Our guild culture is pretty unique. It’s a bit of an acquired taste, I think. I remember when I joined, coming from an older, casual guild and being completely shocked during my first raid! It’s grown on me, though, and most of the time it feels like home. I like that I can just be myself, quiet person that I am, and no one minds.

Hit me up sometime in game if you want to chat. Or if you see me idling alone in a channel on Mumble, feel free to drop in. Usually when I’m hanging out by myself, it’s when I’m up for talking, but don’t feel like listening to a big group.

“Most people, like me, were worried about being left behind”

This is definitely something that stressed me out. And still does. Due to unexpected events outside of game, I haven’t been on as much as I had planned. I’m just now geared enough for heroics and it’s been tough to see the guild raiding already. I had an uphill battle anyway trying to break into this healing team so this has been discouraging.

“It’s been weird, logging into game and not recognizing most of the people on.”

When I login I don’t recognize anyone online. Of course this is part of joining a new guild and something I knew coming in. But I’m pretty quiet anyway and coming from a guild that only used vent for dungeons/raiding, it’s a pretty big adjustment. It’s tough to know when/or which channel to jump into. I always feel like I’m intruding (or the reason vent just went quiet) when I jump into a channel, and when I’m there people often call each other by RL names or alt toons so it’s doubly confusing. I realize this knowledge/comfort level does not just come over night, but it has been interesting here at the beginning of the expansion.

“guild chat has really gone downhill”

I have to admit I have not witnessed anything too offensive in gchat. I have not seen the examples you listed, but I’m central time and may not be on for some of the late night shenanigans. Of course I don’t know what it was like before the expansion. Personally, gchat is more aggressive than I’m used to but it certainly hasn’t scared me away.

Hope this didn’t sound like a list of complaints. I have really enjoyed the vast majority of my short time with the guild. Just thought you might like some musings from a guild noob and fellow neurotic.

I deleted that line in the post shortly after I wrote it but apparently I was too slow. Maybe I’ll write about it in the future when the issue is resolved. Or maybe I can convince the person in question to guest post about how apparently innocent comments can have a lot of loaded meaning when used in the wrong context (I honestly do feel bad about having slipped and written about it in my blog before talking to the person in question, they should hear about these things directly from me and not from my blog.)

Rest assured that I’ve been in the guild for a year and my gender has never interfered with getting raid spots, with being accepted into the general group, getting loot or anything else. I’ve got a lot of character and never would have stuck around a misogynist atmosphere.

Last night was a lot better so I think the negative leaders (you know you work with kids with the term “negative leader” is part of your everyday vocabulary) were reprimanded. Our guild strikes a compromise where you can say what you want in vent/mumble outside of raids (people with incompatible personalities don’t sit in the same channels anyway) but guild chat should be kept tidy since everyone is forced to read it.

It is really tough to ask for officer position. There’s this common belief that officer positions should only ever be accepted reluctantly. Which is silly since someone who doesn’t want to be that deeply involved shouldn’t be forced into it. Lately I’ve felt guild leadership to be a lot like when I was really involved in school politics. The best student leaders were those who loved the work and felt really strongly about the cause. Those who did it because they felt obligated did poor jobs.

I got pretty involved in the guild shortly after I joined, taking initiatives wherever they were needed, but wasn’t interested in an officer position before because I wasn’t that emotionally invested in the work. I probably would have accepted if asked and it always hurt me that others who seemed less engaged were asked to be officers (especially after I found out why I was never asked… I was pretty livid, but the blog isn’t the right place for me to be twisting words, at least not until a long time after the dust settles), but it wasn’t something I was actively seeking.

Then over the past month or so, I’ve been doing guild stuff almost every day and I’ve been very protective of my tasks. Until it dawned on me that I needed to take the next level. I couldn’t go on doing this kind of guild work without making it official, but I didn’t want to give up what I was doing either.

The initial reaction I received when I asked was “but there’s not enough work to go around”

Which obviously triggered “APPARENTLY THERE IS BECAUSE I’M DOING IT”

I guess it is hard to see exactly how invested someone is (I have no idea what most of the other officers do, not because their work isn’t valuable, but because it’s done quietly behind the scenes). But after all the times I’ve scrambled when getting emails from Matt saying “hey can you do XYZ for me? I need it yesterday” or the times when someone’s complained on the forums that “someone should do/plan XYZ but I don’t feel like it” so I spoke up and took the initiative… I dunno, my cheek is still tingling from the slap in the face.

As you can see, the emotions are still kind of raw But I did manage to get the promotion. There was pretty much no reaction from anyone once the matter was settled so I just kind of jumped into the action.

The part about it that’s relevant here is that you can have a group that’s in the “steady” stage (norming), but any time you add people to the group – (one person or more, it doesn’t matter) It resets the group to the “storming” stage, where everyone is jockeying for position and things can get a bit chaotic. The riotous guild chat you’ve described sounds like a bit of posturing to me. If I’m reading your post correctly, it sounds like long-time members who didn’t used to talk this way, and you’re worried about what the new members will think? The fact that this is a new thing seems to suggest that it will settle down eventually. Maybe a word from leadership about respectful expectations will a) suggest folks tone it down a notch, and b) make it clear that this isn’t really ‘the norm’?

I also had to campaign for a promotion to officer, not because I wanted it so badly but because I was doing the job already. Sounds like you were, too! The important thing is that you’re willing to ask for something that’s really the ‘right’ thing. It’s not always an easy thing to do!

… /end ramble!

I certainly don’t blame those who jump into conversations- I mean, how else are they supposed to get to know us? It’s just a big adjustment because there are so many new people in such a short period of time.

A couple of people came up with the good idea of having channels flagged “private” for when people want to talk without being intruded on. They’re not used very often, but it’s nice to know that if we want to have some privacy, the option is there.

I don’t talk on Vent much anyway, but this is mostly what I’m afraid of when I log on. Sure, I could sit in the lobby all day, but I see the speaker icons light up when people are talking & I don’t want to accidentally jump in on something I’m not privy to.

Or maybe I’m just entirely too paranoid.

At the same time, no one else seems to notice, so I wonder if its all my head.