Welcome to Gaia! ::

I think you have a great idea here. I'm sure a lot of people will find this helpful. biggrin

OK, lets see... Recruiting and Advertising.
Advertising a Community Guild
Hm, here's one thing that I'd like added. Just a little bit more on what specifically should be in an AD thread in Registered Guilds and the like. Since it's a whole thread, there'll probably be more room for info such as rules, crew, the subforums and what they hold, concepts or ideas or the like, etc.. Probably more longwinded than the homepage. Or at least... I think. I'm not really sure, which is kinda' why I ask in the first place xd .

Other than that... Oh wait!

Hm, another thing that could possibly be added is about asking members to invite friends and such, or makinga recruiting contest to get a large amount of new members quickly. Things such as contests or threads outside of the guild could also be used as advertisement; in the Gaiaversary I spent time in a guild thread w/o realizing it, then joined and became a bit of a regular for a while. So it works.

OK I think I got everything... yup, onto the next post thingy!

<3 Ali

:sweatdrops:

I was dragged off to a 'friend's' house soon after church... for the rest of the day, got home around 11:30 around here.

I'll make my pitiful attempts at critique and comments tomorrow, yes, too tired to read xp .

<3 Ali

Your welcome, glad you like it ^_^;; . I hate having to say 'I think this is flawless' because, well, I believe everybody asking for critique likes/wants critique, and I myself hate when the only thing I get is 'There's nothing wrong with it, it's perfect' when I know that's probably impossible whee .

Well, today I was sleeping until 3:30pm (I kid you not), and then... catching-up junk, and then twirling around to get back to this.

Now, Crewing.
First, it had totally slipped my mind when constructing my guild to make rules for the crew as well until I saw another guild with rules for crew. It's one way to make for trying to let the crew know their duty, responsibility, and restrictions easily and without excuse. Also, showing the rules somewhere other than the Crew Only subforum many guilds have, such as in with the other general guild rules allows normal users to one, realize that the crew are just normal people as well, who even have rules to follow themselves, and two, know what limitations the crew have so they can't go powertrippin' believing that the members won't even know they're breaking rules and stuff.

Also, when asking a member to be crew, they should also tell them, in no uncertain terms, what is expected of them, their responsibilities in the guild, what rules crew have concerning their possible new position, and why they with to promote them... and the like. If someone is just bumped to Crew, while they'll have a good idea what duties they have, they should still be given more specific details on it; I was once bumped to Crew, and while I know basics of what I can probably do, when I do anything with my 'Crew powers', I'm always a little unsure if I was stepping out of bounds, even if it was just little stuff.

Oh, here's also a note that might be of a little interest. You're right, members can help just as much as crew can in many aspects. I don't think users really understand this to a very full extent.

I've mentioned a forum outside of Gaia, that anime forum that I like? It's members are almost as good at keeping new members and rulebreakers in place as mods and admin. Whenever someone breaks a rule, people point it out and tell them to fix it, like any of the mods, and people listen. Many members have done helpful things such as making directories, brining up wonderful ideas or thoughts, writing up rules or FAQs or articles, etc.. There are some members who I've taken a couple weeks to mildly ponder if they were normal members or mods. I feel almost no difference between mods and members, even though some of the mods are actually rather stick-in-the-muds or sarcastic. I can't say the same for people in guilds where I even knew the mods well before they were mods. In Gaia guilds, it feels as if members feel that only moderators can properly handle a mess if it's just a little too messy.

Oh, and crew doesn't always have to be kind and friendly... :giggles: . That anime forum? About 2-3 of the mods are rather sarcastic and not very friendly. Cold-shouldered is what they are. But they're loved, they're responsible, active, and above all, they are most definitely fair. They don't have to be nice to have good judgment and be fair; in fact, having a snippish, sarcastic or blunt mod may actually be a good thing for certain guilds; it helps keep some of the members in line, because they're intimidating and you don't want to mess with them. They make you feel belittled when you break rules and talk back xd . I'd like a mod like that in my Crew one day, anyway; as long as they're fair and sensible.

Anyway, that's all I have for now on Crew, that I can think of...

<3 Ali

Finally, last thing! Structuring Subforums.

Here's a little grammar thingy:


That confused me for a sec, had to reread it two or three times sweatdrop . Just delete the 'to'.

I liked how you were able to properly explain what exactly subforums really were, though; organization tools, nothing more. <3

Concerning an idea similar to 'memorable threads' and 'recycle bin'. I believe an archive for all locked threads is very helpful and nice to have. Again, referring to that anime forum, they had an archive with every locked thread to keep in it; it holds their history, and I've sometimes found myself spending up to a few hours just reading old conversations of how two now-practically-best-friends first met in an argument, of how one of the stiff and somewhat cold-shouldered mods had, when they first joined, been a bit nicer and sociable, showing how everybody had first gotten to love them. I've also read icky times that the forum's been in, and such like that.

I hate that with guilds that have history, where something apparently big happened that only older members know about, I can't just go to some archive to fish out the whole situation. I like to look back and see all that's happened. If I join an old guild with oldbies and the like, who have history behind it, which they often bring up, I want to know what they're talking about, so I don't feel so left out and so I feel like an actual part of the guild.

It also works as a great recycle bin/memorable thread combination.

Here's something about General Discussion, just something to maybe chew on?; in my guild, Chit-Chat (like GD) is probably going to be most popular to talk about; BUT I don't want it to be the main thing. If I made it the main forum, people would most likely only post in there, and not in the subforums; that's bad because the other subforums are supposed to be almost as important as the Chit-Chat. Actually, they're supposed to rank the same importance as Chit-Chat, it's just that Chit-Chat has more topics you can discuss in it and it'll just 'happen' to probably have more activity. So in order to try to signify to members that you should try looking at other forums as well, I made my 'GD' a subforum as well. I mean, I do believe that it'd be just as possible to spend most of your time in at least 5 of the other subforums rather than the Chit-Chat one.

With announcements...

It just cut off. You must have accidentally deleted it.

Another type of subforum you could talk about in-depth would be SPAM and guild activity/suggestions/etc..

Also, since someone else in CG recently had some trouble with it... some advice on what subforums to get first, when starting out with limited funds and trying to get an assortment. You know, out of the typical ones in a general guild; RP, Art, SPAM, ED, etc..

I'm not gonna' comment on the RP guilds thing, because I know little about RP guilds sweatdrop .

Aaannndddd OK I'm done my rantings!! Woohoo!

<3 Ali

Nice thinking Ali ^^ 3nodding