RECRUITS! READ THIS!

[Neit]

I think the problem here is a bit deeper than this particular policy. By the time most of the people in the guild even know that a policy is even being discussed it's being handed down like the unchangeable word of god (satan, allah, whatever floats your boat). I think you need to get the membership more involved in the process.

Some of the clubs I belong to have regular club-wide meetings to discuss and vote on things (and used to vote on new members at these meetings). Other clubs have regular officer-only meetings and no club wide meetings at all. The ones where everyone is invited seem to have almost no complaining about what the leadership is doing, while the other clubs are constantly complaining about the way things are done.

“If you think you're leading and no one is following you, then you're only taking a walk.”

[Lunariel]

People want the authority to weigh in on decisions when they have none of the responsibility to fix them when things go wrong. While the officers spend time discussing these things for hours then coming up with a potential solution the membership seems to lay in wait to complain without giving it a try.

I refuse to add to the over head of getting policies in place by setting them out for the guild to review each time. Two things will happen.

First, we will take months to do something that a smaller group entrusted with leadership can get done in a quarter of the time.

Second, the ideas will become homoginized to ensure that EVERYONE is equally displaesed with our new inneffective policies.

I truly believe that the majority of the guild really has no idea what is best for this guild. They comment on policies or complain about decisions without giving half of the thought to it that we have. If you truly want to participate in ethe stablishment of policies instead of sniping ideas, please speak with Kinjite and let him know that you are interested in being an officer (I suspect there may be a postition opening soon). Until then, until we decide to change the policy, or until I am removed from this position, this is the policy.

P.S. Allowing the masses to lead is EXACTLY what caused us to flounder in TBC raiding.


"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

[Malachor]

Neit

I think the problem here is a bit deeper than this particular policy. By the time most of the people in the guild even know that a policy is even being discussed it's being handed down like the unchangeable word of god (satan, allah, whatever floats your boat). I think you need to get the membership more involved in the process.

Some of the clubs I belong to have regular club-wide meetings to discuss and vote on things (and used to vote on new members at these meetings). Other clubs have regular officer-only meetings and no club wide meetings at all. The ones where everyone is invited seem to have almost no complaining about what the leadership is doing, while the other clubs are constantly complaining about the way things are done.

“If you think you're leading and no one is following you, then you're only taking a walk.”

So what you're saying is get rid of the officers (or reduce them to glorified secretaries) and let the guild vote on everything?

Based on the response any rule or attempt to give the guild standards gets from everyone you're certainly not alone in this thought Neit. It pretty much sums up why I decided to step down as an officer.

Very few in OoC want to follow any direction but their own and everyone seems ok with having 100 different directions. And there's nothing wrong with that if that's what the guild wants (which I believe it is based on the guild's actions and response to any form of direction or rules) you just don't need officers in place for that and why I took my leave of trying to add direction where none was wanted.

And your last quote was why I stopped leading raids. I wanted to lead OoC to "glory" kills in p25. Taking down tough fights like Vashj, Kael, Illidan, etc. were my goal. When it became clear the majority of the guild preferred easier "fun" bosses over working on a challenge I realized I couldn't effectively lead the raid if I'm going in a different direction.

And don't get me wrong, I don't bring this up because I'm passing judgement on OoC wanting to just be a guild that lets everyone just do it's own thing and everyone is welcome as long as their not a complete nuisance. There's nothing wrong with that. But let the officers know that direction isn't wanted because it's frustrating to work as hard as the officers do to give the guild the structure they think it wants/needs only to have every move questioned and picked apart.

[Davidson]

Can't we all just have some pie with whipped cream?!?!

[FionaPendragon]

Having done the guild leader thing before [yes it was a while ago, yes it was a different game, but arguably it was a more difficult game to keep people interested and engaged ;)] I would like to suggest one thing:

Do not openly tell members that they cannot speak out against a new policy.

If we cannot talk to each other we'll run into bigger problems than those posed by introverted new comers ;)

p.s. ooc rocks.

[Neit]

I didn't propose taking the authority or decision making ability away from officers or giving any sort of authority to the guild as a whole (other than the voting on members comment on the side). Just don't do things in secret and then act surprised when someone doesn't agree with the decisions made from an intentionally narrowed point of view.

The extra time overhead is only as much as you allow it to be. Scheduling a 1 hour guild meeting is no different than scheduling a 1 hour officer meeting.

Also, while I'm sure the first couple would be heavily attended, if you do these sort of meeting regularly you'll quickly find that only the people who really care show up and their showing up will be enough to educate them about the decisions that need to be made. The club meeting I went to last night had about 20 people there even though there are over 100 members, and we even bought dinner for everyone to encourage attendance. The majority of those 20 people are the same ones that go to all the meetings. While we do vote on things as a club it's very rare to have more than one person who disagrees with a motion on the floor once a bit of discussion has been had. Once the vote has been made it's over and everyone (even the guy who lost) is happy to move on. If someone who wasn't there wants to bitch about what we did then a simple "well, you should have come to the meeting" shuts them up pretty quick.


“If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.”

[shadyone]

I certainly agree that the willing few should lead the guild, as luna has mentioned it takes too long to get things done if everyone votes on everything.

At the same time, use these forums to communicate how you feel. Having guild leadership and raid leading experience myself, the biggest problem we had in Vanquish was people not expressing their feelings or not getting on the boards to read guild policies. Here is one little thing I'd like to see in Order of Chaos that we did in Vanq:

A guild "state of the union" address if you will. As the guild leadership, this web posting served several functions, to explain guild policy that may be confusing, to let the guild members know how we feel the guild as a whole was doing, and to explain the current short term guild vision.

Communication. This is the key. When the GM and the rest of us officers came up with policy and decisions, we would generally release a new "state of the guild" address explaining changes. Sometimes these changes were simply "we are changing the dkp system from zero-sum to a bidding system" and that was the end of it. (DKP was always a sensitive issue) Other changes we got the guild membership involved, such as what guild tabbard we should use and present the guild with 4 choices, choosing the one with the most votes.

With that said, Vanquish was a PVE oriented guild. Our focus was to do new pve content and to encourage and motivate players to prepare for that. I did alot of work in that guild researching strats, posting information for different classes, leading raids, writing up long state of the guild addresses, and spent hours upon hours dealing with players in tells. This one hunter in particular, Hellhorn, was a great player but he had a conspiracy theory about damn near every player in the guild and I had to hear about in tells :P And of course I got flooded with tells about why so and so got to come to the raid but so and so did not, so I'm no stranger to all of that heh.

My point to the guild members: The officers are very busy, they spend tons of time in tells, trying to plan raids/events, and generally trying to keep most of us happy. Lets be appreciative of what they do for us. Sometimes they must make decisions on our behalf without our input.

My point to the leadership: Communicate with the guild more. Take two hours to draft a monthly/bimonthly state of the guild address (one of the officers or recruit someone with the time to do it into an officer position). Mention where we are, recent achievements, the good, the bad, and where we want to go in the near future. Give members goals, and recognize members who accomplish these goals, you would be surprised how far (from my experience) the small occassional pat on the back can go towards motivating people.

I know people are scared of what happened in BC, the whole raiding game falling apart and people doing things in smaller groups. What I do want to do is thank Malachor and the rest of the leadership for putting together the 25 man SSC/TK's, the guild felt "right" to me at that particular point in time.

[Malachor]

Neit

“If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.”

I'm not sure if you're just trying to come across as clever ending all of your posts with quotes but that one is misguided.

If you think any of the officers are on a power trip or are being anything but selfless with their time they put in then you are misinformed.

I can personally attest to how much time and thought these guys put in to all these decisions and how much effort they put in behind the scenes on the guild and how much they care about OoC and it's members.

To imply that the officers think of OoC members as subordinates and act as tyrants is just bad. I hope that wasn't your intent and you just picked a bad quote.

[Neit]

Malachor

I'm not sure if you're just trying to come across as clever ending all of your posts with quotes but that one is misguided.

If you think any of the officers are on a power trip or are being anything but selfless with their time they put in then you are misinformed.

I can personally attest to how much time and thought these guys put in to all these decisions and how much effort they put in behind the scenes on the guild and how much they care about OoC and it's members.

To imply that the officers think of OoC members as subordinates and act as tyrants is just bad. I hope that wasn't your intent and you just picked a bad quote.

While it's not all the time and I don't think anyone is doing something "evil" on purpose, in this case I'll skip the implying and outright say it. Read the second definition for both of these words:

subordinates - definition of subordinates by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
tyrant - definition of tyrant by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.


If someone or some group is unilaterally making rules and expecting everyone else to follow those rules when they consider the rules to be harsh then I think these words are entirely appropriate.

[Zymun]

Did somebody forget that OoC stands for Order of Chaos? What's with all this wanting to get organized crap? :)

OK, nothing to see here, move along...

[RageKage]

I know we're speaking or writing in english here, but I think there's something lost in the translation.

So far, no one replying to this thread is affected by this decision. Does that make the opinions less important, no, but lets keep this in perspective.

What is the issue, what is the concern? Are we concerned that this task is difficult, are we honestly arguing that it's hard to play this game in a guild, in our guild? Is it seriously being suggested that playing with the guild is cruel and harsh?

These are people asking US to be part of OUR guild, shouldn't we have some kind of say in the matter? I use we as 'the guild' by the way.

Now for a reality check. When it comes to why or who are we to make such decisions, we're the officers - appointed by those who at some point lead this guild. Appointed, because most of us didn't ask to be officers - in my time as GM, never did I receive a request for someone to be made an officer. This position, especially with this guild, carries a heavy burden and a lot of dedication, even if it doesn't always seem so. It's thankless, but we do it anyway.

Every decision or post made by the officers has been discussed and debated to great length, to the point that nothing happens because the decision never escapes the officer forum.

Are we Tyrants? I'm truely sorry some may feel that way, but there's always a way out from under our tyranical thumbs.

[RageKage]

Reading more posts, I understand that there's confusion that this is some sort of heavy handed decision that was shockingly dropped onto everyone without prior notice.

I'm sorry to inform you, but this was communicated just under a month ago in which none of the above issues were mentioned nor raised.

Guild Recruitment from 10/16/8 onward

In this post you will find the following text,

Provisional members wishing to obtain guild member status will need to have no fewer than ten members and one officer recommendations for approval. Moreover, provisional members may not have more that five members or officers recommend declination of membership.

There was plenty of time to voice your concerns before, raising them now only at the time of implementation is too late.

I will now ask that if there any further comments to the contrary, you may direct them to a brick wall.

[Yordad]

I am pleased to see so much passionate discussion. This is a sign of a healthy guild. Its important that everyone really interested in the guild visit, read, and post on these forums regularly.

All members need to utilize this fantastic web site we have, to communicate and organize, and I am glad to see it so active again. It was a ghost town for several months, thank god for xpansions haha

Having been in the debates that gave birth to this much unliked and misunderstood policy/rule, I can assure everyone there was no ill intent on the part of the officers. It was our hope to put a process in place to control the guild's growth and type of growth. Like everything in life, there is a both a positive and negative side to every decision. The positive is its going to weed out undesirables before they become a semi permanent fixture (and we have all experienced some, unless you ARE ONE haha). The negative is that it will cause some inconvenience.

I myself have a dislike for change, especially change that dont seemed needed. Having read the above heated discussion, I want to encourage each of you, to let us officers know how this rule has affected YOU in a negative way. Post it here, or whisper us in the game. I don't mean tell us "I dont like it because its a rule.. etc", I mean let us specifically know how this rule has affected YOU. The officer's wont be bullied or coerced into making changes, but we do need to know how the changes we make are affecting the guild members as a whole. I think you all know I am not a Tyrant, and I don't believe the other officers or Kinjite are acting Tyrannical either. If any of you have a problem getting an invite or navigating the boards, or even a question about LIFE itself, there is usually one of us on the game, and we will be glad to help you, just send us a whisper.

Once again, I am glad to see so much activity and discussion. When you are in teh game, tell others to come here and read the announcements (at the very least) and get involved in discussions. Everyone take a deep breath, relax, have fun, play the game, and know that the game is going to get an XPANSION next week, and we will all be too busy to argue haha.

Remember, we are all friends here.

[FionaPendragon]

I understand the rule and the reasons for it, but I find it very overhead heavy - i.e. that it would be taking up a lot of officer and guild leader time to track and vouch and make sure everyone is in line.

I believe that the same purpose could be had by a less officer-time heavy method (perhaps what Stark was proposing above?).

There's such a thing a officer burnout and I think implementing the least officer-time dependent methods for implementing policies would help free them up a bit so that they can enjoy the game too.

[Davidson]

RageKage

Are we Tyrants?

I'm totally a tyrant with my raiding group o.O.

[Freaky]

question, yo!

does that apply to like family/real life friends??

the only problem i can see with this is if you have a friend or GF just starting the game they are gonna be in tiny toon land, so the opportunity of them mingling with most of the guild really isnt their until the level their toon.

i especially see this as a possible problem with the Xpac race about to be kicked off where normally everone will be concentrating on the new content no one wants to waste their time in tiny toon land.

i am only opening my pie hole because this will actually effect me =P
just curious, when my GF moves i am gonna try to get her in game.


PS. if it isn't poltics, religion or parenting then then save the drama for your momma!!!! everything then else is pie!!!
=P

[PurpleVixen]

Freaky

question, yo!

does that apply to like family/real life friends??

the only problem i can see with this is if you have a friend or GF just starting the game they are gonna be in tiny toon land, so the opportunity of them mingling with most of the guild really isnt their until the level their toon.

i especially see this as a possible problem with the Xpac race about to be kicked off where normally everone will be concentrating on the new content no one wants to waste their time in tiny toon land.

i am only opening my pie hole because this will actually effect me =P
just curious, when my GF moves i am gonna try to get her in game.


PS. if it isn't poltics, religion or parenting then then save the drama for your momma!!!! everything then else is pie!!!
=P

Then maybe your gf should just apply when she's not a tiny toon. :)

[Kinjite]

To address a few concerns/issues:

1) Lunariel is the recruitment officer/tyrant, barring him going homicidal/suicidal, in this realm he is king.

2) with 1) being stated, open discussion is healthy and encouraged. It gives the officers ideas that we can use in our meetings to possibly change policies.

3) Friends and family. To address Freaky's concern of a new GF, etc. getting the 10 recommendations. I suggest that the sponsor get it done for them. I know my wife probably doesn't know 10 people specifically in game, though maybe she does. But I could get 10 people to vouch for her on my word. Freaky, I'm sure you could do the same with a new GF putting YOUR reputation on the line if she turns out to be a bad apple.

4) We have repercussions in discussion for members who invite bad apples, more to come (nothing horrible, just a slap for lack of judgement).

As has been stated before, expressing your opinions is fine, but in the end, the officers and I are here to make decisions in an attempt to keep OOC strong and forward moving. My estimate has about 6 recruits in line for membership. Members, try and say hello. Recruits, make sure YOU go out of your way to try and set yourself up as a potential asset to this guild. With a memebership of over 100, getting 10 +1 officer isn't onerous.

[Lunariel]

FionaPendragon

I understand the rule and the reasons for it, but I find it very overhead heavy - i.e. that it would be taking up a lot of officer and guild leader time to track and vouch and make sure everyone is in line.

I believe that the same purpose could be had by a less officer-time heavy method (perhaps what Stark was proposing above?).

There's such a thing a officer burnout and I think implementing the least officer-time dependent methods for implementing policies would help free them up a bit so that they can enjoy the game too.

The decisions that we've made came after much discussion. I understand that you were the GM in a different game and a different climate. While we still have the name Order of Chaos, the problems that exsist in this game or WoW are very different. I appreciate the advise and will certainly take it under advisement, but I don't think you fully appreciate the obstacles that we face today.

Honestly, there is far more going into this than needed. The policy is what it is right now. As I stated, I have an idea that I will bring up at the officer meeting. We will discuss it and see where it goes.

The funny thing is that this policy has been directed at members in recruit status. While it has generated heavy traffic from veterans, I doubt that a single recruit has read it ... THIS is exactly the type of problem we are talking about. While we are complaining about people having to find 10 sponsors, I am willing to bet that not one recruit has spoken with an officer about being a sponsor.

In the past year we have tried to recruit members to fill a role in the guild. They have been (for the most part) completely unreliable and of no value to the guild with the exception of the two to four people they group with on a regular basis. This is NOT the kind of member we want. I understand that this policy comes as a bit of culture shock to some of you. I am sorry for that.

Give this policy a chance. Understand that we are working on ways to make it better. What we will not do is adopt a policy that does not serve what we see as the best interests of the guild.

With that, I close out my participation in this discussion. I am not silencing you like a tyrant. I am just making you aware that this is my final post in this thread.

[RageKage]

Would a passive approach solve this, we thought it would - we tried it for TBC. People apply, and then we'd passively let people vote on their applications or post comments over the span of a month. The problem was it didn't last, even from the officer perspective. It was difficult to get those new members to participate in the guild and all everyone commented on was whether the recruit chose pie or if their shoe size was legit on the application form.

This approach clearly didn't work, we couldn't keep anybody and many we did keep never really integrated well and eventually left. Some of those recruites lasted and are now welcome members of the guild.

So we, the officers, sat down and discussed at great length what our goals for guild membership were, and this is what we came up with. Unfortunately it's being over analysed by a knee-jerk reaction to a policy that is common in many social clubs.

The question is, should any of you been part of that discussion - maybe, but I'm inclined to say no - we have hard enough time satisfying 6 officers and a GM. If the interest is to make our lives easier, involving the guild as a whole will not do that and it's not because we don't value everyones opinion. If you want to help, give a reason for our new recruits to use you as a reference.

[Bleedingduck]

Since i have played this game almost non stop every waking hour for the last year I thought I would chime in... err.. no what I mean is, sine i have been on 3 times in the last year..
Hell I say be even more gung ho.
Someone nominates a person, they get invited, they need a second and a third on the first night. If they can't come in and get 2 more people to say publicly "hey this guy seems cool, lets give him some more time" then they may be lacking the social skills needed to make up for the biligerence (and lack of spelling skills) brought to the table by Maijin, Dad, and Me (when Im here). Then however much time to get 7 more people to say hokay dokay you are currently giving. That'll weed out people like me real quick :P
I know when I log in my Girlfriend for the first time and get on chat log it will be real easy to find a coulple of people to say "hey she can't possibly be any worse" And I am not sure if there are even 10 people in the guild still who remember me...
so to me this is all just a bunch of made up drama and time wasted that could be better spent looking at dads porn collection.

[Ockham]

Kinjite

To address a few concerns/issues:
3) Friends and family. To address Freaky's concern of a new GF, etc. getting the 10 recommendations. I suggest that the sponsor get it done for them. I know my wife probably doesn't know 10 people specifically in game, though maybe she does. But I could get 10 people to vouch for her on my word. Freaky, I'm sure you could do the same with a new GF putting YOUR reputation on the line if she turns out to be a bad apple.

See this pretty much perfectly illustrates mine and Fi's point about most of this being nothing but extra overhead. What does it gain for you to tell 10 people to support someone they don't know on your word? Not much really, you're just decreasing the signal to noise ratio and wasting 10 people's time convincing them to echo you.

I think what's missing for those of us who are questioning you is context i.e. what are the ultimate goals of these changes?

Is it that you think we are full of riff-raff now and we need to trim down? (This is kind of what you've implied so far. I suspect there are deeper motives)

Do you not like the friends and family policy and this is all a roundabout way of killing it by slow cuts?

Do you think we are going to jump right into 25 man raiding in WotLK? Because a lot of the policies you are pushing seem way more applicable to guilds who expect to be hardcore raiding soon into the launch. If the past is any measure of the present, it will be at least 2-3 months before we are in position to do that. And in all honesty, that is if "Dav's elite group" doesn't just decide to keep pushing through 10 man content as long as they can since they won't have to stop after Karazhan this time. It could easily be summer of next year before we set foot inside a 25 man raid imo.

Without goals all I can assume from what you've told me is that you are doing nothing but making more work for yourselves and hastening the time when you burnout. You guys can continue to dismiss our concerns as kneejerk, fine, as you said you're in charge and it's your perogative. But all we're trying to do is help you, and by extension, the guild. (Protip: being patronizing and condescending to people who are only trying to help you is probably part of why people perceive you as tyrannical.)

[RageKage]

Ockham

(Protip: being patronizing and condescending to people who are only trying to help you is probably part of why people perceive you as tyrannical.)

Being made out as tyrants helps how? It's so easy to cast judgement isn't it, and if you notice - none of the officers have judged or labled any member in this thread.

Perhaps our burnout rate is not caused by what we do, but what the guild does or does not do in response.

Perhaps the original issue is so insignificant to debate over that now the only thing left is to claim we're tyrants and argue on those points as it is so easy to do so.