Guilds, Real Life, and Responsibility

I realize I've been on a conflict management kick lately, shaking my finger and telling everyone to be responsible in some way or another.

This is a different sort of responsibility.

What is your personal responsibility toward other players?

There are several modes of thought. Some consider every person to be responsible for him or herself (sometimes not even that) and too bad if they manage to be smarter and faster and more cutthroat. Some consider themselves responsible to help teach new players the ropes, to lecture on rules, gameplay, and manners.

But are you ever responsible to help someone fill a gap in their home life?

For most people, no, never. It's a game, for God's sake.

In a family guild, you get an interesting mix of responses. When we had a small exodus and return of members (5 or so), two of those got back in the guild through a guild vote based on (and I truly believe this) the overwhelming factor that neither boy had a dad at home, and they said they needed us to fill that gap.

I was in the "we cannot let them back just to help fill their void" camp, and I was very very definite on this point. I still voted them back in, because I'm a softie, but I did not talk softly.

And we all wavered. I think part of the thinking went along the lines of "This guild cares, so someone else will take care of them." People voted them in thinking we could help but not taking responsibility to do it themselves. We voted them in because we thought they deserved a second chance but also out of sympathy, because we just didn't have the heart to say no.

Part of me (the woman) thinks they're better off in IVV than out there in the morass of heartless male role models who pepper the official forums and our server. Another part (the officer) thinks they played on our heartstrings and used their dadlessness to get what they wanted.

I voted to let them back in, but I had to overlook the emotional points of their applications. I don't think a guild is fit to be used as a surrogate parent, but I also believe that people deserve a second chance.

My conclusion is that I don't know what the right answer should be. Certainly, after we pulled them back into the fold, no one jumped from his seat to say "I'll be your father figure!!" One of them had hit his angry teenage stage, taking little things out on bystanders, and the other disappeared for a while.

Anyone who voted for them because they thought we could support them in trying times was, in my opinion, way off the mark. Not because we aren't capable, but just because that's not how it turned out.

And I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that's why the officers don't plan on opening reapplications up to the guild anymore. IVV just doesn't have the heart to cut people off, not when they think they can help. Sweet, but potentially harmful.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Attitude Check: Serious Business

We are all subject to the natural human tendency to take ourselves too seriously. Leaders and those in roles of authority are more susceptible than the average guild member, but even among the thronging masses there is a clear attitude of inflated self-importance within the virtual world we share. The danger of this tendency is that it can subtly and silently strip the game of its true purpose and replace what ought to be a fun, relaxing escape from reality with a burdensome, grueling, stressful grind. It is this crafty substitution, brought about by the stressors of the game itself (reputation grinds, gearing concerns, class imbalances, etc) and its social aspects (rude players, broken engagements, guild drama, etc), that most often contributes to burnout.

The reality is that games are designed to be fun. They are not "serious business" and the loot, accomplishments and goals set within a game are of no more meaning in real life than the color of your coffee mug is to your success in raiding. The point at which a game ceases to be enjoyable is the same point at which the player needs to take a step back and reevaluate his motivations for playing.

Near the end of The Burning Crusade I was utterly burned out on World of Warcraft. I wasn’t an officer, I didn’t raid, I had one level 70 character and I played between 6 and 8 hours per week, sometimes less. It wasn’t that I was over-committing myself to the virtual world – it was that I took my involvement in that virtual world far too seriously. I allowed myself to become frazzled because I wanted to raid and my work schedule wouldn’t allow it. I rubbed the letters off my keys grinding honor through the Great Alterac Valley Strike of ’08 in order to keep my Arena gear in top shape for my 1800-rated team. I fretted over every rumor and nerf and set of patch notes that made its way onto the WoW news websites. I drove my wife crazy, pushed my friends away with constant whining and never had ONE MOMENT of in-game fun and relaxation for months!

Perhaps you’ve been in my place. Maybe you’ve been burned out over situations significantly more "real" and "serious" and exhausting. You might be the GM of a family guild that’s struggling to get enough people together to raid a couple times a week, or the raider leader who has to deal with all the unhappy people who didn’t get to raid this week, or the recruitment officer who can’t seem to get people to understand that their 12-year-old brother’s best friend just isn’t a good fit, or maybe you’re none of those… just a regular member trying to get by in this vast virtual world… wondering where you fit in with a community of people you view as more knowledgeable, skilled and geared than yourself.

Friend, there is hope for your affliction. It’s not a cure-all and it won’t bring you back from your burn-out. It’s a vaccine and each of us could use a regular shot of it. I like to call it "reality", but I’m going to list under three other "R" words.

1. Remember. Go back to the beginning. Remember the reasons you started playing this game in the first place. Remember your very first character and your very first adventure in Azeroth. How long has it been since you listened to the rich-voiced introductory cinematic that told the history of your character as it panned its way to your race’s starting area? Remember. But don’t just remember it – recapture it. Take stock of just how far you’ve come since you first picked up the game, remember what you loved about the game then and I would wager it’s still what you love about the game now. Focus on those things.



2. Relax. I know you’re busy, I know that raids have to be led and rosters have to be posted and people have to be disciplined and loot has to be handed out and…… so on and so forth. I’m not telling you to neglect that stuff, but make sure that you take some time for yourself. Relax… have fun! If you aren’t enjoying the game, you shouldn’t be playing it. Guild Leader, go fishing for an hour. Raider, make a level 1 on an RP server and see what the other side of Warcraft is like. Gladiator, turn off General & Trade chat for half an hour and hang out with your friends. Achievement Guru, run a lowbie through your favorite instance just because you can.



3. Recognize. The world (of Warcraft) does not rest upon your shoulders. The game isn’t going to collapse just because you take some time to enjoy yourself. The guild is still together, the raid bosses aren’t dying without you, and the Sons of Hodir will still be there next week even though you decided to set aside the old reputation grind for a few days. Recognize that this game is for you but it isn’t about you… so enjoy it… and stop taking yourself so seriously.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and abstract thinker.

He lives in Minnesota where the snow comes from.

The Art of Shifting Power

I've always been afraid of being labeled an "emotional woman" when I get angry or sad or frustrated. Like, "Here she goes, just nod and smile and wait it out."

It's demeaning. And it makes women angrier, sadder, and more frustrated, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that we run high on emotions and go nuts over "little things."

Because, really, it's just a "little" disrespect. It's just a "little" apathy. It's just a "little" sexism. Nothing to make a fuss about, right?

In conflict management, groups concerned with denying conflict often shoot the messenger. The person saying "THERE IS A PROBLEM HERE" is seen as the problem and is treated as the problem. Rather than dealing with conflict constructively, the group denies that pain and conflict exist and insist on fake peace instead of honest struggles about reality.

In groups like this, there's very little you can do, aside from getting a higher power on your side (officer core, guild leader, or the majority of members). If the group itself is unhealthy and destructive, putting all its energy toward sweeping problems under the rug (it's "just a game" after all, so why bother to deal with guild conflict when you can ignore it?), it just postpones the inevitable.

But let's talk about something you can do. The following is for dealing with despots, not undermining a leadership you just don't agree with/like.

Bullies and abusive members/leaders should be disempowered. To do this, you:

• take away their choices
• limit their information
• diminish their perception of control

(In my last post, I mentioned boycotts, protests, and denying free services.) If they take away things you've become dependent on, such as access to the guild bank or raid slots or rare crafting patterns, you do not reward them for trying to hold you hostage by giving in. You hold firm.

You may say "I'm just one member, I can't do any of that!"

No, but everyone can. It is not impossible to persuade a majority of the guild to your side, though it is hard. It takes time and effort and persuasion. A gquit is simpler and faster, but this is written under the assumption that you don't want to keep leaving guilds, that maybe you want to fix one... that maybe... you care. And you want to stay.

So you want to empower the other members to engage the leaders on an equal level. To do this, you:

• reduce your own fear (scared people scare people)
• use positive language
• give choices about when and where to talk
• give them information/knowledge
• find best alternatives to what they want
• give them something to do

Also listen to what people want and try to understand their interest in the guild: needs, desires, hopes, concerns, and fears. "This is also a form of disempowering, because one who hears may know too much AND get it wrong -- or get it right if the underlying motive is power or control. It can be intimidating to be understood." (class notes)

And be careful who you empower. Sometimes they use that power against you.

Once you have the larger communal power on your side, once the guild has agreed on a course of action, approach the leaders as a group. Know the problems you want fixed. Whether it's respect for some members who aren't getting it, a leash put on disruptive members, a change in policy, a more open administration . . . if you have the power of the entire membership behind you, you have all the power.

Don't mess it up.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Power in Guilds

Many guild leaders assume that power is the ability to gkick whomever you want.

This is incorrect. Power is the control that other people give you. For example, to use (or abuse) the power to gkick, you must have people willing to stay in your guild. The natural conclusion is that members give power to the leadership by choosing to remain.

A fundamental flaw in guild management is the inability to remove the leaders through a majority vote. The guild leader watches the officers, but who watches the guild leader? I've heard horror stories of GLs passing leadership to unqualified, selfish friends without even telling anyone, much less asking the guild.

We should have a Mutiny button. Like the French, we should be able to lop off the heads of despotic leaders. Hold them accountable. We should be able to stop people who take the cream of the guild's effort and leave members the bare bones, people who lead by fear and threats and selfish, unjust methods. A guild should always be open to reasonable demands and principles but should never put up with threats or pressure.

Members of a guild do have significant power as a community, though less as individuals. What can a leader do if everyone decides to protest unreasonable decisions or boycott raids or deny the leadership free materials and services in the interest of enacting change?

The worst that can happen is everyone gets gkicked and you form a new guild together with the rules you wanted in the first place. And the old guild leader must start his guild again from scratch -- begging players to join a team or community that no longer exists.

You should make sure your guild has a procedure in place to make decisions and sticks to it -- a basic tenent of conflict management is that the method is more important than the outcome. As long as everyone agrees that the decision will be made a certain way, no one should then protest the final decision.

Now, this does not mean the guild needs to be in on every single administrative decision. That would slow decision-making to a crawl. I'm talking about controversial matters that people in the guild care about and that need to be addressed, not the day-to-day shlub of ideas.

Officers and Guild Leaders should work out the exact extent of their individual authority in each of their areas and pass it by the guild for inspection. How far can an officer go? Can a bank officer deny a member access to the bank because he suspects they're using the materials for an unapproved purpose? Can a recruitment officer deny an application based on a bad feeling about the applicant? Can a raid leader leave someone out of a raid because he thought (but was not certain) they were the cause of two wipes last time?

Clear criteria for officers is imperative if you don't want them overstepping their bounds. People are capable of doing things in the interest of the guild that the guild would not approve of. When I rejected the real life friend of a member, at least one officer and probably several members at that time thought I didn't have the authority to do so. I assumed I had the authority to protect the integrity of the application process by enforcing the rules I had put in ("Blank questions equal auto-no"), but others assumed that "real life friend" overruled everything else.

This is why you must be clear with each other. The officers should feel free to create their own limitations and guidelines, but the guild should always be asked to approve those limitations. At the end of the day, it is the guild that the leadership serves. The populace should have the opportunity to accept or reject the power level of leaders. And this hearkens back to decision-making methods. The simplest way to approve or reject the powers given an officer is a poll, but it also doesn't allow for feedback or bias.

With bias, some members are naturally more powerful than others. This is often a form of reputation, where the member has proven him or herself to be a leader or thinker. Some people's opinions, for good or bad, matter more than others. This is a distribution of power in the membership that arises naturally, often by a member proving him or herself to be of value in various ways -- in this case, having helpful problem-solving ideas for leadership. (Unfortunately, having an opinion does not automatically make feedback useful -- such as the Compromiser who wanted random rolls for very rare novelty loot and ignored the issue being discussed: that rare status pieces should go to someone IVV trusted not to gquit the next day.)

On Monday, I'll cover empowerment, disempowerment, and how you can force unwilling leaders to change the way a guild is run.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Attitude Check: Inclusiveness

One of the philosophies adopted by my guild that most separates us from the community at large is what I choose to call inclusiveness. It’s something you very rarely find in guilds focused on end-game content. A family guild is different in this regard because we accept people based upon who they are rather than how they play. Does this mean that a family guild is filled with losers and know-nothings? Far from it! What it does mean is that a person doesn’t have to level a character to 80 or participate in raids, arenas or heroics to be a very real part of the guild.

This philosophy of inclusiveness directs the guild toward a mutual respect and concern for all its members – from the level 15 Hunter who can’t find Mankrik’s Wife to the level 80 Protection Warrior who is decked out in epics and main-tanks every new raid encounter. It’s a philosophy that produces a nurturing rather than a critical atmosphere for those who are still growing within the game and a stable community and activity base for those who are seeking experience with the end-game. I want to point out three specific areas in which I feel an attitude of inclusiveness has enhanced my enjoyment of World of Warcraft and my love for my guild.

1. Guild Pride – Inclusiveness fosters a “We before me” attitude. It isn’t “me” pushing through a new raid encounter, it’s “us” – all of us, not just the ten players who made the roster that night. When one of us accomplishes something, we all accomplish something. Because everyone is included and respected everyone is made to feel a part of what our individual members achieve. It’s no different than the fans or, perhaps more aptly, the bench-sitters at a football game. You might not have thrown the game-winning pass, but you still feel some sense of accomplishment and jubilation at the victory.


2. Less Drama – Inclusiveness works to prevent the kind of hurtful, selfish, rude behavior that stems from an attitude of self-importance. Sure, we’ve had our share of drama and hard-feelings, but we’ve also always been able to work through the majority of these issues and retain both the offended and the offender. Because we consciously work to include everyone our members are not just told that they are a part of our family, but shown that they are accepted. Knowing that you are accepted by your community and regarded not just as a warm body or a character that performs certain actions, but as a human being makes it a lot more difficult to cause grief to those around you and much easier to output the effort to patch things up rather than simply “moving on” when something goes awry.


3. Greater Diversity – Not only among the types of people within our guild, but among the types of activities organized or provided by the guild. Most guilds organize around what they do (Leveling guild, Raiding guild, Social guild, etc) while a family guild organizes around who they are. You don’t cast a family member aside just because they are annoying or unpopular. Instead the community works to provide the needs of all our members, even those who cannot contribute to the success of the guild’s end-game goals.

We are a guild that raids, but we are not a “raiding guild”. We are a guild that levels and socializes but we are not those type of guilds either. We are a family guild and that one word is the heart and soul of our existence. Inclusiveness is not just a good idea, it is a necessary attitude for maintaining a community that is more than just another guild.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and abstract thinker.

He lives in Minnesota where the snow comes from.

The Chain Link Effect

I might have been a little harsh last post, so let me explain why I sound so frustrated. This is a warning tale, something I hope members and officers alike can learn from. The point is protecting relationships, and it happened middle of 2008.

When a situation begins to spiral, a chain of events occur. People are links in the chain, and some are helpless after their role. Others are not. But any link can break the chain when it gets to them.

Link 1: Me
Link 2: Applicant
Link 3: Henry*
Link 4: Mora*
Link 5: Officer A
Link 6: Officers B & C
Link 7: Guild Leader**

*Names changed.
**So you don't get confused, this is the non-Teo GL, a very good friend who served most of 2008.

The chain began when I rejected Applicant, Henry's real life friend.

I was tired, overworked, and didn't love his app. He left the "Did you read our rules?" blank, I'd posted on the website "Blank answers equal auto-no," and even though I would have overlooked it if it'd been a different question left blank or he'd been better connected . . . he wasn't. Henry was brother-in-law to Officer A but very new to the guild and neither he nor his wife had pushed to get to know us at that point. Henry also didn't leave a recommendation for Applicant that I found . . . well, sufficient. It was more of an acknowledgment that they knew each other than a recommendation to the guild.

So I gave Applicant a chance to fill in the two empty questions.

At the end of three days with no reply, I sent him a rejection notice and told him he could try again.

(The same week, I auto-rejected a second real life friend of Henry's, a kid who hadn't filled out even half of the required fields, including how he knew Henry. Had I left the application up long enough for Henry to recommend, I might have given that kid the option to reapply as I had the other friend. He's a lesser detail in the story and not a link in the chain.)

Henry spoke to me and understood my reasoning for rejecting both.

Applicant spoke to me and tried to talk his way into the guild by answering the questions directly. "Yes, I read the rules," he said. During the conversation, I explained and assumed he understood that he'd have to fill out another application and our chat wouldn't change that fact.

I lost little love for him in our conversation because he said several times that he had no time to play the game and became petulant when I suggested Jame's Leveling Guide ("If you don't want me in your guild just say so"), a guide which I myself find very useful to maximize game time. From his conversation, I believed that he thought other people helping him level was the fastest way to go. Ignoring the fact that he was completely mistaken, that level of neediness was exactly the kind of thing I tried to protect IVV from.

At this point, from a normal guild point of view, you might say "I wouldn't even have let him reapply! Geez, suck it up Applicant, QQ." While I find this mode of thought comforting for my own part, it is not the way we do things in a family guild. We give second chances, and we don't resent giving them.

The problem was that he turned down his second chance to get in the guild, citing no time to fill out a second application. It might have ended with that, but Henry was compelled (whether through his own will or Applicant's badgering, I don't know) to gquit in order to play with Applicant and rejected kid.

This also might not have been a problem if Henry had not left a wife behind in the guild. Mora.

Mora, of course, is the link after Henry. She could have handled the situation by grabbing her husband by his virtual short hairs and tearing into him the way only a wife can.

Instead, she went to her brother, Officer A, in a frenzy of worry about having to follow her husband out of the guild. While brothers are reasonable and acceptable sources of comfort (I've always leaned on Jon), her going to him instead of her husband put him in the middle of a marital issue, where he could (at best) be only a mediator. Were there reasons for high levels of turmoil on Mora's part? Yes. Henry did not live at home -- a soldier, he was stationed away from his wife and kids with the cheerful prospect of being deployed in Iraq in the foreseeable future. Mora was taking care of their children by herself and very stressed. (Knowing this made me angrier at Henry. You do not leave your single mom wife stranded in a guild so you can play with an army buddy.)

But was this an excuse for dragging her brother into it? No. She was a grown woman. A good explanation is not a good excuse.

Her panic reacted sharply off of Officer A, who did not want to leave IVV but saw no choice if his sister left. While he is the last person I want to blame for any part in the situation, as he is more a victim than the rest of us at this point in the story, his stress and confusion did more damage than Mora's, as he was a vital guild asset and very good friend.

Still, had he approached the situation from a "We can get her back in the guild when things calm down" point rather than believing he had to go with her (and could never come back), his worry might not have fused him to the next link:

Officers B and C. They were the only others online when all of this went down and, like Officer A, they got swept up in the panic and pressure of the situation. I was told afterward that they did the right thing at the time, and I believed it. But now . . . no. There was no excuse for bending to the will of people blinded by fear, except that they were blinded themselves. No one considered that we could work out the situation and get them back even if Officer A left.

They, in a joint decision, brought everyone back in the guild. Henry, Applicant, and the kid who hadn't even filled out his application. They even promised to accept another of Henry's friends without his having to apply when he got the game.

Since, at the time, I considered myself to have more authority over applications than I actually possessed, this stripped not only that imagined authority from me but the little I actually did possess. It hurt my pride, it denuded my job to a paperwork monkey, and it completely infuriated me. Moreso because Applicant had been arrogant and even a little patronizing to me, and because the kid wasn't even a part of the issue and his application was so incomplete, it didn't exist.

But they still got guild invites.

It was an emergency action to protect Officer A though part was, I truly believe, because men don't know how to deal with hysterical women.

(You slap them. For reference. And I'm not being mean -- I truly believe a good verbal wake-up call is necessary for anyone too scared to see clearly, especially if their actions are harming or frightening the people around them.)

But the problem wasn't just that I was angry, though angry is a pale reference to my helpless, insulted rage. It was that I never got to resolve the issue. Because everyone took the easy way out, the way that was most obvious to them without thinking about the consequences or negative effects it would have on other people, I got left holding a fury I could do nothing about. I couldn't even talk to any of the first few links, because I wasn't sure I could be civil. And, really, what was there to talk about? "I'm furious and only barely managing to keep from gkicking your friends and gquitting in a petulant childish huff"?

Yeah. Real mature.

The final link sealed the situation into a ball of unapproachable, unresolved issue: The guild leader tried to calm everyone down. He affirmed everyone's actions as correct, when everyone's actions were completely wrong. The only excuse I can offer him is that he didn't see the whole situation as the chain it was, just as I didn't, and wanted everyone to be happy again.

One of Teo's recent posts mentions that it's bad to assign no blame if blame is needed. In that situation, everyone was to blame and no one was blamed. For me, it was personal. For them, it was disaster averted. At different points, I was mad at each individual link in the chain without understanding the overall effect of everyone's bad decisions. And it was easy to talk me down from wanting to gkick and claw eyes out because I don't like being angry at people I care about. I ended up thinking "Well, I could have avoided this by letting the patronizing jerk into the guild in the first place." Like it was all my fault, since I didn't want to blame my friends or Officer A's sister or a man who was about to be deployed to Iraq.

I ended up deciding it was the applicants' faults. I didn't want them in my guild, they shouldn't have gotten in that way, and the kid turned out to be a needy, greedy brat who gquit a week later with the statement "nobody ever helps me" -- and who afterward badmouthed us to other guilds. (Think of all the badmouthing he'd have added if he'd known the wild, triumphant cheer I let out when he left. XD It was one of the most joyful moments of my officer career, just as good as a well-placed "I told you so.")

The older Applicant stopped playing shortly after joining, a fact I'm relieved about even now. I don't think I could have hidden my dislike, and I don't like confrontation.

I'm not sure what moral I should attach here. I think there are a few, like "Think before you act," but it's all a bunch of cliches.

Your intentions can be unquestionable, your motives sympathetic, and your position defensible -- but your actions can still make everything worse. In these situations, it takes multiple people to flush everything into a headlong spiral and wrap it all off with a nice unresolved bow.

It takes just one to stop it. Any one link, at the time they were called to make a decision, could have done something differently. I could have talked to Henry before rejecting his friend and found out it was a gquit issue. Applicant could have accepted my offer to reapply. Henry could have stayed in the guild and still played with his friends. Mora could have unleashed her freakout on her husband instead of her brother. Officer A could have told his sister to sit tight and calm down until the officers could mediate. Officers B and C could have done the same. And the guild leader could have called everyone to account.

Eight people can make quite a mess. One link, acting wisely, could have cleaned it up.

The fact that no one had the foresight to do so is an excuse to some extent, but it still doesn't make up for damaged relationships. The situation was full of Accommodating when it should have been handled with Collaborating. Accommodating is good when something doesn't matter, but it mattered to me. Collaborating is much slower but could have gotten everyone out with their relationships intact.

And that is the point. My relationships were damaged. Wounded. Scarred. It's been months. I'm not holding grudges as much as acknowledging that my feelings about people changed because they made selfish decisions (Applicant, Henry, and Mora particularly -- though this event does not permit anyone, including me, to make judgments on their marriage, they obviously had no communication about this and it yanked all of the officers into their problem).

If there is a way to preserve relationships, you must fight for it with all your strength. I tried. I really tried. Not coherently, and perhaps that's why I failed, and perhaps because no one realized that this would leave a permanent mark not just on my pride but on my relationships. But the truth is, if the other officers had not Accommodated, we could have come to a decision that let me look even Applicant in the eye with some level of respect.

While my guild has changed since then, and policy would not allow the same thing to happen today, I still feel it vital to press this thought on you, the reader:

Relationships must be preserved and protected.

And that is what I want to convince you of today. Not "Oh, woe is me, everyone was mean and I'm such a victim." Yes, I realize I'm still angry and I need to get over myself. I also realize I've been pretty snarky in this post and it could hurt feelings. My only defense is . . . I've been honest.

But my goal is to convince you of the simple idea that you need to be aware when relationships are in danger so that you can work to protect them.

I'm not saying it's easy, but I am saying it's necessary.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Accepting and Rejecting Applications

In most guilds, a poorly filled application means the recruitment officer first laughs at you and then deletes your app without a moment's hesitation.

I've gotten applications where the applicant only answered 9/25 questions, where they left important things like "Did you read our rules?" blank, where raid experience is "none," and where people really and truly don't know how to:

• Read.
• Spell.
• Form a sentence.
• Form a word.
• All of the above.
  

I got A's in school, I'm a professional writer, and while I understand that some people have zero grammar skills (and that's okay), that does not mean that they are unable to read the question and think about their answer. Lack of writing skill does not mean lack of mental function, as so many people seem insistent to impress upon recruitment officers.

Sometimes with applications, even people I accepted into IVV, I felt like I was grading tests from a 5th grade class that just Did Not Care, and I was too tired and fed up to fail them.

In the real world, this is unacceptable.

If you bring a resume to a job you want and it's handwritten on notebook paper in pink pen with your qualifications squeezed together to fit on the front, you will go in the trash without a second thought. They are busy. They do not have time for idiocy.

Officers are busy. We do not have time for bad applications.

Unless we're Family Guild officers.

The sad and frustrating truth is that Family Guilds do not shunt people aside for having a less than pristine application, as most guilds do. Most guilds say "Someone makes the game harder to play, gkick them" or "An app bores you, reject it" and "Who cares? It's just a game."

But that attitude goes against everything a Family Guild stands for. We do not gkick, reject, or throw a slovenly amount of ennui over a situation as an excuse to make things easier for ourselves. We take the hard road.

We take the annoying road.

In a family guild, getting an application from someone with connections is like getting a job application from your boss's nephew. His resume might be in crayon, but if he doesn't drool on himself or pee in your trashcan, you give him the job.

This makes it very hard to adhere to any sort of standard for applications. You can't punish people for slovenly work, no matter how much you want to, because it might cause drama.

And drama is bad.

Very very bad.

Still, you might think "I'm a recruitment officer, I have a right to enforce some standard."

Yes and no. Mostly no. You're hoping that people assume you can and that fear of rejection will make them pay attention to the application. But the honest truth is that you're going to be overlooking a lot. And you don't have a choice about it.

If you reject the wrong person, it could get very very ugly. I'm not joking. People in IVV love each other and would never knowingly hurt each other, but GOOD GOD I got ripped a new one by people who weren't even angry and had no clue what they were doing.

Weak, emotional people + influence over your friends or superiors + you rejected their friend = "Kill me, please."

A Family Guild recruitment officer only has as much power as the guild gives you. If you need to reject someone with connections, do it carefully. It's possible, but you need to be able to defend your reasoning, and even then half the guild will assume "Real Life Friend = Auto Invite."

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Meet the Blogger: Jon Blevins

Hey there! My name is Jon and you may be wondering “who is this guy?” You’ll be seeing more of me in the weeks and months ahead but decided to kick off my presence on The Family Business by introducing myself.

I’m the very definition of a casual-hardcore player. I play relatively little compared to the truly hardcore and while I love shiny new epics as much as the next guy, I would rather find relaxation and enjoyment in playing Warcraft than be “leet.” I'm not a "natural" when it comes to WoW. In fact, I was the very definition of a Warcraft "noob" when I started. My level 2 Human Mage died to a swarm of Kobold Workers minutes after creation -- yes, the yellow mobs that won't attack unless attacked. This happened more than once, I'm ashamed to say. Since then I've steadily developed into a good player and a solid raider – an achievement that I never would have obtained without the support and encouragement of In Vino Veritas.

I tend to focus on the philosophies and ideas that undergird the more pragmatic and directional writings of my fellow bloggers. I’m very much a “big picture” kind of guy who feels that unless you understand not only HOW to do something but WHY you do it there can be no real change for the better.

Experience

I was part of the first wave of new players to reroll on Zuluhed Horde under the leadership of The Elite Five (Teo and his old raiding buddies). My sister (Beth) married a good friend of our current Guild Master (Teo) which earned me an auto-invite to this amazing group of people (I brought along my wife and her little brother -- now one of our Raid Leaders).

I rerolled an Undead Warlock from my Human Mage primarily because my wife wanted to try Mage and I was sick of dying to Kobolds. I found that I greatly enjoyed the mobility and lethality of the class and that little Warlock remained my main character throughout The Burning Crusade.

I can still remember being lost in The Barrens around level twenty trying to finish some quest or another while The Elite Five were clearing Shadow Labyrinth for the first time (they were working on their Karazhan keys). I hit level 70 at a run and started taking a more active role in the guild that I’d come to adore. Work kept me from raiding except on special occasions in TBC, but I participated avidly in Arenas/PvP and got to know the majority of my guildmates pretty well. I’m a more active raider now in WotLK and that increased activity is undoubtedly one of the reasons I’ve been appointed to an officer’s position within the guild. I’m still a freshman officer and have a lot to learn (be gentle, Teo!), but I’ve never had more fun in World of Warcraft than I’m having right now and In Vino Veritas has made all the difference.

Characters

Manasseh, the aforementioned Undead Warlock, was my focal character in The Burning Crusade. I created him with the express purpose of DPSing 5-man instances and found that I very much enjoyed the mobility of the class compared to my previous “main” the Mage (Thesden). At 70 I realized that scheduling conflicts and heavy burdens at work precluded my being a regular raider so I took to the next-best thing: PvP. I managed to clear every fight in Karazhan, Gruul, Magtheridon, all but Vashj in SSC and left only Kael’thas standing in TK. I partnered with Teo’s Priest (Malloc) for Season 3 and Season 4 arenas and advanced significantly in skill and battlefield awareness to the point that I finally helped push the team to the required 1850 rating to acquire my S3 Spellblade. The dominance of melee in S3 and S4 made this no simple feat but we persevered and I’ve had only one prouder moment since I created my first character over two years ago.

Daerion is a level 80 Holy Paladin which I leveled up during the activity lull near the end of The Burning Crusade and is my current “main” for both PvE and PvP purposes. The guild suffered a significant healer shortage around the time we started moving into Mount Hyjal and, being interested in healing and a TOTAL altaholic, I decided on Paladin to fill a much-needed gap (we had a grand total of zero Holy Paladins around the time I rerolled due to the dominance of Shaman and CoH Priests in PvE and Druids in PvP). The gamble has paid off. I don’t have to compete for my raid spot and Blizzard’s redesign of the Paladin class has made them very powerful Main Tank healers.

My “alts” include Razor (70 UD Warrior), Zacceus (60 UD Mage) and Aerendir (66 BE Death Knight that I’m thinking of rerolling as Tauren). I actually have one of EVERY class on the Zuluhed server including a mostly-unplayed 19 UD Twink Priest named Kissie who functions as a bank alt. I don’t particularly enjoy leveling but I am allured by the potential that I see within other classes and specs and am eventually drawn to try them out for myself. My Paladin has caused me to fall in love with hybrids, but my poor Shaman just can’t seem to get off the ground even though he’s sporting some spiffy heirloom shoulders.

Profession

I’ve been the pulpit minister for a small rural Christian Church for over five years now. I studied Bible & Religion (in addition to English and Psychology) at the same university that Teo and Beth attended. I was raised primarily in the deep south: born in West Virginia and have lived in Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, very briefly in Tennessee and now in Minnesota – the heartland of all things bland and white.

In addition to my ministerial duties I do odd jobs for various temp agencies and had a three-month stint as a nursing assistant at a reputable nursing facility until the emotional weight of certain aspects of the job forced me to resign. My faith certainly shapes how I view the world and, subsequently, how I view the virtual world in which I interact with my friends, family and neighbors. I do not, however, attempt to combine my preaching with my recreation. When I speak or write I seek to persuade and inform, when I play WoW I just want to relax and socialize. I’m a better speaker than I am a writer and I have a great love for storytelling which I hope to eventually incorporate into my blogging.

Personal

I’ve been married to an amazing woman for five and a half years. She is the light of my life and a totally uber Frostfire Mage. We’ve yet to start a family but are certainly open to whatever God has prepared for us. I have a lot of IRL family and friends in In Vino Veritas including my sister, Beth, my wife, both my brothers-in-law and half-a-dozen college buddies.

I’m a shy, sensitive, laid-back, thinker, prankster sort. I’ve always harbored a great love for comedy and enjoy nothing more than laughing and making others laugh. I’m a fan of stand-up comedy and comedic cinema/television (among my favorite comics are Dana Carvey, Gabriel Iglesias, Demetri Martin, Mitch Hedberg and W. Fox [actually my college roommate, but no one could make me laugh like he could] and shows such as Seinfeld, Family Guy, The Office, Arrested Development and the better seasons of Mad TV & In Living Color). I obviously love to play games, read theological works and fantasy novels, have three adorable kitty cats, drool over Italian food and listen to most every genre of music depending on mood (right now techno/trance is my drug of choice).

I’m a particularly fierce friend and am undyingly loyal to those who have earned my trust. IVV is one such entity, which is why you can expect my posts to reflect the pride I feel for what this guild has accomplished.

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Jon Blevins is an officer of In Vino Veritas.

He's a pastor, husband, gamer and cat-lover.

He lives in Minnesota where the snow comes from.

Driving Unsuitables Out

If you're in the position I warned against in the application and recruitment posts, the position of having members who really and sincerely don't fit with your members or plans, sometimes the nicest thing you can do for everyone is get rid of them.

I'm not talking about gkicking. Nor am I talking about ostracization, where you cut people off from the resources, events, and society of the rest of the guild.

I'm talking about being honest with them and yourselves. In IVV, when Teo returned to guild leadership right before Wrath, he sat all of the officers down and had a little chat with us. Some members wanted or expected IVV to be things it just wasn't. And Teo told us that we needed to stop trying to cater to those people, the ones who didn't quite fit in, who wanted us for raiding more than friendship, who made conscious decisions to keep their personal feelings out of the guild.

I'll call them Unsuitables. They would be excellent members to most guilds, but they would never be good family guild members, as long as they chose to keep us at arms length.

I realized as Teo talked that by catering to the Unsuitables, by spending energy and resources fighting to keep them happy, we ignored the beating heart of our guild. We overlooked the people who deserved our attention.

Teo led the officers to reroute our time and energy toward the members who wanted us for who we were, people we might have trouble satisfying but who could be satisfied by our focusing on their emotional lives in the guild. These members didn't care how many raids they got in as long as they got a fair shake and the chance to play with their friends.

We needed to focus on pleasing the members who wanted us for ourselves, not for our goals.

Part of this plan included a focus on 10-man raiding. It was not a clever diversion to beat out Unsuitables with a stick. It was an intelligent, reachable plan that served the needs of members who'd had trouble making raid times. Most importantly, the plan managed to express who we were in a visible way. We did not lie or trick or badger. We just decided to go a more friends-and-family viable way with the guild. We refocused.

And the result was that Unsuitables who wanted something else from us trickled away. No hard feelings, no drama. But by being who we were, we drove them out.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

The Value of Good Informants

The most useful tool for a leader is not epic or even legendary -- it's information.

In family guilds, where it can be difficult and emotional to gkick (Teo espouses a "no gkick" policy that I expect he'll tell you about in another post), it's useful to keep track of "problem" and even "high maintenance" people.

In conflict management, it's necessary that the people involved in a dispute care about their relationship, whether it's as impersonal as a business relationship or as personal as a marriage. If two people in the middle of an argument do not care about whether they ever speak again, there's more of a problem than you can reasonably be expected to fix.

Now, in a guild, you'll be dealing with people you have official control over and that does give you an edge, but in a family guild, you're still dealing with people who are supposed to have a certain level of respect for each other. Not everyone is going to be BFFs or even get along, but they should try to coexist to the best of their ability.

It can be tricky, however. There are many situations where the reason for conflict isn't remotely close to what people are actually fighting over, and these situations aren't always simple to decipher. Underlying problems often spawn little surface problems that are what everyone sees -- but those surface problems will continue to show up until you get at the source. Like killing a weed: if you just mow over the top part, the roots will remain to grow thicker and stronger.

So the key to finding roots is simple: know what everyone wants. Motives. Why do people do things, and how can you address the why? Because why is a catalyst, and only addressing the result will mean that you will always have small messes to clean up.

This is why you need good information from as many sources as possible.

One source is you. I take screenshots of everything. I keep records when I see something that I consider evidence of an underlying problem. I do not screenshot Member A bickering with Member B in a late night raid. Officers tell them to shush, focus, and head back in, and it's dealt with.

I do screenshot Member C asking if anyone wants to come raid the alliance bosses and then telling the (one) person who replies to go start the raid. Or Member D in party chat ignoring the word "no" or saying that he wants a friend to quit WoW so he can inherit the guy's money. Or Member F acting with unseemly greed in a group.

The other source is friends. When a former member privately told a friend of mine about thoughts of gquitting, my friend told his roommate.

Who was the current guild leader.

That member didn't know that they were roommates, but it gave the leadership a heads up when that person did, in fact, leave a few weeks later. We were prepared.

(In a family guild, secrets do get passed around. I tell my husband everything, sometimes I ask my brother and his wife for advice. Other people do the same -- it's natural to tell spouses, siblings, and roommates what's going on in the guild, and . . . it can easily filter back to the officers. Because it often happens that officers in a family guild have a decent web of connections.)

Why keep records?

Having records is not so you can approach everyone and go "Oh, look, you broke code 9583 at 3am on a Saturday morning" (I had teachers who did that to me once, trotting out all my misdemeanors in a student-teacher conference -- I quit the class).

You keep records because, if you know a person's history, you begin to see trends. You begin to understand them and their reactions to things. It is preventative. And, yes, it is also good for evidence against people you might have to gkick or fail on their trial membership -- but that evidence is for the guild as an explanation if they demand one, not for an exhibition. It helps, when people don't understand why someone is removed, if you can offer proof and exact reasoning. It's important to your reputation as a leader that you're reasonable, that you never kick over hearsay or misdemeanors or even give the impression that you would.

Keeping the Secrets

Officers get news through the grapevine -- but most of the time, you'll need to keep that information private. When that member spoke to my friend about gquitting and cited never being promoted to a full member as just one reason, I immediately made a public post: "I'm lazy and if you're not a full member and have been in the guild long enough, just tell me and I'll do it. Your status in the guild panel means very little about your real status."

That was a mistake. The member whispered my friend later with a simple "traitor" and smiley face and was gone in a few weeks. I don't know if his informing (and my ill-advised post) directly contributed to that gquit, but . . . probably.

Therefore, if someone tells you something is going on, and there are only a handful of people who know about it, you keep your trap shut. You protect your informants' relationships by not exposing them. Not just to keep the flow of information coming, but because he's your friend, doing you a favor, and he doesn't deserve to lose reputation over it.

Obviously, if someone is going to do something particularly harmful to the guild, like swiping the gbank, you stop them even if they'll figure out who told. Nobody will blame anyone for squealing to protect the populace.

But if the information isn't going to burn a hole in your guild, if it's just someone who turns out to be a lot less honest than you thought, or a particularly vicious gossip, or even a gquit -- then you stay back and keep an eye on the situation until you have real evidence.

If it's just a secret that someone is keeping, like an illness or relationship or sexual preference, you most definitely keep it to yourself. It's nobody's business. It does help to know about harmless secrets, especially if they might one day spill into the guild, but that's so that you can have a plan in place for handling the surprise/backlash or even grief (in the case of an unexpected death).

But you never act on a private heads-up if it's going to get around that Member Y is a snitch, not unless it's dire. You just keep a closer eye on the brewing problems.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Recruitment

... if you trust everyone and let them in, someone will mess with your guild. If you trust no one and let no one in, you cannot grow or make new friends.

(Excerpt from my other WoW blog, Letters from Birdfall.)

I covered applications last week, but recruitment is different. There's one rule that you need to be aware of, even considering all my warnings about random recruits:

You will be surprised by people.

We've had quite a few very good surprises -- people who had no connections and came in and loved us, loved what we were and how we functioned and who would never consider going back to raid guilds or casual guilds. They've thrown themselves into the guild so fast and so hard that it's like they've been with us since the beginning.

We've also had people who were highly recommended by members but who gquit a week later. Most of those were people who joined just to raid, and whose friends/contacts in the guild were just there to raid. We had a minor exodus close to Wrath because we recruited for raiding but we aren't a raid guild at heart, and we weren't what those people wanted.

So the second rule of recruiting would have to be: Recruit for what you are, not what you want to become.

Family guilds cannot pretend to be anything but family guilds. Yes, IVV raids, but there was a point where we were trying to recruit so we could have stronger raids and that was a recipe for disaster. I hold very strongly now to the idea that you must first find people who want to be in a family guild and the endgame goals will follow. You cannot ignore the family aspect of the guild or try to keep them separate when you recruit -- members in IVV welcome new people with their whole hearts and if those people aren't willing to invest themselves back, they belong in a normal raid guild. We may have wanted to be stronger raiders, but that did not mean that we had the atmosphere or resources to satisfy "real" raiders. It ended up hurting our family members instead of satisfying our raid team.

The third rule of recruiting is: Never stop growing.

Family guilds, like social guilds, are notorious for members taking random hiatuses. Though in a purely social setting, this might not be a huge problem, if you're trying to raid and those members are some of your regular raiders, it puts a wrench in the works.

When IVV started and we only invited close friends of members (a policy we've returned to after the raider debacle), I had a vision. IVV started with about 10 people, 5 at the level cap and then my family group racing upwards. And I knew that as long as we continued to nag our own personal friends into the guild, and they nagged their friends, we would grow. It would be slow, but it would be steady and safe. Want 25's? Keep moving and have patience. We might only grow a little here or there, but we have the unheard-of benefit of not shrinking. Except for the exodus we should have expected, people just don't leave. It's like a profit chart with a line slanting straight toward the top.

I firmly believe that any guild willing to put in the time and patience to slowly grow with quality recruits can succeed at anything, because if your players love the guild, they will stay.

So if you keep moving, keep meeting people, keep encouraging friends and family to join, you cannot lose. Only win.

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Beth Blevins is a former officer in In Vino Veritas.

She's a writer, artist and avid blogger.

Beth's been married since her junior year of college.

Meet the Blogger: Beth Blevins

I grew up a preacher's daughter, moving every few years from one small congregation to the next. Most churches were pretty cool. Some weren't. When I was 11 and we lived in Texas, the church leadership was so corrupt that my dad had a stress-induced heart attack and hid it so that he wouldn't get fired, neither seeking medical attention nor calling in sick.

In college, I took a class called Church Conflict Management and soaked up every molecule of information I could, because it directly addressed what kind of catalysts could cause the pain my family suffered, and what kind of measures we could have taken to prevent or identify the danger (prevent, almost none; identify, plenty). I learned that managing conflict in churches is the single hardest venue for even the most seasoned conflict specialists, and my professor had a high success rate only because he weeded out the impossible cases on the front end.

I tell you this because it directly influences my approach to guilds and guild management and the subjects I choose to address. I tend to write from a "Things will go wrong" perspective.

Experience

Jan 2008 - Jan 2009: Recruitment Princess (aka Officer). I handled the applications and recruiting. I believed that recruitment could be either a boon or illness on my guild and made it my personal crusade to protect the guild from people who could hurt it.

Jan 2009: Social Events Princess (aka Officer). After IVV removed the need for a recruitment officer (to my intense satisfaction and support), I was made the events officer to schedule old world raids and social events. I felt this job provided scheduling conflicts with my real life and a different kind of pressure than my old job did. I also felt that members could get along well without me, and so retired from being an officer.

Profession

I consider myself a professional writer (I go by my maiden name here because it's also my pen name), even though I don't have any credentials after high school and college. I feel that professionalism is a state of mind and that accomplishments are a result rather than the cause.

I'm working on a series of books about super heroes. It's a bunch of fun young adult fluff because I don't think a work has to be "literary" to be useful to the people reading it. I went to the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts in my junior year of high school but quit halfway through with a bad taste in my mouth and a violent disdain for anything arrogant and elitist, including an unfortunate prejudice against anyone who strives to do impressive things just so they can feel superior (motives make a difference to me).

Socially, I'm friendly but shy and need people to like me. Professionally, I'm confident, tough, and even critical. When I write for The Family Business or Letters from Birdfall, I tend to put on my professional persona. In gchat and guild forums, I use a surprising (to me) blend of confident and friendly.

Personal

I don't like to travel, even though I've been through Europe and lived in London. An ultimate homebody, I'd rather sit on the couch writing than just about anything else. (Reasons to leave the apartment include church, food, movies, jogging, and maybe fire.)

I play with my husband, brother, sister-in-law, and her little brother. We also include my husband's best friend in our family, who was guild leader between Teo's two terms. Growing up, I hero-worshiped my big brother, Jon, and followed him to a private Christian college where I met my husband, a computer guy who loves video games and hung out with a very strange crowd of friends (oddball artist, programmer x3, outgoing thespian, crazy Frenchman, pre-med Iranian Texan, musician x4). I loved that he was the "normal nice guy" in his group because it meant that he was stable but could appreciate weird and I . . . have been told that I'm weird. (Imagining the bus driver Bernie's conversation with his dispatcher Bernice and then repeating it to everyone in the car with accents but without an explanation isn't that weird! If Bernice was stationed beyond the light pole, and Bernie had a clearer view of oncoming traffic . . . they'd totally have that conversation. >.<)

Characters

Dustfire (BE Priest) is my raiding main on Zuluhed. She fulfills whatever the guild needs, though she was shadow until the recent healing crisis. I'm working on a story about her for my Birdfall blog, showcasing her role-play possibilities. Dustfire is sultry but manipulative, sly, and cruel. She puts down other women, sleeps with men for favors, and considers herself more important than the people around her do.

Plum (Tauren Druid) is my PVP main on Zuluhed. She's sweet, illiterate, hates enclosed spaces, and a great storyteller.

Birdfall (NE Rogue) is my holiday main on Moon Guard. I use her to complete holiday achievements for pets and pretty dresses. As a role-play character, she's serious and likes to keep a low profile, so she doesn't talk to strangers, and she doesn't have much to say when she does. Her best friend is my husband's mute female druid.