My thoughts on what a corporation is

A corp is a collection of people working in a single organisation. First and foremost, a corp IS it's members... no members = no corp. A corp which allows some members to profit at the expense of others is not a corp, it's a swindle. Thus a corp must provide something for each and every member, from the CEO to the newest recruit. (On a more pragmatic note, members who feel that they get nothing from a corp will simply leave). It should be possible for a corp to do this, as a group of people working together are able to do more than those same people working individually. So we have the premise that group work achieves more than individual work, and this is what allows people in a corp to do better than those people separately. Thus a corp should concentrate on ways it's members can benefit by co-operating with each other. I can think of a number of ways in which this can happen:

1. By using force of numbers:
   A gang can fight much more effectively than an individual. One of the classical ways to consider the strength of fighting forces composed of similar members was to consider the squares of the numbers of members... an army having twice the number of men as it's enemy was considered to have four times the fighting force.

2. By permitting specialisation:
   eg. When going from ore to finished product, some of the group are better at mining, some at hauling, some at protecting them from rats and pirates, some at refining the mined ore and some at building the end product. The build required a blueprint that someone else may have bought and researched, or perhaps obtained from a mission agent or cosmos complex, or it could be a t2 blueprint that someone invented from a t1 original. To be good at all these activities would take many months or years of skill training, and even when you have the skills you can't be mining, protecting and hauling all at the same time.
3. By pooling resources to attain shared goals:
   ie. by all contributing time, minerals and isk to something that benefits all, such as a obtaining blueprints, a freighter to provide bulk haulage for people in the corp, or perhaps a carrier or POS to provide protection in low security space.
   It is important that any such goals are shared by the majority of a corp... the corp voting scheme should be used before launching any large project or change in a corp.

I do recognise that people also do things without requiring a reward - I do myself. However I think that it better not to rely on this.. it makes a more stable organisation. Besides, if I'm rewarded for what I did for free, I can afford to do more of it without bankrupting myself :-)

Schemes to implement for the corp.

1. Ore buying - drop cans
   The corp should be prepared to buy ore and all items from it's members at a reasonable price. I suggest that this should be about 75-80% of the current market price of the minerals refined from the items. This is reasonable as the refined price is usually higher than the unrefined price (for ores), and corp refiners will have a higher refine efficiency & lower taxes than most members. An unskilled refiner with low standing can lose over 20% of the minerals when refining. Because of this the member should get the same or a little more than the market price of the ore, and the corp also make a small profit.

   To facilitate this scheme, some corp offices will be designated buying points They should be: (a) near where members mine, (b) in stations with 50% efficiency reprocessing plants, and (c) in stations where some corp member with good refine skills has a high standing so as to avoid taxes. One corp hanger should be a drop hanger, and have a number of drop cans in it. These are station containers, some are personal containers, with corp members names on them, others are labelled "Drop 1", "Drop 2", etc. They should all be configured so that things can be dropped into them, but not removed by anyone without roles. Personal cans are for regular miners. Other drops are for individuals or gangs to use... pick one, drop stuff in it, and send a corp eve-mail saying who filled it. At intervals (at least weekly) a corp refiner will empty all the cans, refine the contents, work out the mineral prices and pay the depositors. (Needs a spreadsheet making to support this).

   The corp refiner(s) needs some reason to do this work... a salary from the corp and/or a small share of the minerals seems to be the obvious choice, though this should be probably be negotiated with each refiner.

   There can also be a "Corp donations" can in this area :-)

2. Manufacturing and sales
   The corp should aim to sell all items required by it's members at the around production cost + 5-10%. (Production cost being the market price of the minerals needed to make the item, plus manufacturing costs). This should be noticeably lower than the market cost of the item itself. The corp should try to accumulate BPOs for these items as it can afford them. Minerals from the ore buying / drop can scheme go into this manufacturing process.
   Members may build items for the corp using their own blueprints if a corp blueprint is not available. In this case the markup is split between the member and the corp... around 2.5-5% to each.
   When surplus minerals are available items may be sold outside the corp at reasonable market prices.
   There should also be some reward/salary for manufacturers.

3. Swap shop
   This is a way to help members to help each other. It is simply a corp hanger that all members have access to (though perhaps not while still on trial accounts). It's there to allow things to be exchanged between members. eg. go there to find guns for your new frigate - try a gun, keep it if you like it, exchange it for something else if you don't. If you have looted things you don't want, consider putting a few in the swap shop rather than in your drop can.

   It is expected that things are only taken from the swap shop to be used, not sold or recycled.

4. Blueprint research
   Any member may do blueprint research for the corp... the corp will provide the blueprint, and pay for the research plus an hourly research rate. A security deposit may be required at the research manager's discretion before the blueprint is made available.

5. Information
   Eve is a complex game - I'm still learning things and I've been playing for almost a year now. Having a place where I could ask questions has always been useful to me, as has information I've found on the net. I now know enough that I can answer some questions as well as just ask them - I think that there should be a corp policy of always trying to answer questions, no matter how simple they seem, or how many times you have heard them before.

   To make this easier I've started writing a few little guides - I'm sure many of you have seen the link to my introduction to mining. If you find yourself answering a few questions again and again, why not write a guide and let me put it on the web ? Then you could refer people to it, and save your typing finger!

6. Fun activities
   There are other activities we could do for fun or for training. One possibility in organised frigate contests... like a sports league, but fighting frigates. It's cheap... a million isk will buy several t1 fitted frigates, it's fun, and good training for pvp fitting and fighting.

Well - that's enough to start with. Thanks for reading this far! Please let me know what you think of these ideas -- Rogan.