Possible Call to Action: NUTS!

[Sleepy Wonder]

Wait, Jericho causes peanut allergies? Mother of Pearl!

Seriously, though, how about coffee beans?  It fits with the "exhausted" theme that's running around on some other threads.

I love the coffee bean idea, I truly do. Unfortunately, my guess is they would be incredibly expensive in terms of price per lb, and probably not nearly as useful, unless it were coffee grounds. Then again coffee grounds don't stay fresh very long after the bean is ground. It's interesting though.. it would be interesting to include say, 1 bag of coffee with a note attached within every box of socks; "Have you really exhausted all options? Have some coffee, you're gonna need it!"

[Prexx]

I vote for the socks.  Aside from the mentioned regional/humanitarian significance, I think that it is more likely to gain media attention due to the seemingly random nature.

The heroes of Paragon SOCK it to NCSoft and all of their stock holders............I can see the headlines now.

This.  So very much this.  Never pass up an opportunity for a good pun.

[eabrace]

Just a thought here:  When we're talking about sending food items to someone, are we talking about sending them within the US, or are we talking about exporting them to S. Korea?  I'm pretty sure there are special regulations that apply when shipping foodstuffs internationally.  Or am I wrong about that?

But if we're only talking about sending things to NC West, that shouldn't be an issue.

[dwturducken]

I'm not as familiar with the Jericho thing as some, here.  Are we talking about some bulk mailing?  I may have missed a detail, somewhere, but I thought we were talking about something new to send. I figured an envelope with a coffee bean in it should be small and inexpensive to mail.

[Ironwolf]

Ok, can we get a list of the addresses for all of the NCSoft offices and Stockholders that are known?

I will buy some socks tomorrow.

[Sleepy Wonder]

In response to both your questions:

Good point eabrace, there probably might be. So it's better to stick with say, socks and other clothing. Primarily socks. If we send 2 tons of woman's underwear, I don't want to know what their faces would look like.

And we're talking about sending them to Korea, since at this point, its safe to assume they are the only real people who can change the course of this action, since from my understanding, NCSoft West and the now defunct Paragon Studios really has no say in the matter.

This is about IMPACT.

It needs to be real, and not a phone call or notification from NCSoft West to the "mothership" explaining the situation. It needs to be something that the people who can possibly give it more thought will see first hand. They will not be able to tell their drones to "deal with it", as they will have to deal with it themselves.

We're not being disruptive here either. As mentioned in my "Why it's time to go to war" thread, they brought this on themselves by either lying to us, or just plain failing to understand the role of a customer in a business relationship. Businesses who treat us the way they do not deserve light "sentences" here.

And to dwturducken, again, impact. 1 envelope with 1 bean in it will not be nearly as impressive as tons of boxes of stuff. Stuff that cost money that we are willing to pay for to be heard, and if it falls on deaf ears, they will also consider the nature in which we planned for it, by them at least being able to donate the items, which will in turn possibly garner national media attention in the US and Korea, but that is not our primary purpose.

And don't go buying socks just yet, we need to send them all at the same time in massive shipments. There will need to be waves of them, and after that, individual packages will suffice.

The fans of Jericho needed only $50,000 to change CBS's minds. That's a lot of money from a small group of people who watch a TV show to go out and buy stuff they see from the advertisers on the network. That's chump change compared to what we can raise.

So again, save your money. I will look into (unless anyone else wants to) finding a site where we can pledge money to see if we can come close to our goals. It only requires those that pledge, put aside that amount and not touch it until its time to commit.

[eabrace]

I don't want to know what their faces would look like.

I'd pay to see those expressions when they opened the packages. 

[frostcoh]

I saw something in here about sending Socks?  Perfect, it avoids the allergy thing, we can write "savecoh" right on the sock, and I have a lot of mismated socks, where the dryer or washer has eaten one but not the other, now instead of looking at this box, it has a purpose, I say we do this!

[Sleepy Wonder]

Okay, I setup an account at Pledgie.com, but they take 3% of donations, and from the looks of it, donations are taken immediately, which sort of defeats the purpose of a pledge, but in any case, it might be the way to go. I found a cheap wholesaler, and with a total of $100,000 (thats 6.5k people donating $15, which isn't a lot) we can probably drum up a million and a half pairs of socks, maybe more. Depends on shipping expenses to Korea and what combination the packages include..or some other combination of cold weather stuff. With the go ahead from a few more folks, I may start accepting donations.

Before we take any donations though I want to get ahold of the wholesaler to see if they can give us a special deal where they will personalize the packaging by letting all of you send in fliers and other misc. stuff before they seal the boxes for us.

So all anyone has to do is either donate, or donate and send items to the wholesaler and we can have them hold off shipment until a set date (when all of your includes, like fliers have arrived).

[Segev]

Kickstarter takes around 10% after both they and Amazon take their cut, but they don't take any money from anybody until the threshold is met. Downside: this likely won't qualify as a "project" by their rules, so it may not be valid to use them at all.

If you're concerned about the money changing hands before it's sure to be enough, we could have an unofficial pledge list managed by TonyV or another well-trusted voice in this community and gather the money ourselves when we have enough.

[Sleepy Wonder]

Kickstarter takes around 10% after both they and Amazon take their cut, but they don't take any money from anybody until the threshold is met. Downside: this likely won't qualify as a "project" by their rules, so it may not be valid to use them at all.

If you're concerned about the money changing hands before it's sure to be enough, we could have an unofficial pledge list managed by TonyV or another well-trusted voice in this community and gather the money ourselves when we have enough.

That would be good, and I am very concerned about it.. I don't want to hit say 80,000 and come up short. I want this to be all or nothing. It would be a nightmare sending all that money back to everyone. I checked kickstarter and they don't qualify this as a project unfortunately, which is a shame, because like you said, they let you pledge first and pay later once the goal is met.

Is there an easy way for him to calculate pledges? I kind of want the community to know about it, as many as possible, while keeping it on the down low for outsiders for the time being.

[Segev]

Other than PMing TonyV and asking him to look at this thread and see if he thinks he can orchestrate it better than "using pledgie," I can't think of a good way to find out.

I am not a well-known and trusted name around here, so I won't even TRY to orchestrate something where people are trusting me with their money. I may know I'd be as scrupulously honest as possible, but I cannot expect others to take my word for it. For all they know, I could be a Nigerian Prince trying to give them $10 million US. 

[Electric-Knight]

I saw the thread title and assumed you were recruiting me.

Haha, I'll keep my eye out for how this proceeds!

[Sleepy Wonder]

Well, that would require him setting up a seperate paypal account that I have access too which isn't linked to a bank account. Unless he can do it by himself, and I'll just set up the order and work with the wholesaler, then have Tony pay once the donations are done, if that could be arranged, so the trust issue is not something I'm worried about.

I PMed him earlier about a sticky but I don't think he's read it yet.

I have a very good feeling about this effort. 

[frostcoh]

Okay, I setup an account at Pledgie.com, but they take 3% of donations, and from the looks of it, donations are taken immediately, which sort of defeats the purpose of a pledge, but in any case, it might be the way to go. I found a cheap wholesaler, and with a total of $100,000 (thats 6.5k people donating $15, which isn't a lot) we can probably drum up a million and a half pairs of socks, maybe more. Depends on shipping expenses to Korea and what combination the packages include..or some other combination of cold weather stuff. With the go ahead from a few more folks, I may start accepting donations.

Before we take any donations though I want to get ahold of the wholesaler to see if they can give us a special deal where they will personalize the packaging by letting all of you send in fliers and other misc. stuff before they seal the boxes for us.

So all anyone has to do is either donate, or donate and send items to the wholesaler and we can have them hold off shipment until a set date (when all of your includes, like fliers have arrived).

So we're donating real clothes, I must have misread the above posts, awesome.  If this goes through this thread should be stickied with the specifics moved to the top post.

[Dr Shadow]

I like this idea.
I would recommend looking into legalities because I have no idea what the sanctions our government has or against who.

[Sleepy Wonder]

I like this idea.
I would recommend looking into legalities because I have no idea what the sanctions our government has or against who.

There's nothing illegal about shipping clothing to South Korea. They are an ally to the United States and we maintain a military presence there to thwart an invasion attempt by the North, and have done so ever since the end of the Korean War. If I've mentioned "Korea" I probably mean "South Korea".

[Ironwolf]

I think you need to include all of the listed share holders as well.

NCSoft so far has been the only one affected. Time for everyone that touched the company to hear from us.

[chasearcanum]

Just gotta say that I'm 100% behind this idea, though part of me has to wonder...

We've shipped Capes & Masks  to NCsoft.  Socks are useful and probably more media-friendly, but if we WERE continuing the trend... well... heroes are known for wearing their underwear on the outside, right?

 

[Atlantea]

Just gotta say that I'm 100% behind this idea, though part of me has to wonder...

We've shipped Capes & Masks  to NCsoft.  Socks are useful and probably more media-friendly, but if we WERE continuing the trend... well... heroes are known for wearing their underwear on the outside, right?

 

Part of me thinks that's BRILLIANT! 

But... er... on second thought... That might get snickers from the press we DON'T want aimed at US. Yes - WE get the joke. We can't assume the PRESS gets the joke. I mean that could be misconstrued as "potty humor" and play into stereotypes we don't need.

As George Carlin once said: "You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by definition half of them are dumber than THAT!"

Now mind you - if we just send something like long-johns, thermal underwear and stuff like that (NOT tighty whiteys, boxers or panties/bras etc.) it might go over better. I mean the idea here is to keep people warm in colder climates, yes?