Just thought I'd post a bit of something having to do with a post I was looking at today on WoW Insider, "Drama Mamas: Should guilds mandate courtesy?"
Dear Drama Mamas,
I am a guild leader of a large social guild, with a large group of officers.
At officer meetings there are a small group of people who continue to bring up the subject of guild members not saying hello when people log on or grats when an achievement is made, they feel as if they are being ignored and are not welcome, although I have had no complaints from other guild members. This subject has been discussed many times and the main conclusion that the majority of us agree upon is leading by example, as we can not force guild members to say hello or grats. But the same people continue to gripe about this one subject which sometimes leads to aggressive discussions on the officers forums. I understand that they feel strongly about it and have attempted to address the problem many times and tried various things to appease them to no avail.
How can I diffuse the situation without resorting to doing something drastic like demoting them, which may cause serious ramifications for the guild (i.e. people guild quitting, aggressive discussions overflowing into guild chat and accusations of abuse of power).
Sincerely
Perplexed
I've seen this sort of thing come up before when I was a member of Tamarack Order on Earthen Ring. its come up a number of times in the guild that people aren't bothering to say hi and so on this makes it hard for newer members to feel welcome.
I'm a bit of a social awkward person and I know there been a number of times where I've been in a guild, the one I've mentioned and otherwise where I sometimes felt like I was just there but not, but there where also people who made me feel welcome and who I enjoyed talking to. It can be pretty lonely though when you log in and there is nothing, you go about your daily routine, not a peep from anyone.
Not to say that like anyone I occasionally don't always notice what has been said in guild chat or miss a whisper that is no longer on my screen when I get back from getting something to eat or whatever.
If its your goal to make your guild a close nit group of people that aren't broken up into even smaller groups then I can see the point in trying to get everyone to acknowledge others, but I don't think this is something you can insist upon so much as suggest and lead by example. I use to try harder to be one of the lead by example people but I think somewhere along the lines I haven't' been so much.
Course right now I don't really know what i want out of the game so much other then to PvP with a friend of mine horde side now that I transferred to my mage.
Its important though in the long term for a guild to last without having people leaving that they feel wanted and as if they guild is there home. I think with Tamarack Order its one of the reasons I most miss being a member of that guild.
I didn't become all that close to many people in the guild, but those members that would take time to acknowledge me would make me want to be there, even if I thought about going to another guild cause I might be further along raid wise I stuck it out with them cause I didn't know where I would be as much a member of the guild.
No matter what you do though there will always be cliques, specially if your guild that has a pretty much core raid team that is hardly comprised of anyone outside that team. If your not on the team, you don't feel as valued.
The best thing to do is to encourage people to work together, ask people you haven't grouped with yet to run heroics with you, do PvP, randomly ask someone who's not max level yet if they need help with any quests etc. All ways to help people feel more welcome, and more importantly be there cause you want to be.
Just saying hi and congratulating people on achievements is fine, though some achievements I just tend to think to myself, yeah thanks...it wasn't anything special, but whatever. It is not really going to do much about fixing the larger condition of self interest.
