Should official factions have more power?

[Benjamin]

I voted 'yes'. For official factions representing NPC factions, they should 'be' that NPC faction. While stuff like denying docking rights would be cool in theory, I basically see it as impossible to not abuse. But policing their own indies (read: indie battleships who just sit around being no good to anyone) up to and including the extent of restricting ships (gunboats and above I suppose), being able to engage in lasting diplomacy with other factions whilst representing their entire (NPC) faction, stuff like that would be excellent.
As for official factions that don't represent NPC factions, or several factions representing one NPC faction, I get ambivalent. I guess for the ones with no real presence, it doesn't really matter either way. For latter, the Corsair Council of Elders thing seems pretty well-grounded, and that could be granted these powers. I have no idea what goes on in Outcast land, but those are the only two factions represented by more than one official faction to my knowledge. Could just grandfather those guys in and then not have more official factions for factions that already have official factions, I guess. While it fits to some extent for Corsairs and Outcasts, it doesn't really fit for anyone else (zoners too I guess, but they have a council or some such already?), and it definitely doesn't help the situation of giving them more power.

The other side of this benefit should be a lot closer 'monitoring' of official factions - if they are representing the entire NPC faction on the server, they should require the mandate of the whole community to do so. Criticisms shouldn't be brushed aside on account of 'we have done loads of RP for this for years!' or other such non-arguments, nor on the basis of the person criticising them being new, unpopular, or just kind of a moron.

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