Should Guild Applications for new guilds be on the Public forums?
Another random question from myself.
Nope. I don’t think they should.
I was checking out another guilds website, and I won’t name and shame them because it’s my opinion, but on their public accessible forums they had peoples Guild Applications, with Approved and Declined messages attached to them.
The application was pretty standard, and the declines where done politely, but I do not like the idea of them being made public mainly because I have seen too many used against people, and applications linked, and forwarded and ridiculed.
An application process is supposed to be about filtering out as much as the ‘bad’ as possible, but I think it should be a private communication between the new potential guild and yourself. Making the applications public serves no purpose but to show poorly written examples to learn how not to write a bad application, or see a good one too, ( or for someone like me to blog about it)
In this case not all the applications declined had poorly written applications, some were declined for an overglut of class, but the voyeur in me rubbed my hands gleefully at the chance to read someone elses application and why they weren’t good enough.
It was a guildlaunch site, and my guild uses a Guildomatic form and our applications are not public, but having said that, I’ve never had to write a guild application before, but I figure as long as I watch my spelling and my armory isn’t in Pvp gear, I would be able to fill in the appropriate fields thoughtfully.
While it its a personal preference of mine that, things like that are not displayed publicly, if it was a guild I wanted to be a part of it wouldn’t stop me from applying, but having said that depending on your guild hosting site’s capabilities, at least restrict the apps to guild view.
At least to make it more difficult for forum trolls.
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Public can be good as it allows a certain amount of visibility and tends towards more honesty. It also says you are up front and not hiding the fact from your current guild.
Pretty much every guild on our server does public applications. Some have the possibility for private ones, but I think they’re rarely used. I never thought about how this could be a problem, as you outline. It’s always interesting to see who has applied where, and what guilds are declining who and why.
If you do not have the balls to apply publically… well, better have a really good reason for it imho.
Think of it this way: Many, many people blindly ignore any kind of correct behaviour in the applications (even public ones!) – and it serves them right if you ask me…
My guild has a public forum for applications. Many times we found out people lying on applications, especially at “Have you applied to any other guild?”, because we find their applications on other forums, so this is a good filter for liars.
Also it`s good because it discourages people to apply to other guilds while being guilded and hiding this from their teammates or officers. We kicked some people because we saw they posted applications to other guilds and in the end that guild didn`t accept them and they were already kicked.
The public application system forces you to be fairplay, honest and ready to accept criticism regarding your application.
I’d like to think of applying for a new guild is like applying for a new job, you don’t advertise that your looking amongst your current place of employment because they first reaction is – why would you want to leave us.? I agree that applying while still wearing a tag is bad form, but I’ve seen too many people leave on bad terms even when they have been decent people because the attitude of the people who stay in the guild is that well if your not one of us, then we never liked you anyway. Maybe its my experience, but its been in more then one guild,
and would another guilds rejection influence the decision of the current application?
I think that between Warcraft Realms, and some of the other armory crawlers that show guild histories, in addition to a Forum name search and a Trial period that there are enough controls in researching a potential guildy then having to go look for other applications on ‘rival’ guild sites, and I still think that you can be honest if the applications are only kept within the guild applied for. In my guild they go one step further and the applications are kept at an officer level only. We are trusting the people in charge to make the right decisions, even when we may not agree, and the public don’t need to know..
Like what the people above already said, most guilds have it public so that other guilds can see if that person is applying to other guilds at the same time. If they are, then guilds will start think, “oh we’re just a fallback guild in case x guild doesn’t accept them.” or “x just wants to join guilds for loot, and not because x wants to be in the guild.”
Another reason is, most guilds ask for a reason why they left their previous guild. Usually the other guild reads the app and state their side of the story, or gives feedback on that player. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.
Also, the reason why it shouldn’t be kept on an “officer” level only is because usually the officers don’t know EVERYTHING about their class. Usually guild members will question applicant’s talent/gem/gear choices, and the applicant will justify why they have it.
I can see your point about some apps being ridiculed and openly bashed though. The manner of declining apps is up to the guild though, and it gives you a good idea on how players in that guild act.
Guilds which openly bash their applicants are less likely to get more apps, and have more people hate the guild.
Guilds that decline your app and gives reasons why, and advice to “get better” will likely get more apps in the future, and have a good chance that a rejected applicant will come back with better gear and try again.
When my guild rejects someone there`s a list of things that didn`t please us, with the recommendation to fix those (wrong enchants, healing gear on a mage-last week we had such an application, wrong gems, weak items that must be changed, etc).
With Guild Launch the settings of whether the application is posted in a public forum or not is up to the guild admin. They can choose whether to make them public or not, and the applications are always posted to a private area where only admins can see them. So, at least with Guild Launch, it’s up to you whether you show them publicly or not.