Five Reasons You Can’t Join My Guild

As discussed previously, I am really picky about who I invite to the guild, and my methods are possibly equally mysterious. For me, gut instinct has the greatest weight in recruitment decisions, even more so than previous experience or gear or even application personality. If I think something is off, then 99% of the time that person is completely sunk for an invite. And if my gut is telling me that they’d be right

So given my fairly arbitrary recruitment standards (“Do they make Liore happy?”), it might be surprising that there are a few things someone can do to not even be considered as an applicant.

1. You have a stupid name.
“Stupid” is defined as borderline offensive, horribly misspelled, or with an excessive number of umlauts. Yes, this probably isn’t fair, but there you go. I am a big English Major elitist bastard, and I would be really sad to see “XxDeathNightxX” running around with my guild tag. It should be noted that really awesome people can overcome this barrier to entry. In fact, a long time ago I reluctantly invited a fellow who was amazingly nice but.. oh.. that name. He’s been a guild officer for at least a couple of years now, so I think it worked out in the long run. /grin

2. You ask me what our website URL is, or something that is obviously on the site.
All guild leaders like to think that their guild is a unique and special snowflake. It doesn’t matter if it’s a raiding guild or a leveling guild or a PVP guild or whatever, we all think ours is the best around (or we wouldn’t be running it, right?). I certainly don’t want or ask for obsequiousness from apps, but I do like to see a basic acknowledgment that you want to join MY guild in particular. This means you shouldn’t ask me what our website URL is, or any information that is plainly listed on the front page of said site. You want to know our web address? Go type “Machiavellis Cat” or even just “Liore” into Google. You do know the name of our guild, right?

3. Don’t immediately launch into an angry story about how you were mistreated in your old guild.
I like to assume that most guild leaders are reasonable sorts who mean well. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but there you go. If you introduce yourself to me with a tirade about how you were never invited on raids because of the stupid core clique, or how you left when you didn’t get a drop that you deserved, or whatever, I am probably going to wonder how much of it was your fault. Also, weird questions like, “Do you have attention-seeking girls in your guild? I hate those,” while possibly genuine, will likely induce concern on my part. (If you have been burned by guilds in the past and want to avoid that, try asking positive questions instead of ranting. “What is your raid roster policy?” or “Are initiates eligible for loot?”.)

4. I don’t care about your GearScore.
I really, really don’t. I’ve never installed the mod, and I never will install the mod. I even have no idea what the GearScores are for Liore or Lunedi. So when you start your app with, “Recruit me, I’m a 5100 DK,” it means absolutely nothing. Your collective item level doesn’t really tell me whether you can choose your gear intelligently, what previous raid experience you have, or what kind of person you are. It does tell me that you’re possibly one of THOSE guys who is absurdly fixated on numbers and inclined to be a jerk about it.

5. “App? I don’t like filling out apps. Can’t you just invite me?”
No.

Most of this stuff is common sense, and I’m sure some of it is more important to me than to other guild leaders. Be polite, be genuine, and remember that guild leaders are human and just as prone to snap first impressions as everyone else.