Guildranks

I'm gonna take a minute away from leveling my hunter to talk about an issue I had completely forgotten. That is, until I joined that 25man-guild yesterday. Guild-ranks.

Now, most guilds I know, have no big issue over this. Guild Leader, Officers/Class Leaders, Raiders, Alt and occationally Social Members. Some others, like my new guild, choose a bit of a different setup:

Guildmaster/Officers:

Just the standard ranks. They deal with recruitmentissues, handle guild-drama, the gbank, set up raids and generally make sure everything runs smooth.

Class Leaders:

These are not officers, interestingly enough. I know quite a few guilds take this position, as it does free up the officers to spend their energy elsewhere. It also helps prevent burnouts and overworked leaders having to do Everything. In my guild, the CLs are responsible for letting the officers know how many people of their class are needed to recruit, they have a say in the applications, and they're the ones who decide which members of their class to bring to a raid. They're also supposed to help out when someone is having problems or underperforing, be available for questions about everything from which spell to use at what fight, to what enchant will benefit their spec best.

Raiders:

They get free enchants and flasks for raiding, in addition to being picked first for a raidspot in front of a normal members. Interestingly enough, to qualify for this rank you need both a 100% attendance-score, in addition to being an exceptional player and a nice guy. If you miss a couple of raids one week, this will mean you're going to be demoted. Officers decide when and who to promote and demote, and you will need quite a few weeks with 100% attendance for them to consider you.

Members:

Normal raiders. They get no special treatment either way, and are expect to attend as much as they can. Members get help from the guildbank with flasks and enchants, but they have to pay 50% of the AH-price for these things. The only ones they have priority over with raidspots are the casuals.

Casuals:

This is the rank for the social members. They have no rights to a raidspot and can only come if no member or raider can take the spot. The same goes for loot - only if noone else wants it can they take it. 

I've been in a few different raiding-guilds, both as a normal member, a casual, or an officer/class-leader, and after four-five years of this I've seen a lot of different ways to do stuff. This setup is a good idea in theory, but like a lot of ideas part of it is rather impractical in reality. Freeing up the officers to focus on promoting the guilds on forums, lead raids and so on by making class leaders non-officers, is a sound idea. I rather like having a classleader available who isn't always going to be either very busy or very tired, and I know from experience that being an officer can be overwhelming when it's combined with the responsibility of a class or role.

What I don't really like is the raider-member-system. In theory, yeah, it sounds great. "These three guys are ALWAYS there, they perform their job perfectly, they help out and they don't create unnecessary drama. It's only fair that they get some perks from this." However, to qualify, as I mentioned, it isn't enough to simply have a 100% attendance. You have to impress the officers with your knowledge of the class and playing abilities - fair enough, really. If you're hardmoding your way through TotC 25, people are expecting to know these things already. It's the third part I don't like. You have to be a "nice guy". That's actually a quote, too. It basically becomes a personality contest - who does the officers like best? If you're cool and funny enough, you get to enjoy free enchants, free flasks and potions, and you'll be picked first for a raid. If you sign up, you'll get a spot, always. No matter what.

Had it been as simple as "If you keep a 100% attendance, you get free enchants/flasks/other random price" I would not react. Sure, you should probably set a "takes two weeks of 100% attendance before promote" or some such, but that's kind of obvious. Still, we all know how frustrating it can be to never have anyone recognize the amount of work we do for a guild, and free enchants for the three-four guys who is always in the raid is a pretty nice way to say that. Reserving further raidspots for them is taking it a bit too far.

Personality will always matter in a guild. Also kind of obvious. We do, after all, like to raid with the guys who does their job and wont spam our vt too much while going afk every once in a whiel, that's only natural. If someone fucks up too much, or get angry at every wipe, we'd prefer to bring someone else. But I really do believe that barring such people, the rest should have equal opportunity for a raidspot. If Joe isn't as funny as Kat, should he have to miss one raid every week, instead of them alternating every other week as to who sits out and who goes?