Involving members - A lazy post
I’ve been a little under the weather this week, but it’s been too long since I posted. In typical Auz fashion I’ve decided it was time to look over the guild forums and find something vaguely amusing.
I made this post today. It’s a time when as officers we decided to go back to our members for feedback about an issue. It’s also one of those weird times where we are holding a member up for discussion. Before the post was made, we talked to the member to make sure he was comfortable with this.
First and foremost let me say this is the first time we’ve asked for feedback directly relating to an individual in a public format. Given the culture of respect for our teammates we’ve developed, I’m going to assume that if you have negative things to say about the person behind the character, you’ll PM them to CasterLead or myself rather than post them here.
Alright Auz, you have my attention, what’s the deal?
We has a problem. “AffLock” is a long standing member of the guild who has recently taken on a job that prevents him from making our attendance requirement. That being said, he is making our progression nights and “CasterLead” and the other officers view him as fairly irreplaceable (I mean he LIKES affliction and he’s not all emo). When he’s not available to us, he’s taken the time to train the lovely and talented “CuteMage” and shared his account with her, so we’re guaranteed to have an affliction lock available to us.
Okay Auz, what about this is a problem?
Well being below the attendance cap means “Aff’s” not eligible for gear until all the others have passed on it. Which means slowly but surely “Aff’s” gear is going to start to lag behind, to the point where he won’t be useful on progression nights anymore.
Oh that is a problem, but you said something about not attacking “Aff”…. when do I get to say naughty things about him…errr I mean, surely Auzara, you must have a solution.
“Aff” suggested that as his actual play time hasn’t changed, just the hours he can play in, that he put that time to industriously farming for the guild to “earn” the same time you guys put in. If that’s demon slaying elixirs or “‘Aff’, can you grab me some adepts, I didn’t have the time I needed this week” In exchange we would waive the 3600 EP requirement for “Aff.” While his gear acquisition rate would be slower than the others (due to slower decay rate and less EP earned) it wouldn’t lag so significantly as to make him not useful on progression nights.
Okay Auz this is a great story, but um… shouldn’t this be in the officer forums?It was in the officer forums, but we while we mostly support this plan, the people it’s really going to affect are you guys. You’ll have “Aff” to compete with for gear and you’ll be benefited by the farming. Also, “Aff” has earned the officer’s respect for his time and commitment to the guild but also his approach when he got this job. But anytime you make an exception of this magnitude, there will be accusations of favoritism and not fair play. So we decided that if we’re going to be showing favoritism, let’s let the caster core do it. So casters, provide us with feedback. Is “AffLock’s” offer to put in equal times farming that he’s missing raiding worth it to you guys to pull him in your loot rotation? Remember what I said though, while we are discussing a fellow player and friend please keep your comments constructive and related to the discussion. Comments I think won’t help the discussion will be moved to the officer forums.
So now, I can talk about “Aff” and that time I caught him with the goat and the crisco?
Only if you think it’s relevant to the conversation little voice in Auz’s head. Now, let’s go get ice cream!
Sweet I love ice cream!
So why’d you share this Auz, I mean other than being lazy? Well I wanted to show this as an example of:
A) Why I’m not writing for you guys right now - I mean I’m talking to myself about ice cream.
B) Involving your members in decisions - This was a sticky wicket for us, I mean the player is solid, but it’s a pretty massive departure from our rules. When you decide who’s getting in for the raid, you can’t involve the whole guild, the same with which instance we’re raiding. In this case though, we can and frankly I think we should. It these guys who will be affected by both the farming and the loot calls. Don’t forget to keep your members involved when you can.
C) Getting more opinions - You guys aren’t in my guild, so this is mostly just for my curiosity, but what do you guys think about massive departures from the established rules? Is it okay sometimes? Should it never be done? Is farming outside of raid times a valid time make up for being there for raids?
D) I can feel better about having posted “something” and focus on back on getting better and what the guild needs from me.
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I think that officers always have to address members as individuals. I might not make this kind of deal for someone who has not been a solid contributor in the past, but considering Aff’s history, I think that allowing him the small share of the loot that the Ep/Gp system would allocate to him is a very fair solution. In my own guild, we have players with about this participation rate and have always allowed them to take loot; however, our attendance requirement is only used to determine priority for raid invites and has never been used to determine who is eligible for drops. The Ep/Gp system (with a minimum) does that for us.
I don’t think farming is equivalent to raiding, but what I do applaud is Aff’s team spirit and willingness to give to others. I think it’s a generous offer and well worth the bargain you’d be making with him.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I’ve always been a fan of involving the “group” (whatever that is) in decisions where possible. It provides an opportunity for the team to feel invested in the eventual decision, and if James Surowiecki (The Wisdom of Crowds) is correct, you often come to a better decision when more folks are involved in that decision. Certainly, you can’t open everything up for debate, but when possible, I think you should take the opportunity to do so. Frankly, I think knowing when to use different forms of decision making is a hallmark of solid leadership.
While farming doesn’t equal raiding (in my mind), I do believe that based on the overall contribution of the individual it’s a reasonable solution to the challenge. Good luck in this and all your guild’s endeavors.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I think that you have made the correct decision in this case. Essentially I think it comes down to how much you can afford to lose the player in question. While this seems unfair, or perhaps an exercise in favoritism, at the end of the day the purpose of a raiding guild is to progress. Doing things which allows this progression to continue is in the guild’s ultimate benefit.
However, opening this up to the rest of the guild to comment on also allows them to be a part of the decision. The guild can evaluate Afflock’s worth to them as a guild and comment on it. At the end of the day, real life will sometimes get in the way of WoW, and I believe we do need to be a little flexible to allow for this.
Good luck! Hope you feel better soon, and enjoy the icecream
July 9th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Seems like the smart path to me. Everyone gets the opportunity to yay/nay. Personally I would be surprised if people nayed, but, they get that opportunity. Therefore it doesn’t appear like Leader favoritism, and people become aware that there may, just may, be an opportunity for discussion of “difficult” topics with the leaders, because they have been prepare to pursue all avenues in the past.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I have always been a by the book player. In this case, I’m on the fence but I’m leaning towards the no side. No matter how you shake it, items are being awarded to a player that isn’t really raiding. Is his character there? Oh yes. And so long as that character is there, it remains a valuable tool on progression nights.
But it sets an extremely dangerous precedent. It basically says I can pick up a monkey and train them to raid for me and still get loot for it. Be very careful with this. If this kind of situation were to happen in Carnage (and it has before), I would’ve given that player his walking papers and pink slip and start browsing the WoW classifieds for a player to fill the void that was left.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I’d want to know how long such a situation was expected to last and just how many raids he’d be missing before saying one way or another. If its a permanent schedule change I’d lean more towards getting someone else to fill the spot with the assurance that if his schedule ever became more open he’d be right back in the raid.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Despite the excellent background you provided, I’m going to refrain from commenting because I don’t feel I know the situation well enough to provide a thoughtful reply (I’ve also been awake for a ridiculously long time and I’m borderline incoherent).
I do want to express my interest in learning more about keeping open communication between officers and guild members. Communication is a real issue in my guild; not just between the officer core and the regular members, but also between the officers themselves (I’m a fairly new officer). I’d like to alleviate some of the stress this lack of communication causes, but I’m at somewhat of a loss as to how to accomplish it.
It seems like your guild has very good communication and I admire that a great deal. What are some of the other strategies you employ to keep those channels open?
July 10th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Salanthe, sometimes all it takes to open up a group of people to communication is one person taking the time to speak up. It’s hard to provide anything specific without knowing details, though. You say you’re a new officer? That means you’ve been recognised to have something above and beyond that of a normal member. So show it!
You’re saying this lack of communication is causing undue stress… The most obvious way to relieve it would thus be to fix the communication problem. Don’t feel daunted, or overwhelmed as a newly appointed officer - you wouldn’t be there if the others didn’t believe in your abilities. Get the others talking more however you can - officer forum posts are generally the best way. Ask for their input on certain situations, make suggestions where you have them - hell, even ask them about their real lives.
To think of an example, take a bunch of strangers in a room. They’re all there for a common reason, but they don’t know each other. It’ll all seem a bit awkward at first, but usually all it takes is one person stepping up and speaking up to get the rest of the group more involved. Don’t worry too much about what you say (well, to an extent - don’t go around insulting people!) - everyone makes mistakes, and it’s better to be corrected than continue believing a fallacy. A basic human instinct is a fear of rejection, and being wrong and incurring criticism. If you speak up, and others see this, they will in time begin to come around (I’m still using the strangers-in-a-room example). If you speak up, and the other officers do criticise you and shoot you down, well… I’ll keep my opinions of such a leadership to myself. But I know I personally wouldn’t be sticking around much longer.
But that’s just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt as always. And I’m sure Auz will disagree with me on something! She always does >:(
July 10th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Without knowing exactly how your loot system works it is hard to comment on.
Do I think you did the right thing in including others that are affected by the decision to voice their opinion? Yes. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t advise doing this, but this situation is somewhat special and we all acknowledge that.
However, I do agree with Matt that this may not have been the correct choice of action. What happens now when the next raider, who may play an important role, but not as critically as Afflock? Will he also be given the same consideration? How do you stop the accusations of favoritism if you don’t?
For now the system might work, but what happens if this continues for some time and you recruit new casters that are affected by this? Herein lies a bigger problem, I think. They were never consulted and have to just live with it and they might not be so understanding.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:34 am
My feeling is similar to kyrilean. I think you’re doing the right thing in having discussed this in your officer core first. You guys determine the vision for the guild, you need to decide first what you want out of the guild and what you want to offer to your members. I also think it’s correct to bring this to the guild as a whole after figuring out where you guys stand. I’m big on social contract theory, and a guild is totally a volunteer organization where everyone has pretty much agreed to such a social contract. When you want to change the contract, which is what you’re doing here (and you are going about changing it the right way–you’ve recognized the oncoming problem and are addressing it BEFORE it actually becomes an issue), you need to know who will buy in and who won’t.
But the other side of that is…you ARE changing the contract. And the contract is supposed to apply to everyone. Ideally this change should be a choice available to everyone. Which to me, seems like a dangerous concept to embrace–you can’t sustain the same level of raiding if everyone is taking nights off and replacing them with farming. It’s all well and good to have consumables, but without raiders to use them you’re stuck. This plan could work if your raiders all want to make an exception for a specific person, but frankly I find changing rules for one person to be an idea that rarely works out.
One other note: unlike kyrilean, I’m not that concerned about the effects on future members. You just make the current set of rules clear to any prospective members, and they can choose to accept the contract or not. It may hurt your recruiting, but anyone who throws a fit over the fulfillment of a contract they accepted is in the wrong.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
In my old guild, we waived the rules once or twice for a player in a similar situation. However, for everyone else, it was always, “get what you get, if you don’t like it, you ARE replaceable.”
The issue came in when someone who’s not as well-liked or as long-standing but in the same issue asks for the same waiver that the other member got. What do you tell them? No, we did it for him because he’s been here longer. Well, ok, that sounds fine. But you have to constantly keep enforcing this new rule that just gets more and more complicated until everyone’s feelings end up hurt. It’s best to keep things simple, and keep things uniform among all players.
I know he’s been around to help a lot, but what happens when a druid who hasn’t been there as long, but is just as helpful to the guild, falls into the same predicament? Will you do it for him too? Now you’ve gotta say, “well, we did it because he’s a really key player.” I mean, you need to keep people geared for progression, but it can’t be a case-by-case bias.
I would have said “I don’t think this will work out right now (and tell him the same reasons you told us - lacking behind, etc) and I don’t think we can make a waiver of the rules for you right now (again, explaining). While you might still get to raid, it would be few and far between as time goes on, and if you want to find a guild that can raid inside of your new times, it would be understandable; however, we’re happy to have you here all the same and really value all you’ve done, but it would just be unfair to everyone in the long run.”
September 17th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
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