Ugg, I'm right at the top and on the wrong side of the fence. We have a lot of account sharing in my guild, mostly couples. But unlike the issue presented above where those officers had no idea, for us everyone's clear on who's accounts are shared and whose are not. Those of us who share our accounts are either very recognizable, or more often we'll simply say "Hey guys, it's the Mrs./Mr." Rather than being a risk, it's been very beneficial for us. Myself and my husband have almost every recipie for every profession, so either of us can be grabbed to make anything at almost any time. Same for the GM and his wife, and one other officer. That's almost instant access to anything for the guild at any time.

We have a few people who share accounts that aren't secure (read: college kid who shares his account and has no autenticator), and those people are at a rank where *when* something happens, it won't affect the guild other than "Awww, sorry your account got hacked! Maybe it's time for that authenticator!" Anyone with a significant rank is someone we know well and who we know has secured their computer/account properly.

^ That's about account sharing though. As to character sharing, that actually doesn't happen much for us. I can see that being a serious drawback in a group raid/instance situation. But each of us uses only our own charcters due to not liking our S.O.'s characters. Gogo gender differences! Since we know the other person is around somewhere, we do often hear "Hey, can you grab (other spouse) to get (character) for this raid?" rather than people using an unfamiliar character on the other account.

FInal conclusion: For the letter writer, it would seem prudent to let the character back in since the player will be there anyway, or remove them all because having that happen again is nearly a guarantee. Having a policy or clear understanding from here out would probably also be in line. Surprises are good only for presents, and imo those players should have said something when they all joined (the letter said they were new recruits). It would have been considerate of the guild leadership and other guidlies. I think it's up to guild leaders to decide their guild's policy on account sharing and make sure it's clear to the members, and maybe this guild didn't have something like that set up.

In my experience: In a guild that's large or impersonal, I can see that sharing accounts is a very risky thing. In a raid, someone sharing characters can be a very detrimental thing. But in a smaller, more intimate group where the people behind the account know each other, I don't think it's all bad.

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