Good afternoon.

To start off, I apologize for how most of the upkeep in this thread has been handled. Some points went ignored, some we couldn't find a common ground to end up on.
I haven't been nearly the best at dealing with everything going on in this thread and decided to wait until I had something substantial to say before responding.


Nevertheless, I've scoured the thread since the post announcing the first official check and I'm now going to respond to the major points being brought up:

• "Official was seen as something you get and then keep because checks were lenient"
  
  I understand that some people may have settled into the worry-free clan life because, as said, clan checks used to be very lenient and seldom happened.
  While this can explain why you would be upset, it does not excuse the general non-activity seen in clans today.
  I've previously said that passing our checks is not hard. This is still what I believe, but after a while I realized I was making a mistake thinking it was just the player's fault.
  This was mostly brought on, in our minds, by previous clan staff who accommodated inactivity due to lenient activity checks.
  Becoming used to that lifestyle and then being expected to be active in, well, almost any shape and form can be harder than we imagined.
  I realize I made a mistake in my thinking and I do sincerely apologize. I'd like to move on to the next point to talk about a related issue, and possibly a way to amend the situation.
  
  
  
• "We are being blackmailed to play the game without any rewards"
  
  At first, I found this comment ridiculous and stood my ground on the opinion that no matter what rewards exist or not, a reasonable standard for checks should be in place.
  This was the opinion that also made us launch the checks. After a good while of thinking about it and trying to see it from your eyes as best as I can, I realized the mistake.
  A reward scheme was in the works about a month after the checks were first announced, but we didn't prioritize it as much in that time.
  As said, we deemed the regulation of the checks as more important than the rewards.
  We still believe that this regulation has long since been needed, but I see now that it definitely should have been preceeded by, or gone hand in hand with the reward scheme.
  
  To progress from that, we have officially launched our Perk Shop project. I won't get into the nitty-gritty of it here, but there is a thread covering all the important info here: "Clan Perk Points and Shop"
  For questions, please use the thread and we'll answer everything to the best of our abilities. We want this project to be heavily influenced by the community, so we are open to hearing about any and all suggestions you have for the shop itself or additional perks.
  I recognize that this should have come sooner, and I apologize. I can only hope that we can use it now to make sure activity is both kept at a standard and properly rewarded.
  
  
• "Clan discords should be counted towards activity"
  
  This one is also somewhat tricky. As mentioned, IRC checks used to be a thing, but were also dropped before my time as lead. With IRC, the argument could be made that there is still somewhat of an association with Toribash.
  But Discord is entirely removed from the community. It does not sit on any sort of toribash server, it's not officially recognized as a Toribash platform.
  Not only that, but monitoring activity is somewhat of a pest. For one, measuring activity with an outside bot is not exactly the most reliable system. Clan ranks in discords are random, some people don't even have a set clan rank.
  Having a bot that's in the hands of someone else in your discord server might be an unappealing idea for some. And it would most likely be very easy to manipulate.
  
  All inn all, it boils down to the fact that discord is too removed from the community for us to spend nearly as many resources on trying to count it towards activity as it might require.
  
  
• "SP clans are getting the short end of the stick"
  
  This is a troublesome one. On one hand, it's true. If a clan's entire activity comes from SP, there's virtually no way to accurately see that.
  I was pointed out this point before the first check ran and the best way I could measure SP activity is by seeing if clan members have been posting replays.
  Unfortunately, that is basically the best we have at this point in time. On the other hand, SP clans are also a very fringe case, as not a lot of activity in general is coming from singleplayer.
  In any case, if your clan's activity does mostly come from singleplayer, please make sure you are posting replays to the Replays board so I can take that into account.

As far as I can see, these have been the biggest points of contention with this change. I am truly sorry that I didn't take the time to respond to your concerns sooner and that I handled this poorly.
I hope my answers to your worries are sufficient, but I'm ready to hear anything you have to say. I'll do my best to learn from this situation and to better my approach in the future.