But, again, that kind of thing is not forbidden. You can use OOG forums, IRC, IM, e-mail, etc., to discuss the game. The key point still remains that those who are not part of that cannot be excluded from opportunities to participate in the realm and the activities of the game in the realm. If all your military planning is done OOG via a private forum, or an IRC chat room, and people not in those venues are excluded from participating, then you are in violation of the social contract, whether you're a "clan" or not.
Hm, I was under the impression that you could plan OOC, but you
had to eventually bring all effective content IC?
That is, you're welcome to debate strategy on IRC or send messages IRC, but if you want your character to act in any way predicated on them, it must occur IC, IG. I believe this rule was developed in the context of torturing and spying: conversations via MSN that would happen IG would create lots of messages, thus upping the chance of a torture to reveal militarily sensitive info.
IMHO, it's almost never advisable to do any planning or discussion of IG actions OOG. Retroactive talking, like on this forum, is fine, but planning should be IG. But the rules on this aren't very clear.
Yet another good Magistrates case.
Regarding clans, I would think that positions would be the main issue. To the degree it can be demonstrated that they have an OOC clique that is not operating IGly and is making IC decisions OOG, it would be punishable, IMHO. Position apportionment would be the clearest place to observe this phenomenon; but then again many clans probably prefer more autocratic governments with less frequent position rotations.
