Can we get behind guilds?

[WindowOpener]

A year or two ago I shoved this graphic in a journal entry, secretly hoping it would start spreading in signatures and pressure staff to prioritise the GGN.



I think it achieved an uptake of, probably, close to one, and there's a lesson in that. Arrogant graphics don't have that much bang.

Thankfully, as it turns out, there was no correlation between this graphic's popularity and GGN development!

And I think it's time for an arrogant thread...

GGN development has been roaring along with functional facelifts for nearly all major areas, including the registry, Mod Panel and member list. The changes are thoughtful, mixing backend rewriting with aesthetic redesigns, and they are being communicated clearly. All of this is wonderful for us guild users, and exciting, and promising.

Gaia is more of a business than it was when the GGN was late updated, though, and this is a good thing. We're benefiting from improvements - though mostly behind the scenes - in feature planning, development and quality assurance, just for examples.

Gaia also allocates resources more prudently than before, making sure its resources go to the places with the greatest benefit to the most users. This is a good thing for the site, too, but as wesden_girl's explained, as the dev spotlight turns to guilds, the investment has to be rewarded by use.

So what can we do to help?

Obviously, every post we make and every (responsible) exercise of Crew power helps. Now is definitely the time to be confident, not shy, with starting new threads. Now is the time to take risks with ideas for events and contests. And maybe now is even the time for advertising and recruiting, not that this has enjoyed much of a reputation for fun in recent years.

So let's all be part of that renewed confidence inside this guild to talk more with each other and keep our forum active, remembering that whenever we visit, we are all just looking for an excuse to post.

Let's start offering more threads to each other, and we'll give the GGN machine some stats to sing about!

But are there ways we can band together and have an impact beyond our boundaries? Guilds have been increasingly isolated as greater Gaia has grown. Even if guilds haven't shrunk in real terms, they have shrunk proportionally.

Starting some GGN buzz in the main forums, which are more diverse and crowded than ever, seems daunting. And it's easy for us to suggest ways that the staff can promote guilds - via announcements, banners, etc. Haven't we had years of practice suggesting ways for staff to solve our problems?

I'd like to offer this thread as a place to discuss ideas for spreading the GGN word.

Advertising-like ideas are worth talking about, but I think the most helpful possibilities lie in ideas that aren't as easy to gloss over, like some of the initiatives that people start in Gaia Community Projects.

Maybe this isn't the kind of cause that lends itself well to special events like a "Guild Day" or something like that, but what do we think?

As the largest guild that has the most to do with guilds, how can we take advantage of our position and member base and do something that will draw attention to the GGN?

Personally, I'd love to start a newspaper in Registered Guilds, I think that forum could use a thread that doesn't ignore all the others. ^^  

[MemoryDragon]

Advertising was never my strong point. sweatdrop What always worked best for the Arina Tanemura guild I'm with is the thread outside of the guild.

I think part of the problem is getting captains to care again. Nothing dies quicker when the captain is only half hearted. I should know, considering I had a guild forced on me once. sweatdrop

How to inspire captains, especially ones that haven't signed on in over a year, is a problem I think many guilds have had... I'm not entirely sure how to solve it other than to make a whole new guild with surviving members if you're willing to put forth the effort.  

[XenjinHattori]

Hm, interesting. I'll share my ideas when I get back from work in 8 hours' time (hopefully you don't all have everything decided by then!

Note: I'm not crew, so I think my ideas are moot, but meh.  

[LillianSaire]

No, ideas from non-crew are probably the most needed. The crew and captains that have been active have quite possibly used up any ideas that were of a manageable size.

Window-RG not being a sub would be nice, but also, I think that forum may be ignored by much of Gaia. If someone is looking for guild they wouldn't know to check RG and would go to the search first. (This is one of the things that someone who remembers how they got into guilds and/or isn't a captain/crew needs to check for accuracy.)

I think it might be that I just found a better invite, but I got 100+ new members last night from what usually takes about 12 hours to really see the member jump from a invite/recruit run. Not only that but I got few PMs of people asking what I was trying to say and none just saying no. I also have gotten a few new members (12-20) since eliminating join requests.
Not many of the new members have posted yet, but it hasn't been 24 hours yet and I still have the mind set that a small percentage of members post unless you have dismiss people for inactivity kind of guild, and then the number of members is significantly lower.

I do find it slightly humorous that in the RP category there is a school guild on each page, consistently. Mine being third. For all the odd times that tiny guilds will rank high, and all the seemingly random results, it is odd.  

[XenjinHattori]

When I read this earlier, I read it differently than I read it now and in fact misread GGN meaning this guild. redface

So, my 'wish' is this. Why not a guild that advertises other active guilds? It will list a majority of the -active- guilds sorted by different tags (such as music interests, sports, gaming, books, television, and the like).

What this would do: Hopefully, encourage the use of guilds more than ever, especially if a large majority of data was compiled into the forums.

Setbacks:
-Compiling data would take ages, with over 55,000 guilds, and completed data would be obsolete by the time the data was compiled. Plus, you can search guilds by tags and view the home page.
-Even if such a guild were created, why would it be featured and why would any guild want to help it grow?


A few of my other thoughts:

-The only things that a guild has that forums do not is the ability to moderate the forums (specifically as a crew member) and the relative 'safety' that comes with doing that. Members of a guild have a sense of unity. They want to help the guild grow, and can respect others who are a member there, because they are accomplishing the same goal: Making a guild that is fun and active on the subject of that particular guild. The problem is many people in Gaia are very fun-loving and don't care if their thread gets derailed in Barton Town forums.

-It is of my opinion that the majority of threads in the forums get closed down within a couple of days because of a loss of interest. Guild offers a safer alternative because normally the Captain doesn't change the guild once a week.

-Educating the guild leaders (Captains, Vice Captains and Crew) as to how to properly recruit. I could understand if your guild was "Insane Guild of Randomness" and one made a post like the following: "Hi, I'm Neo and this is such a crazy woot guild made up of nothing but absolute SPAM and InSaNe posts. We want to get 2936283756438 threads and 3932564897533487523475 posts. EnTeR aT yOuR oWn RiSk."

Note from author: If there is a guild called 'Insane Guild of Randomness' I sincerely apologize if you feel that this post offends you. I pulled the name out of my brain at 12 midnight.

But really, going with this point: Advertising isn't all that its cracked up to be.

Hm. I should write a guide to good advertising if it hasn't been written already. I may yet do so and see what everyone thinks.


OK, Neo. Back on track. That's my opinion, I could probably keep going but those are the three pressing issues coming to my mind. How to get people to join the guild, what the reasoning behind opening threads in forums is when you know they're going to be closed down because someone -probably- will spam it or no one will post on it just because it's probably been done a million times before, and the lack of creative recruiting. Because let's face it. 55,000 guilds is a LOT of guilds.

Note: I am partially biased. I rarely go to the forums to post much of anything. I am a guild member of a fair amount of guilds, so my view is somewhat skewered. What I do know is back in the day roleplays became guilds. This might not have been the best thing in the world but it was better than having it out in the open for a bunch of people to post on, and it made it easier to manage.

EDIT: Wow, what a long post. Sorry to put everyone through that. sweatdrop  

[LillianSaire]

Many of those guilds are under 10 posts. There are guilds that have been closed, guilds that are being sold/cleared/empty, and guilds that are private, only for people of a certain area or that know each other in RL or from a thread. Even guilds just for a person to store PM's and their own links. All of which (Except from a thread but open to new people) would not want that kind of publicity, or any for that matter.

EDIT: Guild ID 190191
http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/?guild_id=190191
So more than 190,000 guild ID used... one ID per guild...

Oh, and then there are a large set of guilds that were from a glitch and were shut down by mods, and then ToS violation guilds shut down by mods, and when the cappy guild was open it had the smallest guild ID at 68 so at least 100 IDs just don't work.

For ease, say that any guild under 100 members isn't allowed to be listed. I can get 100-200 in one night of invites. Not only that but anything under that would likely not handle a sudden increase in members. You could make a minimum post requirement for guilds to be listed, and/or a minimum average posts per user. (Guild posts divided by guild members)


EDITEDIT:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/?gmode=search&cat=-1&type=-1&page=1388
That is the half way mark/page in the registry right now.

I did the math, 2776 times 20 per page, 55K guilds are on the registry, I guess 150K are hidden from the registry. So, only about 25K guilds would even need to be considered, right? The problem is that after the half point are probably guilds that are bigger than any on the page because of the new weird algorithm.

EDITEDITEDIT
http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/?gmode=search&cat=-1&type=-1&page=400
Not one 100 member guild on that page when I looked. So only the first 1/7th of the registry?  

[XenjinHattori]

But the question is, would my opinion/proposal be necessary? What guild wants to operate under another guild, let alone give information about their guild to someone in order to make this sort of 'specialized' guild advertising?  

[LillianSaire]

A description and a link, maybe the 200x40 banner, on a long list in a thread about your category? It doesn't seem harmful or time consuming on the Captain's part, just hand them the info already made.

Then the crew of the list guild would sort the guilds into threads, this type of guild in this thread, that type in that thread... with a long list in the first post of each thread. Of course, they would make sure the guild meets requirements for 'active' and any others.

Like how the Guild contest was going to be (applications to get in, not finding your guild) but just the list, not judging.  

[XenjinHattori]

...I so missed this post.

I have a guild I'm currently not using, but the question is, who here is crazy enough to want to do this? blaugh  

[mamarita]

As we have asked for before- the idea of getting guilds more active boils down to two things that the programmers/developers can help Captains do:
1. Mass PM members
2. Give us access to the treasury so we can give incentives, like prizes, to the members  

[XenjinHattori]

But is there any other way to advertise guilds? How about having a way to 'sell' guilds on the marketplace?  

[WindowOpener]

Sorry for going quiet, uni exams IRL are an issue at the moment, but they'll be over soon. ^^

Just quickly... (I know when I start that way I'm about to start an essay)...

I'm going through from first reply to most recent.

Memory; So we'll look for ways to target captains. Tricky if they're not actually around, but we can perhaps shine some light on what captaining can be like. Try to encourage people to take the step to start up a guild. And also target members who are already in guilds to take initiatives and be 'active'.

NeoTsure; What Lillian said. This is by no means a discussion just for crew!

LillianSaire; Recruitment is always an area that GGNers are happy to hear advice on. whee If you've developed an approach to reaching out that works, we can definitely find a way to spread it. smile

NeoTsure again; This guild seems like the best place to start, because it's the biggest remaining guild about guilds. But reaching out and trying to start something in an even more central place (anyone think RG is a better option? or what about GCP?) might be a good step forward.

Your idea for a giant 'meta-guild' is really interesting. You make a few good points as well, though, on where its weaknesses might be. Maintenance would be an issue, and so would generally motivating people to be involved. That leads to the question, though, what new would the guild offer? (ie. how does it help people in a way that the registry doesn't?)

There's nothing wrong with the idea for a guild about guilds, though, but a lot of the things that such a place could do... why not try them here? smile I'm not sure duplicating the registry helps anyone, but what about feedback on guilds. Other sites on the web exist just for people to say "Hey, I bought this brand of saucepan. It is a delight to cook with." Or, "This refrigerator short circuited the power and burned down my kitchen, buy a different one." As far as I know, the GGN doesn't have a place for people to share their stories from different guilds (in a non-advertising way).

You also raise the point that there are a lot of Gaians who live only in the GGN. And there are a lot who live mostly outside it. We want more cross-over, at least in one direction, so that's an important thing for us to keep in mind. We'll need a presence in the forums. We'll also try to find a way to target 'guild hermits'.

Thanks NeoTsure. smile

Lastly, I'll just list a few of the things that have come up over which we don't have control.

• Access to guild funds for prizes etc.
  
• Registered Guilds being a subforum
  
• Mass PMs not being available
  

I don't think there is any dispute that these things would be good. But these things are exactly what this thread is not about.

This thread is here because the developers have done a spectacular job so far of facelifting the Registry, member lists and parts of the Mod Panel. They invested serious time and effort into these projects. But they are reaching the point where Gaia needs to see some return on that investment. This thread is about what we can do. How can we help them help us?

On a personal note, besides the practical reality that it's in our interest to do more than sit back, demand stuff and expect it, I have to say the whining for some of these things is really tiring me out. I know I've been a part of it before, probably for too long, but the time's surely over for that.

Even if you think the developers are only pretending to be interested in us, and the improved features and constant consultation are all just a massive PR offensive - please, please, give these demands a rest. I have a feeling they've got the message. sweatdrop  

[LillianSaire]

My approach is recruiting(invites) in Barton Town and revising my invite if too many people PM me asking if I'm insulting them. sweatdrop

The metaguild would be a (hopefully) more user-friendly registry that has removed guilds that are inactive or that don't want new members(or see below).

-Or- Don't want new members, or are so localized that they could be in a 'RL local' category or that are just a group of friend, making it invite only for the most part.

Adding reviews might make it more difficult to give a clean look, and guilds would have their members all say something nice, even if short and copy+pasted, so it would be a race to see who had the most members, especially if they need to drown out one or two people who are royally pissed with the guild even if it was their problem.

To advertise this new list the guild banners could just link to the guild's thread or post or category in the metaguild... but that might be hard to convince people to do. We could ask for the metaguild to be spotlighted, and set up a community projects thread. The metaguild would be the perfect way to use the spotlight to add to guild awareness without any guild getting swamped. A few guilds have been spotlighted recently too, which should be helping.  

[XenjinHattori]

Well, is the GGN willing to have me start creating a registry of guilds? Basically, it would do more than 'advertise' guilds (which we already have); it would be a listing of a whole bunch of different guilds.

My only problem is, even if I do this, what are the odds of more people hanging out here to pursue guilds closely related to them? Sure, this place has a lot of Crew, but Crew would not be the intended audience of such a registry. Certainly it may help dying guilds band together and form as one guild, but still, the problem with that is that the Crew have to be the ones doing things, even if the members aren't, because if the Crew isn't than the members aren't going to follow suit.

I hope I made sense as to what the problems would be.

Oh, and heaven forbid if I screwed up and made a post in the wrong area... sweatdrop  

[LillianSaire]

Go through, make the metaguild, then double check everything and that the listed guilds are all active, then ask the guild to be spotlighted.
Somewhere in there make a community projects thread, possibly after the first draft of the list to get more people helping and interested?