Changes to the Stormrage Guild system

[LavCat]

If the only requirement is registration, then my comments on the Thought Police tool, which would not be enacted anyway due to no one wishing to perform that role, are vacated and were perhaps vacuous to start with.  ;) 

I think you will agree that registration alone is a screening method that lacks sufficient filtering beyond Nystuls "hula hoop" model.  :)

Here is how I see a transaction taking place, correct me anyone at all if I am wrong.

1.  Lurker has friend, family, person on Friends list who is a legit and upright playing.

2.  Discussing Guildness in game, conversation comes up 'hey, check out the Lounge, nice folks there, good place to continue with the WoW obsession."

If person chooses to register. 

3.  Undecided as yet further vetting process, if any.

4.  Guild eligible on the Server in question.

If person chooses not to register

5.  No further vetting, if there is any agreed, takes place?

6.  Not eligible?

Person can still Lurk, being technicallly "a Lurker" even though not registered, and will be excluded from the Lurker Guild on that server until such time as they feel like registering.  No posting required.

Registering is not rectal surgery, for sure.

Warm relations with good folk and a good rep preferred for any Guild member, but

There is no escaping risk.

As I see it, registering does not aid risk based decision making for a host of reasons offered by a number of posters in this thread.  It does, in its defense as a step, indicate intent to participate in the general community, which I think Mongo Jerry prefers for site interests, and which may or may not be germane to Server Specific Guild administration matters.

It may also indicate, "Hey, if that is the hoop I have to jump through, OK, not all that hard to do."  Sort of a "check for a pulse" step.

*scratches head*
*finds small critter*
*slips into mouth when no one is looking*

Hmm, was that a nit I just ate?  :whistling:

Occhi
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Thank you, Occhi, for furthering the discussion. I will try to do the same. There is a difference in philosophy I see between your listed steps (which I think are repeating back what you thought I said) and what I, for one, am pleading for -- and what I thought we had: there is no process of vetting that I am suggesting! This is the antithesis of what I have been saying throughout this thread. There is no process of vetting before someone can post here, and there should be no process of vetting before someone joins the guild.

Quoting from the "About Us" section of the site: "If you came here looking for cheats, we have two words for you: get lost. This isn't the place for you. We promote fair gameplay and a healthy game environment for learning how to play games the way they are meant to be played."

I am anxious to welcome anyone and everyone until their words or actions prove to be incompatible with the above. I had originally wanted guild people to at least post here first, but that was not at all to pass judgment on the person or the post, just to get to know them.

No one can say that it had not been the policy for guild members to be registered on the lounge, because in the very recent past the guild message of the day admonished people to set their forum name as their public message, with dire penalties for non compliance.

The hula hoop model does not apply because registration is not used -- as I see it -- for vetting.

Registration serves a positive function because it encourages people to post and become part of the community. Registration also provides accountability. Would anyone suggest we allow someone, even a friend of a member, to post on the forums without registering?

I think the guild registration process should go something like the following:

[in lurkers chat...]
[noblehero]hi i'm earnestapplicant from the forum, could someone please invite me?
[valuedguildmember]sure!
/ginvite noblehero
[valuedguildmember]welcome!
[noblehero]thanks!


More than this cometh of evil.

If someone cheats or causes an unhealthy game environment, it is almost certainly against Blizzard's terms of service, as well as the policy of the lounge, and the offender is liable to be banned or warned from one or both.

Identity theft could always be a problem, I suppose. Would you believe in the last week or so we actually had someone ask to join the guild, claiming to be Bolty?

In a gray area, such as loot disputes, conflict should be handled interpersonally. The looting process is not foolproof, as threads here can attest. A party should agree on what loot rules to use. If a member of that party repeatedly goes against the group agreement it could reflect poorly on that person's guild.

What to do? Do you form a committee of guild officers to deal with this? I suggest rather that the person receiving the concern share it with the accused via PM (since the person will be registered and be lurking, if not posting). In most cases this will be the end of it. In the case of a truely bad apple or where the parties cannot be reconciled, take the matter to the forum. "Mistakes happen" but probably with not much more probability than tornadoes hit the server. If a person is banned they will not be in the guild because they will not be in the lounge. And if they are really, really banned, they can be banned by IP address, which cannot be said of random player names applying to the guild.

We do not need more guild government.

[Occhidiangela]

Identity theft could always be a problem, I suppose. Would you believe in the last week or so we actually had someone ask to join the guild, claiming to be Bolty?
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Just barely managed to avoid spraying the coffee on the CRT. Truth is stranger than fiction, ain't it.

The slim Libertarian streak in me agrees in principle with "we need less government" in the Stormrage Guild, in principle. As Tal, Mongo, and others have pointed out, the devil is in the details.

For all still reading this thread:

What is the state of play in terms of everyone's comfort zone? As my brain recalls the Guilding genesis, (guilding the Lounge Lily, so to speak) Mongo posted about release time the list of servers we might want to play on to meet each other and play, benefit from Guild features both PvP and PvE, so that our efforts would not be fragmented. Not everyone is on the same server, which is no problem. Where a Lurker Lounge Guild is, so is the Lounge and its rep.

While this discussion, for the moment, primarily concerns the Stormrage Lurker Population, there may be good ideas on other servers available to consider.

Let's "hang in there, baby" and remember one of Bolty's guiding prniciples:

"Friends don't let friends cheat."

Hmmmm, not sure if WoW can be cheated, but I'd not want us to inadvertently cheat ourselves of new, good members for fear of now and again stumbling over a rotten apple. Mongo Jerry's guiding principles from his "vision" statements are germane in that regard.

Friends. (Or maybe a support group for obsessed game explorers.) That's what we are about. (Not that cockamamie TV show. :rolleyes: )

Occhi

[Tal]

If someone cheats or causes an unhealthy game environment, it is almost certainly against Blizzard's terms of service, as well as the policy of the lounge, and the offender is liable to be banned or warned from one or both.[right][snapback]64646[/snapback][/right]

Not necessarily. The incidents I have been contacted over did not break Blizzard's Terms of Service but would still have an adverse effect upon the reputation of the Guild. At any rate what you propose actually in my view moves us closer to Lurker Lounge being a guild site rather than away from Site first, guild second as Mongo desires. Guild business conducted on the forums? The site's policies taking precedence over guild? Does this mean I need to point someone to the ettiquette if they type "R u rdy to attack now?" in guild chat? Do the site's rules have any meaning in the context of a game like World Of Warcraft?

You seem to be operating under the assumption that we're inviting anyone and everyone to join the guild. Let me set your mind at ease on that score. We're not. The door is still open for Guildies to invite friends and family into the guild. I'm not looking to add more members to the guild but I also do not wish to shut the door on opportunities to bring good members into the fold.

Registering for an account on the forum is still a requirement of the Stormrage Lurker's Guild. This has not changed. This requirement is in place so that guild members understand that there is a central location for World Of Warcraft information. They are encouraged to participate in discussion. They are not, however, required to participate.

We do not need more guild government.
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Instead you would wish to push all of the responsibility for Guild member's behavior onto my shoulders and give me none of the tools to minimalize our possible exposure. In the eyes of other guilds in World of Warcraft I am the leader. If someone from another guild has an issue with the behavior of a Lurker it is I who get contacted. If someone who has posted on the lounge, gets invited into the guild and proceeds to act as a wanker it is our reputation as a guild that takes a hit and indirectly upon the Lurker Lounge. I am trying to minimalize this with the introduction of ranks while still trying to keep the guild as structure-less as possible.

[Mirajj]

In keeping with the theme of people running away screaming, I will echo one of Pete's sentiments and suggest that if we get into too much bickering and head banging on Guild issues, we risk doing just that: inducing folks to run away screaming.

This is the point that I'm rapidly reaching, as I read this thread. I'll admit that I don't have the game yet, and I'm not likely to for a couple more months. I was tossing around the idea of this finally being the guild that I join. I have never been in a guild before, though I've had several invites. But then I see bickering like this, and wonder what's the point? If I really want to find someone online, I don't need a guild to do it, I can find them myself. I'll grant that a guild makes that a little easier, but if this is the kind of hassle that needs to be dealt with, I'm sure that in the end it works out to be easier to just search them down myself. I've watched a friend play WoW a couple of times, and there seems to be a couple of good systems for finding other players of a like mind/level.

[Skandranon]

In the case of a truely bad apple or where the parties cannot be reconciled, take the matter to the forum. 
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Er...I feel I have to object to this. Conducting guild business on the forum is a bad idea. It links the site strongly to the guild, which we don't want to do. Also, disputes like these, and especially the most acrimonious ones, tend to get excessively dramariffic on discussion fora. We don't want screaming matches with people lining up on one side or the other along with associated flaming and comparisons to certain Austrian artists.

As an example, I might point out that this thread is already leaving a sour taste in some peoples' mouths, and yet I would rank the drama quotient in this thread as minimal or barely present. Bringing guild business here would inevitably result in a proliferation of threads hundreds of times worse than this. Dramatic events won't be as rare as you wish them to be, and even relatively tame events can puff up to overblown proportions.

I think firstly, we should protect the site, and that means that guild business and especially difficult and confrontational guild business should be kept off it.

[Catlyn]

This is the point that I'm rapidly reaching, as I read this thread. I'll admit that I don't have the game yet, and I'm not likely to for a couple more months. I was tossing around the idea of this finally being the guild that I join. I have never been in a guild before, though I've had several invites. But then I see bickering like this, and wonder what's the point? If I really want to find someone online, I don't need a guild to do it, I can find them myself. I'll grant that a guild makes that a little easier, but if this is the kind of hassle that needs to be dealt with, I'm sure that in the end it works out to be easier to just search them down myself. I've watched a friend play WoW a couple of times, and there seems to be a couple of good systems for finding other players of a like mind/level.
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The only bickering I've seen has been happening here... Haven't seen any happening in game.

Which is kinda making me wish I hadn't registered on the site, and just kept blissfully ignorant playing happily away with a bunch of guildies that I like.

[Guest]

I have to say Mongo and Ochhi are right one. As an uninterested observer(I play on a different server) Ill just say that they make a good point.

A guild of friends is more fun than a structure guild. If your going for server domination you need to make use of ranks, rewards etc. If you want to have fun playing with friends then titles just get in the way and lead to resentment.

[Treesh]

I have to say Mongo and Ochhi are right one. As an uninterested observer(I play on a different server) Ill just say that they make a good point.

A guild of friends is more fun than a structure guild. If your going for server domination  you need to make use of ranks, rewards etc. If you want to have fun playing with friends then titles just get in the way and lead to resentment.
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No one's trying to take over a server. There is no system of rewards in place, nor do I ever see Tal implementing them (he'd get beat down on that idea pretty darn quickly).

Once again, the ranks aren't "favors" nor are they rewards. Take this scenario (which isn't too far away from something that happened shortly after release to one poor guild). There is no officer rank, Tal's the only one with a rank of authority. We managed to end up with one bad apple in the guild. Said bad apple makes trouble wherever and whenever he can. People try to contact Tal so he can become aware of the troublemaker and deal with him appropriately. Oh wait, Tal is away from the computer for a week because he has a conference to attend in Florida. The people trying to contact Tal to do something about the apple get frustrated at the lack of communication from the guild leader and the bad apple is still causing trouble. The guild then gets blacklisted because most of the rest of the server ends up having the same lack of communication from someone "in authority" from the guild and assume the guild leader just doesn't care.

This is close to an incident that did actually happen shortly after release. I just wish I could remember the guild and the server. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it because it wasn't a server I played on. An entire guild got blacklisted because one moron caused trouble while the head of the guild was away and unable to take care of it. It's incidences like these that Tal is trying to avoid. It's not for power, or nepotism or anything else ridiculous like that. The ranks are there simply to ensure that the guild on the servers never reflects badly upon the site.

Edit: I hate being trolled, but I'm leaving this post here anyway.

[Treesh]

The only bickering I've seen has been happening here... Haven't seen any happening in game.

Which is kinda making me wish I hadn't registered on the site, and just kept blissfully ignorant playing happily away with a bunch of guildies that I like.
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I can completely understand this feeling. My apologies that I was ever involved in this thread and on that note, I think I'm going to exit it and just ignore all the other posts that will crop up here. Bleh.

[Occhidiangela]

The only bickering I've seen has been happening here... Haven't seen any happening in game.

Which is kinda making me wish I hadn't registered on the site, and just kept blissfully ignorant playing happily away with a bunch of guildies that I like.
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Catlyn: Growing pains, at worst. Hang in there, ye salty sea dog, all will be well, and with a shot of grog, even better!

People can agree to disagree. If you stick to reading the strat items and items of interest, I don't think you'll regret joining the site. Also, joining the site does not require posting. "Lurking" is a treasured activity.

There is no world I know of that does not involve disagreement. This conversation has remained, in the main, civil, as we wrap our arms in open discussion around something that was bound to come up in due course:

How to get the most out of the Guild feature in WoW without having to change our general, comfortable style of being Lurkers as a loose confederation of gaming associates and friends.

Because the word "guild" crops up due to its being a feature, and because of the realities of what a Guild is to many people who are not lurkers, and because some folks here have been heavy into guilds and some, like me, never been in game guilds, the opportunity to communicate on the topic is an asset, not a liability.

Fun is where you find it, hope to see you on Stormrage soon, as in, as soon as I can get a bit more time to WoW versus other things.

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

This is the point that I'm rapidly reaching, as I read this thread. I'll admit that I don't have the game yet, and I'm not likely to for a couple more months. I was tossing around the idea of this finally being the guild that I join. I have never been in a guild before, though I've had several invites. But then I see bickering like this, and wonder what's the point? If I really want to find someone online, I don't need a guild to do it, I can find them myself. I'll grant that a guild makes that a little easier, but if this is the kind of hassle that needs to be dealt with, I'm sure that in the end it works out to be easier to just search them down myself. I've watched a friend play WoW a couple of times, and there seems to be a couple of good systems for finding other players of a like mind/level.
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Awe, say you won't ditch us Lurkers! We value our bards, our story tellers . . . what say ye, olde friend? :)

Occhi

[Mirajj]

Awe, say you won't ditch us Lurkers!  We value our bards, our story tellers . . . what say ye, olde friend?  :)

Occhi
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I don't plan on abandoning the Lurkers by whole. I may end up joining the guilld with a Stormrage C anyhow. I also have plans to have a C on a couple of other servers, where other (irl) friends hang out.

Who knows. Playing again might even kick start my muse. She's been quiet for too long. From what I've seen, there are quite a few fun in game events that could make good stories.

[Zippyy]

Someone had asked about lurkers.  Zippyy responded:  "We are from the lurker lounge!"

To nit-pick, I probably capitalized Lurker as well as Lounge. I don't do this out of pretense, only out of respect for the LL, appreciation of proper nouns, and more than a little sexual attraction to the new design.

Also, after I said that, the person who had inquired said, "OMFG really?"

I said Yes, and the discussion went no further. I don't even know if he was talking to me.

[Zippyy]

Identity theft could always be a problem, I suppose. Would you believe in the last week or so we actually had someone ask to join the guild, claiming to be Bolty?

I do apologize for this incident, I assumed incorrectly that anyone notices that my name has two Y's, and thus would realize that "Boltyy" was not, in fact, Bolty.

I also assumed that it would be obvious that Bolty would never stoop to my absurd (in jest) behavior. Bolty would never yell on the Lurker channel: "[Boltyy] That is an imposter, I am the REAL Bolty!" instead of whispering Tal "This is Bolty. Could you get rid of that loser and let me in?"?

Lastly, it was a dumb stunt, and one I have pulled before on bnet in the (now perpetually empty?) Lurker/DSF channels. I should have realized that no one in the guild ever spent a great deal of time in those channels, at least not at the same time I did. (Psst, what happened to Joram, Tal0n, Skywing, Hocus, et al?)

I apologize, again, to anyone who is offended or confused by redundant y's.

Just barely managed to avoid spraying the coffee on the CRT.  Truth is stranger than fiction, ain't it.

I have been mentioned twice in this dramatic thread, and now am responsible for the near ruin of a highly respected member's monitor! I can't help but feel a little guilty.

[Tal]

I also assumed that it would be obvious that Bolty would never stoop to my absurd (in jest) behavior.  Bolty would never yell on the Lurker channel: "[Boltyy] That is an imposter, I am the REAL Bolty!" instead of whispering Tal "This is Bolty.  Could you get rid of that loser and let me in?"?
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I advocating having a dance-off to see which one of you would remain in the guild because as we know Bolty is a fine dancer but Roane talked me out of it. Instead I closed my eye and stabbed my mouse at the kick button. Glad to hear that I got the right imposter.

Slightly OT: Has anyone heard from Bolty lately? He doesn't show up on the Guild list....

;) :w00t:

P.S> No worries on it Zippyy and I do appreciate you being understanding through my ham-handed conversation with you. :)

[Roane]

I see Bolty on as Boltress fairly often.

And I didn't want to be traumatized by watching him dance again. I think everyone should be grateful for my... er... sound advice. Yeah, that's it. Sound advice.

[Zippyy]

Slightly OT: Has anyone heard from Bolty lately? He doesn't show up on the Guild list....
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Yep, he is on quite a bit. Mostly as Boltress. He hits me sometimes. :(

As for the dance-off... boo-yah. :)

By the light o' the moon

I have more dance shots than you can shake a disco ball at.

[edit: that shot would make a good sig + changed from image to link for 56ers]
[edit2: not sig, I mean avatar]

[apandapion]

I'm not in yet. I plan on going to college in this spring semester, and buying this game just before entering college would be an act of self-sabotage.

I think what you ultimately have to say, is that people need to come to the guild from the board, and anyone asking how they might join be directed to the board. It all began here, after all.

[Tal]

Yep, he is on quite a bit.  Mostly as Boltress.  He hits me sometimes. :(
[edit2: not sig, I mean avatar]
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That was my attempt at misguided humor...see I was trying to make the joke that I accidently booted the REAL Bolty. :)

[Roane]

That was my attempt at misguided humor...see I was trying to make the joke that I accidently booted the REAL Bolty. :)
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D'oh!