I have been asked, on behalf of my fellowship, to write on the forums an issue we had with our original fellowship. This fellowship has since been split up, since the leader cannot eject people, another member created a separate group and the faction that had been in agreement joined that group. I have not checked the leaderboard to see how the other group is fairing, if it still exists at all, or anything, nor do I care to.

Prior to the pre-release, those of us wanting to join a fellowship got together (at various times) in world and in our own private forum on our fellowship website, to discuss the "rules" (for lack of a better term) that would be in place for our fellowship. Petting was of significant importance to us and that was made very clear. Ideas were tossed around about who would pet whose or how we would make sure no one's Meeroos got neglected. We sent our landmarks to our leader who put them in a folder and sent them to everyone so we could bounce around from sim to sim and place to place to pet.

It became quickly obvious that people weren't leaving home to pet...and not all people, but some people. We had meetings and talks, it became all too much drama. It was also obvious when you would look at our fellowship who was actively petting ANYONE'S Meeroos and who was not. Our regard ranged from a high of almost 30k on one person to less than 1k on another. We had an agreement before pre-release about how much regard each member would get each week, which is so easily obtainable that even the threads on this forum that gripe about the petting regard "not being fair" to those who work, would have issue with this.

We decided that our fellowship would require active participants all the way around. Not crazy active where you can't even sleep for needing to pet, but active enough where you pet before and after work type of thing. And, if there is an issue, problem, vacation, etc, just speak up and let the rest know...no big deal, rl happens to us all.

But, there seemed to be a dividing line in our fellowship, on that was with this group and one that was that group. Group one was very active and group two wasn't. When the leader of our fellowship went to group two's unofficial leader and discussed that maybe they needed their own fellowship or be more active or what was the problem, the only thing they had to say was they didn't want to leave because they didn't want to lose the regard. No one loses their own regard, ever. Yes, you lose the fellowship's regard, but since you never really contributed to that number, its hard for anyone to take that seriously.

We set up a new fellowship under a different avatar a day ago. We have a dozen less people and more regard and a higher spot on the leaderboard than we did before we split off. We added a few more people after we created the new fellowship, people who wanted to join, but couldn't since we lacked spots, people who want to be active and pet, the way we all do.

I am sure not everyone will agree and not everyone's fellowship works the same way as ours does. People need to find out what they want and create that, but really make sure that everyone with you wants the same thing. Our group is really happy now, its smaller, but friendlier and striving for the same goals. We are all hard workers, who want to have high regard for ourselves, our Meeroos, and our Fellowship, and who like to socialize with each other...so we combine a couple of the types of fellowships out there.

We just want to have out there that you really need to be careful in just randomly inviting people, there is no eject button anymore. Make sure you get people you like or people who want what you want (ideally both.)