This is a topic that tends to be on the minds of most guild captains seeking to keep a lively guild. However, it's pretty hard when you compete with similar guilds for attention, can't be online often, or the entire website is under a slump. Even big guilds have their slow times, which is why I pose these questions:
Do you kick your inactive members? If you do use a rule that members must post (x) times a (week, month, year, decade), what are your criteria and why? If you don't, what do you do to try to get people posting and keep them that way?
I figured if people all talk about topics that trouble guilds, we can solve them together, and this is a big one.
My thoughts:
I used to kick inactive people from my guilds (Which never really saw that many active posters outside a few long-time Gaia friends) but then I figured that it never costs me anything to do captainly things like sending announcements, so I figured that I'd keep them. I find that I enjoy to be able to come and go as I please, and it's hard enough to moderate how long members have been around in order to keep their activity in check so I don't bother anymore. Most of the guilds I'm in don't care about if you post every day or not, and I admit that if they all did, I'd be kicked out of many of them. So, I wouldn't want to be a stern captain that enforced a rule that I wouldn't want to follow.
I don't do a whole lot to try to entice people to post other than making a lot of open-ended discussions, games, and contests every now and then. The contests don't get people hyped up and I've only had one successful one with a grand total of 2 participants in my most recent guild. So, it's clear that gold and free stuff doesn't always work unless you already have a lot of people. I made a sign-in thread (Not required to use it, but I use it so other people can see that it exists) and it's a good post-booster so lurkers can still get posts, I guess.
I've noticed that Gaia as a whole seems to be less active. Everywhere I go just isn't as populous. It also kinda-sorta explains why prices on some items went down from what I remember from 2009-2010 (I joined in 2008 so I don't know what older Gaia days were like) even with zOMG, Booty Grab and Heralds of Chaos generating gold constantly. Not an economy expert, the point is guilds and deadness. Gaia as a whole seems dead.
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 3:54 am
I know the challenges of keeping a guild active and balancing the members that you have in it. In the past, we put up a sign up thread that if you didn't post in a certain amount of days, you would be removed. I found out that didn't work out well. While it got out most of the members in the guild, it made us look small. As of right now, we don't do anything about our inactive members. Which is sad. I know hardly anyone reads my guild announcements. I even offered gold to anyone that posted in a certain thread.
Guilds has always been semi inactive, but the fact that it is becoming a lot like facebook is keeping some people away.
just make something chatty at this guild .... like i do at my Guildy guild
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:22 pm
Youroka Kage
Guilds has always been semi inactive, but the fact that it is becoming a lot like facebook is keeping some people away.
This~
I used to run and eventually co-own a Anti-Justin Bieber guild as one of the first guilds I worked in and in the peak of its popularity we had requests up the wazoo but it was being treated like a Facebook 'Like Page' rather than a community. Plus it's so easy to make guilds that more keep being made and abandoned in a few months or less. They also kind of remind me of all of the funny like pages begging for shares to get popular so they can spam more people with stupid pictures.
I can see why people would avoid a community that's been reduced to that, combined with the fact that they're an ignored, sheltered part of the site that keeps to itself. (Sorry for the really crappy post here, I'm super tired and going into 'avoid problems' mode)
getmeoffthishellsite
Hot Lop
Offline
getmeoffthishellsite
Hot Lop
Offline
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:30 pm
Andsonz V2
just make something chatty at this guild .... like i do at my Guildy guild
Eh...I'm ******** tired but I'll try to reply here anyway.
'This guild.' Which guild? Gaia Guild Movement? We have a chatter forum. This topic is in the chatter forum. It's just a coincidence that most of the topics in this chatterbox forum are mine and that they're all guild related. I'm sure other sorts of topics are allowed but I just like to post about guilds here since that's what the movement is about. People shouldn't be afraid to post topics of their own here but oh well.
Even with the chatter forum available it doesn't always guarantee a guild's success. We have one here but because it's a niche community (rather than something appealing to a huge mass, such as It's A Girl Thing!) it's sort of 'doomed' to be smaller and less active. But, we do have people that are very passionate still trying to get the ball rolling even if they don't post 24/7. In some cases it's better to have a smaller community that is passionate in this type of guild rather than a giant, unfocused mass.
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:40 pm
Captain Silas Manner
Andsonz V2
just make something chatty at this guild .... like i do at my Guildy guild
Eh...I'm ******** tired but I'll try to reply here anyway.
'This guild.' Which guild? Gaia Guild Movement? We have a chatter forum. This topic is in the chatter forum. It's just a coincidence that most of the topics in this chatterbox forum are mine and that they're all guild related. I'm sure other sorts of topics are allowed but I just like to post about guilds here since that's what the movement is about. People shouldn't be afraid to post topics of their own here but oh well.
Even with the chatter forum available it doesn't always guarantee a guild's success. We have one here but because it's a niche community (rather than something appealing to a huge mass, such as It's A Girl Thing!) it's sort of 'doomed' to be smaller and less active. But, we do have people that are very passionate still trying to get the ball rolling even if they don't post 24/7. In some cases it's better to have a smaller community that is passionate in this type of guild rather than a giant, unfocused mass.
yeah this guild more specific than mine ..
even my member 65k people but only about 2k is active ..but the poster at guild just around 10-20 people /days
here : http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds-home/guildy-the-empire-of-gaia/g.27569/
even my member 65k people but only about 2k is active ..but the poster at guild just around 10-20 people /days
here : http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds-home/guildy-the-empire-of-gaia/g.27569/
Yeah, chatterbox-type guilds are much easier to attract people to initially but it's hard to make people stay. Group identity ones always seem popular for some reason, such as ones like IAGT and nationality-based guilds.
On a much smaller scale my chatter guild has that same trend, I have 20 members (I kicked many of them out and don't do much recruiting, I like my guilds small) but maybe 10 have ever posted once, and 3 unincluding me post regularly. I do wish for a few more members but I don't seek to take over with mass appeal or anything. Probably saves me a ton of time and gold since the thing most people go for is 'Join for this mass giveaway' bullshit like that which never works unless you're actually running a contest guild.
People will come, stay for the freebies, and then never come again.
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 10:29 pm
Captain Silas Manner
Youroka Kage
Guilds has always been semi inactive, but the fact that it is becoming a lot like facebook is keeping some people away.
This~
I used to run and eventually co-own a Anti-Justin Bieber guild as one of the first guilds I worked in and in the peak of its popularity we had requests up the wazoo but it was being treated like a Facebook 'Like Page' rather than a community. Plus it's so easy to make guilds that more keep being made and abandoned in a few months or less. They also kind of remind me of all of the funny like pages begging for shares to get popular so they can spam more people with stupid pictures.
I can see why people would avoid a community that's been reduced to that, combined with the fact that they're an ignored, sheltered part of the site that keeps to itself. (Sorry for the really crappy post here, I'm super tired and going into 'avoid problems' mode)
I understand. I have 2 RP guilds, and currently we are bumping this one thread to just keep it up there, but it is what it is.
even my member 65k people but only about 2k is active ..but the poster at guild just around 10-20 people /days
here : http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds-home/guildy-the-empire-of-gaia/g.27569/
Yeah, chatterbox-type guilds are much easier to attract people to initially but it's hard to make people stay. Group identity ones always seem popular for some reason, such as ones like IAGT and nationality-based guilds.
On a much smaller scale my chatter guild has that same trend, I have 20 members (I kicked many of them out and don't do much recruiting, I like my guilds small) but maybe 10 have ever posted once, and 3 unincluding me post regularly. I do wish for a few more members but I don't seek to take over with mass appeal or anything. Probably saves me a ton of time and gold since the thing most people go for is 'Join for this mass giveaway' bullshit like that which never works unless you're actually running a contest guild.
People will come, stay for the freebies, and then never come again.
better searching member who has similar minded like the owner ... 3nodding3nodding
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:40 pm
Bump
I'd like to see what others' opinions are on this~
My guild is an RP guild and we regularly take a 'roll call' and kick members to keep clutter down. It's a pain to sift through a thousand and one profiles that aren't being used so we just get rid of them. To be fair to them, I leave the roll call open for a month, and then I move the profiles to an archive. The members have anywhere from 1-3 months to contact me (Determined and set beforehand) and say that they want to keep their characters and if they don't respond, I get rid of them. Easy peasy.
Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 1:12 pm
i dont think it does much good to kick out inactive ppl because if you do then they just put a mule acct in and do the same thing again and to me if your gonna kick out one inactive person then you gotta do it to all but when there mules come back then it dont do any good so save the trouble and let inactive ppl stay in there AND WHEN THEY HAVE TIME THEY WILL POST AGAIN its just how i feel on it
KG PANCAKES-XIII_SSC
Offline
getmeoffthishellsite
Hot Lop
Offline
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:15 pm
KG PANCAKES-XIII_SSC
i dont think it does much good to kick out inactive ppl because if you do then they just put a mule acct in and do the same thing again and to me if your gonna kick out one inactive person then you gotta do it to all but when there mules come back then it dont do any good so save the trouble and let inactive ppl stay in there AND WHEN THEY HAVE TIME THEY WILL POST AGAIN its just how i feel on it
That's a pretty reasonable way to think. I haven't had much experience with mules in my own guild but then again, I don't kick out inactive people anymore c: I do have a couple of my mules in some guilds and I'll post sometimes. It's nice to have the freedom to do so.
Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:38 pm
I never kick members because that's just more work for me and my crewbies. Plus they can always come back and start posting, and if not, at least that ups our membership to attract people who will be active. When people aren't active they're usually apologetic about it, but when I let them know, "Hey, no pressure. It's cool. Just hop in when you can." they seem to really respond to it.
I really think it really depends on what kind of guild you run. For certain guilds it's reasonable to let your member count stay where it is, as it does not matter, and the posts are neither sequential nor depending on member involvement. However, for guilds like mine, in which a lot of roleplay and story happens, it's unreasonable to say "Oh, they'll post when they want to" because quite frankly people abandon roleplays. They likely aren't coming back, and sitting around waiting for them to post will bring the rest of the game to a grinding halt. Now, while I could just skip over them, I also need to remove their profiles from the 'active' section and take them out of character lists and directories. Since I'm doing all of that work anyways, I may as well take the time to click one simple button and boot them. *shrugs* It's all part of guild upkeep, as far as I'm concerned. Like dusting out cobwebs, or somesuch.
