When Knights were the red-headed stepchild of AH, I whined in a thread about numbers, basically I was told to STFU.
Many squadrons including my newly formed VMF-323 just went on a recruiting drive, eventually the knights built up numbers. SOunds like Rook squads are alittle too lazy to do that...they want AH Welfare?
Ripsnort is absolutely right. Every country goes through down turns. For a while the Knights were the ones with low numbers. Then there was a phase where the Bishops had low numbers during peak US hours. Now the Rooks are in that hole.
Only thing that can be done is for the Rooks to take a good hard look at themselves and figure out what has caused the drop in numbers and then for several Rook squads work toward rectifying the problems, rebuilding numbers and stop the hostility and behavior that is making not fun to fly Rooks and driving people away.
First off people got to realize this is a voluntary hobby that most of us play to relieve stress. Anything that makes it unfun will cause people to leave. Right now the general culture is making it unfun for many people. Rooks have to realize is that if you ask other pilots or Rooks squads to help they will if they can. If you demand that they do something or try to order them to do something more likely than not you will put their hackles up and they won't. Even if somebody does something stupid if you berate them about it and rant about it all you will do is piss them off.
It all comes down to the difference of asking for help to accomplish something and trying to order non squad mates about.
Also the poor treatment of new players and people that come over from other countries needs to stop. For somebody to come over from the Knights and recieve FLAK about being a spy or open hostility when they decided to fly Rooks and we are outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1 is silly and has caused more than a few to switch countries back as soon as they can because of the poor treatment. Yes, spying could happen but think things through first even if they are spying its one less pilot for the other side. Second what the heck are they spying about .. when we are outnumbered as much as we have been spying really doesn't matter.
So in my opinion its a cultural thing that needs to be fixed and Rooks need to start working more together again (more than once every 3 weeks in an RJO event).
Several of the Rooks squads are talking about trying to fix things and deal with issues.
As for squads coming over .. sure come on over if you want. And please ignore any of the monkeys that give you a hard time, most of us appreciate it. But the wheel will turn and we will work our way of of this situation just like Ripsnort did for the Knights. Just takes time ...
