followers can already participate by helping with the propaganda section, any contribution (pointless or otherwise, even if its just to say "hi, i like <element>") will have them earmarked as a follower so its not necessary to make it official
While I agree in principle, I think making it official is the difference between someone looking, posting once and then not saying anything again or becoming involved/active in it. Rookie's could have just posted as propaganda but their involvement means you see a lot more posts and activity from them. While the follower idea obviously doesn't involve you as much as Rookie's, I still think the official acknowledgement is better.
Anyway, there is no cost in officially acknowledging someone as supporting your team.. so I think the benefits are still greater
I agree with fenix2011. This "follower" thing is similar to the "fan" thing I suggested earlier and I think it would perfect for War #3.
There is a big difference in having a handful of members to put their favorite team in their signature, or having big
organized fan pages with dozens of players supporting their team. The latter is clearly the way to go if we want more people to get involved.
What would be
really cool, would be if these followers/fans could somehow help their team during the event. The problem with that is of course that not all elements will have the same amount of followers/fans.
Why is the guess the winners locked before round one even declared?
Because once the event starts, you might get information that would give you an advantage.
This is not a unique situation. We did the same thing during War #1.