We’ve always been very particular about our reputation. It’s not quite as intense of a topic anymore, but we were up against a lot when we started in Cataclysm. Death knight roleplayers were not very popular and we wanted to stand out. So there’s the context of us being cautious of our reputation as a group.
That said, I can’t imagine basing any decision on something one person said to me. I would definitely take it into account, say nothing, and go on to judge the person as I normally would. (That sounds messed up but let’s face it, when someone joins your guild you have an eye out to make sure they aren’t the perpetrators of any harassment). If they’re a bully or a jerk (whether it’s to us or anyone outside the guild), I’d have that extra knowledge to go by. If they’re not and get along well, then it would be as if their arch nemesis had never whispered me at all.
I’m not saying we should ignore bad behavior. I’m saying form your own judgement based on what you witnessed. Don’t go off of what someone else says because you may not be getting the full story. My dad always says there are two sides to every story and somewhere in the middle is the truth.
Hey guess what? They’re allowed to do that. I’ve seen screenshots of interactions that were enough to make me wanna distance myself. If you want to make your own guild and adopt all the people who have ostracized themselves with awful behavior, nobody’s stopping you.
But it’s not really reasonable to complain that everyone isn’t running their guilds the way you want them to.
I’ve run a lot of guilds since 2006, and I’ve seen this situation numerous times. When I’ve been approached about a new guildie’s behavior in the past, I ask for and collect all the evidence given (fyi, I also screenshot the entire conversation I’m having with the person reporting, because I want to remember exactly what was said and know about the reporting person, too). Then I thank the person for their information.
Then I wait. I say nothing to the guildie. I just wait.
If someone is really the harasser or troublemaker they’re being reported as, it’ll show up somewhere between hours and days. It usually doesn’t take days. I’ll see them commenting nastiness in trade or on the forums (not as much forums anymore), or tossing slurs into guild chat, or hitting on my avatar, or ganking the one tab they can get to in the guild bank, or doing something else that is obnoxious and verrrrry similar to what I was told to expect.
And…on the more infrequent occasion that the person does none of these things, then I go check out who reported them. I look at their guild membership, their forum posts, their trade chat posts, etc. Sometimes I see that it’s the reporting group who had the problem. Every once in awhile, it’s just a weird conflict and nobody’s actual fault or I see no explanation by looking at both sides. shrug
I have also warned other gleads about obnoxious behavior from ex guildies, but it’s been gleaders I’ve known and actual behavior such as ninja looting a raid mount, unsolicited adult themed whispers, or once, a “guild princess” who tried “dating” about 6 guys in guild all at the same time, and then got mad because I asked her to stop making offensive adult comments in gchat (I will not elaborate on this one on the forums).
So it was screenshots AND something else. So we’re not on second chance anymore.
If the original intent of your post was ‘Guild Leaders: Be wary of the people who whisper you because they are stalking someone that joined your guild and take their “proof” with a grain of salt’ then I applaud you.
Which is a perfectly valid way of dealing with it. My point is mainly just… making a GL aware is fine, and from there, they can handle it as they want. It’s their guild.
What I don’t think is okay, is basically proposing that fake screenshots are rampant, and that even with what should be proof, nobody telling you anything about anyone else is to be trusted. Kind of insane.
FWIW, if someone gave me a warning on a new guildie and then they were confrontational shortly after, it would make me decide those screenshots were probably dead on and I’d gkick.
Also as an aside to the OP, gleaders aren’t required to tell guildies details about why someone else got kicked. And if a guildie is unhappy with how a gleader is handling their guild, there are lots of other guilds out there. I recommend following the person you feel was wronged into their next guild and see how that works out for you
We honestly went through a period where we got these threads a lot.
“Now me and my friends didn’t DO anything, but in theory, if someone has screenshots of a horrifying tirade of violence and racism, and shows that to your gleader, it’s probably a fake. I mean, could be, who knows? Right?”
It’s incredibly suspicious. Not believing accusers as a rule of thumb serves one party- people doing something wrong. So when people ask that everyone disregard proof of harassment, or inappropriate conduct, most people’s first thought is gonna be “Okay what did this person do?”
Every time I see threads like this on r/wow, it goes something like:
"Thread title: UNJUST & OPPRESSIVE SILENCING BY AMERICAN FASCIS-- I MEAN MY OLD GUILD LEADER
I cannot BELIEVE I was just kicked out of my guild for actually no reason. Free speech is dead and nothing I said was even that big a deal anyway, why is everyone so sensitive these days?"
“Hey, GM here. We decided to kick you after some deliberation among officers because your rant on white genocide was starting to interfere with us coordinating our raid in gchat. Best of luck!”
Like, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t think I’ve seen a single thread complaining about an unjust banning or gkick where it didn’t turn out that the person deserved it.
My experience has been that the complaints are almost always justified. Like I said, it usually takes no more than a few days for the bad behavior to show itself again.
![:confused:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/confused.png?v=6" ":confused:")
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")