Hello all,
Need some advice, from all the clan leaders. I understand every clan has different rules pertaining to clan members. In our clan, we go and play with them awhile, converse and assist them in anyway possible, to see if they fit in with our play style. Then our officers decide whether the person is a keeper or not. Our system is still being tweeked and we have already made one mistake with the removal of a person from our clan. Which I apologize for the way it was handled.
My question is basically what would the forum suggest as a better way to remove a clan member that has become a problem?
I know all I have to do is press a button and the person is gone, thats the easy part. Just looking for personal experiences and the ways they were handle.
I think it really depends on what rule your clan member violates .
For example . Botting? Kick on sight , no explaining to do.
Getting into fights or interfering with others' wars all the time? Tell him to stop doing that. Next time he does it kick him.
I just gave 2 examples I am sure, you can find 100 reasons to kick someone. But it really depends on how "harsh" are your internal rules for the clanmembers.
Our clan has a very lax system of rules. Most of them are common-sense, and we enforce the EULA.
That being said, we've had some problem members. Usually, one of the three officers will pull the member aside and speak to them regarding the problem. If they do not change their behavior, then we ask them to withdraw.
The obvious exceptions, like botting or buying adena, or what have you, find them instantly without clan and on the /GM report. I have seen a character gone in the space of a matter of days because of this in the past.
Our clan is run on respect (as we are a role-play clan, this is an out-of-character respect, since some characters will NOT respect others), and as such we try very hard to treat others as we wish to be treated.
If you have a problem member, and is not an extreme problem, pull them aside and have a chat with them. Explain the problem and why it needs to stop. If they do, great! If not, well, there's that button...
I'll tell you what I used to do (when I was a clan leader):
There was a set of Tenets that I had posted on our Clan site.
They spelled out what we were about and how I preferred the clan run as well as how clan members were to treat each other.
If a clan member couldn't follow these basic principles, I would speak with him/her in private to see what was going on and if there was any way I could help.
I would let them know that they were a valuable member of the clan but if they felt they could not live within the basic guidelines of the group then they should feel free to seek out groups that better fit their play style.
You have to spell things out ahead of time.
Now, if you haven't done this, you can just as easily take the member aside and indicate that the group has always operated on a certain set of rules but that these rules were essentially unspoken as most of the members understood them.
Since the offending member was not clear on how the clan operates you apologize for any lack of clarity, indicate that you will have to post these guidelines/tenets etc so that future incidents can be avoided but then present to him/her that since this is the way the clan is to operate, they need to assess as to whether or not this is the right group for them.
Most of my experiences in this area are from being a clan leader in World of Warcraft. I tried to handle discipline in the same way that I saw it being done and the same way I conducted it in the US Army, namely:
- Keep threats of discipline to a minimum. All "threats" lose significance over time when they aren't backed up with immediate action. When you mean it, do it. If you don't mean it or aren't 100% sure then save that thunder for another day.
- Keep rules to a minimum and have them posted in as many places as possible. Put them on your website's front page when they are news worthy, your FAQ page, in the recruitment section of your forum, the FAQ section of your forum, and mention them(when applicable) as quotes when someone asks a question. Have links to those rules in your signature on your forum and provide links in the guild message or something. When someone breaks a rule and then [censored] that they didn't know your members should be laughing because they know how ludicrous a statement that is. They should be laughing because the person who says that they didn't know had to have ACTIVELY TRIED to ignore all the references you and your officers have made to the clan's rules.
- Keep discipline and removals private unless absolutely necessary. No one really likes being called out publicly. They might protest and others may be curious, but that's not their decision to make. Keeping it quiet helps the offender save face and prevents a lot(NOT ALL) of potential drama.
- Be even handed across the board. There are NO sacred cows unless YOU create them. If rules are not applied equally to everyone then you have just created different classes of people in your clan and you are setting yourself up for failure. Why should anyone even try to produce for a clan leader and officers who will screw some folks over, but protect others? They won't.
- Never be afraid to apply discipline or remove a clan member no matter who they are. If you can't do that then why did you even bother having rules? Handle your business.
I had 167 people in our clan. It was tough to keep people happy, motivated, and in line. Dealing with folks honestly, discretely, and quickly lessened the sting. Most of the people I kicked from the guild asked time and again if they could come back weeks, months, and even a year later. That made me happy because it told me that, in time, they had realized that they had been given a fair shake and that the system worked.
I can say that I believe in second chances, but the reality was that even if I had wanted to give them another shot: balancing rosters of WoW raiding guilds is a tough numbers game. Bringing even one old member back into the fold would have meant "sitting" others to make room for them either in raids or in PVP groups. Competition for those spots was kind of ridiculous already so the last thing I wanted to hear was, "What?! Why am I not in the [raid instance group], but he is after what he did?"
Was that fair in the grand scheme of things? I was spending 2-3 hours a night running a raiding guild(website, DKP applications, forum, IM's, forum PM's, in-game PM's, Vent meetings, Vent officer meetings, guild relations, raid calendar scheduling, raid roster balancing, strat discussions, etc.). Not playing, just administering. Giving people second chances wasn't exactly high on my priority list.
I would add one more thing into this.
Communications with the clan members that remain. Document the person leaving. You can document in a leaders area, the brass tacks of their leaving. You can put in general things into the public realm.
As far as the big ones, botting, etc. Those players are kicked as soon as it is verified, ss, or what not. Now my other leaders, if they say it is so, then it is gospel to me and I don't need backup.
This also gives a history about why such and such left the clan or was dismissed.
I would add one more thing into this.
Communications with the clan members that remain. Document the person leaving. You can document in a leaders area, the brass tacks of their leaving. You can put in general things into the public realm.
As far as the big ones, botting, etc. Those players are kicked as soon as it is verified, ss, or what not. Now my other leaders, if they say it is so, then it is gospel to me and I don't need backup.
This also gives a history about why such and such left the clan or was dismissed.
Documentation is huge. Spending five minutes to type something out and post screen caps, the text of an e-mail you sent or received saved me countless hours of explaining to my officers why I removed someone later on. If they(officers) had questions they knew what section of our officer forum to go to in order to find the story and the evidence.
I never really got into the practice of explaining player removals to our member base since I just thought it was inappropriate. People knew that someone had left and they knew that I had:
- Given the person several chances
- Cataloged evidence(I was a screen shotting feind)
- Explained the situation to the individual and made them aware of how their actions would eventually impact their membership in the guild
The one time that someone tried to test me on that(they swore that they got removed out of the blue with no warning) I let it slide for 2-3 days since I didn't want to be that guild leader who jumped down the throat of a former clanmate just to trash them on the way out of the door. When the dude didn't let it go I laid out the evidence of his cheating and his refusal to make amends for it, so that entire clan saw that he had lied to me and then lied to them in an effort to garner support. He quit the game.
And it's a wonder why anyone would want to be a Clan/Guild leader. I never did any of that. Still, I had my own issues. Essentially, I was logging in and dealing with "stuff" for up to 2 hrs per night before I even got to play.
Granted, some of this could have been mitigated by creating officers earlier on and delegating. Still, the crown hangs heavy and being a leader for an online game can be a job in and of itself.
I wouldn't even be able to begin to have fun with my clan if it wasn't for the leaders that are in place. They take off a hugh amount of the pressures and I have found that the clan members can ususally find a leader they click with when you have a range of them.
I also find that having at least one woman in the leadership brings a balanced view when we play devil's advocate for a decision.
I agree, you dont' need to tell the clan every detail, but I hate having 1 hour of in game clan chat on "Oh, so and so is gone, what happened???"....
Women are clutch. For whatever reason women seem to work much, much harder at making things right whereas most male officers will just shrug, blurt something out as to how it should be solved, and then want to move on. They(women) turn 15 minute officer meetings in Vent into 3 hour marathons, but at the end of it you either had things hashed out or exhausted all possible excuses for not having done so.
About explaining player removals: tell folks "We don't talk about disciplinary measures" enough times and they stop asking. Well...they stopped asking me and that was kinda the point so success either way.
Women are clutch. For whatever reason women seem to work much, much harder at making things right whereas most male officers will just shrug, blurt something out as to how it should be solved, and then want to move on. They(women) turn 15 minute officer meetings in Vent into 3 hour marathons, but at the end of it you either had things hashed out or exhausted all possible excuses for not having done so.
About explaining player removals: tell folks "We don't talk about disciplinary measures" enough times and they stop asking. Well...they stopped asking me and that was kinda the point so success either way.
You don't explain it? Everybody in my clan, and I suspect most clans, are really close. If the leader kicked a friend of mine from clan, which is almost everybody, and he didn't explain it, I would leave the clan and prolly 1/2 the members would come with me and we'd war them.
Leaders who think that they don't answer to the clan are bad leaders imo.
Women are clutch. For whatever reason women seem to work much, much harder at making things right whereas most male officers will just shrug, blurt something out as to how it should be solved, and then want to move on. They(women) turn 15 minute officer meetings in Vent into 3 hour marathons, but at the end of it you either had things hashed out or exhausted all possible excuses for not having done so.
About explaining player removals: tell folks "We don't talk about disciplinary measures" enough times and they stop asking. Well...they stopped asking me and that was kinda the point so success either way.
You don't explain it? Everybody in my clan, and I suspect most clans, are really close. If the leader kicked a friend of mine from clan, which is almost everybody, and he didn't explain it, I would leave the clan and prolly 1/2 the members would come with me and we'd war them.
Leaders who think that they don't answer to the clan are bad leaders imo.
Indeed, that's your opinion. I only have years of military, civilian, and in-game management experience with positive results from all three.
My track record spoke for itself. People trusted me, not blindly and for no reason, but because they knew that I was a good guildmate, then a fair officer, and finally a reasonable guild leader. I didn't need to explain every action to every member. That would have been a waste of my time(I had enough on my plate) and set unreal expectations in regards to communicating information that didn't even concern 96% of the guild especially considering that most people appreciated being able to quietly disappear from the guild knowing that they had screwed up badly.
I communicated a ton. Sharing some pieces of information simply didn't benefit anyone. Regardless, the end result was this: you want to have it your way? Go to Burger King.
Women are clutch. For whatever reason women seem to work much, much harder at making things right whereas most male officers will just shrug, blurt something out as to how it should be solved, and then want to move on. They(women) turn 15 minute officer meetings in Vent into 3 hour marathons, but at the end of it you either had things hashed out or exhausted all possible excuses for not having done so.
About explaining player removals: tell folks "We don't talk about disciplinary measures" enough times and they stop asking. Well...they stopped asking me and that was kinda the point so success either way.
You don't explain it? Everybody in my clan, and I suspect most clans, are really close. If the leader kicked a friend of mine from clan, which is almost everybody, and he didn't explain it, I would leave the clan and prolly 1/2 the members would come with me and we'd war them.
Leaders who think that they don't answer to the clan are bad leaders imo.
Indeed, that's your opinion. I only have years of military, civilian, and in-game management experience with positive results from all three.
My track record spoke for itself. People trusted me, not blindly and for no reason, but because they knew that I was a good guildmate, then a fair officer, and finally a reasonable guild leader. I didn't need to explain every action to every member. That would have been a waste of my time(I had enough on my plate) and set unreal expectations in regards to communicating information that didn't even concern 96% of the guild especially considering that most people appreciated being able to quietly disappear from the guild knowing that they had screwed up badly.
I communicated a ton. Sharing some pieces of information simply didn't benefit anyone. Regardless, the end result was this: you want to have it your way? Go to Burger King.
Why somebody you've been in clan with and talked to on vent everyday for the past 3+ years was suddenly kicked from the guild is a vital piece of information.
And what is so much on your plate that you have to do? I've been a clan leader, owned castles, ran a manor, organised sieges, ran daily pvp, made xp parties, organized raids, and even got stuff out of clan wh for people.
It's not that hard, and it isn't that time consumeing. The only time consuming thing really is setting up a manor and that only takes time the first time... after that it's like a 10 min thing every 2 weeks...
This happened to me back in my orginal l2 clan back in C1/C2. I was kicked from the clan because I was trouble maker as in I wouldn't back down no matter how big and powerful someone was if they pushed me around. What happened? 25% - 30% left over the next month or so and helped me build my own clan, what was left of the clan split into again 50% making a 3rd clan and the other 50% going to another server.
You have to be very careful when you build a clan, putting a lot of people who are friends in a clan together helps activity but if you pull or kick one of the popular ones the clan fold faster then a house of card.
Also in my almost 3 years of experience as a clan and alliance leader women are the bane of all clans and alliances. A lot of women play it as a game but all it takes as one malipative one to destroy a whole clan or sometimes an alliance, anyone who has been around along time knows what i am talking about.
The easiest and shortest answer I can give is this.
How bad is it? How do the majority of the other members feel about this 'troublemaker'?
My theory is, if your clan likes you more than they like this other person, you don't have much to worry about. If it is the other way around, then you have to re-evaluate your position.
One thing to remember is, it is impossible to keep EVERYONE happy. After running a clan for over a year, you realize you can't keep everyone happy and if you try, you yourself have no fun. Keep the people that work well together, have similar goals, etc. Those that disrupt the clan are usually not wanted.
Talk to the person. Tell them this isn't what this clan was designed for. If you prefer [insert intolerable act here] then I would suggest another clan.