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[DosTuMai]

Brining to the boil then turning off and leaving to cool.
Oh wait, poaching people, not eggs. Okidoki. I dunno, I've been accused of it a few times, but never really understood what they meant. I mean, I've never brought someone to the boil and then left them to coo~ Oh wait, there was this...

[Grr]

Some interesting responses so far although "its part of eve" always annoys me as I would have thought alongside piracy, metagaming, corp theft and other naughtiness that everybody here accepts that these things are part of eve and just doesn't need to be said (sorry, just a pet hate there)

I will define poaching as a deliberate and not casual attempt to convince a member to join a corp whether that be through putting down their current corp or offering treats and incentives to join the new corp amongst other things.

Casual mentions such as "there will always be a place for you here" for example are fine in my eyes but active poaching unless it has been agreed to be acceptable between corps I've always frowned upon if those corps have similar "gentlemens agreements" between them (such as no metagaming for example) or if they are supposedly allies.  Experience over the past seven years or so has shown me generally corps with these sorts of OOC relationships do tend to also consider member poaching generally unacceptable.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

Some interesting responses so far although "its part of eve" always annoys me as I would have thought alongside piracy, metagaming, corp theft and other naughtiness that everybody here accepts that these things are part of eve and just doesn't need to be said (sorry, just a pet hate there)

Sidenote: I object to simply putting piracy in the same category with metagaming and corp theft. I do not think there's anything wrong whatsoever with piracy in the game, while I agree that the naughtiness of metagaming and corp theft can at least be argued about.

I will define poaching as a deliberate and not casual attempt to convince a member to join a corp whether that be through putting down their current corp or offering treats and incentives to join the new corp amongst other things.

Casual mentions such as "there will always be a place for you here" for example are fine in my eyes but active poaching unless it has been agreed to be acceptable between corps I've always frowned upon if those corps have similar "gentlemens agreements" between them (such as no metagaming for example) or if they are supposedly allies.  Experience over the past seven years or so has shown me generally corps with these sorts of OOC relationships do tend to also consider member poaching generally unacceptable.

So casually mentioning to an ally that should they ever want a place in GRD they will have one is a poaching attempt?

Guilty as charged, then. Multiple times over.

[BloodBird]

In regards to Else' list here, I agree fully with Grr.

Frankly, I would personally only regard it as poaching if you are actively trying to get specific member(s) to join not just to aid your corp but to weaken others on purpose. After all to poach something you have to be actively out to do it. Otherwise it's called recruitment and dropping any hint that you are taking on new members, even telling them they specifically would be welcome in your corp, is not directly a bad thing. Your merely informing them of the fact that A) you are accepting members and B) said person(s) would likely match well with the corp and/or you have what you believe they look for.

Poaching would be, and I quote;

“...a deliberate and not casual attempt to convince a member to join a corp whether that be through putting down their current corp or offering treats and incentives to join the new corp amongst other things.”

- Grr

Now, this directly described my above example from the BoB vs ASCN war. It is exactly what they were doing. It's the only way of getting new members I directly oppose, for above mentioned reasons.

Otherwise, your doing your job as a recruiter. If a player you talk to about your corp proves a good fit in theory and desires a change, no harm. LYING to them about the state of his/her corp or whatever or your own traits, is harming.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

BloodBird, Grr goes on to say:

"Casual mentions such as "there will always be a place for you here" for example are fine in my eyes but active poaching unless it has been agreed to be acceptable between corps I've always frowned upon if those corps have similar "gentlemens agreements" between them (such as no metagaming for example) or if they are supposedly allies."

Emphasis mine. That's the part I don't get, above. Is he saying that if I mention something like that to an ally, that's poaching, or no?

[GoGo Yubari]

BloodBird's example is something that I can agree we can at least talk about being iffy. I kinda accept the dog eat dog nature of the recruiting game, though. In an ideal situation, your corp stands on its own and doesn't have to offer incentives to anyone. In reality, many corps will have to do that to stand out.

In any case, blaming the recruiter for dishonorable poaching/headhunting is maybe a bit too much for me. Things like that are between the recruiter and the recruitee in question. If he'd be genuinely happier elsewhere, we should all be happy. If accepting a few trinkets for his loyalty is what he wants to do (or would truly benefit him), it's up to him.

Perhaps oddly I find this practice less bad between smaller corps, even though there losing members hurts more. I say that because I'd assume that the bonds of fellowship are stronger in these cases, so if somebody really wants to go A) they REALLY want to go so great or B) maybe he really doesn't feel like a good fit (ie. "we didn't want that member anyway!"). For huge alliances who need rank and file troopers as meat shields.. there it gets dishonorable because you aren't really investing into the new guys.

Also, this isn't just an Eve discussion. It's perfectly relevant in the really real world, too.

[BloodBird]

BloodBird, Grr goes on to say:

"Casual mentions such as "there will always be a place for you here" for example are fine in my eyes but active poaching unless it has been agreed to be acceptable between corps I've always frowned upon if those corps have similar "gentlemens agreements" between them (such as no metagaming for example) or if they are supposedly allies."

Emphasis mine. That's the part I don't get, above. Is he saying that if I mention something like that to an ally, that's poaching, or no?

Sorry, didn't catch that, I'm rather sleepy here.

I think Grr's trying to say that if two allies are supposed to be allies then effectively stealing members from them are not cool. Actively trying to convince a member of another corp, especially an ally, to defect to your corp, is not okay. However if anyone is leaving an ally or whatever ANYWAY, and you simply inform them your corp are recruiting and they might fit, then that's okay.

After all, the difference is “Dude you should so ditch your (allied/neutral) corp and join ours” VS “I heard you were leaving, we are recruiting and you might fit, just so you know.”

The latter may even be as innocent as simply making sure people you like are aware that you DO like them enough to recruit them, so that if they ever do leave their corps they are welcome in yours. That is not poaching; it's informing others of options should they desire them later on.

I think that's what Grr was trying to say, at least.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

After all, the difference is “Dude you should so ditch your (allied/neutral) corp and join ours” VS “I heard you were leaving, we are recruiting and you might fit, just so you know.”

I agree there is a difference between those. Going around badmouthing allies is naughty anyway, IMO, regardless of whether you try to poach by it.

But what about the middle-ground of "If you ever get bored with X, we have a place for you"?

[Morwen Lagann]

BloodBird, Grr goes on to say:

"Casual mentions such as "there will always be a place for you here" for example are fine in my eyes but active poaching unless it has been agreed to be acceptable between corps I've always frowned upon if those corps have similar "gentlemens agreements" between them (such as no metagaming for example) or if they are supposedly allies."

Emphasis mine. That's the part I don't get, above. Is he saying that if I mention something like that to an ally, that's poaching, or no?

I think that Elsebeth may have misinterpreted what Grr was saying in the quoted statement, but unless Grr posts to clarify I don't think there's any way to know. The statement seemed to me like it was missing punctuation that would have made it a bit clearer. Here's how I parsed it when I read it, with some added emphasis and punctuation:

Casual mentions, such as "there will always be a place for you here" for example, are fine in my eyes, BUT active poaching, unless it has been agreed to be acceptable between corps, I've always frowned upon if those corps have similar "gentlemens agreements" between them (such as no metagaming for example) or if they are supposedly allies.

tl;dr: casual mentions like "there'll always be a place for you here" are okay. actively poaching members from corporations you've made agreements not to do this sort of thing to, or are (supposedly) working with and not against, is not okay.

[BloodBird]

After all, the difference is “Dude you should so ditch your (allied/neutral) corp and join ours” VS “I heard you were leaving, we are recruiting and you might fit, just so you know.”

I agree there is a difference between those. Going around badmouthing allies is naughty anyway, IMO, regardless of whether you try to poach by it.

But what about the middle-ground of "If you ever get bored with X, we have a place for you"?

I think you are getting a bit tired, too.

The latter may even be as innocent as simply making sure people you like are aware that you DO like them enough to recruit them, so that if they ever do leave their corps they are welcome in yours. That is not poaching; it's informing others of options should they desire them later on.

High-light'ed the part that basically says what you said.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

My bad, yea, sorry, missed that. Thanks for the patience.

[Grr]

Yea thats pretty much it. 

Sorry for the extremely poor grammer but it made sense in my head

Elsebeth your middle ground example is exactly that; middle ground.  I don't love it or hate it and I'm sure it would be acceptable amongst close allies while considered a little underhanded by allies who are a little more sensitive to such things.

Lets break the rules of my original request to state a nice positive example, every eve meet I've gone to Rodj has said I would be welcome in PIE should I want to move on. (for the record I'm fairly sure I've jokingly tried to recruit him once or twice too knowing full well he would never leave)  I've never considered that underhanded and in fact a testiment to the good relations at the top levels the Amarr bloc have.  Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart to feel welcome there too^^ (that or I'm usually fairly drunk at these things)

[Morwen Lagann]

Lets break the rules of my original request to state a nice positive example, every eve meet I've gone to Rodj has said I would be welcome in PIE should I want to move on. (for the record I'm fairly sure I've jokingly tried to recruit him once or twice too knowing full well he would never leave)  I've never considered that underhanded and in fact a testiment to the good relations at the top levels the Amarr bloc have.  Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart to feel welcome there too^^ (that or I'm usually fairly drunk at these things)

At the risk of breaking a forum rule here, I feel I must make this observation: If you're not drunk at an eve meet, especially one of the ones hosted by Veto, you are very much doing it wrong.

[Myrhial Arkenath]

So BoB poached people, and where is BoB now? Oh, right. I'm not implying that poaching caused them to disappear, but if you are luring people to you with the promise to be part of the top-dog then you are going to get people who will stay till your time to fall is there. Now is it really that much of a loss to your group if those people leave? Yeah, you might not have the numbers to do x and y anymore and you lose your sov and yadda yadda blabla ... but on the other hand you are also no longer putting effort in people who just love you for your status and move on as soon as that drops.

So yeah, in the end I am kinda on the fence about this topic. I won't say it is bad or evil, but I also won't do it unless I am 100% sure of my case, and even then I'll sit down with people and ask them if -they- are sure about moving corp to corp especially if both corps have a good relationship. That's part of the reason why the question of why people leave their old corporation is an important one in our application template, not just to see if they are headless chickens, but also for them to consider and us to learn what are motivations to give one thing up in favor of another. Not everything can be fixed, and sometimes the time or knowledge needed is missing and cannot be brought up and then you take them in.

[Wanoah]

So BoB poached people, and where is BoB now?

Poaching people helped them to the top of the pile and it took a monumental effort from a massive (and unlikely) coalition of players to knock them off that pile. I think you have to concede that BoB were a highly effective group of players for a long time.

Details are getting hazy with time now, but I recall RKK nicking a bunch of the most active players in Ushra'Khan. This was at a point where the Amarrian opposition was at a real low in terms of active numbers, and getting a decent fight was starting to take effort. The temporary fix had been to tackle local pirates, but pirates mostly aren't in the unprofitable business of having stand-up fights and entertainment there was limited. When old friends in RKK started whispering sweet nothings in people's ears and promising almost guaranteed perpetual combat, a number of people succumbed to that temptation. And once one or two active people in your corp jump ship, it's really tempting to join them. For a while, it seemed a bit grim if I'm honest, and I'm sure I wasn't alone in considering jumping ship too. It's the sort of thing that can quite easily lead to a failure cascade.