For awhile we were dealing with this a lot. I'm an officer in a very large guild (we have over 400 members) which also happens to be the #1-ranked raiding guild in our faction on our server. We have several raid teams, and each raid leader handles interviewing for their own team. We invite raider apps when asked by the raid leaders. Socials are invited only if they are real-life friends of members who have at least 6 months experience in one of our raids (this includes folks who are currently not raiding but who've raided in the past). The person with the friend he/she wants invited is that person's sponsor, and responsible for making sure they behave themselves. The purpose of all this is to avoid "friend of a friend" invites, where a social who's been in the guild two weeks ends up bringing in three friends with no connection to any of the longer-term guild members.

This has worked out well as a compromise for us, allowing a vibrant social membership along with our core raid teams, while still keeping it "in the family."

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