World of Warcraft™

Posting on an alt, just in case.

I'm an officer in a long standing raiding guild on my server. We used to be a server first guild, but we lost a lot of people to RL issues and some other games. We managed to keep the guild together and we're still doing okay, but this isn't my problem.

There has been many leadership changes in the guild. The leadership core is pretty much set now after a lot of flux. We have one officer that has been sort of grandfathered in as they have been a part of the leadership core since BC.

We have issues with this person. They never talk on vent, ever for some reason. They ask questions in game that have been answered on the forums multiple times. They fight the GM and myself on every single change we want to do. As an example we made a switch from one guild hosting site to another and for some reason to this "officer" this was not acceptable and fought us on it. We did it anyway and it's been a HUGE success.

We do nightly raid reviews on the forums, and they contribute the bare minimum to the threads, but they have a fair amount to say in Officer chat during the raid. Most of it is useless, but still.

I have a thread going on my forums currently about what the guild likes and doesn't like about our current leadership and direction of the guild. The one thing that has been pointed out in nearly every post is.. "This person doesn't talk or contribute anything, why are they an officer?" or "What exactly does this person do to warrant them being an officer?"

This person doesn't help with recruitment. I mean, not even a bump on our official guild recruitment forums thread. It's not like they have to go searching for it either. The link to the thread is posted in the public and officer forums. They give no meaningful contribution to the strat talks we have going on the forums, if they contribute at all. It's obvious they don't read the strats as on H-Yor'sahj we had the rogues on the boss full time and they thought it would be a good idea to tell the rogues that they need to do more damage on the oozes...

We recently had 3 new recruits that outshined some of our current raiders and we cut their initiate period short by a week. This officer fought us on this but we've said that our initiate period is 2-4 weeks and can be adjusted as we see fit.

This officer gets out DPS'ed consistently by a member of the same class with lesser gear in the same spec.

Come to think of it, the only thing this officer does is sell the BoE's that drop in raid, and fight the GM and myself about every single thing we want to do.

Seeing as it's an older (read 6+ years) member who has been a part of the leadership core for about 4 or 5 years, what do we do? What is the best way to handle this?

I know this is a little all over the place, and for that I apologize.

Thanks.

It sounds like it's time for the GL to sit down with this officer and have an honest chat with them. I would try to find out what is at the root of the problem. WHY are they unhappy with the changes? Are there any particular reasons they aren't helping with recruitment? Why did they not like the change in guild sites?

It could be something as simple as they're burned out but feel obligated to stay. It could be they feel they should be the GL simply because they've been there for so long. It is hard to say without actually talking with that person and trying to find out what is behind their actions (or inaction).

That's what I would start with though -- have a sit down discussion to try to open some communication. If there is anyone in the guild who is close to this person, you might try talking with them too but I'd be very cautious about that tactic. You probably don't want to risk the friend talking to the officer because that could just make matters work.

This kind of thing can be tricky but if you have people asking "why is X an officer, anyway" it is definitely past time to address the issue and try to resolve it.

Good luck!

This is a tough one because this person has been in the guild for so long. Things cannot keep going the way they are though, or there will one day be an issue, speaking from personal experience. I was once in a wonderful guild, but there was one girl who had been there since it's inception, and over the years been bumped up to a co-gm.

Well this person did even less than the guy in your predicament, and one day told all of the lower ranks "if you're not happy with how this place is run, then just leave." And about half the guild did, it took months for them to recover.

I'm not saying your officer will do that, but it's very good of you to look into ways to remedy this before it becomes a bigger issue than it needs to be.

Suggestions would be:

1) RULES: If you don't already have rules in place for raiding/officer expectations, I would see about making some. For example we have officer meeting twice a month, and one of our rules was not missing more than one every two months (1/4 meetings).

As well as for raiding we have set rules, and state that at any time if they're attendance is low or they're not performing the set amount of dps, it's up to the raid leader to decide if they can be replaced. So if he's holding people back with lower than expected dps, he'll know that he needs to try harder.

And most importantly under our general rules we have RESPECT. This also applies to not calling out raiders or belittling them. If he is not the raid leader he can feel free to whisper the raid leader and express his concerns about a person. Calling people out, especially if that person is on the lower end of the dps meters, can cause a rift in the guild that no one wants.

2) SET TASKS. Give each officer a set task that is theirs to do, be it fishing for feasts, farming for pots, cleaning the guild bank or recruiting. Make sure they know as an officer they have added responsibilities that come with the rank.

3) TALK TO HIM open and honestly. Tell him that you are concerned that although he has the rank of officer, he doesn't live up to the job. Ask him if he's really up for the responsibility, and if he isn't up for the added workload, tell him he might enjoy the rank of a normal raider or guildee (whichever your guild is set up to).

He might not be happy with any of this, no matter how professionally and fairly you handle it. Just stand strong and know that you gave him a chance to improve and accept the work that comes with that fancy title of officer.

Good luck!

Our GM has sat with this person and asked them to at the very least take a more active role on the forums.

Their response to taking a more active role on the forums? Posting in any thread that was just for lulz or not having to do with the day to day actions of the guild (Ex. Not giving any sort of well thought out response in the raid reviews or strat talks).

We asked this person why they thought moving guild hosting sites was a bad idea.. Their response "Well then we have to move all of the stuff over from our old forums." This was literally their only issue, but I had made a post in the officer forums stating that I had already copy/pasted all relevant stickies/information/guild rules over to the new site.

Our rationale for moving was the former sites annoying way of having to verify your character. We lost quite a few apps because of its inherent ability to fail. We would walk people through it on vent and there would still be problems. Rather than stagnate in an older environment, we also felt that moving to the new site might increase forum traffic. It has exponentially. All of the other officers agreed that moving (we previewed the site with them before making the final decision), was a great idea, except for this one officer.

They are a part of the "old guard" so to speak and seem very adverse to anything involving change. We're not the guild we were in BC, hell we're not even the guild we were in Wrath. There comes a time when you just have to move on and this person just doesn't want to.

The officer rules thing is a great idea. However we gave everyone their responsibilities. We gave one of our officers Raid Lead and he has embraced it with open arms and has gone above and beyond. We've asked all of the officers to help with recruitment. I'm really the only one that does so. I'm pretty much the "out of game/web admin" officer.

Our GM is getting married next month so she's been slacking a little bit, but I think that's acceptable. I even approached her about it and told her if she doesn't step up after the wedding, we're going to have a talk lol.

We've had an officer meeting where we addressed this officers inactivity other than selling BoE's and complaining and they need to step it up. Not much has changed though. It's a repeating cycle and when our guildies are questioning why this person is an officer, I think something needs to be done. Hence the reason I came here to ask advice from this community.

Thanks for the advice so far, it's been helpful :). I will definitely speak to the GM about the whole "officer rules" thing. I guess we were just hoping that by asking people to do specific things, they would embrace them, however only one of them has. I mean for a guild of our size (roughly 300+ accounts), and our small officer core (GM, 3 officers), it can be daunting, but we really only have 30 raiders which is a small segment that needs to be managed.

As an aside, we have some of the "old guard" that is still active and are what we call Advisors. They give their input (be it in game or on the forums and a lot of them have stopped playing but still want us to succeed), and they have been a wealth of knowledge for us. It just seems that I feel like we need the input of people outside of the guild for this issue.

This is a easily resolved issue, and I believe you're complicating it due to the in-game Founding Fathers' Syndrome.

There are many cases where players are often times elevated to Officers simply because they were one of the Founding Fathers or a veteran of the Guild. You must understand and ingrain it into your mind that not every Founding Father makes a good Officer.

Look at it from real life example, many of the Founding Fathers of America participated in the revolution, but they did not all became politicians or took roles in government.

Once you realize this, you ask yourself "Do I want this person to be an Officer because he has exceptional in-game/Guild-related skills? Or do I want him to be an Officer simply because he has been with the Guild the longest and this is his reward for it?"

If your answer is the latter, then you are settled and problem solved. Just leave it, treat him as a volunteer than an actual Officer.

If however, you wan ALL of your Officers to be skilled and meaningful, then it is time to demote him. I know what you are worried about, you're thinking that if he is no longer the Officer or gets demoted in anyway, he is going to Gquit on you or make a big fuss about it.

But the truth of the matter is, when a player has been with you for such a long time, he will stay with you no matter the RANK. And if he doesn't, its not as if you've been enjoying his interactions so far anyways.

It's been pointed out by my raiders that they literally have no idea what this person does as far as their officer position.

When I say no talking on vent I mean literally no talking on vent. No one, even the "founding fathers" have heard this person speak on vent, ever.

I spoke with the GM and we are going to set up some "officer rules", which I think is a great start. At least that way if this person doesn't live up to them or adhere to them, we have something to fall back on if we demote them.

I've even directed a thread at this person and asked them why it seems that they have little faith in the direction that we're taking the guild in, and our leadership. I got a long winded response that really didn't clear anything up, but the end result was.. "I do have faith in you guys", yet the bickering over the smallest of direction changes still happens.

I've had raiders ask me "What EXACTLY does this person do for us in their position?" and the only answer I've been able to come up with is.. argue with us when we want to change things and sell BoE's. The response I got was "A monkey can sell BoE'S."

A few of our raiders broke down each officer individually and what exactly they feel they contribute. I had one not so glowing review (only because said raider didn't understand exactly what it is that I do, and most of it is out of game), but every single raider that did a review of our officers, wondered what this person does and why they hold their position. One even went so far as to relate this person to Helen Keller because of the lack of communication... Any fight that requires some sort of communication from a specific person if something goes wrong.. ugh. I mean we had this person soaking on Ultraxion and when they died they said something in officer chat.. How does that help anyone? We're not paying attention to Ochat during a boss fight. This also creates the problem of having to communicate things AFTER they're being communicated to us, which in turn creates more problems.

We just feel like we're in between a rock and a hard place with this one. We have respect for this person because of their longevity, but they really aren't doing much at all for the guild as a whole currently.

It's frustrating to say the least.

02/19/2012 04:22 PMPosted by Lamontsanfrd

I've had raiders ask me "What EXACTLY does this person do for us in their position?" and the only answer I've been able to come up with is.. argue with us when we want to change things and sell BoE's. The response I got was "A monkey can sell BoE'S."

If you have raiders whom are questioning why a person is an officer, yep that's a big red flag.
Reading your posts twice, the fact that they are an officer is a problem but a secondary problem to the main issue. They are not giving positive input in to the guild/raiding process.

I would suggest you tell them that advice is good if it is researched. But that advice needs to be additional useful/helpful information. It can not be disagreement. All of the officers need to agree and support decisions that are made as priority one. It may not be the way they would do it, but they HAVE to learn to agree, otherwise it is just multiple people with different ideas running in their own preferred direction.

Settle that part first. If it works (and chances are it won't because most people don't change) but if it works, then you can give them more officer duties, such as handling loot in raid, etc. But first they need to do a full 180 degrees (tell them that) on the disagreement. Tell them if they can't you still value them in guild but that is priority one for being officer rank in the current guild.

Sounds like three issues to me. You have:

1. A bad raider who (a) doesn't talk on vent (b) underperforms (c) doesn't study fights and contradicts the RL's strats
2. A bad officer who does nothing helpful
3. An obstructionist and complainer

Forget that this person is a "Founding Father" or whatever, and ask how you'd deal with a guildy that displayed those three issues. I know a trial who had any one of the three raiding issues probably wouldn't make it to a second trial raid.

02/20/2012 07:59 AMPosted by Wrathbrow

I've had raiders ask me "What EXACTLY does this person do for us in their position?" and the only answer I've been able to come up with is.. argue with us when we want to change things and sell BoE's. The response I got was "A monkey can sell BoE'S."

If you have raiders whom are questioning why a person is an officer, yep that's a big red flag.
Reading your posts twice, the fact that they are an officer is a problem but a secondary problem to the main issue. They are not giving positive input in to the guild/raiding process.

I would suggest you tell them that advice is good if it is researched. But that advice needs to be additional useful/helpful information. It can not be disagreement. All of the officers need to agree and support decisions that are made as priority one. It may not be the way they would do it, but they HAVE to learn to agree, otherwise it is just multiple people with different ideas running in their own preferred direction.

Settle that part first. If it works (and chances are it won't because most people don't change) but if it works, then you can give them more officer duties, such as handling loot in raid, etc. But first they need to do a full 180 degrees (tell them that) on the disagreement. Tell them if they can't you still value them in guild but that is priority one for being officer rank in the current guild.

To address the not giving guild positive input to the guild raiding process, I might have worded that incorrectly. The issue here is that they give none. If they do give any, it's something that's been stated in the Raid Review thread for that night roughly 3 or 4 times before they even post.

The under performance isn't THAT bad, but this person should be doing better seeing as they've played their class as their main since Vanilla WoW. The lack of communication is the REAL issue.

As an example, we decided to get a ten man together for H-Baleroc just to get a better look at it for our 25 man. This person wasn't invited to the group for obvious reasons. When asked why, the response was "You need to communicate on vent for this fight." The response was "I can just make Raid Warning macros". When we told them that wasn't going to work because there's a lot going on and people aren't necessarily going to react to that, they got upset. It was the same thing when we were working on it in 25 man. The GM and I were discussing it.. What do you do? Not give this person ANY responsibility during the fight because they can't or don't communicate? That's not fair to the other raiders.

Delatt, you being up a very valid point. I have PM'ed the GM a link to this thread and they're watching it. Any more advice anyone can give us on this subject will be greatly helpful and highly appreciated.

By the way, I must say, out of all of the forums, this is arguably the most knowledgeable and relaxing place to post in lol.

Forget that this person is a "Founding Father" or whatever, and ask how you'd deal with a guildy that displayed those three issues. I know a trial who had any one of the three raiding issues probably wouldn't make it to a second trial raid.

I agree.

Sounds like three issues to me. You have:

1. A bad raider who (a) doesn't talk on vent (b) underperforms (c) doesn't study fights and contradicts the RL's strats
2. A bad officer who does nothing helpful
3. An obstructionist and complainer

Did you try having a meeting, on vent and be clear about expressing the goal, of the guild? By talking about the guilds focus, it is like saying "here is the bar", and not attacking them. I would leave out any discussion about them, until a latter time when you can revisit it.

Come back later to it, with "are you with us, a 100%, or not?".

The conversation on vent wasn't an attack at all. Neither was the thread I made directed at this person. The thread was more of me trying to figure out why there was so much disagreement between this person and the current leadership. The vent conversation was telling them that they really needed to be an officer, not someone who just sells the BoE's that drop in raid. I use the term vent conversation lightly as all responses from this person were typed in Ochat..

We literally have the same goals as the old guard. To be a server first guild again, complete tiers in a timely fashion, and do so in a competitive yet friendly environment.

Yes, we've changed things.

We've moved the site to a far better hosting service.

If a recruit has impressed us (example being a new recruit outperforming current raiders) we cut their initiate period short. Which, IMO is a great change as it keeps current raiders on their toes and rewards initiates for being awesome.

We've cut down on being "fun police" if the "fun" isn't affecting our concentration.

This person says that they're with us 100%, but their actions don't back up their words.

So.. we're having an officer meeting tonight. I'll report back with what happens. All of your input has been invaluable. If anything else has anything to add, please feel free. We need all of the help we can get with this.

I have a rank that can view officer chat that doesn't have all the "bells and whistles" than an officer does. This rank is primarily for those who have been in the guild a long time, but who are just not officer material yet, and for former officers who have stepped down or been moved down for various reasons. In rare cases like yours (and I've had them) I explain to the officer what I expect to change over the next 2 weeks. If those things don't change, I move them to that honorary rank, explaining again that I need to keep strong leaders in the officer rank that can be counted on in the event I'm gone for a bit. If things do change, I review with them every 2-3 weeks after that, encouraging the positive changes and making sure things don't slip back. Some people (including me) sometimes lose their passion for the guild. They need to decide how important being in that leadership role is.

Having been in this situation before where I have had officers who haven't contributed, and officers who have irritated and caused guild members to complain to me, I can tell you that demoting officers back to regular members usually ends in disaster.

I'll give you an example. One of my officers basically stopped contributing to the tasks typically performed by the officer team. At the same time he started to alienate himself from the guild members by rubbing them the wrong way and by having an extremely poor attitude.

In the end I made the decision to demote this officer back to regular member. I did not want to remove him from the guild because he was an extremely good player and losing him would definitely affect our progression (recruiting in our guild is not easy due to our raid times).

Unfortunately once he was demoted to member, his attitude got worse and he went out of his way to be divisive, argumentative, and downright disrespectful to many players in the guild.

After putting up with him for 2-3 months after his demotion back to member, eventually my officers said enough is enough, this guy needs to go. Even though I did not want to remove him due to the guild needing him for progression, I took my officers advice and asked him to leave.

The way I demoted the officer back to member could've been handled better, and if you decide to do this in your guild, here is how I'd handle it.

Prior to your guild meeting, create a list of tasks that need to be done by the officer team. Group these tasks based on similarity and work required. These tasks may include (depending on what you provide for your raiders) some or all of the following:

* Clean up of guild bank tabs, selling of excess BoEs/Patterns/Essence of Destruction, purchase/restocking of raw herbs/ore/food/volatiles (so other officers can restock as per below)
* Restocking of flasks - use an Elixir spec'd Alchemist
* Restocking of potions - Tol'vir, Golemblood, Volcanic, Mythical Health/Mana, Concentration, Deathblood Venom - use a Potion spec'd Alchemist
* Restocking of food - Seafood Magnifique and/or Fortune Cookie or other food depending on availability/cost - note Fortune Cookies from raw herbs requires Inscription
* Disenchanting of greens and blues, restocking of typically used enchants on to vellum for raiders
* Restocking of typically used cut gems for raiders
* Restocking of Ebonsteel Belt Buckles for raiders

Priority one at your officer meeting is to divy up these tasks. If the officer doesn't put their hand up for any tasks, then there is your immediate reason for demotion. The officer might not be happy about being demoted, but he'll have to accept it because he had the opportunity to contribute and has refused. Note to be fair you may have to demote other officers as well if they refuse to take on tasks.

If however your officer does put his hand up for additioanl tasks, then you need to ensure that those tasks are performed religiously. Failure to perform agreed upon tasks effectively means that you then need to re-evaluate that officer position and delegate his tasks elsewhere.

Priority two at your officer meeting is to discuss expected tasks required from all officers. Examples of these would be actively reading and contributing to the forums, actively updating and suggesting strategies and linking videos for upcoming or active boss fights, actively talking with guild members to find out how you can help them improve performance and/or morale. These are just a few of the things that officers do in a guild.

In my guild the demotion of an officer has happened twice, and both times causing significant guild drama that was totally not necessary.

My recommendation is you try the tasks plan above, and follow this with laying down the law on what is expected from an officer. Use these to either get better input and responsibility from the officer, or use it as as convenient way for him to step aside as an officer without losing face or being demoted for poor performance.

Those who know me know that I am generally a patient person and that I rarely arc up and go overboard. I'm the sort of person who tries to see the best in people. I also like to have all the facts before I go and make a decision.

However based on personal experience, if I have to demote another officer who is not contributing to officer responsibilities and that officer is causing dissent and trouble amongst the member ranks, I won't simply demote said officer as experience has taught me that this person will most likely continue to cause grief in the guild. It is simply better to sever ties completely and ask that person to leave the guild.

TL;DR: Plan your officer meeting carefully as poorly managing officer demotion will cause you more problems in the long run.

Mystrea, we have a rank like that. We mainly use it for "retirees" that still play and were officers in the past as a show of respect. However using it as a "trial period" for promotion or evaluation rank is definitely a great idea. Thank you for that.

Brahmann, thank you for all of that. We just got done raiding and were about to have to officer meeting, and I figured I'd check on this thread first. I'm glad I did because you gave me a ton of valuable information. Our GM is monitoring this thread as well and we'll discuss everything said in here prior to our officer meeting tomorrow night.

All of you are great. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the time and effort put in by you guys to help us out with this situation.

02/20/2012 09:45 AMPosted by Lamontsanfrd

The under performance isn't THAT bad, but this person should be doing better seeing as they've played their class as their main since Vanilla WoW. The lack of communication is the REAL issue.

Having a category of not 'THAT bad' is probably not going to help you and your guild made decisions. My suggestion is you either have a performance requirement they meet or they don't meet. Otherwise you have a fuzzy requirement that gives a person no real goal to meet. Make it an issue that you deal with, or say that they are performing well enough and let it go.

02/20/2012 09:45 AMPosted by Lamontsanfrd

As an example, we decided to get a ten man together for H-Baleroc just to get a better look at it for our 25 man. This person wasn't invited to the group for obvious reasons. When asked why, the response was "You need to communicate on vent for this fight." The response was "I can just make Raid Warning macros". When we told them that wasn't going to work because there's a lot going on and people aren't necessarily going to react to that, they got upset. It was the same thing when we were working on it in 25 man. The GM and I were discussing it.. What do you do? Not give this person ANY responsibility during the fight because they can't or don't communicate? That's not fair to the other raiders.

Do you require all of your raiders to communicate on vent to be able to attend the raids?
If yes then make sure you tell everyone exactly that.
If no then you should stick with it not being required and not pick and choose by person.

Don't mix and match the issues your trying to deal with. That often makes the process way more subjective and based on feelings than facts. An officer that is not designated as a raid leader/organizer should not have any different requirement for talking on vent than any other raider. Don't use one issue/concern to try and resolve a different issue/concern.

Wrathbrow, you're right. We do have a vent/working mic requirement. The thing with that is, this person hasn't spoken on vent, literally ever, and the guild has let that slide since its inception. I guess we can thank the "old guard" for making this exception..

Any suggestions on how to broach this subject? Because I know the answer from this person will be "I've never had to speak on vent before, why do I have to now?"

Since there has been some history in the guild of letting at least one requirement slide, you might want to state that for the group to make progress those that are not able to make some of the requirements such as listening and talking on vent, will be still be in the guild, but will be an a different rank as raider, and raiders go first to regular guild events.
That way your not cutting out these people who might be good fill in people or a better fit to be casual, but at the same time they will know the requirement.
Also, don't assume people can, at your next raid do a quick check of each raider and ask them to say something on vent so the rest of the raid can hear them. That keeps it less personal and not subjective.

Keep in mind that there are many people who just are not comfortable speaking, and a person's choice to not speak should be accepted as what they prefer. But accepted does not mean they met the requirement for something. Don't you be the one to force them to change. But instead show what the requirement is for everyone and let them decide if they want to change for the requirement.

So in short, don't tackle all of this as just a one person issue. Review and refresh the requirements the guild has for the raid, make them for everyone, then start adjusting people's roles and ranks based on that requirement.

Also, I encourage people to tell their guild members that a rank in the guild is not a position that people earn and keep, it is a position that reflects what the person is currently doing. If for example an officer needs to be AFK from real life for three weeks, drop them in rank. If/when they come back and are active then adjust their rank. But never adjust ranks based on what people say they are going to do, adjust them based on what they are doing over a short period (2-4 weeks, depending on your guild) of time.

02/22/2012 10:47 AMPosted by Lamontsanfrd

"I've never had to speak on vent before, why do I have to now?"

"Because we are now enforcing the policy to improve our progression."

Wrathbrow, you're right. We do have a vent/working mic requirement. The thing with that is, this person hasn't spoken on vent, literally ever, and the guild has let that slide since its inception. I guess we can thank the "old guard" for making this exception..

Any suggestions on how to broach this subject? Because I know the answer from this person will be "I've never had to speak on vent before, why do I have to now?"

To be honest, sometimes I wish people wouldn't talk in vent...This could be a blessing in disguise. Is there some reason why you need people to actually speak in vent?

Other than that, you shouldn't have officer's that no longer contribute to the guild just because they've been officers for a while. You could (depending on how your guild is set up) create a rank for "veterans" and allow them to see officer chat or have some higher level of priviledges than other ranks for long standing members.

If he's not acting like an officer there is no real reason for him to be involved in guild leadership.