The difference is, that a Level 2/3 MtG Judge has a bit more work to do than a Warcor/PG. Dont you think there could be a way to continuing the warcor program if such thing happened? The thing is, I think its very important to support the LGS, because thats often the first adress for potential new players. And thats why Warcors/ExPG are so important for the game. In our LGS theres a wargaming evening every tuesday, there you can find me as a Warcor and my friends, all playing different games (WMH, X-Wing, Shadespire...). I always recommend trying out other games and as I said I still recommend WMH, I just disagree with the way PP acts. On our wargaming evening, some just come along for grabbing a beer and talk. Like meeting friends. Our LGS is one community with many different games beeing played and thats the reason I like beeing there and buy my stuff there instead of online with 20% discount. I hope that made more things clear.
Yeah @BigBadFox is pretty spot on. US employment law is based on the circumstances, when a MtG judge has to get permission from wizards of the coast to take a potty break, that falls pretty soundly on the employee side of the law. I don't think any PGs, or Warcors "work(ed)" in those sorts of conditions. For what it's worth, the fact that CB is a Spanish company doesn't mean they can ignore us employment law with Warcors in the US. CB just isn't being silly about their volunteer program unlike some other companies.
A couple of Magic judges filed a class action lawsuit claiming that judges were Wizards employees, not volunteers, and thus they were owed wages and benefits for all the unpaid labor they had performed over the years. There were some valid complaints about the conditions they faced at some major events buried in there (not enough bathroom/meal breaks, long shifts, etc) but their claims overshot and were eventually dismissed. But shortly after the suit was filed in 2015, Privateer shut down the Press Ganger program and several other companies made adjustments to their equivalent groups.
Thing is, Magic Judges actually were very different from most other companies "recruiter" volunteers. Magic Judges were actually told when and where to show up by WOTC and could not opt out. That's not a volunteer, that's an employee. I'd read the filings (I'm an HR major, and this was big stuff in the volunteering side), and I was honestly surprised that the claims were thrown out.
What do WarCors do? Wait three years for their app to be approved and still run their meta at the same time xD
Except that another way they were unlike employees is that, at least in my own experience of them worldwide, there is no professional standard to which they're held. I can name several very experienced judges at the highest level whose ability to defuse confrontational situations with a gentle word or two I very much admire. I can also think of judges who were frightened, controlling bullies who, if they felt brave enough, would ban players for imagined infractions; but who, if they didn't feel so brave, would overlook egregious cheating. Of course, refereeing any competitive event is hard work, but that doesn't mean you want to open it up to nerdy amateurs, testing only their knowledge of the game, and providing no measures, checks or balances on their personal ability to manage games - the very thing that a judge is required to do. I should say that my experience of several years in Japan was excellent, even when language differences between competitors and the judges made things difficult. I also count a few in the first category as friends I very much admire, but I've met far, far more in the last category, and on the whole, am no fan of the MTG Judging situation.
I played a game yesterday against a WarCor, dunno his forum handle. Anyway he wrecked me (into a draw, went into retreat before he could win haha) and I had a great experience, really fun game, really fair opponent with a lovely converted and painted Tunguska army. That's what WarCor's should be, and often are, doing, show the game at its best as sporting players, hobbyists and members of the community.
To be fair this is saying "some of them are shit at their jobs, and some are great." Absolutely! But if you're shit at your job, it's still a job. If WotC say you have to turn up at the doors at 8am, you'll be there till 6pm, you'll get a half hour lunch break etc, you need this tests to do it, and we'll pay you in mtg cards well, that's a job to me. WarCors don't do that. They run events, of their own desire, choosing etc. Incidentally I don't actually think the idea is to get people who aren't running events into a WarCor t-shirt and start them running intros and tournaments etc, I think it's a case of getting people who already do these things some recognition and brucey bonuses to show appreciation and encourage it.
Sure, I take your point and agree that it's a sort of job. I was trying to say that part of our expectations about people in professional work is that they're more or less held to some kind of professional standard. That's very much the case in say, the emergency services or reserve military personnel who are effectively volunteers; my post was to illustrate that this is probably not the case with DCI and their use of volunteers for DCI events. Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. My experience of DCI Judges is that the standard is wildly variable, from a couple who are truly excellent, through those (in Japan) doing a generally solid job, to the vast majority whose presence is actually worse than having no judge at all. The point again is that there is no professional standard for people who are, as you yourself say, effectively professionals. The relevance to our discussion is that WoTC are - in my opinion anyway, very poorly represented by their DCI Judges, and we presumably care that CB might hold their Warcors to some sort of standard that better represents the game and their company interests.
This is a side track but interesting point. One thing that was discussed last year by some MTG judges was that they should be paid a wage/salary. I know running an MTG even is functionally different to an infinity tournament but there are similarities. If it looks like work that you would get a paid employee to do you should probably be paying the person to do so. For gaming it’s going to be different. CB is not WoTC in terms of size of financial capabilities. I think for any gaming community though it’s making sure that your organisers feel adequately compensated for their time efforts. Currently it’s quite informal and the benefits of being a warcor by the sounds of it seem to be pretty slim. They’re doing it for the love of the game. I’m sure though there are warcors who have left because they’ve felt that the effort wasn’t worth it. It could be a reflection of the game state in local metas though I think it’s worth a thought as to the overarching value that CB might place on the warcor teams as well.
Our thread here was a response to CB's recently banning several Warcors, and we're discussing not only what Warcors are supposed to do, but also what they're not supposed to do. Myself and at least half a dozen other regular contributors seem unable to find out exactly what happened to cause that banning. That leaves us unable to judge whether or not it was a righteous ban or not. I find the whole affair disturbing, and if anyone can (perhaps privately) explain exactly what happened to fill in the gaps in Koni's official statement, I'd be very pleased to hear from you, thank you.
WarCors aren't supposed to release an unofficial FAQ and claim CBs backing on it when they don't have it, then release a video getting all pissy about it when CB asks them to stop, I think is what happened.
I put it to you and readers of this thread that their own posts entirely contradict the position you describe here. The above is not a fair or accurate reflection of their posts. You may not like their production, but by no means did their posts even begin to imply what you describe. I'm sure there are plenty of others here who (if the thread is now deleted and evidence can't be supplied) will remember they made it entirely clear that theirs was an unofficial production, independent of Corvus Belli; that (despite their invitations) relatively few Warcors took part in the discussions, and that even the working group were disagreed amongst themselves on various issues. That seemed entirely honest to me, so I remarked on it, and they responded confirming their position was (something to the effect of) "This is the best we could do for this version. People can take it or leave it; we hope it helps people play the game more easily". I would be very surprised if merely publishing the FAQ was the reason for the ban, but I'm sure that if players are arguing amongst themselves about the rules, it's because the company don't support their players better by properly managing their ruleset.
The FAQ was mislabelled from the beginning. It was called a "WarCor FAQ" and it wasn't a WarCor FAQ. It wasn't really CB affiliated at all, not that it was clear. The actual document was embarrassingly incorrect, which in of itself was not so bad, but the videos were ridiculous and the community that produced them have caused problems in the past with their very silly attitude towards the community. I dunno who remembers the campaign before last? There were issues with accusations getting thrown around in the Nomad Forum that caused people to get upset and leave for good reason. The people that did that then went on to be involved in this and in between have been responsible for some... questionable humour in terms of various posts on facebook or whatever. Which is not a big deal but these guys were not the best face of the Community all the time, and didn't shower themselves with glory post their "FAQ" coming out either. Look, I'm not against WarCors saying that they're going to put together a working FAQ document, although I think that CB should be doing that (and they are, now). I'm not against WarCors making documents that don't really have CB direct approval because they aren't employees, right? What I do think is silly is that these guys made the FAQ, mislabelled it, then when they got called out were crying out that everyone was "butthurt" about it (because apparently it's still 2009). And the people who made the FAQ and the video got removed from the WarCor program and... that's it? Not exactly a big deal for them, but kind of necessary for CB because it was all very embarrassing and the response was basically to double down! It was a big mess. I think everyone regrets that it happened.
The WotC judges role as an employee/volunteer is governed by US employment law. NOT the expectations of the parties. (Though expectations is one factor the court would look at). The US has a very long history of the powerful taking advantage of the less powerful. US employment law looks at a number of factors to decide whether someone is truely an employee or not. (Being forced to sign a volunteer/independent contractor agreement will not absolve the company if the person truely should be categorized as an employee). One factor that VERY strongly tilts the scale to employee is when the company sets hours and schedules for when someone works (and schedules breaks etc).
You can read the primary issue with the warcor FAQ in Koni's announcement. He says that CB initially supported it but it was supposed to undergo review by them before being published. Which obviously didn't happen as it was dropped Friday afternoon US time.
I took Koni's post to explain more of a wait and see what came out of hands off than actually involved like that myself.
