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Welcome to Guild Discussion, captains!

In this forum you can discuss issues related to your guilds and how you run them, get ideas for captaining and plan your stickies and things before you post them in your guild. If you're unsure of the best thing to do in a situation or would like help with any aspect of captaining your guild, this is the right place to post. It's also nice every once in a while to look for a thread where someone else wants help and give them any advice you have.

Before you start, though, please take a moment to read the following posts. These are the rules and guidelines for this forum, and we're all going to assume you know them when you post here. If you don't know them, and you break one, a moderator will have to chase after you and then you'll feel all awkward.


These threads belong here in Guild Discussion:

* Asking for advice
Post your questions on the problems you run into as you captain your guild. Ask for advice on handling a situation or for feedback on a change you want to make in your guild. Ask "Should I do this?" and "Would you do that?" type questions. Request suggestions for new ideas, too.

* Draft or work-in-progress threads
Post draft rulesets, stickies and announcements, draft layout plans for your forums and other information threads for your guild. Get feedback, criticism and suggestions from other captains on how you could improve them. Discuss your ideas for setting up these kinds of threads and communicating well with your members.

* Brainstorming
Get together with other captains and brainstorm ideas for a guild to use. Discuss possible event, activity, contest, roleplaying and other ideas. Share your experiences with what works and what doesn't and collaborate with others to develop new captaining strategies.

* Discussing guilds
Discuss other things about your guild which aren't necessarily related to getting feedback or designing a new strategy but are just to do with some aspect of your guild, or someone else's guild. Discuss trends, subjects for guilds, names, recruitment strategies, members, graphics, advertising and anything else you can think of. ^^


Please always ensure that your topics are discussion-based. This forum is for threads that raise an issue and let anyone respond with their opinions for or against an idea. "Private" work threads, personal journals and work diaries are not appropriate because they don't involve other people.


These threads do not belong here in Guild Discussion:

* GGN discussion
Threads discussing the Gaia Guild Network, the Gaia Guild Registry, their functionality and features belong in the main forum of the Captains' Guild, not this subforum.

* GGN questions and assistance
Questions about how the GGN works and what tools are available to captains belong in the main forum, too, and not this subforum.

* Glitch reports
To report a GGN glitch or what you think is a glitch, again, use the main forum of this guild and not this subforum. To report a glitch that is not related to the GGN, check the Questions & Assistance forum for the latest information, and if none is there yet make a new thread there.

* Feedback and suggestions for the GGN
Topics responding to how the GGN works, its policies, features and everything else about it, also belong in the main forum of this guild. To propose a suggestion to greater Gaia you can also go to the Site Feedback forum, or start a petition in the Petitions forum.

* Affiliations with other guilds
There is a subforum in this guild specifically for finding and organising affiliate relationships with other guilds, so please post your topics like this there.

* Shops or service threads
To set up a shop selling a kind of product or service related to guilds, please use the Captains Market subforum of this guild. You can also set one up in the Mini Shops forum, the Personalised Graphics forum or the Services forum.


Where do guides go?

If you want to write a guide for any aspect of captaining or the GGN, that is terrific! However, to make your guide most useful you should include information that isn't widely available already (i.e. in existing stickies or other people's guides). To make sure your guide reaches the best audience you should consider carefully the most appropriate forum to post it in.

Guides in Guild Discussion should focus on the leadership side of things, giving advice and guidance on issues relevant to maintaining a forum, conflict resolution, making sound decisions, dealing with different kinds of situations and other social issues.

Guides more appropriate for the GGN Support forum (main forum) are how-to's, tutorials and explanatory guides on how captain tools, Crew tools, the Guild Registry and other things function.

If you're uncertain about the best place to post a guide, or any other kind of thread, please ask any GGN moderator for advice. icon_3nodding.gif It is definitely better to place your thread correctly the first time after getting clarification than it is to take a guess and assume that a mod will just move it if it's wrong. Don't worry about being a nuisance or anything like that - we're happy to help, especially people who ask questions. ^^ We'll be more annoyed if we have to move something that should have been placed correctly straight away.

Please remember that the nature of discussion in this forum means a lot of our messages will be based on our personal opinions. We really encourage you to debate topics and challenge each other with opposing views, but remember that you must always be civil. Flaming and trolling in this forum will be met and dealt with in the same way they are dealt with in the main Gaia forums. Aside from that we ask you to dive into it, and certainly feel free to bring up more controversial and open-ended topics rather than truisms so that we can spark some really sharp discussions here.


While posting in the Guild Discussion forum all captains are asked to adhere to these guidelines. You are the only person responsible for the messages you post. icon_whee.gif

* Be respectful.
Always post with courtesy and respect for other people. Since this forum is based on discussion there will naturally be conflicting points of view between people, and this is fine. There will also be criticism and negative feedback on ideas put forward by other people. Critics are asked to be constructive with their feedback, and those receiving the feedback are similarly asked to accept the suggestions as help.

* Read the stickies before you post.
The most common questions about the GGN and guilds are already answered in the stickies! Stickies are at the top of the forum and provide stacks and stacks of information about guilds. They eliminate the need for threads in the forum asking the same basic questions repeatedly and clear room for discussion on guilds instead. If you post a thread asking a question that is answered in the stickies you will get a very short reply and the thread will be locked or deleted.

* Place your topic in the correct forum.
Refer to the list of thread types above that are appropriate for this forum and those that belong elsewhere. (Misplaced topics will be moved by moderators.)

* Give threads useful titles.
Provide a brief summary or description of what the thread is about in its title so that people browsing the forum have an idea of whether or not it is relevant to them. It also makes the thread easier to find later on, and helps people check for topics on a particular subject quickly and avoid posting a duplicate thread.
Don't use titles like "Help!" or "A Question" - these give no clue what the topic is about to anyone who might actually want to help!

* Check for threads on the same subject.
Duplicate threads cause clutter, frustration and confusion. Please check the first page for threads about the same thing you want to post about before you go ahead and do it. If a thread just like yours has already been made and you post another one, yours will probably be locked or deleted by a moderator.

* Check back in your own thread.
Do not ask people to send you a PM with their response to your thread. This is rude and lazy. If you're interested in reading replies you should check back yourself, and it is not anyone else's responsibility to contact you themselves. Also, PMs limit the audience of the reply to only you, while if the message is posted in the thread other people can read it and respond to it. This subforum is intended for discussion, not just quick questions and answers, so PM responses are not appropriate.

* Contribute something to the discussion.
Stay on topic and respect the wishes of the thread author. Don't post spam because spam disrupts the discussion. Avoid 'hijacking' any threads (changing the subject abruptly, or interrupting to ask a question) unless the thread author is okay with it (and if the author doesn't say so, don't assume so).

* Be helpful.
If a thread asks a question that has been answered many times before, raises an issue that has been is being discussed elsewhere or if it is in the wrong forum, respond appropriately.
o If the answer to a question is in a sticky please still answer the question, but also provide the thread author with a link and the message that the stickies should be read before you post in a forum.
o If the issue being raised is overdone provide a link to the most active thread where it is being discussed and let that thread die.
o If the thread is misplaced tell the author where it should have been posted, then leave. Be polite. If someone's already done this then there is no need for you to post anything!

* Bump only when necessary.
This is a very, very slow moving forum and threads stay on the first page for about a week. If your thread falls down to around the bottom of the first page or onto another page and you have not recieved the response you were hoping for, you can bump it back up. Do not bump a thread continuously every few minutes as this just clogs up your own thread with spam, and does not make someone more likely to respond to your topic.

* Verify the information you're about to post.
Beware of spreading misinformation. If someone asks a question and you are not sure of the answer, consider if you know enough to give them a useful response. For example, if someone asks what the cost of a subforum is and you think it's around 2k, check a sticky and make sure you know the answer before you respond (or don't respond at all). It is not helpful to anyone if you post messages you think might be true but actually are not, and this creates confusion. If you're unsure, check your information before you post it.


Additionally of course, the Terms of Service and Rules & Guidelines for Gaia are expected to be adhered to in all posts on Gaia, including posts in guilds. Make sure you are familiar with them because it would suck for you to violate something in them without knowing it until you were warned by a moderator.


Contact a GGN Site Moderator to

* report a violation of the Terms of Service in a guild
* bring something important in this guild to the staff's attention
* get clarification on a policy or rule.


Since the GGN does not have a system for reporting threads or posts, please send reports in a normal PM to any GGN moderator (preferably one who is online at the time).
Include any relevant post URLs, thread links, quotes or screenshots.

If you need to call individual posts to a moderator's attention, please provide a link to the post in your PM. To find a post's anchor URL click the icon above the post.

Any questions you have about how the forums in this guild are laid out and why, or about the best place to post a certain thread, can also be directed to moderators. icon_smile.gif We also welcome your feedback and suggestions so we can continue improving the Captains' Guild.

If you're not sure whether or not you should contact a moderator, go ahead and do it anyway - we promise to put the bruises where others will not see.


What is Guild Discussion about?

This Guild Discussion subforum is firstly about GUILDS - not the GGN as a whole.

The big difference between the main forum of the Captains' Guild, GGN Support, and this forum, is that in GGN Support you ask "How do I...?" or "Can I...?" but here in Guild Discussion you ask "Should I...?" or "Would you...?"

In this forum you can discuss the best ways to manage your guild and handle different situations that captains face. More novel topics like different ways to celebrate a guild's anniversary are also fun.


What's the point of Guild Discussion?

The aim is to encourage interest in guilds besides our own and to help us appreciate the diversity of communities that use the GGN. This forum is about learning other captains' views and sharing ours.

This is where the DISCUSSION part comes in. There is stronger focus on interacting here than there is in the GGN Support forum. This means that topics should raise an issue that will let others post points for and against it. Even in "work threads" asking for feedback on a draft sticky or a layout is inviting both praise and criticism, so that's all good.

Topics that don't raise this kind of discussion are either more appropriate for another forum or are not doing the captain community much good by being here anyway.

Got questions? Send a PM to any GGN mod. icon_smile.gif If you have suggestions for improving this forum, or the Captain's Guild as a whole, you can also send one of us a PM but you're also welcome to start a thread in this forum so that more people can comment on your idea and we can all discuss it

ORIGINALLY POSTED BY: WindowOpener