Lately, there seems to be some confusion about who is and who isn’t a member of the HMA. This is an important question because as a NPSI (Not Purple Shoot It) mining/ganking community we regularly attack or otherwise hinder those outside of our organization. Not to get to Zen about it, but you become a member of the HMA by being a member of the HMA. Allow me to elaborate.
We have always put the needs of our members above everyone else. In the most literal sense, this means that we don’t attack our fleet-mates. In the beginning that was all that was necessary as I personally oversaw all of our fleets, directing both our mining and ganking operations. However, as our organization grew it was felt that we needed some way of recognizing each other outside of our fleets. Initially, membership was just a matter of asking for it and and agreeing to become blue with all of the other members. Although simple, this method proved inadequate for a variety of reasons. First, this was a manual process that required constant maintenance. Second, this was communicated via a channel which has limited space. Most important, as people came and went it left us with a long list of corporations who we we couldn’t shoot but that never participated.
To help mitigate this issue as well as help fund our various initiatives, we then tried implementing dues for membership. For 100 Million ISK per Month or 1 Billion ISK per Year, corporations could gain the existing benefit of mutual blues as well as our new Ship Replacement Program and access to our developing structure network. It was also my hope that we could use the income to pay for dedicated security pilots and to compensate our bosmangs. Of course, this went down like the proverbial lead balloon. While I still consider this to be a fair and reasonable fee for the services provided, it was too radical a departure from our previous membership practice and likely felt like the extortion practiced by other ganking groups. However, we still needed a way to ensure that everyone who claimed the protection offered by the HMA contributed to the HMA.
Today’s HMA has come full circle. If you want to be a part of the organization, you need to be in a fleet. There are no alternatives. If a fleet exists, be in it. Even if it’s next door or not mining what you want or there aren’t boosts, be in it. If a fleet doesn’t exist, make one. Even if it’s just you, make one. As long as you follow the standards set in our Rules and Regulations you are an authorized HMA Fleet. To be clear being in our channel does not make you a part of the HMA. Being in our Discord does not make you part of the HMA. Donating a structure to our structure network does not make you part of the HMA. Donating ISK does not make you a part of the HMA. The only thing that makes you part of the HMA is being in fleet.
