Changes to the Stormrage Guild system

[Kevin]

Hi,
That is an even bigger can of worms.

Your proposal is that we allow someone in, and if he turns out to be the nicest person in the world, a great person to game with, someone passionately interested in all aspects of the game, but he does not become active in the Lounge, then we kick him out?  Did you think that one through?  Let's say we tried that.  Then we would be forcing a lot of people to pick between a friend and the Lounge.  Do we really want to do that?  Just by cracking that door open, we've already got bickering, whinning, and the formation of a clique.  Can you imagine the hell this place will be if we slam that door open?  I can, I've seen it happen and it drove me out of the only guild I'd ever even considered joining.

How about the person who is already an active member of the Lounge and gets into the guild.  Then because of nauseating bickering threads like this one decides that the Lounge is no longer worth the time and effectively drops out.  Should this person be kicked from the guild?

Remember, it is always easier to keep someone out in the first place than it is to force them to leave later.  In principle, both just take the dictum of one of the guild 'gods'.  In practice, kicking causes a lot more grief for all.

--Pete
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Well maybe that is my idealism and an attempt at a compromise as well. We want them with the site, but with my thoughts on the guild as an extension of the site if the hold the ideals of the site in the game and never post here, I don't think the decision would be to kick them. I don't believe you have to post at all to embody the spirit of the lounge. If you impart some of the knowledge you read here to someone you meet in the game, guild or not, you are being part of the Lounge. And yes I realize this does have the ability to push the guild in front of the site, but I don't believe that will be the case. As a case in point I have not met anyone in game that I have grouped with, with the exception of one Lurker who doesn't currently want to be in the guild, that I would consider inviting, and I assume it is the same with other members. But I do believe that you can be a great player and not be active here at all. So yes I thought it through, but maybe I didn't make it clear. By my definitions of a good Lurker, you can just Lurk. This is why I really don't think much of this is nearly as big a deal as it has been made out to be. This is why I said that things should be discussed and as they come up should probably be discussed more. This is why the "officers" really aren't that big of a deal. We are having this discussion, we will continue to have discussions like this one, though hopefully not all that often and hopefully not as painfully as this one has been.

As to the second part, that is a bigger worry, and Tal has already touched on it. There are people who have been at the lounge who many feel don't embody the lounge. In most case they were banned from the forums. We can ban them from the guild too. And if someone doesn't like a thread like this and it is enough to make them quit (and I can understand why I'm tired of all the drama already but I'm still participating, I know) the forums, enough for them to say in post "I'm done, I don't want to be at the forums anymore." Then yeah, I don't think it would be that big of a deal to remove them from the guild. Why? Because things that happen on the forum do and will get discussed in the game. I've see it happen. I've seen threads in the lounge refered to in game. I think that is a good things.

Yep, being exclusive is easier. I even said we should be exclusive, but in an open fashion. It isn't going to be trivial to be a site with a guild that isn't a guild site. But it isn't going to be as hard as reading this thread makes it look. We are a group of reasonable people. I put my trust in that. But I also know that crap goes wrong an I like to have things in place to help deal with it. If things didn't go wrong, we wouldn't need mods and admins on the forums. I frequent a board that doesn't have any mods that works wonderfully. It's the site I refere when I make my comments about the Lounge not being the best boards I've been too. But if that site gets any larger, it will require more than the board admin to deal with it. That is really all I'm getting at.

This whole thing isn't a big deal. It's lead to some enlightening discussions, it's pointed out some flaws in the process, and it may not be fully settled. But I don't think it is doom and gloom. I don't think any of the choices that are made out of all this can lead to doom and gloom or hell holes.