Managing a Guild Council

In my time of participating in guilds, I have always noticed something: neopians have an obsession with power. Often, guildless people downright demand to be part of the council if they join your guild, most often asking for the co-owner position. They couldn't care less if the guild they're joining is made up of only 3 members, has no layout to speak of and is completely empty. Heck, they will join a Tokio Hotel Fan guild (If you don't know who the heck they are, be glad!), no matter if they have heard of the band or not but only IF they can be co-owner. They seem to think it gives them power, makes them special and makes others look up to them. However, if this is a 2 member guild, there isn't even anyone there to look, let alone look up. They sit around, staring at their name on the guild page being proud. OK, big deal. The rest of neopia is not going to care. No one is going to look up to you, no one is going to think your powerful, and yeah, it's quite pointless.

Guild Leaders, on the other hand, will often do anything for members in those early days. They will give the co-owner spot to the first n00b who comes along and, of course, give them a nice fat newbie pack as well. The main problem with this is that guild leaders want to aviod conflict because fights generally ruin the 'mood' of the guild. Therefore, even as the guild grows and different members are more active and creative than the co-owner, the leader will fear that the current co-owner will become upset if their position is given to somebody else. There is no need whatsoever to be that desperate. These people only want to use your guild for personal gain, they do not have the qualities a good council member should have. This guide is to show you the Do's and Don'ts of managing a guild council. It also touches on the guild ranking system. A guild is only as strong as its council.

Choosing a Council

First, a rule of thumb would be to know the person that you want to select onto your council for at least 10 days. Also, let them rise slowly. First the 5th position, then 4th and so on. Do NOT just go boom and make them co-owner when you dont know their name. There are lots of super important things to look for in a (future) council member. They should be:

• Active
• Creative/Upbeat
• Liked
• Responsible
• Experienced
• Fair

Creative/Upbeat: Why creative? Because council members should help you out with the guild! This means that they should have new ideas for the guild and its members. You don't want a council member who just sits around going "whatever" (Like that weird kid in 'Full House' who's name I can't remember). You need someone whos upbeat, out there and bubbling with ideas and plans.

Liked: Well, if half your guild wants to chase after this person with pitchforks and eat them for lunch, that's not too good, because most people are hated for a reason. It's not really smart to make someone who hacked in another guild member's account part of the council. Anyway, half of your guild will be ticked off at you for making that person a council member, and the other half will want to know what all the fuss is about. So yes, making sure that your council member is well-liked will take care of a lot of problems before they occur.

Responsible: Ah, what more do I need to say? Basically, you want someone who will take care of the messes s/he makes and someone who will actually remember that that one contest s/he hosted the other day ended yesterday. And someone who doesn't mess up your guild layout... ect ect ect, yadda yadda yadda...

Exprienced: Oh, yes. We all love our cute little n00blets, but enough is enough. I've got nothing against them, but when the co-owner of a guild starts going "OMG I want a Petpet too!!!! OMG were do I get one??? OMG!!!" then I start getting that 'I-was-that-n00bish-once-too' smile on my face. You have to nourish and take care of the newbies, not make them leaders when they don't even get what a guild is, let alone know how to run one. Anyway, how do you expect them to help others with neopets when they are still trying to figure out how to open a shop?

Fair: four letters, nice and easy. You don't want a co-owner or council member who goes "Fred gave me 5k and Joe only 2k so Fred is right!" That wouldn't be all that great.

What not to do

Buying Ranks
I consider ranks "bought" when you have to pay neopoints simply to gain a rank. Here is a *real* quote that I saw in a guild this morning: "Guild Council; neomail me to see how much you need to donate for each position"

This is absolutely horrible and it happens constantly. Basically the richest person is going to become co-owner or council memeber. However, this has nothing to do with how loyal this person is or how fit for the job they are. For example, let's say both Fred and Joe both join 'The Happy People's Guild'. Fred is a really evil guy, who inherited 5 million neopoints from his grandma Ann. Joe is really nice, but poor since the gullible guy recently fell for a scam. Upon entering, Fred decides he wants to be co-owner because he doesn't like Joe and wants to suspend him. So he donates 10k, which is only a very very small fraction of his 5 million neopoints. Joe, on the other hand, donates 5k which is half of his saved money. Hence, Fred becomes the council position, even though Joe was more loyal and would have made the better council member. I consider buying ranks really bad and I usually don't even bother looking at such guilds, because they are almost guarenteed to have horrible leadership.

Making people guild leaders only because they are your friend is big no-no. This is a real e-mail I got from a guild leader several days ago: 'my co ownie is my friend, yet she types in chatspeak and is never on. i do everything myself'. Its great that you love your friends and all, but try to choose a council member who is fit for the job. If your friend is never online, then its pretty likely that they hardly care about your guild, hence they won't be upset if someone else is made a council member. This, of course, doesn't mean that you shouldn't make friends council members, it just means that you should make sure that they fit the requirments.

Constant council changing is also negative. Changing your council or re-voteing once a month is good, however, I once wandered into a guild where there was a new council EVERY DAY! Basically, they just rotated through. It didn't matter how qualified you were or anything. It just went by who came into the guild in what order. So if the guild had, say, 20 guild members, there would be a different co-owner every day and then it would repeat after 20 days. That's complete nonsense! Yes, you are trying to be "fair", but

1. Many of these people will be n00bs or simply don't even WANT to be on your council or don't care and
2. This is often used for personal again.
3. Some people don't even notice that they are co-owner until its the next person's turn.

Afterword

This tutorial will be continued at some point in the near future, but for now that's all you've got. By the way, in case you care (which you probably don't), Fred and Joe are my sister's Parakeets. Well at least I call them Fred and Joe. Email me at kathrin433@yahoo.com if you need any help.

~Kathrin