Copied from the guide originally posted by Wytch.

Note: I do not claim to be the world’s greatest guild leader and I have made some mistakes along the way and learned from those and I am sure I will continue to do so. This guide is not so much for those already leading guilds but for those who are thinking about creating and leading a guild. I see a lot of posts in the Guild Relations forum that could have been avoided if some forethought was given to the process that should take place BEFORE sending out invites to your new guild. It is very simply – food for thought.

So You Want To Be Guild Leader

Welcome to the beginning of what will be a very busy (and sometimes down right tiring and maddening) but rewarding job. After making the decision to create and lead a guild, generally the first reaction is to run out and recruit. Though you will eventually get to that point, this is probably not the best starting point if you have not thought the entire process through.

I truly believe that no one starts a guild with the intentions of doing poorly, we all have good intentions, however, good intentions will not sustain a guild. Without great forethought and planning, most guilds are doomed for failure from the start. This guide has been written with the assumption that you are at the beginning of the process of creating a guild. I will speak about considerations and items of necessity for the successful creation of building a strong foundation to support the development and growth of your guild.

The thing that will kill your guild quicker than anything is the lack of strategic thinking and the ability to be flexible and allow growth. Though much of this will seem like things that will not be needed until late in your guilds progression, it is always best to start implementing them now. It is very difficult to change the direction of a large ship once it begins to move, you need to start your course in the right direction.

Who Are You?

Of the utmost importance now and through the entire life of your guild is that you have clearly defined goals and a flexible plan on how this goals will be achieved. What type of guild do you wish to lead for the long term? This may seem like an easy thing to come up with but it really is not, you need to do a lot of soul searching on this.

Everyone wants a successful guild but how do you measure success? By boss kills? By the number of members you have? By the friendships you build? By your longevity? This answer is going to be different for everyone and each answer will have it’s core strengths that you as a guild leader will need to possess to successfully lead the guild.
If boss kills is your thing then you are probably leaving towards a hard core raiding guild which requires huge amounts of discipline. For lack of a better term, this is probably the most militant leadership roll. You need to be willing to make the hard calls for the success of the guild which means being able to put the smack down on people not doing their jobs and removing and replacing them if they hinder the guilds progression. The rules are generally pretty strict in these guilds and again, you need to be able to enforce those rules (and I do not mean be a complete jerk about it).

If socializing and having people to talk to while playing in game sounds like a great thing to you and you are not so interested in boss kills then perhaps a casual guild is more your speed. Though it would seem this leadership roll is pretty easy it can have it’s drawbacks. You need to understand that you will lose people fairly frequently and be accepting of that. These guilds are generally seen as “leveling guilds” and many who hope to raid will move on. As a guild leader you yourself will need to realize that you will not be raiding in end game if you continue to lead this guild.

What if you like both of the above scenarios? What if you want to have it all? Ahh the ever elusive hybrid “casual raiding” guild. I probably know this most about this guild as it is what our guild, Resurrection, is. You will have not only the best of both worlds but also the worst. You will need amazing mediation skills while being able to balance that with putting the smack down. You will need to be very flexible in many areas, the largest being the constant leaps forward in progression and steps backwards that are inevitable in this type of guild. It is probably the most difficult of all guilds to run as you are dealing with a variety of people with different goals in the game, the one common thread is generally the time aspect that they have to devote to the game.

The Charter . What is Your Quest?

Resurrection is a casual PVE/ PVP Raiding guild. Basically this means that we are a group of people that have prior commitments in our lives and cannot adhere to a strict raiding schedule but still wish to experience end game content. Our raiding schedules allow for greater flexibility of those who work and attend school full time while still allowing us to progress in the game.

Our average age range is approx 25 – 35 with a few above and below that range. We are a mature content guild and we do not recommend that those under 18 apply. This is not to say that we do not make exceptions to that rule but above all we look at maturity and the ability to work as a team.

We are not looking for the glory hounds of the server, we do not feel the need to prove anything to anyone with “phat loots” and bosses killed, it is not our style. We do not r0XoR n00bz oMg wtf BBQ!

We currently have Onyxia and MC up to Rag on farm status as well as many of the ZG and AQ 20 bosses. We have a prominent force in AB and host other guild events from time to time (naked Gnome killing PVP time, naked instance races and Friday Night Drunken Raid) that we run to break up the monotony and provide endless photo ops .

Again just to be clear: Resurrection is a CASUAL guild and that by “casual” we mean we do NOT raid 5 nights a week, that the schedule can change due to unforeseen issues, we care much more for the well being of our players and their families over the content in this game and that there can, and will be down time and you may actually have to entertain yourself (**gasp** I know – it’s horrible!!!!).

Rules & Policies

I know, I hate rules. It would be great if everyone around me shared the same value system as me and the world would live n complete bliss… I know – who am I fooling? Fact is if you are going to have a large gathers of humans you need to have some really basic rules and policies in place.

The biggest concerns for most guilds are the chat functions (in game and vent/ts) and members behavior in them and loot/DKP rules. These do not have to be end all lists. Again, start with the basics and build from there. If you are months away from end game raiding and DKP then state that you will be looking at a DKP system when you get closer to raiding. If you have one then great! Be aware of it and state what your intentions are with it ie: We will be using (name here) DKP system, or the guild will vote on a DKP system at a later date or all of your loot belongs to me! Just state it so applicants are aware of what they are signing up for, even if it is not determined they still are aware of that fact.

Ideally your rules and policies should be posted in the same thread as your charter so that the applicant can easily find all of the information about your guild. You can have longer specific threads breakdowns each area down but the overall synopsis and basic rules should be together.

Post it you say? In a thread? Where?

Glad you asked…

Guild Websites – If you build it they will come…

I wish I had a dollar for every thread I have read that starts out with, “We just put up our guild web site and no one comes to it”. Perhaps it’s my background in the web and the knowledge of how much incredible info there is out on the web that makes me jaded, but I really cannot comprehend not having a web site for your guild as a priority BEFORE recruiting. Why would you begin recruitment w/o first having a place to say who you are and what your goals will be?

Websites are great for a few reasons:

• Distribution of Information
• A website allows you to reach a great number of people with your guild information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and so on. People can cruise your site at their leisure and catch up on guild events and happenings. In some case guild websites offer public sections for strats, crafting service notices and speccing suggestions to name a few.
• Sense of Community
• Our members are on our website a LOT. I am really happy to see the activity we have on the members sections as well as the open forum (we love our forums trolls!!!!). We share not only info for in game happenings but also personal events in our lives, recipes and fun websites we find.
• Recruitment
• Last but most important of all, if you have a website for your recruitment you are doing two things that in the long run will save you time and help build your site participation. First by having people apply to your site you are wedding out those that would be a good fit form those that would not and not spending those precious hours in game doing the first interviews.

Many will go to your website, read the charter and decide the guild is not for them, you have just saved yourself 20 – 30 minutes in game from talking with them. You will always get those that still would like to discuss the guild after reading the charter and that is great but if you can save yourself a bit of times by answering the same types of questions over and over. That is always a good thing!!!!

The other thing you will do is begin a process of having members go to the site. If they have applied through the site they are more likely to return back to the site again once they become members, the more information and activity on the site, the more draw it will have.

Website Must Haves

• Forums – The biggest necessity! You need a place to post information for all to see and for the members to contact each other out of game.
• Calendars – fantastic to track your guild activities and events.
• Guild News – It’s nice to see where other guilds are and to share information about where you are in game progression.
• DKP Database – to track DKP (for raiding guilds that use DKP only).

So where do you go to get a website? If you are wanting to try to save yourself as much money as possible you might try one of the guild website communities such as :

www.worldofguilds.com/

www.guildportal.com/

I personally have never used either of these sites caveat emptor if you choose to use them.

A lot of people use “bulletin board” type sites for their website, these do the job nicely without all the flashy imagery and such:

http://www.phpbb.com/

The biggest drawbacks with the pre-made portal type sites and the phbb is that they are limited in their visual customization and you generally are going to have a bit of an odd website name that can be difficult for some to remember.

If you would like to have something a bit more eye catching and customizable and you have a good knowledge of web design then perhaps getting your own domain and server is the route to go. Of course now you are getting into real cost….

Brother Can You Spare A Dime? – The real world costs of running a guild…

Time… Ticking Away the Moments that Make Up the Dull Day.

To Infinity and Beyond!!!