Who 'owns' Guilds??

Who 'owns' Guilds??

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Posted by: SorrowBorn.4357

SorrowBorn.4357

Q:

Greetings everyone, I am a first time writer here within the forums and I’d like to ask a question that has caused me some grief recently.

You see little over or under a year ago I was made guild leader of a guild, after it’s prior leaders had left in disgust as to what it had become (They wanted a tightly knit group of members, their some officers started spamming invites due to events like Teq and Historical events like Scarlet). I found myself in the unenviable position, after two of my close friends within the guild gave it to me after they stepped down due to school.

Now I love this guild…nearly all my time and energy in the game was devoted to this particular guild because of the friends I made there and the fun I had. Even when I started university two months after being made leader I jumped on for every daily, did every historical event with this guild repped. Yet Three months ago I joined another guild so that I could do guild missions, bounties, puzzles and rushes etc because I discovered (yes Im slow on the uptake) what the commendations do. Still repping the guild I was a leader of when not doing so.

Yet as of two days ago one of my two friends comes back and says I should….let go of the guild…and by that he means give it back to HIS friends the original creators of the guild (people that he said he had not talked to in months…which raised a flag) because I was doing nothing to promote the guilds growth. I may have never been a good leader, I didn’t understand guild politics or how to motivate people to join up (As I did not enjoy spamming map chat with invites) and do more fun things together, but I had fun in my guild and unlike every other member over time I never gave up on it.

To make matters worse…after the ‘disagreement’ on who should run the guild today, I was slandered on the Guild daily message by the second friend calling me a tyrant that the guild was no longer FOR THE PEOPLE…despite no one but me (And those two officers in the past two months) repping it for close to a year…which actually hurt my feelings somewhat.

So….aahh….between myself and the creators of the guild? who should have/run it?

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Posted by: Qugi.2653

Qugi.2653

Arena net does not get involve guild drama. They will not support anyone about this thing with guild. Sorry for luck. Have to figure out on own with guild member. You will not win anything here about guild drama. Sorry for you luck. Maybe find better guild later that is no so much drama.

;)

(edited by Qugi.2653)

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Posted by: Just a flesh wound.3589

Just a flesh wound.3589

You are the owner of the guild. No if, ands, or buts about it.

They gave it to you and left. They have nothing to say now about who own it. If they want to run a guild differently, they can start one up and do the hard work themselves.

If I were you I would take away their guild message privileges, even if it causes bad feelings and they leave the guild. No one should EVER use guild messages to make personal remarks or to promote dissent. They have shown by this that they can’t be trusted to act properly.

Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.

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Posted by: Inculpatus cedo.9234

Inculpatus cedo.9234

Whoever is Guild Leader controls the Guild. Simple as that. No one but another present Leader can force you out or to step down.

As noted above, ArenaNet will not get involved.

Good luck.

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Posted by: Ravion Hawk.4736

Ravion Hawk.4736

Simple solution…

Boot them from the guild. You worked with it while they were gone and now they want all your hard work.

Boot them plain and simple.

Head of the Order of the Iron Ravens [OoIR]
Lady Alexis Hawk – Main – Necromancer
Ravion Hawk – Warrior

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Posted by: Tapioca.9062

Tapioca.9062

Delicious guild drama.

This sounds like the kind of thing you should maybe organise a meeting with your members about so that everything can discussed in the open and people can decide what direction they want to head in rather than what appears to be the current state of gossip, slander-mongering and backstabbing.

For what it’s worth though, dragging your guild drama into the forums isn’t a good look. A guild leader should be able to lead their guild without resorting to things like this.

Attachments:

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Posted by: uhohhotdog.3598

uhohhotdog.3598

It’s yours. Don’t give it back.

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

To make matters worse…after the ‘disagreement’ on who should run the guild today, I was slandered on the Guild daily message by the second friend calling me a tyrant that the guild was no longer FOR THE PEOPLE…

You must step down and hand over the means of Guild Mission production to the proletariat…

Attachments:

Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…

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Posted by: Amenaza.8346

Amenaza.8346

Legally speaking, nobody except ANet owns anything in this game, you even don’t own your own account (technically you acquired right of usage, not the account itself). Because of that, there won’t be any official action whatsoever regarding guild possession, since nobody is entitled to any guild ownership.
So in terms of control it boils down to whoever holds the administrative rights, which, according to your story, is clearly you and nobody else. The others have forfeited their means of influence.

The only thing you have to decide for yourself is whether or not you want to “honor” the fact that they founded the guild and think that as creators they should always be entitled to “claim” it as they please. This would be purely out of respect and goodwill on your side, nothing else. Their acts however have shown that they do not respect you and therefore (at least in my book) do not deserve that option. In fact, depending on how serious they offended you with the guild message of the day, you could report this as ingame harassment which ANet indeed cares about in contrast to guild ownership.

FSP
[echo]
I do not speak in the name of my guild

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Posted by: Ceridwen.6703

Ceridwen.6703

You are the owner of the guild. No if, ands, or buts about it.

They gave it to you and left. They have nothing to say now about who own it. If they want to run a guild differently, they can start one up and do the hard work themselves.

If I were you I would take away their guild message privileges, even if it causes bad feelings and they leave the guild. No one should EVER use guild messages to make personal remarks or to promote dissent. They have shown by this that they can’t be trusted to act properly.

This answer is what you are looking for, OP. There’s not a lot else to be said.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Steve R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

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Posted by: Dawdler.8521

Dawdler.8521

If they used the guild messege wrongly, thats a kick.
If they dont play nicely in chat, thats a kick.
The fact that they made the guild originally is irrelevant.

That said, just ask people in the guild. You may be guild leader, but hanging on to a guild that doesnt care about its leader is pointless. Better to just grab everyone that want to leave and start a new guild. Ultimately, its just a name. Upgrades can always be rebuilt. Then your “friends” can have that empty shell of a guild. But thats only if you feel up to it. Kicking them is just as good.

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

My advice? Tell your friends that they left the guild, and you’ve been maintaining your community ever since, and you don’t think it’s fair that they can just barge back in like they own the joint.

If they’re really your friends, they will understand.

If they’re more interested in being guild leaders than being your friend, encourage them to go start one of their own, then get sick of that one and hand it off to someone else.

IMO it sounds like you put in the work. Unless you don’t want the job any more you should keep the job.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: DoctorDing.5890

DoctorDing.5890

I’d demote them and take their privileges off them. Then ask them what they would like to happen next.

But do remember than none of this is real. If they are friends in RL then that takes priority.

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Posted by: laokoko.7403

laokoko.7403

ask your guild mates what they want. And let them decide.

I don’t think it should be your decision or the previous leader’s decision.

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Posted by: imsoenthused.1634

imsoenthused.1634

They sure don’t sound like “friends” to me. I’d boot them from the guild and then put them on ignore. Then again, I don’t have a high threshold for drama.

If they were real life friends and they wanted to go have a beer and talk about why they got kicked, I’d be glad to explain. Or, depending on their drama level, write them off forever, but as I mentioned, that’s just me being me.

All morons hate it when you call them a moron. – J. D. Salinger

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Posted by: Cyninja.2954

Cyninja.2954

You seem to keep very strange company TC. Not sure I’d give much value such “friends”.

Matter at hand, you are in control of the guild and short of one of your “friends” comming over and using your account to transfer control there is little others can do about it.

Get rid of the deadweight and play with people who appreciate you.

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Posted by: Xelonir.5921

Xelonir.5921

Technically speaking: you are the leader, you own the guild

Less technically speaking, everybody who helped building the guild by representing it and creating influence did contribute to what the guild is today. Those “friends”, going by what you say, did not really contribute to the guild during the last year, whereas you did. So if you view guild members as a sort of “sharholders”, you own the majority of the shares … and in such cases the majority makes the decisions

Personally, I would be so kind as to refund them for their investment in the guild (I think it currently costs 1g to create a guild, so I’d give each of them 1g/(number of founders) as compensation) and kick them.

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Posted by: Zaron.1987

Zaron.1987

If they had said: "Pls be the trustee until I/ we come back. Atm we cant play unitl xx.yy.zzzz cause of RL it would be quite another matter.

But it seems they left cause they dont care longer about the game AND the guild and now cause of shiny shiny addon they come back and want the guild back

After one month maybe they will leave again

And btw its seems you/they are not real friends. real friends dont quarrel that way.

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Posted by: pessimist.7294

pessimist.7294

You are the leader now, just kick them. They left and decided to give you the leftovers of the guild. Now the expansion is coming and they want to take away your hard work without any compensation. Also with friends like these you dont need any enemies.

But you should give your guild members a choice: Either leave with the former leaders to form a new guild or stay with you in the old guild.

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

First, I’m really sorry that this happened to you. It’s always a terrible thing when a guild — designed to be a way to enhance the enjoyment of the game, via an organized community of like-minded people — becomes a thing that makes the game less fun.

There’s no simple answer to your question. The short story is: it doesn’t matter any longer; the situation has become toxic. I recommend that you decide whether you want to fight for the principle or be practical and look for (or found) a different guild, where your efforts will make more of a positive difference.

In particular, you are left with only a few options:

  • Quit the guild, letting others know that you are starting a new one.
  • Quit the guild, and join another one with less drama and a more robust leadership.
  • Stick with the guild and accept that the founders aren’t appreciative of your efforts to maintain the guild.
  • Stick with the guild and be bitter.

In terms of ownership, there are lots of ways to look at it:

  • By ArenaNet’s standards, no one “owns” the guild. It’s managed by anyone who has the relevant permissions.
  • By political standards, anyone who has been running the guild is, well, running the guild, with a “possession equal to nine tenths of the law” sort of scenario.
  • By personal standards, guild creators are considered to have special ‘rights’, even if they haven’t been responsible for the guild’s recent successes.
  • By social standards, those actually responsible for the guild’s recent successes are considered the true leaders.
  • By martial law standards, whoever kicks disruptive guildies “owns” the guild.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

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Posted by: rhapsody.3615

rhapsody.3615

Three things that stand out for me:
-You are a guild leader who is in another guild to do missions.
-Only yourself and two others have been repping the guild for a year.
-You don’t know how to motivate people to join or do things together.

To be honest, this doesn’t sound like much of a guild to me. If your friend wants leadership back, maybe you can work something out where they help rebuild the community to earn it. If you aren’t able to work something out, cut your losses and move on.

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Posted by: Draknar.5748

Draknar.5748

I wouldn’t give it back to him. They left it to you, you’ve been leader of it, now it is yours. They can form a new guild if they wish.

In all honesty, why would they even want the guild back? Sounds like it’s for all intents and purposes a dead guild. With only yourself and maybe a couple of others who actively rep. Is it a really cool name or something?

I won’t stop because I can’t stop.

It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….

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Posted by: khani.4786

khani.4786

Like everyone else says. You are the “owner” of the guild. They made you leader & left.

Personally, if they were slandering me in anyway, I wouldn’t call them friends and I’d kick them out of the guild. If there weren’t many active members left in the guild, I’d probably disband it out of spite. (If you want to disband a guild you have to kick everyone then you yourself leave the guild.)

But it’s up to you to decide what you’re going to do.

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Posted by: Triangulator.2867

Triangulator.2867

Leave the dead guild to your friend and keep running with the guild you have been doing missions with. Over time your effort and dedication to that tag will be more appreciated than anything you will do for the dead guild you ‘lead’.

Don’t get caught up thinking your guild ‘matters’. Nothing matters but your stress relief and enjoyment playing this game. From your lengthy post it seems to me as if decision making is causing you stress. Pro tip: if you can’t make decisions. Don’t involve yourself in a position of decision making.

Good luck.

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Posted by: Bloodstealer.5978

Bloodstealer.5978

As guild leader it is simple.. those players that want to propagate hate/trash talk about you whether by word of mouth or guild messages, have no place in the guild.

First thing to do is downgrade those officers back to members to protect your guild bank from being pillaged and to stop them from editing the guild message/emblem etc. If the problems persist then simply boot them from the guild and don’t bat an eyelid about it.
Players like that have no place in any guild – so let them go a pugging for a whiles so they can realise what they threw away.. perhaps they may then also get a few pug boots as well for their troubles.

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Posted by: Thaddeus.4891

Thaddeus.4891

You are both wrong in my opinion.

- You are the guild leader so you have the authority to do whatever you want with the guild.

- But at the same time you have a responsibility as a guild leader to make thing work in the guild and to promote it. Guild Missions is pretty basic for a guild, you only need 5 people online to do some and with 12 you should be able to complete almost all of them. So if you didn’t bother organizing them and you went to another guild for the missions, you are not really a good leader anyway.

IMO. Be a leader and make your guild work, or put you aside and give it to someone else so that they can make something with it.

Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD

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Posted by: RoseofGilead.8907

RoseofGilead.8907

They handed control over to you. You own the guild. However, if you can’t properly LEAD a guild, then you should consider handing over control of it. That’s my opinion, anyway.

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Posted by: Path.2469

Path.2469

You should be ashamed for your half-heart feelings at keeping the guild.
You’re a leader of the guild, so act like one.
If you let other ppl no matter if they are former leaders etc push you over with little issues like this, you should just delete the guild and forget about it.

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Posted by: Redenaz.8631

Redenaz.8631

Why do you want to be the guild leader? Do you even want to be the leader?

You have to ask yourself what’s best for you, and what’s best for the other players in the guild. I was vice president of a club in college simply because some of my residents (RA) needed someone to sign the form for them, but I was super busy and couldn’t really commit to it. When it elections came around, I gave it up once I was sure someone more capable was going to be taking over. It’s a club, not a trophy.

At the same time, if they gave you the position, it’s your decision what you do with it. You might risk fracturing the guild, driving people off, or just having things decay naturally if you’re not trying to expand it, but they gave up their claim to ownership. If they’re unhappy, they can start their own guild, with blackjack and hoo— quaggans.

~The Storyteller – Elementalist – Jade Quarry~

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Posted by: Tigaseye.2047

Tigaseye.2047

I was made guild leader of a guild, after it’s prior leaders had left in disgust

Assuming this is correct and there was no prior arrangement that you would give it back, it’s your guild for as long as you want it to be, then.

They should have thought more carefully about “leaving in disgust” if there was a chance they would change their minds, in future.

Hopefully, this will be a good thing for them, as they will learn lessons about prejudice towards people they don’t know (yet) and burning their bridges.

“Turns out when people play the game, they don’t admire your feet at all.” sephiroth

(edited by Tigaseye.2047)

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Posted by: Sirendor.1394

Sirendor.1394

The leader. No more needs to be asked. Anyone below leader rank can make no claim to “ownership”, though they may have their share of work involved, yet that was a choice, nobody forced them to work for their guild.

Gandara – Vabbi – Ring of Fire – Fissure of Woe – Vabbi
SPvP as Standalone All is Vain

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Posted by: Shadey Dancer.2907

Shadey Dancer.2907

You are the owner of the guild. No if, ands, or buts about it.

They gave it to you and left. They have nothing to say now about who own it. If they want to run a guild differently, they can start one up and do the hard work themselves.

If I were you I would take away their guild message privileges, even if it causes bad feelings and they leave the guild. No one should EVER use guild messages to make personal remarks or to promote dissent. They have shown by this that they can’t be trusted to act properly.

Basically this.
Personally I would skip past the ‘remove Guild Privileges’ and move immediately to the Order of the Golden Boot, and promote them out of the Guild asap, with a message to thank them for dropping in, but next time, keep moving to the end of the Pier—-then drop in!

(btw—in the age of internet, where people can be ‘instant friends’, they hardly qualify on the most basic of standards)

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

You have the title and permissions of guild leader and so, technically, you come as close to owning the guild as can be said of any player.

That said you do not seem to be a leader in your guild. Its membership has, according to you, largely abandoned the guild during your tenure. This includes you. Rather than building the guild up to be able to pursue guild related content you have chosen to play with another guild. This is not guild leadership.

If you are not willing to support the guild why are you resistant to the idea of allowing someone else the opportunity?

A guild leader who is not willing to lead and support the guild (a shared endeavor), but holds onto it because, “its mine,” doesnt really have a guild.

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Posted by: Malediktus.9250

Malediktus.9250

The highest ranked player in the guild owns it. And that seems to be you.

1st person worldwide to reach 35,000 achievement points.