[By the way, I cruelly gazumped Chas to publish this post because I felt a real need to write it – so for anybody feeling the lack of Chas in their lives, I can promise you blogging from him tomorrow]
I normally try to keep commentary on my guild to a minimum because it’s unfair to subject it to criticism from a wider community it doesn’t know is peering at it … but I feel entirely comfortable bitching about this particular incident because I bitched about it openly at the time, and later to the GL. So, after a longish, hardish day, I logged into WoW, to be hit in the face been Green!Spam. Yes, a group of relatively newish guildies were entertaining themselves by yelling FELCHING (and other such insights) at each other over guild chat. Whoop-de-doo. And because I was grumpy as all hell, and because, really, this is just not what one hopes for from guild chat, I made several rather pissed off and weary comments, concluding with the notion that if I wanted to deal with 12 year olds yelling obscenities in my face I’d get a job as a teacher.
Of course, whenever you object to something that is broadly humorous in intent, even if it isn’t funny, the issue always becomes your lack of a sense of humour, not the other person’s failure to be in any way amusing. It’s not even the juvenilia – truthfully, I’m pretty damn puerile myself. Sometimes all it takes is for Chas to come up to me unexpectedly and say “BOOBIES” (or sometimes “POO!” that works as well) in the right tone of voice and I’ll disintegrate into paroxysms of helpless laughter. I’m sorry, I’m having trouble not giggling now having just written the word POO! in my blog. But there are limits to this sort of thing. And quite frankly one needs context for one’s BOOBIES! Also there’s quite a spectrum between BOOBIES and, well, some of the places they were going.
And the situation wasn’t exactly helped by Guild Girl TM (recently single!!!!1!!!!) who then chimed in that have people yelling FELCHING at each other was better than conversations about “deep philosophy.” Uh, whut?
For starters, I don’t think I make a habit of starting conversations about “deep philosophy” in guild chat (shallow philosophy, however, all the damn time) and secondly … well … No. It isn’t. I’d be genuinely entertained if I logged in and people were shouting “AUTHENTIC BEING, lol” and “LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT HYPTHOSIS, lol” and “JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF, lol” at each other. Hell, I’d join in. But also I didn’t exactly relish being re-cast in the role of a humourless, over-intellectual boring prude, which is essentially what she did. And the last thing people who think this sort of thing is at all witty and/or and/or big and/or clever need is encouragement from a girl irl. Although, let’s face it, I’d rather have an (underserved) reputation for wanting to talk deep philosophy than be the sort of drooling cockmonkey who has no compunction turning guildchat into a pit of pathetic puerility.
So needless to say this didn’t leave me feeling exactly happy with the green text box… and then I was suddenly struck by the weird, and not entirely positive, social democracies of a guild. I’m sorry to use what probably sounds like an incredibly up-myself analogy but it’s the best I can come up with. Guilds are like an Oxford college at undergraduate level. (or, y’know, like a college at any other collegiate university – doesn’t have to be Oxford). Apologies to the Americans, this is probably even more oblique to you than it is to the English. Anyway, the point is, when you’re doing your A-levels, chances are your school will drag you down the country to visit Oxford, and you’ll read a bunch of publicity material, and you’ll meet some undergraduates, and both of these will attempt to sell the “culture” of particular colleges over other particular colleges.
And if, in later life, you ever have to deal with some aspect of admissions, this will drive you fucking spare because it’s about the least helpful thing that could possibly be going on. If I had my way it would all be done by computer, and who gives a fuck if you like the architecture better at Magdalen than Keble. What inevitably happen is that people from Wadham will say that Oriel are all snooty Tories, and people from Balliol will say all people from Trinity are evil, and people from Somerville will claim they’re relaxed and easy going, and everybody will say Teddy Hall is full of Boaties and so and so forth, until it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in that snooty Tories will apply to Oriel in the hope of meeting other snooty Tories, and people who think they’re cool will apply to Somerville, etc. etc. etc. But because actual admission to Oxford is solely academic, college “culture” (again, we’re talking undergraduate level here, nobody else gives a toss) is profoundly protean, and the culture is basically comprised of the loudest people in any given year. So if a bunch of snooty Tories got into Wadham one year and were particularly dominant snooty Tories, no matter how many gay socialists were having intense meetings about social injustice quietly in the background, ultimately when the next admissions cycle came round suddenly you’ve got a social network of Snooty Tories attracting other Snooty Tories, and creating an atmosphere that seems largely focused on the comfort of Snooty Tories – even though this isn’t necessarily the case.
Forgive the long diversion… but I rather think guilds work like this. Because although the srs stuff, like basic behaviour, raiding rules and loot policy, are controlled by the GL and the officer core, the actual social dynamics are fluid, ever-changing and subject to all the flaws and strengths of democracy is its most elemental form. In short: decisions are made by those who show up, and a core of loud, stupid people can completely dominate the whole system just by being loud and stupid and, by their presence, attracting and encouraging more loud stupid people to show up and be loud and stupid.
The culture, of a guild, is therefore basically whoever is around to make it at the time, and the turn over of a guild is rapid enough that this can lead to profound and jarring shifts within a relatively short space of time, moreso perhaps than you’d see in other social groupings. And I’m not sure there’s anything concrete that can be done to prevent or change this… or even if it should be prevented or changed. But it is saddening to watch the worst of social democracy in action, especially when the pendulum is swinging the way it currently seems to be swinging.
But enough of this deep philosophy. BOOBIES.
Your writing makes me want to write more about the social dynamics I notice in the MMO I play.
My recent post TOYS!!!
Oooh…I like inspiring posts
Surely that applies to any social group and even society itself – only the timescales involved changes. Also, BOOBIES!
No, it's true, it does. But I think the thing about guilds is that you see it across a very small timescale in a very clear way. Which is startling. And unlike most other social groupings there isn't, hmm, anything necessarily definining to hold you together and inform your interactions.
It's actually amazing to me how even just one new person can completely change the tone and feel of a guild. Not slowly, but in an abrupt and jarring way. I'm in the position of also not wanting to talk about my guild publicly, but suffice to say I know exactly what you mean.
"Although, let’s face it, I’d rather have an (underserved) reputation for wanting to talk deep philosophy than be the sort of drooling cockmonkey who has no compunction turning guildchat into a pit of pathetic puerility."
Hahah. All I can say to this is hear, hear!
My recent post Today’s Pug: Brought To You By The Letter “P”
I, too can echo this completely. There’s a similar group (clique, even) in my guild who hijack gchat regularly and leave me feeling somewhat suppressed and frustrated.
I think it doesn't help that The Felchers (as I now think of them) are all real life friends … and therefore it's very easy for them to dominate.
I was going to quote the quote in here to applaud its brilliance but see it's already been quoted. POO!
And BOOBIES.
As a GM of a medium sized guild I've observed this process, at times much to my dismay. Fortunately it can be stamped upon if you stamp loudly and hard enough. On the plus side some of the people I stamped on are now solid and fun guildies. It's a boundary issue much of the time.
I don't have kids but I think I know what it's like to be a parent!
BOOBIES!
There's been a fair bit of stamping and shouting – I just hope it pays off
I'm naturally but probably unfortunately cynical when it comes to people … so I have a hard time imagining how to The Felchers could ever become solid and fun guildies. On the other hand, it would be really good if they did…
If I had less confidence in the GL and the officer-core I probably wouldn't want to talk about my guild publicly either – but I try to only do so after I've actually, y'know, spoken to the guild first. Of course it might still all blow up in my face. We've been in a huge recruitment drive recently, I think in order to support 25-man raiding, but the result has been a huge influx of people who make me a sad furbolg.
Once I almost saw a small guild fall apart because two loud stupid members was totally dominating guild chat whenever they were on. They were even harassing other members for fun, and people who didn't approve started leaving instead of speaking up, because these two members changed/set the mood in guild chat with their behavior.
Objecting to stuff is incredibly difficult in guild sometimes (although I've lately been developing a really mouthy attitude) – simply because the defense is always "It was just a joke, can't you take a joke?" and therefore objecting puts you automatically on the team Against Fun.
I should be giggling about BOOBIES but instead, I keep giggling about TORIES.
Seriously, why can't Americans use such fun names for their political parties?? Now I am going to spend the rest of the day trying to come up with alternative words for "Republican" and "Democrat" that do not involve farm animals. They have to be completely nonsensical and made up words too.
For "Republican", I vote… hmm. WOOTIES, and Democrats get "CLOPPLES".
We DID have tories, back in the day. (though I believe it was spelled with two "r"s)
Honestly, I'd *almost* rather have a BOOBIES party, but a party (as in social gathering) with lots of BOOBIES would be much more entertaining.
As far as current nomenclature, they are now referred to as "Demon-crats" (or "demo-craps") and the "Republicraps or "Republicants".
I'd be damn sorry if BOOBIES didn't get through the primaries…. (for the record my knowledge of American politics comes almost entirely from the westwing).
Also I love how playground the derisive names are – democraps indeed. I half expect the next line to be "republicans are GAY" "well your Mum votes republican!" "well your Mum is gay!"
Or should that be mom?
Trust me, both are gigglesome.
Of course, I still wish it was the Tories versus the Whigs – if we're going for full on funny name points anyway. I am probably having British History Fail all over my own blog but I have no idea why either of those parties were called what they were called. I shall fall back on the cry of acdaemia everywhere: not my period, ahem ahem.
Long live the Clopples!
You know what's even funnier than BOOBIES? Spelling it and pronouncing BEWBIES!
I also love that guild girl is trade marked. Haha.
My recent post Sailors and Leaves
Oh my God, you're right. I just cracked up. God, I'm childish. *sheepish*.
Your writing makes me want to write more about the social dynamics I notice in the MMO I play. My recent post TOYS!!!
Such a sagacious post. Neither abtruse nor recondite, rather simple in form and execution. Such resplendent guild-mates, who surely are unsullied by the tedium of philosophy, can only…oh, what am I saying…BOOBIES!
Yes, I am Sagacious Tam (extra points for the reference).
Also: BOOBIES!
POOP!
My recent post On Raids, and the Leading Thereof
BOOBIES!
Oh dear, now I have the worst urge to convince two of my friends to yell social contract theory and abstract chemical formulae in gchat with me.
Do it! Do it! Do it!
(and screen shot or it didn't happen)
Hrm. *hand on chin, like the Thinker* You are intellectual. But anyone who thinks you're boring and prudish must have you confused with someone else.
Also, are you secretly a member of my guild? Guild chat was dominated last night by the loud and 16-years-old crowd, with the ultimate effect of driving some valued members out because of their inability to be polite and respectful. But seriously, I can't be there 24 hours a day to police things, and my particular guild is hampered by the fact that we didn't form it from scratch we inherited it (or rather absconded with it in the absence of the old GM) and so we inherited the chat "culture" and rules largely intact from the old guild and weren't able to be as restrictive as we'd like with what is okay to say in guild chat and what is not. After all, we were basically the elected officials, but the guild was the whole group's baby… we didn't get to make large sweeping changes.
As a result, when the loud 16 year olds get going, the inappropriate racist comments inevitably leak out and people get offended and quit. But as the rule has always been "if someone tells you they're offended, stop" not "don't go there in the first place" there's not much I can do about it, without overstepping.
Hrm. Sorry for wall of text. You struck a chord.
Ah hah – I can see from your pose and your dislike of racism and sexism in guild that you *too* are a boring intellectual
Guild chat is really difficult to "police" because it is a composite space of the people who happen to be in it at the time – also it shouldn't really be necessary (or desirable) to "police" it. We have a strong, sensible core and you can pretty much rely on them to smackdown anything stupid / offensive in guild chat, but people shouldn't get all "well, now the cat's away we can call everything fagotty and yell about felching" the second they log off.
Which means for the rest of us, it's really difficult to combat but you're left story-telling (excuse me Sir, but so and so said such and such in guild chat last night) or trying to calm them down in person – which has the result of making you like some kind of humourless maniac who wants to suck all the fun guild chat.
I think quite a large portion of the guild thinks I'm some kind of easily offended reactionary simply because I've taken to speaking out. I'm not sure I am that person, or that I want to be – but it's either shut up and put up or *do* something.
Being a long-time MMO’er and an even longer PBEM player, I agree with this. The inherent nature of the Internet and the social structures we’ve constructed on it often lead to a more “intense” shift in social dynamics that couldn’t/wouldn’t happen in the real world. If someone new turned up in your pub quiz group and started yelling “COCK!” everytime a question was asked, you’d either find yourself a member down or in a fist fight.
But people perceive it as acceptable to do stuff like this online.
Anonymity’s both a blessing and a curse here. Blessing because it means people can post stuff like this post without fear of a guildy wielding a pitchfork and turning up outside your house. A curse because people can be dicks and get away with it, relatively speaking. The total extent of what we can do online merely involves choosing not to see it via ignore, or removing either the offender or offended via quit/kick. It doesn’t resolve it, nor make it acceptable – just forces a change in the dynamic again, hopefully one for the better.
But yeah, boobies sums it up too
BOOBIES!
*distracted*
What were you saying? Oh yes – exactly. The problem, I think, with being part of a wider community (a guild) is that the ignore function loses a degree of its power because it only insulates you against the COCK-shouter, without forcing / influencing a social dynamic shift. For a long time, my attitude was just "stick 'em on ignore" but part of the reason I've got so whingy and mouthy lately is that I think to myself "well, this is my community to it, and I have a responsibility to it – I can't expect it to change if I don't try to change it."
I suppose if I was going to get all 'deep philosophy' about it – I think it's an interesting situation because the wider social context in which we're operating is extremely vulnerable to individual action. I mean, all it takes is one person to shout FELCHING and somebody else to say they're not offended by it, and suddenly it's okay to start yelling about felching in g….
Being a long-time MMO’er and an even longer PBEM player, I agree with this. The inherent nature of the Internet and the social structures we’ve constructed on it often lead to a more “intense” shift in social dynamics that couldn’t/wouldn’t happen in the real world. If someone new turned up in your pub quiz group and started yelling “COCK!” everytime a question was asked, you’d either find yourself a member down or in a fist fight.
But people perceive it as acceptable to do stuff like this online.
Anonymity’s both a blessing and a curse here. Blessing because it means people can post stuff like this post without fear of a guildy wielding a pitchfork and turning up outside your house. A curse because people can be dicks and get away with it, relatively speaking. The total extent of what we can do online merely involves choosing not to see it via ignore, or removing either the offender or offended via quit/kick. It doesn’t resolve it, nor make it acceptable – just forces a change in the dynamic again, hopefully one for the better.
But yeah, boobies sums it up too
If guild leadership is soft/absent, dorks will arrive to fill the void. A long-standing guild should at least have some ill-defined standards of behavior that when crossed, most members know it. And communicate it. And if not corrected the executioner is summoned.
My guild is very small, rarely (unfortunately) can we even field 10 man raids once a week, but the social idiots are still booted post haste. We'd rather just run 5 mans and pugs than deal with all that crapola. And the serious raiders that have left us for raiding guilds remain friendly and are often available to fill in when they can.
If your guild is desparate for numbers, the dorks will know it and pluck the strings of drama whenever they get bored. Or feel unloved. Or are too high. Or when the wind is blowing from the southeast.
It's not a leadership issue – the twats come out the woodwork when the GL or officer core are absent. Twats will be twats regardless, I think, and they'l just get an excitable "when the cat's away" edge when they think they can degenerate into stupidity without getting "told off" by the GL.
It's a difficult compromise – the thing is, I enjoy raiding a lot, and I'd be sorry to lose acces to it … but equally there is part of me that sometimes yearns for a tiny tiny guild consisting only of people I think are awesome…
And ultimately atlhough the felching thing is an extreme example – the "don't be a cock" rule is so highly subjective that it's a dangerous slippery slope to find yourself on. I mean, if we gkicked anybody in the guild found annoying at any point … well … we'd be tiny, and I'd probably be guildless
It is precisely this reason why I have not been part of a guild for over a year now. No matter how mature the leadership of the guild is, no matter how great they are at taking down raid bosses while also being understanding about the fact that you can't make it to every raid because of real life concerns, the guild you're going to see during the vast majority of your play time is made up of that one guy who likes to troll the realm forums and his two friends.
Add to that the fact that I have little tolerance for people who can't spell out their words properly (especially when trying to convince me to join their guild, "would u plz join my guild??") I'd rather just sit in silence and miss out on any of the benefits that guilds have than have to look at that kind of bad grammar and spelling on a daily basis. (There's always at least one, no matter how eloquent the rest of the guild is.) My WoW characters have been in a guild made entirely of my alts for the past year. I get silence, bank space that's shared between all my characters, and a guild tag over my head so that people won't invite me to theirs.
Pre-BC, I actually made my own guild, and its #1 rule was "if you annoy me, I'm booting you." I was an absolute dictator, but everyone knew that up-front when they joined. In the end, the guild just got too big, and simply booting the annoying people was becoming too political for my tastes.
My recent post So I lied… I've totally been playing STO for the past week.
I do see the advantages of being guildless, I really do – but I'm not ready, by a long shot, to leave my access to endgame content in the hands of strangers and pugs. Also the people I have met through the guild are fine people, and I wouldn't want their value to be over-shadowed by a couple of dickheads…
Well, I got my fill of raiding during BC, and don't have any real need to do it any more any time soon. I did raid Naxx in Wrath, but it wasn't really the plan, we just happened to fall in to a good regular raiding PuG that needed an extra tank and healer. We tired of that, though. I've never been inside Ulduar or the following raids, and I only went to ToC5 once with a friend of mine from work (and subsequently never played that character again).
Yes, there are fine people in guild. All the more reason to keep them on my friends list and invite them to my private channel so I can chat with them, but that doesn't mean I want to be in their guild. It's too hard to keep the annoying people out of guilds.
Boobies > deep philosophy > drooling cockmonkey < > poo
My recent post If you register your site for free at
That's too much maths for me.
BOOBIES!
Our guild always prefered to be small and have a good friendly atmosphere than rather a hardcore raiding guild where not everybody was happy, but I find strange that you mention democracy and guild words together. A guild by nature is a dictatorship or oligarchy, even if GL/officiers listen to the rest of guildies. In the end, is their decission what counts. It's sad to see a guild ruined by a bunch of dickheads, but that also is saying the guild has a problem: weak management. As you pointed out in your last post, raid leading is more than slighty darker text, guild leading is more than having some privileges like better gbank access, possibility to add notes an access to another chat channel. So as we say here, when the cat isn't watching, the mice come out dancing. Officers or gl should take care of situations like this, so don't be afraid to bring issues like this to them.
My recent post A Tyranny of Tanks
I meant social democracy. I agree that guild are, and should be, dictatorships but you can't actually control people socially unless you have a cattleprod and access to their nether regions.
We don't have any problems with our (relatively) beneign Dictator – but ultimately he can't be around 24/7 on the off-chance The Felchers (as I like to call them) run riot through guild chat.
Of course he could kick them out but then he can't really do that on my say so… and as GL he surely has responsibility to provide a raiding core, not to keep Tam happy.
1. Damnit you made me giggle at the word poo.
2. That is one dumbass girl by the sounds of it.. Desperate for attention? Can't stand girls who get attention in the "Teehee, boobies ( . )( . ) way, and then rant about how much they love sex, and they're single.." Yeah anyway. On your side, felching is never funny.
3. Have had similar issues in my guild lately. Except, I left after some HUAGE drama which I couldn't be fucked with, GM was VERY childish and I'd still very much like to grab his scrotum, twist it round, knee it, and other horrible horrible things until he finally realises he should probably just apologise for being such a cuntfag. *cough* Anyway! Since I left (bf and a friend are still in there) so did the GM, and the other officers have managed to completely corrupt the loot council (can you say "GEARED OFFICERS" >.>) and the newbies, well, half of the newbies are running around like they own the place, you know the fake 4chan crowd who spam /2 and generally bring down the rep of the guild. Then the 14 year old newbies who scream felching at each other in guild. And the inevitable Teehee Girl when things go downhill, whose first act in the guild was insulting my friend, the other girl in the guild. Since, people have tried to tell her that her crit gemming wasn't good for a disc priest and sp/spirit would be a better blue gem, nice friendly advice.. "GO TO HELL FAGGOTS" Well, how nice. Suddenly glad I'm stuck unable to raid… Basically, I know how you feel :p (didn't think that was really appropriate for my blog, that would cause drama, oho!)
1. Welcome to my world *shame*
2. Tell me about it. It drives me batshit. So you're a girl. So you play WoW. So you like sex. Get over it.
3. Oh god, that sounds like an incredibly awkward situation, and it's definnitely a good thing you left. Thankfully I don't think my guild is ever in danger of going down that road. I mean we do have Guild Girl TM and we do have some immature twat weasels but the GL and the officer core can usually be relied upon to provide smacks where smacks are appropriate. On the other hand, it depresses me becuase it shouldn't be necessary. I mean for fuck's suck, we're meant to be adults here.
I was telling myself that I don't need to know, that I would be better off not knowing…but NOOoooOOOooo
I had to use my good buddy google to find out what felching was.
Damn.
I do apologise…. I'd like to say all knowledge is good but sometimes really not.
If it's any consolation I am currently thinking of the team of wankers as The Felchers.
Do it! Do it! Do it! (and screen shot or it didn't happen)
Do it! Do it! Do it! (and screen shot or it didn't happen)
Do it! Do it! Do it! (and screen shot or it didn't happen)
Do it! Do it! Do it! (and screen shot or it didn't happen)