How to deal with "promotion whores"? (long post inc)

[Musclebound]

First some background...I'm the GM of a medium sized social/casual raiding guild. We don't have a website, so to avoid confusion on our policies, our rules, as well as a description of the different ranks within our guild and the requirements for each, are written in the info tabs on our guild bank. New members are told to read them immediately on joining the guild. Currently we have a recruit rank for new members with no bank privileges, this is for a one week trial. If they are active and don't cause trouble, they get promoted to Member, with the ability to withdraw a certain amount of stacks from all the bank tabs, except the last one, which is reserved for raid mats. They also get 75g in guild repairs.


After that promotion, the next rank most members can normally attain is our "Veteran" rank, which is awarded after 6 months of active participation in the guild. The main benefit is a slight increase in guild repair access. Or, if they're an active raider, they get promoted to the "Raid Team" rank, which is basically the same privileges, with the addition of access to the raid supplies tab. To be clear, we supply flasks and buff food out of this tab to anyone who comes to our raids regardless of rank, the perk of being a regular raider is being able to get them yourself. We have a rank for officers, and a seperate rank for officer alts (mostly to prevent confusion with new members, considering between myself and my 6 officers we have 58 characters in guild), a rank for my assistant GM, and a rank for the officer in charge of the guild bank.


Now as I've said, our ranks and the requirements to attain them are clearly defined. I also make it very clear that at the moment, I don't feel like the guild needs any more officers (one of my officers has been on deployment to Afghanistan for 6 months, and we aren't feeling any strain from not having his help anyway). This is what leads me to my problem, I have two members who are giving me headaches over progressing in rank in our guild.


Now our first problem member is a fairly easy decision for me, I'm just unsure as to the best way to handle it without causing drama. This member was in the guild some 3 years ago, in early wrath, and was a problem member then. He had a drinking problem, was very arrogant and domineering, generally had a bad attitude. He was eventually removed from the guild after arguing with our GM at the time on vent during a raid, and called her some absolutely terrible things in front of the entire guild. (We joke now that this was his good quality, as she became very unpopular with the guild, for good reason). I was an officer at the time, and I fully intended never to let him return. He slipped through the cracks recently, applied to our guild through the recruitment tool and was interviewed and invited by an officer who was not with us at the time or aware of his history. I hold my officer blameless here, he didn't know and the guy seemed alright after interviewing with him. He made it through his trial without problems and got promoted to full member.
He's been in the guild now for 6 weeks, and is already bugging me about promotions, even though he's read and is aware of our promotion policies. He argues that because he's active and "is always helping guildies" and is planning on organizing a weekend raid team, that he deserves a promotion anyway. Now, I have no problem with him forming a raid team so long as it doesn't coincide with our already established raid nights, but my gut tells me, based on his previos behavior, that his motives aren't entirely altruistic. His past behavior, even though it was so long ago, makes me nervous and I want to be damn sure he isn't going to fall into those same patterns. In addition, I've neither personally witnessed nor heard reports of him going above and beyond the call of duty to help a guildie out. However, I have had scattered reports of him mistreating guild members, most notably belittling guildies who were trying to give him advice on improving his mage's dps output (he would complain incessantly about his poor output in guild chat, but again I personally didn't observe his behavior beyond that). There's no doubt in my mind that he doesn't deserve any further rank in the guild until he proves himself, I'm just unsure how to handle it without causing the guild to explode. Am i out of line to mention that I remember his outburst from way back when and need to see that he's changed before I trust him? I honestly won't shed a tear if he rage-quits over it, but I don't want other people leaving because of it if I can avoid it.


Our second member, unfortunately, is more touchy as I know him in real life. I'm good friends with his wife and they were both in our guild for most of Wrath. His wife and I decided that it was less stressful on our friendship if we were in seperate guilds, as she had difficulty performing at the level we expected from our healers on our raid team, which caused a lot of drama. He stayed until this past february, and canceled his account.This is not the first time he's taken an extended leave of absence from the game, he never had a permanent raid spot because he would stop playing for weeks or more at a time on a whim, not to mention that his main was a bear tank at the time, and he was on a good night mediocre at the role, and performed worse than anyone else we had willing to play that role (this is not an issue of gear, I truly believe he lacks the awareness and multi-tasking ability be an effective tank) Because he never stated any definite intention to return to the game, I removed him from the guild after 30 days, as per our policy on inactive toons. When he started playing again in august, he asked to be invited back and I did. It was about an hour after he got invited back in before he started talking about being an officer, an idea which I had shot down more times than I care to count before. As I said, we have enough officers to manage the guild as it is. Most of my officers are adamantly against promoting him as well.
Aside from his attitude and personality problems (which are many) we also have to consider that he has repeatedly quit playing for long stretches of time with little warning, a quality that isn't suited for an officer. He's very loud, tends to try and dominate every discussion he's in, cracks jokes at people he barely knows (good natured teasing is part of our guild atmosphere, and we get pretty raunchy sometimes, but he doesn't make an effort to know people before he starts ripping on them, and it bothers people). A former officer of mine had him on mute in vent for over 6 months because it got to the point where even hearing his voice would aggravate him. Luckily, my "friend" never figured it out. The aggravating thing is, he just doesn't "Get it". He doesn't understand how his behavior upsets other people. I don't think he's deliberately mean, I just think he's too socially inept to understand, and unfortunately he also gets very defensive at any form of criticism, so the officer generally just sulk and complain to me about him rather than confront him. He feels like he's being left out of the group, as he can't see our little jokes in officer chat and whatnot, but I feel like that's our one safe haven at this point. Maybe I am leaving him out, but I really don't want to deal with his reaction if I tell him that my officers and I are unanimous in denying him this promotion. I don't trust him with authority, and I tend not to go against my officers suggestions without very good reasons. So I'm stuck in between a rock and a hard place and don't know how to handle it.


So...thoughts, opinions, snide remarks?

[Toushiro]

For member number 1, if people are complaining about him then something has to give, if a member like that stays too long and doesn't change then people tend to think their complaints are being over looked and may leave because they feel that, the member in question has connections to leadership and that's why their complaint is being overlooked. So you need to sit down and talk to him with officers and talk about his future with you guys.

Member number 2, it can tend to be better to talk to them outside of WoW and be more up front with them, if they're a true friend they'll understand the reasons of why you're not gonna promote him to such an important rank in the guild. People that are like him really need to understand that just vanishing from the game without a reason like your officer over seas, it's hard to trust them with that kind of power.

[Rystrave]

o_O This sounds like my guild. I don't know about the whole drama thing with it, since I came as a recruit and now sit as a high ranked raider, but from my understanding a lot of the old raiders are upset (after leaving and coming back from Rift) that they don't have the same priviledges as they did before. And they're casual, maybe on for a couple hours every once in a while.

I hope you get everything smoothed out! It's no fun having guild problems

[Exiledknight]

Member #1, tell him to show you and you will consider it.....there you have the best of both worlds you have your out in the fact that you will consider it, and it gets him off your back by telling him to show you. Now you also say he has been mistreating members, now this is where it becomes tricky....what is mistreating? Is it him being abrasive? Or is he being an a*#? There are differences that you must learn to handle as a GM, was this mistreatment fleeting whispers you heard or outright complaints? There are many things you need to know here in order to make a decision. Personally this is what I would do
Tell him make the raid team, run it for a month and I will monitor things as I consider a promotion, also mention that it has come to your attention that he has been abrasive and kind of a jerk to other members and that you will not tolerate it(be vague just like that, you may get everything you need to know from his mouth). Monitor all situations with....this is prob the correct thing to do in your guild setting although personally I would just boot them from mine(massive difference in guilds though which is neither here nor there).

Member 2
First off tell them that things in game have nothing to do with friendship outside of it, and that you have to look out for the best interest of the community as a whole....Then explain while you may be the life of the party, tone it down just a notch it is a bit too much in this setting, we don't want you to lose your personality just step it down a small bit. As far as the officer role, be frank that you need people that do not dissappear, people that will take on extra roles and wear multiple hats...set a time, tell him that you would consider it in 8-9 months should he remain active the whole time.

Both have similarities, in some cases you do need to play a politician, tell people I will consider it(there is your out, you made them happy and you may just end up seeing that they would be an amazing officer), but actually consider it! You would be surprised the number of officers that at face value didn't seem a fit, but that have made amazing officers when given that light at the end of the tunnel.

[woodyman]

In my guild all officers decide on promotions that way the blame cannot be solely put on your shoulders which tends to cause less hard feelings.
Member number 1 i would personally say no way, ive had my fair share of trouble makers and had to practically destroy my entire guild and rebuild it just to get rid of them all.

[Charon]

Since someone else /cast Raise Dead on this thread, I'll chime in with my shiny bits.

Member one:
I dealt with almost this SPECIFIC situation myself, only instead of asking to come back to the guild, he attempted to poach me after my ex wife/gm and I split up. I have no problem with him as a person anymore, because he's legitimately tried to better himself. He quit drinking which made him much more personable, and we talk on the phone about once every three months.

I would allow him to form his raid team, assuming he either filled it from the lesser utilized members of the current bench or recruited his own raiders to join the guild/team. The latter way, he could form his own ten player group, and farm some lower level raids to get them in sync with each other before tackling current xpac content, which would help your guild grow in the end (assuming you aren't level 25 yet). However, until he'd shown that he could effectively lead his team without being a general dick to be people in sneaks (raid chat, whispers, etc.) for quite a while, there's no way he would make officer, and when he did, he would have his own rank of Raid Leader (Team Designation - I recommend using non-sequential terms for this to prevent terminology drama) that had little control over the general function of the guild. Just the ability to make calendar events for his team and see officer chat.

Member 2:
Even when I'd had planned absences from the game for any extended duration, I took my duties as an officer very seriously. Despite my wow account being cancelled for a couple months, I still interacted with the guild over vent or really any method of communication I had available, including facebook and even AIM. My role shifted from essentially second in command to "the smart guy." My job was to farm every available scrap of data that might help our members, from leveling specs to raid specs, rotations, glyphs, gear, or to be the impartial listener/moderator that solved member issues. Even without logging into the game once within a 2 month period on my own account (I toyed around with my ex's alts on occasion, and played my own toons on her account on other servers while she slept), I still made it a point to interact daily. If he isn't that dedicated to the guild, I wouldn't give him an officer position in the first place.

The examples given are obviously from my own experience, but they're also for a very laid back guild that just raided "to kill time and maybe a few bosses." Thus, if your guild is more dedicated to raiding than just flapping gums in guild chat, I think I'm definitely on the right track.