Officers' Quarters: Pointing fingers
by Scott Andrews 
Jul 14th 2008 at 11:00AM
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.In an online environment where people rarely, if ever, come face-to-face, it can be quite easy for misunderstandings to occur. Ninety percent of the time, these misunderstandings happen because someone makes an assumption about another player's intentions based on something they did or said. In those circumstances, who is to blame: the person who didn't make their communication or intentions clear, or the person who jumped to conclusions? In my opinion, both share fault, but pointing fingers gets us nowhere. This week's e-mail is a good example:
I was just booted from a guild and I have a question about the circumstance. I took an enchanting recipe from the guild recipe tab and learned it. They accidentally put it into the wrong tab, so instead of the private tab they put it into the open guild tab. I apparently wasn't supposed to have it and was booted. Now I have a guild harassing me and demanding I replace the pattern. I would like to but it won't get me back into the guild but it might hurt my chances for getting into another guild. What should i do and is it really my fault?
Here we have possible fault on three fronts. The first is the person who placed the item in the bank and put it in the wrong tab, thus making available to anyone a recipe that was supposed to be exclusive to a subset of the membership. The second is the person who took the item. The third is the person who set up the guidelines for the bank.
All of these issues could have been avoided with better communication. The person who deposited the item could have checked with an officer about what tab to place it in. The person who took the item could have checked with an officer before withdrawing and learning the recipe. And the officer who set up the bank guidelines may not have been clear about where things should go or what is acceptable to take without asking.
As officers, it's important to recognize that these communication lapses do not solely rest with the members in every case. More often than not, we are also at fault to a greater or lesser extent. So to the guild blaming, kicking, and demanding restitution from this person, I will say this: Take a look at what you could have done to avoid this situation in the first place.
You are treating this former member like a ninja. Maybe he is. I'm only getting his side of the story (with very little specifics) so it's impossible to tell if he was simply eager to withdraw something he could use or looking to make a profit from the guild's resources. But the officers involved may have drawn some dire conclusions about what could have been a simple misunderstanding.
To the author of the e-mail, your reputation has been tarnished on the server whether you are guilty or not. If you want to restore your good name, you'll have to settle things with your former guild. I suggest first attempting to speak with the guild leader about the situation. Don't get off on the wrong foot by pointing fingers at the other people involved. That's only going to cause more strife.
Instead, just express your regrets about the situation and tell your side of the story. Be calm and rational at all times. Having dealt with this myself many times, I am much more likely to side with someone who can present their case without getting overly emotional. Those who resort to anger or tears to convince me that they were wronged are often, in my experience, being less than truthful about what really happened.
I can fully understand being upset during or immediately after a conflict. After a day or two, however, I'm less interested in your feelings than I am in getting to the bottom of everything. "QQ" doesn't get much sympathy anywhere in Warcraft. Just spend 5 minutes on the official forums if you don't believe me!
If the guild leader doesn't accept your side of the story, like it or not you'll have to offer something in return for the recipe to restore your reputation. It may be very difficult for you to replace it if it comes from a raid, so an alternative may be necessary. Either way, if you don't ultimately make this incident right in their eyes, they could very well prevent you from finding another home by sharing their low opinion of you with other guilds' officers.
Next time, if you have any doubt at all, ask before you take. This axiom applies to loot in every circumstance. And officers, make your loot rules and policies as clear as possible. Better communication is the key here.
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters! For more WoW Insider gameplay columns, click here.Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Badger Jul 14th 2008 11:11AM
Personally, I find it a little odd that this guy grabbed the recipe from the Public tab, when he clearly implies, in his e-mail, that he was not used to seeing such things happen. That should have been the first red flag: "Wait ... This never happens. Why is this the first time they've put something this valuable in the Public area?"
I think he could have definitely asked one of the Officers first.
Chris Anthony Jul 14th 2008 11:24AM
I don't see that implication at all. As written, it's pretty straightforward: someone accidentally puts the recipe in the public tab instead of the private tab, Our Hero sees the recipe in the public tab and learns it, and someone else says "wait, that wasn't supposed to be there" and kicks Our Hero out for "stealing" it. There's no indication that the emailer saw anything out of the ordinary about the recipe being available, until he learned after the fact that it wasn't supposed to be.
However, I do agree that there's more to this story than has been presented in the email. It's simply not rational to kick someone from your guild *just* for the reasons stated. Either someone in the guild leadership is massively overreacting, or Our Hero is leaving out significant chunks of the story.
Badger Jul 14th 2008 11:50AM
"As written, it's pretty straightforward: someone accidentally puts the recipe in the public tab instead of the private tab, Our Hero sees the recipe in the public tab and learns it, and someone else says "wait, that wasn't supposed to be there" and kicks Our Hero out for "stealing" it."
Maybe I was reading too much into it ... ? For some reason I got the impression that it wasn't typical for presumably high-level recipes to be stuck in the GB's Public tab, so I figured it would have been more tactful for "Our Hero" (haha, nice word choice) to ask first. Then the problem could have been fixed even sooner.
Darque Jul 14th 2008 11:19AM
Sorry, but in my opinion, it's not really the fault of the person that took the item from a public gbank tab. Things that are in the open areas are there for guild members to use, and they should not be required to ask for an item if they have withdrawal rights in that tab.
If an item's misplaced in a tab, then it's the fault of the person who placed it there.
If the officers have a problem with people withdrawing things, they should set the bank to 'deposit only'.
Vlatch Jul 14th 2008 11:36AM
I disagree with you. We have all seen a similar scenario, and there's real-world applications as well. Everyone has seen something like this happen, when an epic gets placed in plain sight in the guild bank - available for anyone to take.
The thing is, anyone looking at it, knows that it wasn't supposed to be there. It was clearly a mistake and something that the guild needed.
All too often, the people that end up taking these items have never contributed anything to the guild bank - and more often then not - anything to the guild at all. They simply take without any thought to the consequences to the guild.
The generosity of 85% of the guild is often taken advantage of by those that log in to their alts that happen to be in your guild every month or so. Items that other guild members could really use disappear, to boost the rep or dps of a character that someone plays once every couple months when they're bored.
I have seen the type of player that sent this email in, and they are never concerned about the guild. They're only concern is themselves and the entitlement that they feel comes along with a guild tabard.
Darque Jul 14th 2008 11:48AM
Eh, I've put purple patterns in the regular tab of the gbank before. If I can't use it, may as well let someone in the guild who can use it have it (patterns in question were SSC drops for BoP craftable items)
Guess it all depends on what his guild's policy is.
Shisho Jul 14th 2008 12:40PM
Vlatch, I have to say you're 99% correct in your read.
Except the 85% decency part you mentioned. It's relative to the guild. ;)
You can see his/her/its only concern is about getting into another guild, and what can be done for them. (Whilst passively placing blame on the officers by stating the situation in that manner.) I suspect there's a lot more going on here then they care to mention for the sake of looking innocent/ignorant.
I'd like to know what recipe too.
Clevins Jul 14th 2008 4:10PM
Agreed. If you have a public tab that everyone as afree rights to, then expecting them to find and ask an officer before withdrawals is unreasonable. If you want them to check with an officer each time, make all of the tabs officer access only and tell people that they need to ask an officer who will get the item(s) and give them to the member. If you want a public tab, fine... but then the expectation is that people can take from that whatever's there. I'd also set the expectation that what you take and what you deposit should be roughly even over time.
Rob Jul 14th 2008 11:19AM
The more I play, the more i have a hard time being sympathetic to the guild in question. If they put it in the public spot, and somebody actually takes it, it's not a crime. What else is the guild bank for? My horde-side guild has a public and private tabs, and we really wouldn't bat an eye if somebody decided to loot everything in the public tabs, its all just junk anyway. If we were a BT raiding guild and stuck all of our HODs and VCs there, then obviously that's a concern. But for a leveling guild? Don't care.
Here's a hint. Don't put anything in the guild bank that you plan on using again, or getting any sort of value or profit from. Time and again I would give pats to our guild JCs just to see them stop playing or transfer servers or what not. Now if I find a pattern I sell it on AH and give the guild the gold.
Vlatch Jul 14th 2008 11:28AM
Spot on with the recommendations. My guild has a fairly simple policy when it comes to the guild bank: tab 1 is for anyone in guild, tab 2 is for full members, tab 3 is for raiding only, tab 4 is GM granted items.
The permissions help a lot, but on occasion, a purple recipe/item will end up in tab 1 when it's supposed to be in tab 4. The person sending this email KNEW that they shouldn't have picked this up and learned it. It's that simple. They were clearly thinking they were getting one over on the guild, and in the end, they most likely hurt the guild.
It would be helpful to know what pattern/recipe was taken, but I have no doubt that the person taking the item was being duplicitous when they learned it. If something is too good to be true, it is.
Dan Jul 14th 2008 12:04PM
You do realize, that according to the mail, he took it from "the guild recipe tab". I would hardly blame the person who took it if it was in a place where it looked like it belonged.
Maybe he should have thought twice if it was the only purple, or something like that, but we have no info about that.
Rhapsody Jul 14th 2008 12:17PM
Think about it for a minute before you go pointing fingers. He said it was an enchanting recipe. He didn't say it was high-end, and maybe he didn't have to. What blue quality enchanting recipe isn't BoP? Lifestealing? Even most of the green recipes at the 300+ range are BoP, meaning the enchanter has to farm them or be present for the drops himself.
To me, it sounds an awful lot like the guild booted him for learning a pre-300 recipe.
But you have a point. It's likely we're not getting the full story, as it does seem a flimsy reason to boot someone. But if it is as clear as the email made it out to be, getting kicked over a BoE enchanting recipe when all the ones worth a damn are BoP is rather lame on the guild's part.
madgoat Jul 14th 2008 12:59PM
There are a few green BoE enchanting recipes that if you aren't thinking straight look innocuous at first but are really worth quite a lot, Boar's Speed for one netted me 1800g a few months back.
Milktub Jul 14th 2008 11:33AM
Seems like a case of officer overreaction. Our low-tier tab is a free for all. Want something? Take it. I've been known to put Imbued Netherweave Bags and excess Primals in there, and mostly don't care what people use them for.
What would cause me concern and/or a /gkick is if I noticed large amounts of stuff being withdrawn by one player and these same large amounts turning up in the Auction House. That tab is primarily there to help as you level/level a profession, not help you make a quick buck.
Vlatch Jul 14th 2008 11:40AM
I apologize for commenting so much on this, but I don't think this was a simple primal or even an epic lvl 70 item like a Lightning Crown. This was most likely a raid-level (perhaps even Sunwell trash level) crafted item or potion.
The guild member is question should have known that something like this would never purposefully been put in a general tab. I believe the guild had every right to treat this person for what they were: a guild bank ninja.
Flame me if you like, but that's my opinion.
Makros Jul 14th 2008 1:50PM
“This was most likely a raid-level (perhaps even Sunwell trash level) crafted item or potion... I believe the guild had every right to treat this person for what they were: a guild bank ninja.”
@Vlatch,
If you insist on speculating and reading so much into what someone writes, please please please actually read what has been written. It was certainly not “most likely a raid-level crafted item or potion.” How do I know. The second line of the letter says “I took an enchanting recipe from the guild recipe tab and learned it.” Now this may or may not change your “guild bank ninja” condemnation, but I certainly don’t know of any BoE enchants that are so valuable as to cause this kind of stife. Boar’s speed and Cat’s swiftness are the only ones that may even come close and its not a far stretch to think that most high level guild enchanters already have these.
Vlatch Jul 15th 2008 11:15AM
There are two ways to read what the person in question said:
"I took an enchanting recipe from the guild recipe tab and learned it. They accidentally put it into the wrong tab, so instead of the private tab they put it into the open guild tab."
"open guild tab" is where it was, he said that they accidentally put it in the wrong tab - which I take to mean that it should have been in the recipe tab and not the open guild tab.
Either way, he's not giving us the full story. So either he's being booted from a guild without cause or he ninja'd a recipe. It sounds to me like the guild has some weight on the server (at least the poster thinks it does), so why would they get ticked over a low-level enchanting recipe?
Anyway, I really think the poster is leaving out way too many details to be taken at his/her word.
darian Jul 14th 2008 11:33AM
Depending on the circumstances, it may not be necessarily to prostrate himself before the guild.
If, and this is a big if, the author broke no other rules by taking the pattern, then he should probably not worry about the affect doing so has on his reputation.
At worst, he should discuss the matter with the guild in question and record the conversation for posterity. Other guilds are unlikely to discriminate against him if he can show clearly that someone else made a mistake, and that he was following standard guild rules when he took the recipe.
Even if this was a rare recipe like Cat's Swiftness, expecting someone you've booted from the guild to replace the recipe is naive and selfish.
npm Jul 14th 2008 11:38AM
Sounds like most of the commenters have sort of missed the point of the article. Many people made mistakes and trying to assign blame is counterproductive.
If someone makes a mistake, even if they're only one of many like in this case, and they offer a heartfelt apology then you really should accept it and move on.
If you don't accept someone's apology, then the next time you screw up and apologize, don't expect someone else to accept yours.
mcclary Jul 14th 2008 11:39AM
can u run me thru dm?