersion

Description
Doing things the pirate way... Enter if you dare!

Our guild wasn't created by us - it was boarded, taken over, robbed of its gems, and renamed by our pirate crew. You can still see the wreck of one of its old challenges inside. Yarrrrrrr!

It all started with being greedy, robbing pirates. By Davy Jones's wriggly beard, we never intended to be useful! We were (and are) just living the pirate life - we boarded not just this guild, but many others, robbed their gems, and then either sank them or held them for ransom (so people who wanted an own guild but didn't have the necessary gems could claim them) or made them part of our own fleet. Soon it turned out that by doing so, we were contributing to keeping the Habitican seas free from old abandoned guilds drifting there aimlessly and cluttering up the shipping lanes. The Habitican Admiralty noticed that, too, and started helping us - much like in the olden days with letters of marque and privateering. So nowadays we actually fulfill a function (removing inactive guilds that are no longer useful from the list of public guilds) - but we also still make a good profit from looting all those guild banks! And we don't forget to have lots of pirate fun and adventures, too. We've also fought the first Habitican guild-vs.-guild battle we know of, and might fight more in the future. And we're currently the only Habitican guild with more than four gems in our treasure chest!

Our current captain is cTheDragons. Our previous captain were
 * Steady-hand Admiral Dewines
 * Amazing Captain & Founder Mara the Marine Marauder.

We have a sister guild - the Elven Grove full of elves hunting old abandoned challenges. It has its own wikia guild page, too.

Current Actions and Adventures
The pirates are currently working on the reports of the @GuildBot with the aim where possible to replace leaders with current active members of that guild.

If you wish to help see Conquering Guilds: Guidelines &amp; Tips on tips how to approach guilds appropriately.

Challenges
Most of our challenges aren't inside our guild, except the old sunken football challenge. Most challenges are outside in the guilds we conquer or engage in battle with, or in the The Abandoned Camp. Previously we used to host challenges in the The Bulletin Board 📌 or (rarely) in the Tavern.

Our challenges are mostly there to introduce swabbies to the correct procedures, review the procedures, or friendly competitions between the pirates.

Sometimes we also battle other guilds. When we battle another guild, there's usually one battle challenge in that guild (with two habits, one for the pirates, one for the other guild, but otherwise identical). When the fight is over, there are "badge" challenges for the winners and the other participants, so everyone who participated in the guild-vs.-guild battle can have them in their profiles. For more details, see the section about guild batttles.

In the past we used to set up challenges regrding conquered guilds, they were mostly about distributing shares of the booty (guild banks gems) among our crew. Most of those were won by us pirates, but if a landlubber stumbled into a boarded guild with booty challenges, they could usually win one, too.

Sometimes we also created challenges about holding a guild for ransom (finding a new captain for the conquered guild - not necessarily a pirate). It was possible, in case someone wanted to create a guild but didn't have the gems for it, to ask in the guild chat and if we had one we didn't have a use for yet we would have given it without challenge. But if two or more people wanted to become captain of the same guild, or if we were not convinced of the guild idea or captaining skills, we could have set some tasks first (things like finding a good new guild name, writing a new guild description, creating a guild challenge, etc., and just generally convincing us that would be a good guild leader).

Guilds We Fought in Battle
So far, we have only fought two guild-vs.-guild battle:

As far as we know, this was the first guild-vs.-guild battle in Habitican history, and contributed to one of Captain Mara's contributor tiers in the "Challenger" category.
 * 1) We attacked Gryffindor Houseon June 15, 2015, and did battle with them for 13 days. As weapons, we used habits asking the participants to "Bravely complete, or work for half an hour on, a terrifying task!". The Gryffindors fought very bravely, and both groups were ahead at several times, but in the end, the pirates won!
 * 1) We invaded the ⚔ The Duelling Grounds ⚔ in July 2016. They fought bravely but in the end it was declared a draw. Both ships flew each others flag for a week to honour the bravery of each other.

We're hoping to do more battles in the future! If your guild (or other group of people) is interested, please let us know!

Captured Guilds
This is not a process that we do anymore, the number of guilds became too big.

"Captured" means that at some point, one of the pirates became guild leader ("captain") and then repurpose for another topic/focus. In the past "Capture" just meant one of the pirates became guild leader ("captain"), however with the process with the Guilds with Inactive Leaders and later with  @GuildBot process this is no longer the case.

All the captured guilds are listed in the Archive.

Mutiny
"Mutiny" means that the pirates assisted in a change of captain of a ship ("guild").

All the mutiny guilds are listed in the Archive.

Sunk Guilds
"Sunk" means that the guild either got deleted or made private. Making an inactive guild private is frequently used as an alternative to deleting it because, in case any of the guild members ever returns to Habitica and would like to have the guild back or look something up in there, the private guild serves as a backup and can easily be turned into a public guild again. (In some other cases, though, old guilds get privatized because the new guild leader is actually repurposing them as active private guilds, usually with a different name and topic and no intent to conserve the old chat and challenges.)

In Pirate English, if the guild is described as "destroyed", "wrecked", "shot to smithereens", etc., that means it got deleted. If it is described as being sunk in one piece, e.g., "scuttled", "foundered", "submerged", etc., that means it was turned into a private guild (but will most likely be inactive in the future). If it "was turned into a submarine", it was turned into a private guild with an active guild leader intending to use the guild (often with a different name and topic). This terminology is just for the fun of gamification, though - it's not an exact science, please don't take it too seriously! If you use different descriptions when adding a new sunk guild to the list, no one will keelhaul you for it.

So far, we have sunk over 100 guilds in total. Some we captured first and sunk the others without capturing them. 52 of the sunk guilds got destroyed beyond repair, 33 got scuttled in one piece, 5 were turned into submarines.

All the sunk guilds are listed in the Archive.

Conquering Guilds: Guidelines & Tips
First and foremost please communicate with the Pirate Cove first, so Admiral @Alys is aware of your actions and the more experience adventurers can offer advice.

Guilds that are not to be touch under any circumstance are:


 * Bailey Appreciation Guild

We are looking at replacing Guild Captains based on the Inactive Leaders of Guilds. We are currently not looking for new targets till the existing list has been completed.

Slow Moving Guilds Does Not Mean Inactive Guilds
From the mouth of Ships Scout Riverstone:

"There was a discussion a while ago about slow moving guilds (it spanned a few guilds so I can't remember where exactly to link to it) and what the appeal was. Quite a few people posted what they like about being in slower guilds, and one of the points that stuck with me was one that came up a few times about a feeling of 'quiet solidarity'. People talked about how even when there was next to no chat, knowing that there were other players going through the same issues and struggles as them made them feel like they weren't alone, and there was support there for them if they needed it. Even if they didn't end up posting, the fact that they could if they needed to gave them a sense of support and security that helped them cope. Quite a few people said that their favourite guilds where the ones that the chat could be silent for more than a month at a time, but as soon as someone asked a question, it would be answered. One person said it was like having a 'silent crowd behind them, backing them up'. That really stuck with me, so I've tried to keep it in mind when looking at how active a group is. Some guilds work better with a fast pace, and while some players prefer it, I think we should be careful about assuming that slower guild need to be rejuvenated, or that faster and more active is always better.'"

Pirate Code

 * Unless there is special circumstances deemed by the Admirals, ships guilds with captains leaders that are inactive more than 6 months can only be targeted.
 * No matter what target you select, final decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.
 * When Hailing a Guild, Plain English. We are all pirates! but the landlubbers sometime have trouble understanding us
 * Explains that approval will be required by Habitica's Admins/Moderators. It not just up to you, you're just facilitating the change. All hail the Pirate Admirals!
 * Except for special circumstances, like the ship of the Dread Pirate Roberts, A member can't just come in and claim the guild. They need to show they've been productive member of the guild before.
 * Also when hailing, Explains who we are and what we do so they don't call the Cavalry moderators.
 * Mergers: We must be extremely cautious with these. Unless we have a good understanding of the guild's topic (usually only possible if we've been guild members for a while) then it's likely that we aren't capable of deciding if a merger should be considered. There will be some exceptions to that, but still: Here be dragons! :)
 * If you're considering targeting a guild about a certain locality, please note: Each country can have its own guild, unless that guild is extremely dead, in which case you can start a discussion in Pirate Cove chat about deleting or privatizing it. We don't have an exact definition of "extremely dead" but perhaps six months without any activity is enough to warrant starting a pirate discussion. If there are two guilds for the same country, and not enough activity to support two guilds, we might consider a merge (and therefore target the less active one). We do not have any special guidelines for localities smaller than countries.
 * If you're considering targeting a foreign language guild, please note: Each language can have its own guild, no matter how dead the guild is. (At least that was the latest consensus reached - part of the guidelines are still evolving.) If there are two guilds for the same language, and not enough activity to support two guilds, we might consider a merge (and therefore target the less active one). @Alys suggested: "One option when we find a dead language guild is to put a comment in it saying that even though there's no activity, any new speakers are welcome to post, and that might cause older users to start posting again (comment in English then in the Google Translate version in the guild's language)." We'll try this in the future.
 * If you're considering targeting a religion guild, please note: Pirates should not take any actions with religious guilds other than telling @Alys about them. (That can be done in Pirate Cove guild chat if you like, it isn't so secret that you have to use private messaging or email.) @Alys will take care of them herself. She said "I would prefer that they weren't contacted by pirates [...]. There might be subtle differences between the guilds that mean they shouldn't be merged. If any of the guilds are removed, I'll do it with a quick deletion or privatisation, and I won't change any of their owners to Pirates."
 * Pirate Mission Creep is also something to be cautious about. The Guild Leaders & Challenge Creators guild might become more active in helping guild leaders run their guilds effectively, perhaps taking over some of the things Pirates were staring to do.
 * Pirates don't do name changes apart from ensuring that the Community Guidelines are followed. However any person acting on their own behalf and not as a Pirate is free to suggest a name change to a guild.

Guild-vs.-Guild Battles: The Technical and Organizational Aspects
A "guild vs. guild" (or "team vs. team" - not restricted to guilds) battle challenge can be made simply by making two challenges, one in each guild with the tasks for the challenge. (Often these challenges are just only two habits which are identical except for one of them saying "Fight for team A!", the other saying "Fight for team B!". Of course, the habits should also say what the participants are expected to do.) Then the Challenge Data Tool can be used to keep track of the overall values of team. By looking at the number of positive clicks for each team, which if desired can be divided by the number of players to determine the outcome.

If the challenge creator wants to find out who fought for which team, they can see this by delving deeper in the task history for each player in the Challenge Data Tool. You can also use the by clicking the blue "Export to CSV" button at the bottom right hand corner of your challenge. This can be helpful if you intend to make token challenges for all the winners (and maybe 2nd place token challenges for all participants of the other team) after the battle.

Please note if you do not wish to look at each click history in Challenge Data Tool but prefer to look at summarised habit values in in the tool or Export CSV correspond to the sum total of work done. If you'd rather declare the winning team by average work done by each team member, you could also divide the habit values through the number of team members, then compare the results.

The challenge should contain a disclaimer saying approximately this:

"Disclaimer: All this is supposed to be fun for everyone involved! You are not required to participate in the challenge, no matter which guild you belong or don't belong to. Also, if this challenge makes you feel uncomfortable, please talk to the challenge creator and/or the guild leader of [the guilds involved] and/or a Habitica moderator, and we'll try to fix it! We don't want to violate community guidelines and don't want anyone to feel really, non-fictionally, threatened."

If you are planning a guild-vs.-guild fight, it is good manners to contact the guild leaders of the involved guilds first (if they are active). If you're not planning a surprise attack, you can also ask the guild members first via guild chat. If you're not sure how to proceed (especially if one of the guild leaders is inactive), please read the community guidelines first, then [Moderators#Contacting_Moderators | [contact contact a Habitica admin/moderator]] and ask.

The guilds involved should be chosen wisely - they should consist of members who actually like such a fight instead of feeling annoyed by it.

Different Flags
(Flags not shown to avoid spoilers and copyright issues.)
 * Standard: http://i.imgur.com/oOPGubk.jpg
 * Valentine: http://img0.etsystatic.com/058/0/8817204/il_340x270.716391514_krn0.jpg
 * Pi Day: http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$%28KGrHqYOKiwE5hhLRyDJBOep6qUI8!_35.JPG
 * Easter: http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/Cookgirl/2013/EasterPirate_zps4e2c6e3a.png
 * International Talk Like a Pirate Day: http://wallpaperbang.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Talk-Like-a-Pirate-Day-19-Sep-Wallpapers.jpg
 * Halloween: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6045/6300391097_108bea7248_m.jpg
 * Thanksgiving: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3064/3063761200_3e481fdbee.jpg
 * Christmas: http://www.theflagshop.co.uk/ekmps/shops/speed/images/christmas-pirate-flag-5074-p.jpg
 * New Year: http://rlv.zcache.com/pirate_new_years_eve_party_invitation_postcard-r83e5412cda1d4e1886fbabd79d6db4b9_vgbaq_8byvr_512.jpg

Obscure Treasure Map to Pirate Music
Mara's recommendations:
 * Visit the Scoundrel's Inn!
 * Listen to Bilgemunky's old podcasts in the Bilgemunky archive! (And then look for more from the bands mentioned there!)
 * "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag" has a nice piraty soundtrack that can be found in various places on Youtube.
 * Then there are "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" (original and cover version) - also on Youtube.
 * And, of course, all the Disney-copyrighted stuff for "Pirates of the Carribean". Chicken_on_a_Raft.png
 * Thanks to @Dewines for digging up Jimmie MacGregor's version of "Henry Martin"!
 * Then there's also the chicken on a raft.
 * The halftime show at the Viking Horde vs. Sparrow Warriors Super Bowl III serves as a good excuse to put that link here, too.
 * Whenever you're dealing with one of the Harry Potter-themed guilds, it helps to know that Hermione Granger was born on Talk Like a Pirate Day.
 * The Spooky Men's Chorale doesn't exactly sing pirate music - but one of their members is a pirate, too!
 * And so much more...