Behavior
(by Edicomoh, April 13, 2009)

Limiting human behavior is difficult and tedious. Best practice would be to only tolerate those who are able to tolerate each other within the organization. Those beyond the ‘desired’ and ‘acceptable’ for one’s organization shouldn’t be kept around. Human beings won’t change their behavior unless they make the decision to do so internally.

• Membership – It’s a privilege and not a right.
• Cohesiveness – A member must exhibit the ability to play well with others.
• Ventrilo and Chat – A member must exercise common courtesy rules when using either form of communication.
• Behavior – A member must be able to exercise restraint. They are expected to keep an objective point of view when dealing with fellow members and the server community as a whole.
• Assistance – A member should be able to aid other fellow members.
• Real Life & In-Game – A member is expected to balance their priorities based on commitments that are made in real life and in-game.
• Common Sense – A member is expected to have it and use it.
• Griefing – Any form of griefing done to both Factions (Horde/Alliance) will result in your removal.
• Respect – A member should understand that this value is a two-way street.
• Self Sufficiency – A member is expected to be able to act independently if needed to achieve goals.

Conflict Resolution — In any situation where you have different kinds of people together there are bound to be conflicts. Members are strongly encouraged to resolve any conflicts via tells or a private channel in an adult fashion and way that does not disrupt the workings of the guild. Should you be unable to resolve your conflict, the following is an outline of acceptable protocol for conflict resolution.

1. Send a tell to an officer. If the situation demands immediate attention, alert him/her of the situation, and a time to discuss it will be determined. The officer will (I) Attempt to resolve the situation; (II) Request you speak with another officer online; or (III) Request you PM the officer so it can be given the attention of all officers.
2. If the officer is unable to resolve the conflict to your satisfaction, you may follow up with a tell or forum PM to the Guild Leader.
3. If you have spoken with an officer or the Guild Leader for conflict resolution, understand that it will be moved to the officer forum where it will be discussed by all officers. This means that the officers will do everything in their power to make sure a speedy resolution is achieved, however, be aware that it is unrealistic to expect a resolution immediately. This is purely by nature of having more than one voice involved.
4. All internal matters will be handled internally. If the matter has been elevated to the highest authority (Tell to the Guild Leader for resolution by all officers of the guild) and is still not resolved to your satisfaction, you may decide to petition official WoW customer service personnel. This should be considered as a last resort of unsatisfactory handling by all officers and the Guild Leader. Any guild member who circumvents this chain of command (i.e., guild officers, guild leader, then WoW CS personnel) will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including guild removal.

Once a conflict has reached the level requiring all officer input into the resolution, the end decision of the officers will be considered final.

Understand that you have a choice of how you spend your free time, and that time should be enjoyable, not bogged down with rules. A little common sense, respect, and treating others as you would want to be treated, will generally make your own, as well as everyone else’s membership to the community an enjoyable one.

To sum up:  If you’re pissing people off, you’re doing it wrong.

Recruitment
( Modified by Kam, Feb  2011)

Class Opening
The Officers will Open and Close recruitment based on the current needs of the guild, to be determined by careful planning, magic 8-ball and/or ouija board.

Applicants
For details read the “recruitment information” post on the forum. When a Class is opened for limited recruitment, players interested in applying to Kinsmen must go through the following vetting process.

1. They must first meet with and get the approval to proceed from an officer.
2. They must meet the minimum class requirements as set by the officers, including availability, level, talent spec etc.

Evaluation Period
Once approved, the person will be considered a Recruit and begin an Evaluation period of 30 days during which time they will raid with us providing there is room and/or no Members waiting. During this time the officers will work together with the Recruit to get them on board with our program; Help them acclimate and get them invited to groups.

Officer Vote on a Recruit
In order to be eligible for a Vote for membership a recruit must have achieved the following minimum participatory benchmarks:

1. Has been participating as a Recruit for a minimum of 30 days (from the time the Application was approved by the Class Leader)
2. Has satisfied the Officers with their ability to work with our Team and has demonstrated the skill and demeanor necessary to become a valued addition to the Guild.
3. Has participated in at least 50% scheduled raids with our guild as a Recruit.

Once the above requirements have been met the Role Officer will post a vote thread on the Officer Forums. It will stay up for 3 days, and then the Votes tallied. There will be options to vote Yes, No or Extend.

In order to become a member of Kinsmen!
The Recruit must receive a minimum of 85% Yes votes. If there are not enough Yes votes, a decision will be reached by the Officers as to whether or not to extend the evaluation process or deny membership.

DKP
( by Kam, April 2008) (Modified Feb  2011)

Kinsmen DKP is a silent bidding system where points earned from raiding 25 player PVE content can be spent on gear.

1. Earning DKP for RAID Encounters.
The highest tier of raiding available (currently 11) will award 100 DKP per hour. Raids will be broken into three hourly sections with a check-in approximately at the end of the hour to award DKP for that hour.

2. Stand-by DKP
A person will earn 100 DKP/hour for the raid by being ?on deck?. You may withdraw from the ?on deck? waiting list at any time with no DKP loss by whispering the standby tracking officer or raid leader. Otherwise your character has to be in raid in the standby designated group. You can go offline and be on an alt but be reachable to the raid.

** To qualify for stand-by DKP:

• You are on the waiting list and you were beyond the 10 or 25 needed to fill the raid and/or in an overbooked class.
• You must be on and monitoring the Kinsmen Ventrilo server. You are allowed to play on an alternate character as long as you stay online throughout the duration of the raid. The raid leader will call for check-ins. If the check-in is not answered promptly (within a period of roughly 3 minutes), you will be removed from the wait list and receive no DKP for that raid.
• You may be asked to gather needed materials and deliver them to the raid. This must be done promptly. You are considered part of the raid and this is one of your duties to the raid.
• You can remove yourself from the Standby list at anytime by informing an attending officer. No penalty.
• The 5 minute time frame to get to the instance is a loose guideline. If we are trying to invite you to group and summon you, you no longer have 5 minutes. Take the invite. Take the summon.

3. Spending DKP

• We will be using a silent bidding system for all epic drops. Once the loot is announced, the Raid Leader (or designated DKP auctioneer) will announce the start of the bidding on the first item. You must send the DKP auctioneer private tells announcing your bid. You cannot bid more DKP then you currently have.  Clarification May 27, 2009 – Current = not including dkp from raid at the time of bidding.)
• There is a minimum bid of 100DKP on all items.
• There are two rounds of bidding lasting for approximately 10 seconds each.
• First round MAINS for main spec use
• Second round Recruits, Mains, and Alts for any use (before item is disenchanted)
• The final bid and winner will be announced in raid chat. The ML will hand the item to the winner. The price of the item will be the second highest bid +1 DKP. If there is a tie, those with the over all highest DKP will be rewarded the item. In case the total DKP is tied, then it will be /rolled.

**For example: We get three bids. Someone bids 4000 DKP and has a total of 6000 DKP, and two others bid 6000 DKP, one with total of 10000 DKP and another with 12000. Bidding closes. The person who bid 6000 DKP with a total of 12000 DKP would win the item and pay 6000 DKP. If only one person had bid 6000 DKP, that person would win the item for 4001 DKP.

• Anyone can bid for any item, but bids may be negated by the Guild Leader or Raid Leader, if wildly inappropriate or clearly malicious in nature. Abuse will not be tolerated. Don’t bid on things you are not going be using most of the time. Don’t inflate prices to help your friend. Don’t use DKP on BoE epics and go sell it in the AH. Use common sense, think about the guild first.
• BOEs: 3.0 introduced many BoE epic boss drops.  Many of these items are very good for raiding and a few may be BiS for some classes.  Any BoE’s bid for and won in normal round 1 bidding should be for the purpose of equipping on the winning toon for use in PVE content. BOE’s are a source of gold for Guild repair bills and as such will be used to provide for the bills of raiders. They should not be used for Alts, Friends or fund your personal bank.
• DKP maximum = There is none!!
• DKP wipe – be aware points are wiped clean from the system if member is inactive for over 30 days.  Additionally a member returning to activity may be asked to accrue DKP for two weeks before being allowed to bid on items. Please check with Class Officer and Guild Leader for this. It applies on a case by case status and depends on the period and reasons of inactivity. This insures a rare drop does not go to a returning member that may go inactive soon again, points non withstanding and effect negatively to the guild’s raiding effort. Again remember we do not raid for an individual’s accumulation of “phat lewt”.

4. Other stuff

• If an item is not bid on, it may be taken by anyone who will equip it for 100 DKP. Otherwise, it will be disenchanted and sent to the guild bank.
• The most you can bid is your DKP before the start of the raid. No one will be allowed to go negative unless they are picking up an item with minimum bid (100 DKP) before it gets disenchanted. (may need approval from officers in raid).
• Recruit Members may earn DKP, and bid in Round 2 until he/she is full member (approximately 30 days).
• Points belong to the person not the single character and may be transferred between characters on a single account. Special circumstances where alts are called in to balance a class, the DKP is recorded under the alternate but should be added for all characters. Mains do get a priority on bids. If an item is not bid upon on the first round of bidding, alts can put in a bid on the second round before the item gets disenchanted.
• If a member already owns an item currently in auction, he/she may not bid on that item in an effort to raise the amount of DKP spent by other members. This is pretty much common sense – if you cannot receive an item, you cannot bid on it.
• Members are not allowed to announce their bid publicly. (A bid made in a public channel will be canceled immediately and the player will forfeit his chance for bidding on that particular item.)

5.Rights and Responsibilities Of the Master Looter/ Auctioneer:
People are, understandably, apprehensive of putting so much power into one person’s hands. A corrupt Master Looter (ML) can, and will lead to many issues. As such, a system of checks and balances will be put into place to help prevent such corruption.

• If the ML is interested in bidding on the item, another officer will be asked to run the bidding process on that item. This will be arranged prior to bidding start and will be announced to everyone on raid channel.
• The ML is required to take a screenshot of all the bids. This serves two purposes – it shows that there was proper track kept of all the bids, and it is a confirm-able record of who was on a raid. This picture will be kept on record, unedited.
• The ML is required to announce the highest bid before handing out the item. The ML will broadcast the bid itself on the public raid channel, and then 5 seconds later the amount that the person received it for. It is the players responsibility to pay attention to this – and if they notice their bid was higher, to report it to the ML. Do not make note of it in raid chat. If the ML ignores you – contact an officer immediately.

Guild Ranks
(by Kam, Aug 2008.)  ( Modified Feb  2011)

Guild Master
Officer
O. Alt
Raider
F&F
Alt
Recruit

What they mean:

• GM = Guild Master (self explanatory)
• Officer = Class/Role Officers, Recruitment Officers and Raid Leader ranks. Can invite to guild. Can also retrieve limited # of items out of bank per day, not $. Has access to Officer chat channel. Can change MOTD and can see/make Officer comments in game. Has guild repair on.
• O. Alt = Officer Alt. Has same permissions as Officer roughly, but no Guild repair.
• Raider = Raiding member that constitutes our “raiding backbone”. Has priority to get into raid over other ranks. Must maintain 75%+ attendance to raid according to “Attendance Tracking Post” on AFK forum. Must also perform at acceptable level to be awarded rank by Role Officer. Has guild repair on.
• Friend and Family = Non raiding guild member. Friend or family of an existing members. Does not abide by any raiding related policies or minimum standards. Folks leveling, gearing and questing with members that do receive “in-guild” benefits (minus raiding).  This rank does not accrue DKP.
• Alt = Alternate characters of guild folks. Typically will have lower priority on gearing for obvious reasons. If ever brought into raids, they bid in round 2.
• Recruit = 30 day rank for incoming new folks. Check recruitment policy and recruitment terms on Application forum for details of expectations and evaluation standards. Upgraded to member rank once recruit period is finished.

OFFICERS:

Raid Lead: Dam
Healer: Starbright, Ellun
Melee: Gilgaiad, Superbeasto
Ranged: Shadeofwhite, Tharthalas
Recruit: Ezili, Aelric

Guild Leader = Edicomoh

Administrative  = Yoshi

A special note of love and hope from former Healing officer Teddy:

As a note people moving from Couch that want to return to raiding after a prolonged period into a position that is full at time of return must go through 2 week recruitment again.

Raider Rank
(by Edicomoh, Feb 2010) ( Modified Feb  2011)

The “Raider” title/status is to recognize those that are committed to helping this guild progress (and not just giving us lip service). It is also to give those that do not receive the title a reason to try a little harder and maybe start paying attention.

It is also a helpful tool for recruitment and building the necessary class balance in raids.

Raiders will have priority over members for raid spots, but still predicated on the necessary class balancing for the particular instance.

How to get it:

1. Raid attendance is consistent and 75%+
2. Raid performance is on par or better for the particular role required.
3. Decent attitude during raids. (You can’t expect someone to be chipper and positive every raid, but there is no reason to be an asshole either)
4. A level of commitment to the guild and it’s progression, including but not limited too; prepared with flasks, pots, and food, proactively reviewing upcoming boss strategies, etc.

How to lose it:

1. Two consecutive weeks of crap attendance or missing any raids w/o notification.
2. Only showing up on the nights we have farm bosses and skipping the learning nights, when it matters.
3. Showing up and doing nothing more than wasting everyone else’s time and gold.
4. Excessive QQing, being a dick etc.
5. Consistent poor performance or unpreparedness.

The benefits to being a “Raider”

1. Damn near guaranteed a spot in raids.
2. Access to guild repairs all week (limited $$ per day though)
3. Access to Raiders tab and Consumables tab of the guild bank for storage and sharing resources.

Dual spec
All characters will still have a main spec, which is determined by the role you were recruited for or the role you currently fill as of Apr 2009.  The second spec will still bid in round 2.  Please talk to the appropriate role officers if you are seeking a role change similar to how main changes have been done in the past.  In short, ask first.