I keep telling you our secret: the fuzziest ball of fuzz that ever beat you at Quake:

Your problem is, by the time you've sunk a few with your potential recruits, they are entirely unable to remember what you were talking about, or even how to turn their computer on :-o

The thread's getting lost, and we're entering the exciting final half of the competition...

Here are the stats:

BitBenderTech (BBT): started 2/2 with 36 current members = (40-36)/(16-2)/36= 0.0079
HomeBrewers (HB): started 2/2 with 33 current members = (40-33)/(16-2)/33= 0.0151
SuperBytesBelgium (SBB): started 2/8 with 61 current members = (66-61)/(16-8)/61= 0.0102
UserFriendly (UF): started 2/1 with 160 current members = (257-160)/(16-1)/160= 0.0404
VultureCentralIII (VC3): started 2/7 with 23 current members = (23-23)/(16-7)/23= 0.0000

BBT have lost a member, UF have gained a little (but not much).

The HomeBrewers have a similar problem -- deadweight which inflated our starting number. I'm not complaining; this is just discussion, and the problem might be even worse with some of the other teams. Besides, I don't know how it could be accounted for, or corrected.

The idea of dividing by the initial number of current members is to adjust for relative team sizes and make the results proportionate; this is where the deadweight hurts, because those amount to phantom members who aren't helping to recruit. For instance, looking at my team stats, I have one member who joined us just six days after we formed -- 80 days ago -- and he has generated a total of 209 points, and hasn't posted anything in the past couple of months. Obviously, he is not running the agent. I also have one member who joined on 1/29, and two who joined on 1/30 -- that's THREE members over two weeks ago (and just before this contest ) who have not generated any points whatsoever. And I have a couple of others that fall into that "suspect" area, such as one who generated just 915 points in 29 days. If these folks aren't running the agent and generating points, I'd bet my last dollar that they're not recruiting either.

Is there anyway for a team captain to kick a member off of a team?

But worse than the deadweight is that I am the only member of HomeBrewers who, to my knowledge, has ever posted anything on WCG forums, or any other grid forum, for that matter. So I don't know if any members of my team read any of these posts, or know about our contest, or are doing much, if anything, to recruit. For all I know, this has been a one-man job -- ME . And now I'm having to resort to the very subtle approach of using my signature lines in posts in brewing forums; it'll be a couple of months before I feel that it would be appropriate to start an actual recruitment thread in those forums again. So, it'll surprise me if I manage to get even another member or two during the entire second half. But at least HomeBrewers were in first place for awhile, and are still in second place in a five team race, ... and it's been fun.

Cheers.

Bill Velek, Team Captain of the ...

Indeed. I can even measure it: UF have 200 active members, where an active member is defined as someone who joined or posted a result in the last week.

If you are not in a team, those points are gone forever. What's the advantage? The only points the team gets are the ones that members contribute at that time. Nothing is done retroactively or by backtracking.

If you join a team, even one of the others, the points are added in parallel to the member and the team. You can unjoin a team and join another as many times as you want in sequence.

There is no penalty for member points for adding team points. It's essentially "matching" points for your contribution for a team.