Guild's Explained
To make sure those who buy a guild from me can get the most of it, I have written this tutorial to help you with the basics.
What is a guild?
A guild is your own private forum that people can posts threads in. As captain you have control over who can post, and the theme of a guild.
How do I choose a theme?
The short answer is what do you like? Maybe you like anime, role play or have a favourite band. By having a theme you are more likely to get members with the same interests as you making it much easier to make new gaian friends. Having a theme encourages people to post threads based on that topic.
Cool! I bought one, now what?
Okay lets talk you through the basics. In the top left hand corner you will see the following options:
Lets look at the moderator panel first....
Invite users to guild
Simply enter the name of the person you want to invite and your reason for doing so. They will get a pm telling them about your guild and they can then decide if they want to join or not. Great for inviting all your friends once the guild is up and running.
View current join requests
At some point you will want to advertise you guild in the forums or your signature to try and get new members. If they apply to join you will see their request in this section.
View Crew activity log
For the busier guilds this will tell you what your crew members have been doing. This includes moving topics to a different sub forum or deleating threads.
Edit Guild Settings
This is an important one!
Here you get to name the guild, design the layout and information on the front page and confirm some other settings of the guild.
I will leave the naming of the guild up to you but the in the description setting you can put pictures and information to try and get people interested enough to join. Make it bold colourful and too the point. People dont want to be reading an essay to find out what your guild is about.
The banner is a small picture that will be displayed next to the title of the guild when people do a search. A simple one can be made in ms paint or a fancier one with programs such as photoshop. The banner needs to be 200 pixels long and 40 pixels high. Save to a site such as photobucket and then use the link in the banner space.
The entry fee is what new members will have to pay. People are often put off by an entry fee but any funds you do get will go into a guild account. The money in the guild account can be used to purchase more sub forums.
The next box down is important! Tick the allow join requests otherwise no one who sees your guild will be able to apply to join.
Hide from registry means if you have the box ticked your guild will not come up in peoples searches. Not a good idea if you want more people to find your guild to join.
Then you have the category option. This is nice and simple, what group do you think the theme of your guild belongs in.
You then have three types to choose from:
Select Public if you want everything to be able to be read and posted in.
Private if you want the guild to be viewed but not posted in by non guild members.
Hidden means only the front page is visable to non guild members.
Edit guild forums
This enables you to keep your guild nice and organised. Here you can name the main forum and any sub forums you may have so your members know where they should be posting. You can also tick a box at the end to mean that only crew members and above can access that forum for the more private matters of the guild.
If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you will find the option to purchase an additional subforum. Each sub forum costs 2500 and the money will be taken from the guild account. Money can be placed in the guild account through either membership fees or through donating on the guild home page.
Change guild ownership
Not something your likely to need unless you plan to sell on your guild but be aware that vice captains have access to this option. Meaning they can kick you out of the guild if they want to so make sure you trust anyone you make as vice captain.
Two more logs
Meh not important they just tell you what you have bought sub forum wise and what changes youhave made to the guild.
The guild home tab
Very simply this shows you the front page of your guild but the is also a bar with some other useful information on.
This bar tells you:
~What setting you have for your guild
~How many members the guild as ever had
~How many posts have ever been made
~How much it costs to join
~How much is in the guild account
Underneath this you will find the donate to guild option. Anyone can donate to the guild whether they are a member or not, this includes yourself. This is where the money to pay for sub forums come from.
The guild forum tab
This will show you all of the sub forums available in your guild. Below these will then be the main forum.
As the captain you may want to post some important topics. To do this create your thread as normal but before you click the submit buttom change from normal to sticky or announcement.
This will keep that thread at the top of the page.
The guild members tab
This will list every member of your guild, what their rank is, how much they have donated to the guild, how many posts they have made and then the all important promote and demote options.
What are the ranks?
Captain-Owns the guild
Vice Captain-Helps to run the guild in the captains absence. Can do everything a captain can.
Crew-Helps to run the guild. Have the ability to move and delete topics.
Member-Basic member.
Should you feel a member is good enough to be promoted simply click the promote option. If they have broken rules click the demote option. I would however suggest discussing any changes with the person involved.