-Snip-
Okay, where do I begin...
With the two major guides you've written, you've made two terrible terrible mistakes. One, you can't teach people to build. Two, you can't teach people to make clans. Let's start with the latter first.
Clans aren't something that are comprised of good formatting. It's not a matter of following directions to a t, and it's definitely not a matter of having a good name (although that helps)
What clans are about is having a business model. While you're not actually making money, you need to have a plan for what's fresh about you. What's your standpoints. Members, size, clan structure, type of clan, clan builds, leaders, people. You can't teach someone to do that; they have to have a knack for it.
Secondly, let's go through my clan. I basically followed your formula (although, this was before you came back, I think) I had a decent name. Good banner. Good layout. I had lined up a few members prior to the clan starting and I took some time with it, both in the conceptual stages and the actual beginnings.
And let me just say, it was almost completely shot down at the very beginning.
You see, I was entering a playing field where everything was more or less stacked against me. USSR and MotE were sinking fast, and RotB was gone, so some of the grandeur of the clan section was out the window. There were so many building clans, and a lot of them were doing it better than me.
At first, I wasn't doing so hot. But I had one thing going for me, and I think this immediately set me ahead when it came to people joining, and that was something I've never seen in the same words as mine.
I eliminated the brick count, and most conservative requirements for being accepted.
Instead of the run-of-the-mill 2,000 bricks, I simply said 'Write a paragraph about yourself and why you want to join. Then make an app of any size. If it impresses me or shows potential, you're in.'
So there, I almost had my business model before I started to think about what I wanted to do with the clan.
So later on down the road, I realized to be a successful clan, I need to open up to the larger majority of people that still play Blockland; people with ID's over 6,000. I realized that in doing this, I was going to get more members, and some of them good people with great personalities and decent builders. You don't get anywhere with being snobbily exclusive, but at the other end of the spectrum, you don't get anywhere accepting people that app with the demo.
So I had my plan down, and Falcondude hosted several week clan builds. These were excellent in the life of the clan. Ten people at a time could come hang out with us, see our work, hang out with the WBS community and have a good time. We picked up so many members during those times that I need Ky's (falcondude) help to get them all down on our members list.
That doesn't mean that I won't have to purge them for inactivity later, but it gave people a clan to call home, a clan that was fun, made good builds, and was worth being in.
I'm going to bold this because it's the point I'm trying to convey in that wall of text.
You can't teach people to do that.It's like most things that require talent like art or music or what have you. You can teach people the technical skills required, but you can't teach them to do it well or have a gift.
Okay, now onto building.
The same thing goes for here. You can't teach people to build good, and it's despicable that you teach them to be generic in a new way. Before we've had box houses, now if your egotistical manner is validated, we're going to have Limpfittz houses.
Is that really what you want to do?
You're not teaching people to build good. Building good implies the possibility of you developing your own style (see my style development thread). Again, with your building strategy thread, what you're really doing is just teaching people to build elements of your builds, and not develop their own.
Which kind of sickens me.
And worst of all, you seem to be doing it all with your name on it, in hopes people will like you more.
