About GoldToken Clubs

Clubs are groups of like-minded players who join together to talk, share common beliefs, debate, or play games and challenge other clubs in competitions. GoldToken's special style of clubs, with their private chat groups and close camaraderie are unique to GoldToken alone. You just can't find any other turn based game site with the advanced club capabilities that are featured here.

Joining Clubs

In order to start a club, you must have purchased a Gold Membership.

To join a club that has already been formed, you only need to have a Silver Membership.

Don't miss out! If you are a Wood or Guest member, you can find out more about our Membership Options and then purchase a Silver, Gold or Platinum Membership to join one of GoldToken's clubs.

How to join a club:

1. If you wish to join a club that you do not already belong to, write the club's owner or presidents
2. If a club is set to Open Invite, skip step 3, and move down to step 4, and click the yes link
3. When you receive an invite to a club, open the message and click the clubs link
4. Once on the club front page, look for this message just under the right hand section titled Invitations:
   • You have been invited to become a member of this club. Do you want to join?
   • Yes - No
5. Click the Yes link to join, click No to decline
6. If you clicked yes, you are now a member of that club

Club Features

By joining a club, you join a group of players all centered around a certain type of game or group theme. Included in the club privileges are:

• Private Club Discussion Boards
  
  
• Private Club News
  
  
• Private Club Polls
  
  
• Private Club wikis
  
  
• Personalized Club invites
  
  
• Open Club game invites
  
  
• Club seating charts
  
  
• Club Challenge games
  
  
• Club Ladder games
  
  
• Club vs Club tournaments
  
  
• Club Rankings vs other clubs
  
  
• Inter-Club Ladders
  
• Locking wikis - For Platinum club presidents
  

Using these features, the group can bond together and plan strategies with the discussion board, form consensus with the polls, and be alerted to events and happenings with the club news.

The seating chart allows club members to see how well their game skills compare to others within the club, and the club challenge feature allows them to quickly start games with other club members, while other club members are provided a quick link to view the game. The Club vs Club Tournaments are invites to a challenge that are sent from one club to another.

Club Options

Like all new sites, the club might take a little to figure out, but hopefully you will find it fairly straight forward. Here is a brief description of what each of the abilities manage:

Just under the Club Boards, you will see a Club Options box. These are your management tools.

Club Options
Membership	Allows you to manage the members
Read the Club's News Archive	The place to review old news items
See Club Polls	The place to review old polls
Administer Discussion Boards	Allows you to add/delete/edit the clubs forums
Change Club settings	Select games offered, edit club name, change club logo, etc.
Set Club profile	Edit the club information that players see when looking at the club

Club & Federation Logos

• The maximum size for a club logo is 600x200.
• GoldToken's federations also have a second image box, titled Federation Picture. The maximum size for this second image is 600x600
• Uploads for all images are limited to 2 MB. However, the effective maximum would be a bit lower due to protocol overhead.

Please note: The format for these images must be either JPG, GIF or PGN. If the image is larger than the dimensions noted above, it will be automatically shrunk. If you are doing an animated image, be sure not to exceed these dimensions, as the shrinking also causes the animation to be lost (only the first frame is retained).

Club Officer Abilities

• Owner (sign players up on team rosters within the club, or remove the player from those rosters by checking or clearing the boxes beside each game name, able to close the club or transfer it to another owner, promote officers, edit the club settings, profile and boards, and all the abilities below.)

• President (everything the owner can do except close the club or transfer ownership)
• Vice Pres (all functions below)
• Referee privilege (reorder club seating)
• Newshound privilege (write Club news)
• Whip privilege (moderate Club boards)
• Pollster privilege (create Club polls)
• Welcomer privilege (invites Club members)

Discussion Boards

To Add a Discussion Board

1. On the Club Home page scroll down on the right hand side and click on Administer Discussion Board.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Create a new board.
3. Name the Board and give it a description.
4. Click on Create Board.

NOTE: *Keep in mind that posts will expire after 6 months if they have not already been pushed off the board. If there is a post or information you would like to save a wiki is a better option.*

To Modify or Add A Sticky Note To A Discussion Board

1. On the Club Home page scroll down on the right hand side and click on Administer Discussion Board.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Modify a board.
3. Click on the board you want to modify.
4. Make the changes or add the sticky note (note: you can also check the box to make a board for Presidents only, or turn it into an Anonymous board)
5. Click Modify Board.

To Delete A Discussion Board

1. On the Club Home page scroll down on the right hand side and click on Administer Discussion Board.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Delete a board.
3. Click on the board you want to delete.
4. Click Delete the board. Important: once you delete a board it can not be recovered.

Inviting New Members

You can check the box whether or not the club is open to all players or only to those invited on the Club Settings page.

You can also auto subscribe all your new members to one of the club DB's on the Club Settings page. That way you won't have to go back and re-instruct your new members how to subscribe to it later. To do so, go into your club settings, and down near the bottom of the page, and select one of the clubs DB's in the drop down box that follows Auto-subscribe new members to board.

• If Club Is Not Open Invite: Inviting New Members

1. On the clubhouse front page, click the Membership link in the red box on the right side of the page
2. Type in the player's name that you wish to invite into the club
3. Edit the Invitation text, if you wish to change the wording, being sure to leave the { Club#000 } link in the text
4. Preview if desired and click the invite button
5. You can also cancel invites on this same page

Editing Member Abilities

• To Edit Member Abilities

1. On the clubhouse front page, click the Membership link in the red box on the right side of the page.
2. Click on the player's name that you wish to promote, etc.
3. Click the link describing what you wish to do or check the boxes for the player to which games they want to play in for the club teams and ladders. Club promoting or removing abilities are as follows:

• promote to President (everything the club owner can do)
• promote to Vice Pres (all functions below)
• add Referee privilege (reorder club seating)
• add Newshound privilege (write Club news)
• add Whip privilege (moderate Club boards)
• add Pollster privilege (create Club polls)
• add Welcomer privilege (invites Club members)

You may also remove a player from your club on this page.

You may also add or remove a club member to the club ladder or team, by checking or unchecking the game boxes under that player's membership options on this page. *Please refer to the following section for details.

Player Teams

Players have three boxes to check. A club president can help a player by checking these boxes for the player too, when requested. This allows players to play in a club vs club tournament in one club, and club vs ladders in another. Here is how the check boxes work:

1.) Games so-n-so plays in said club - this is for all inside games within a club.
2.) Team so-n-so is in said club - this is for club vs club challenges and tournaments.
3.) Ladders so-n-so plays in said club - this is for club vs club ladders.

Club-vs-Club Challenges

To challenge a club, you will need a minimum of 5 players per team to get started. Once you decide the club you are going to challenge, go into your club doing the inviting. You will see a link on the right hand side of your club sheet titled "Challenge a Club". Just place the club's name you want to challenge and click the challenge button underneath it. It should then give you some choices, as to games, time limits, etc.

Once the challenge is created, you can see the current standings on your club page. It shows on the top like a chart. Unlike site tournament links, the inter-club challenge links will stop working after roughly two weeks have passed since the completion of the tournament.

Setting Up Club Teams & Ladders

Note: If you are unable to check a box, that means you are already at your ladder limit or already signed up to play that game on a team in another club, and thus ineligible to play it with another club.

Clubs offer three team types for each game selected for club members to join. The ladder team and the challenge team. The ladder team is for inner club games only, while the challenge team is for all inter club vs club matches. Players will see what teams they are on by looking in their membership section of the club. They are listed as follows:

Games I play for such & such club - Club Teams - Players who represent this club in Inter-Club Challenges and Inter-Club Ladders. You cannot join the same game team in multiple clubs.

Ladders I play for such & such club - Ladders - These are ladders played within a club, that can be joined by members of that club only, and played between individual members
Intra-ladders I play for such & such club - Played Games - These are "sub-clubs" of sorts - players who join this list can challenge each other to a game directly (without the other player being able to decline), and the list can be re-ordered using various criteria. Each player can join as many of these as desired.

Set up your teams in your club settings by checking the games that your club plays. Then scroll down near the bottom of your club settings to set up the details noted below:

Ladders - Inner club ladders

• Set Allow club ladders to Yes to turn on club ladders. Set it to No to disable club ladders. Please note: Disabling ladders will remove all players from them.
• To add or remove a player from the ladders, go into the clubs Members section, select the member, and check or uncheck their ladder box to each game you wish to add or remove them from.

Important Only after your inter-ladder teams have 5 players signed up, can your club then join the club vs club ladders. Go to your club admin tools on the clubhouse front page, and click Join Inter-Club Ladders to do so.

Challenges

At the top of your clubs Setting page, is a list of games currently offered on GoldToken, with checkboxes in front of each. Put a check in the box if you want your club to participate in that game, either as a team or in a ladder. Remove the check from the box if your club has decided not to participate in that game any longer. Then, scroll down to the bottom of the game list for the following options.

• Set the Allow club challenges box to Yes to allow players to challenge each other within the club. Set it to No to disable it.
  • This is a second type of ladder within the clubs. You can have the Allow inter-club challenges: set to yes, if you want players to be able to challenge each other, but anyone who has the box checked can be challenged. Be sure to set it to "no" if you do not want players to be able to challenge each other. But don't confuse this with auto club ladders that the database handles. Yes, they are a "form of ladder", but club members climb the "inter-club challenge ladder" by manually challenging another up the ladder. Inter club challenges are accepted automatically. The number of seats up is the number of players up the challenge ladder that a player can challenge another within the club.
  • The Challenge seat range is the number of seats up the list a player may challenge another player, if the challenge feature is set to "Yes". This is preset to 5, but you can easily change it to any single digit number.
• Check the Allow inter-club challenges box to allow club vs club challenges, or set it to No if you don't want club vs club matches or are having a problem with them.
  • Club officers are able to accept club challenges. It would be wise your officers are made aware of club policy regarding challenges prior to their accepting club matches.

Don't forget to save your settings by clicking the Update Club Settings button when finished!


Inter-Club Ladders - Club vs Club Ladders

These are similar to regular site wide ladders, but instead of individual players participating, club teams do, and instead of single games, an inter-club challenge is created for each match. The club that wins the challenge advances to the next rung.

Club presidents can sign up their club to inter-club ladders in the club settings, as long as the club teams have at least five members participating. The list of inter-club ladders can be accessed from the Tournaments page, just like the regular ladders. Here's how:

On the clubhouse front page, in the Club Options box, click the link titled Join Inter-Club Ladders, and select the games your club wishes to play in the club vs club ladders by checking the boxes. If your club does not have enough team members to join a ladder, you will see a message at the top of the page that says "The such and such team does not have enough members to participate in the inter-club ladder."

You can also follow up on your clubs position in the ladder by clicking the games you have checked in this list.

Question: How does the database handle when a player steps out of the clubs vs club ladder team: when it leaves the club short of team players?

Answer: Any existing games continue normally (the leaving player is not removed from them), but no new games will be started if the team no longer has enough players. The team will then simply stay on that rung until it gets the required number of players on it's team. Only then can the team be matched up against another team on the ladder again.

Regarding club ladders, inter-club ladders use club teams, therefore you can only be on the team of one club for any game variant. Note: Because the inner club ladders are for club members only, you don't need to be in the inner club ladder to play on the inter-club ladders, but do need to be on the club team.

To join a club team or ladder:

Note: If you are unable to check a box, that means you are already at your ladder limit or already signed up to play that game on a team in another club, and thus ineligible to play it with another club.

1. Click the clubs membership page
2. For club team challenges - any club member who checks the game boxes in the Games section will automatically be part of club matches
3. For standard ladder games - any club member who checks the game boxes in the Ladders section will automatically be part of these ladders

• For inter club ladder challenges - any club member who checks the game boxes in the Ladders section will automatically be part of these ladders

Club Tournaments

Want to have a tournament set up for your club? Then please send your message to GoldToken's Tournament Director, Jacob1987 with the following information:

1. Name of Tournament - What you want to call it.
2. Name of Club
3. Club Number
4. Games to be Played ( if you want multiple games please list them in order that they are listed on the new games page ) limit 25.
5. Date of Start
6. Time of challenge: 3 day, 1 week etc.
7. How many players total you want to allow to sign up

Setting Up Club Polls

Follow these steps to set up your club poll:

1. Click the Club Polls link in the clubs Admin Options box
2. Click the Create a new poll link
3. Type in your Poll Question and select which board if any you wish the poll to be placed
   • Note: If no board is selected, the poll will appear on the club entry page
4. Click Create New Poll and the poll base will be ready for your poll answers
5. Add as many potential answers as you wish
   • Note: You can delete any potential answer as well as the poll if you wish during this process
6. When the poll answers are all intact and you are ready to make the poll a permanent fixture in your club, click the Create New Poll link
7. To end the poll, create a new one, or go back to the active poll and click the Close This Poll button

Merging Two Clubs Together

1. First and foremost, save all wikis and any information you want to save out of the club being removed.

• NOTE: Wiki pages from the club being merged may not be saved in the transfer process.

• WARNING: Duplicate/identical named Wiki pages in both clubs will prevent/fail the transfer process. Delete any duplicate named wikis prior to making the transfer by emptying the contents in the wiki and saving it empty. After 1 week, the wiki will auto delete and you can then complete the transfer.

2. Go to the club you want to keep, and open the club settings.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the the Merge Club link.

• You will get this notice on the following page:

You have chosen to merge another of your clubs into this one. Please read this section carefully so that you are aware of exactly what this will do.

Upon selecting one of the club names listed below, that club will be merged into this club. The following things will happen during this merge:

• The club name will continue to be The test2 Club
• All club settings from this club will override any differing settings from the club to be merged
• All members of the merged club will become members of this club
• Members from both clubs will retain whatever privileges they currently have
• Discussion boards from both clubs will be merged into a single club
• If each club has a discussion board of the same name, neither board will be deleted, but it may be a bit confusing -- we recommend that you rename any duplicate boards before the merge process
• Wiki pages from the clubs being merged will not be saved

This process can be partly but not totally reversed. Specifically, if you change your mind later and split the merged clubs, you will find that the following items do not revert back to their former state:

• Members who were not previously in this club will remain in this club after a club split
• Only members who are signed up to play the game selected to be split will be in the newly split club
• The newly split club will not inherit any discussion boards from the merged club
• The newly split club will not have any Wiki pages defined

If you are sure you want to go ahead with the merge, please select one of the following clubs to merge into this one:

.....after the above line, you will be provided with a list of the club names that you own.

4. Once you have selected a club to merge with the one you are in, verify the action, and you will be directed to a page that the process was completed.

What happens to a club when the owner passes away or is missing in action?

Clubs are part of the rich history of GoldToken, and many of them have been around for a long time! If a club owner passes away, we prefer that it remain in the deceased player's ownership as a tribute to that player. If the player left the club in good care, other officers can continue to maintain a fully functioning club.

If the club does not have such a support system in place, please contact GoldToken Support for help. We will gladly promote a longstanding, trusted club member to, hopefully, continue the club in the spirit that the prior owner intended. What we do not want to happen is for the club to be disbanded, merged or drastically altered without careful consideration.

It would be a good idea for club owners to discuss a back-up plan with other players and/or officers in their clubs, just in case there's an emergency that takes the owner away from the site unexpectedly or they are removed from the club due to a temporary membership lapse.

If you are in a club that meets the above criteria and wish to take over ownership, please write to GoldToken Support. Be sure to include the name of the club, along with your reasons for taking over the club. We are deeply sorry if this seems overwhelmingly complicated, but in all fairness, we must keep the club owner's intentions in mind.

Club News Options

Gamesheet news for clubs is automatically enabled. To turn off your game sheet news for a club, click the clubs Membership page, and near the top of your Club Preferences, you may choose whether or not to have the club news displayed on your game sheet. If you have this option enabled in that club and wish to change it, click the "Hide this club's news from my game sheet" link. Alternatively, if you wish to turn it back on, click the "Display this club's news on my game sheet" link.

To post a club news item click the clubs Read the Club's News Archive link. There, you can read the old news items, or, click the Submit a News Story link near the top of the page to post a new news item. Add a new title in the upper text box provided, and your news item in the larger text box. Select the amount of time you wish the news to be displayed, and preview if desired. To set the news, click the Accept button, and your club news will be posted on your club members game sheets and on your clubs entry/welcome page.

Federations

Since the arrival of the first game federations that joined GoldToken as their official playing site, GoldToken now offers several unique features to help aid the special needs of federations, including:

• Unlimited club membership
• The ability of all federation members to link to images on the federations discussion boards using the { Image: url } code. This is useful when explaining game tactics etc.
• The ability to load a secondary federation image on their club profile.
• A direct link/listing on GoldToken Affiliates page, found at the bottom of all GoldToken pages.
• A direct pipeline to for game improvements, suggestions etc.
• All new members who purchase a first time membership can get a free upgrade in membership level by adding your federation letters
• You can have someone create a logo/name icon (25x25 pixels in GIF format) for your federation, that we will happily make available for your federation members to wear alongside their GoldToken account name.

Important note: Should you ever step down as club owner, be sure to leave the club with someone who will remain Platinum, so the club doesn't close. Federation clubs must be held by a Platinum member.

A game federation represents a specific game, is often made up of several clubs, is governed by bylaws and generally, the acting president has been voted in.

Ownership of a GoldToken Federation Club is limited to Platinum members and real game federations/associations only, (sorry, you can't just make one up). The federation club owner must be a leader in the game federation/association they represent and they may only transfer the club to another leader of the same federation.

If you are a game federation, and would like to upgrade your club to "Federation" status and join the list of current game federations that play on GoldToken, please send GoldToken Support a copy of your federations bylaws.

GoldToken's Club & Federation AdoptaGuest Program

Interested clubs may adopt one GoldToken newbie every 6 months. In turn, the club helps the newbie learn the ropes of site navigation and hopefully gains a long term and devoted club member.

For each newbie that renews while in the club (a Silver membership or above), the club will given one free membership upgrade for one player or one free months extension (to use however the club determines) and another credit to adopt another newbie to take the first newbies place. We don't expect this to interest all clubs, but those interested in growth might find this a fun and unique way to build upon their membership and club activity.

• Terms:
  • Adopted = given a one time 6 month silver membership
  • Newbie = someone entirely new to GoldToken
  • Once a player has been on GoldToken for six months, they are no longer considered a newbie.
  • To be adopted by a club, the newbie must actively play on GoldToken for 30 days or more and not be a family or household member of any officer in the club
    • this helps ensure the player is truly new and not a multiple account attempting to take advantage of the system

To adopt a newbie, the clubs owner must first obtain the newbies permission, and submit their request to GoldToken Support. Said newbie will have 1 week to join the club and must remain a club member for the duration of their membership or forfeit the membership. It is the club owner/presidents responsibility to notify should the newbie leave the club prior to the membership expiration.



To assist clubs in finding newbies that will fit their club environment, club owners can ask for the "new players" tool on the Club Presidents DB to peruse the new players list.

The "new players" tool: Once assigned, this tool will appear as a list of names either in the center of your game sheet, or on the right side depending on how you have your game sheet set up. This is the list of GoldToken's most recent sign ups. Like all websites, we get a certain number of people that sign up but then never return - some of which are "bots", a malicious program that is coded to act like a person or robot and signs up in hopes it can then attack the website. In the list of names, you will notice that some are highlighted and some are not. Names in the list are highlighted when the player returns to verify their email address...without that, they are unable to play or do much of anything except look around (which protects GoldToken against "bots"). If the name is not highlighted, the player either hasn't returned after signing up, or at least has not verified their email address yet. This should help you decide which players to start discussions about your club with.

As life will have it, there are players that will attempt to take advantage of GoldToken's generosity and pretend to be a newbie. We don't want this to stop us from offering this program to anyone, and so give this small heads up: Should the newbie turn out to be a return player, they will be subject to losing their gift membership without notice. Please do not ask why such a membership was removed, as we are unable to go into details due to GoldToken's Privacy Policy. If you suddenly lose such a player, you will be more than welcome to adopt another in their place.

---

If you have a special testimony about your experience in GoldToken clubs that you would like to add here, please send it to GoldToken Support.