Introduction to Guild Owning: The Guild and You!
Guilds are clubs of people who either have common interests, or places you join to meet other Neopets users. Questions have arisen of how to own a guild. There are only two ways: inherit one, or make one yourself! My question is, Are you ready to learn of how to manage one? If you say yes, then keep reading. If you are bored already, I suggest pressing the back button on your browser. Being in a guild is one of the reasons many users are still active on Neopets. Owning one, however, keeps a user on his/her toes. Guilds can either be classified as active, inactive, super-active, dead, or easygoing. Active, Super-active, and easy-going guilds consist of members that still are on Neopets. Dead guilds consist of members who no longer log in to Neopets, although some may contain a small amount of members who log in. The choice of which guild you are bested suited to lead reflect on how often you log in. The DSHQ, my guild, is active. But is easy-going during the Holidays and breaks. The DSHQ turns super-active during the summer. The patterns of 'activeness' change usually because of factors such as: School/Job Breaks, Homework/Work, Internet Connection, and boredom from playing Neopets too much. Guilds also have different ways of being run. Such as: a Democracy, the members vote on guild decisions, while the leader makes ideas for members to vote on. A Council, where the Guild Council rules the guild, they make decisions and there is no clear leader. In a Representation, there is a leader who makes decisions, while four of the council members proposes them, however, the leader has the clear majority; Council members become advisers. Partnership There is more than one leader, but less than four (Three is usually a good idea for breaking voting ties). Another type, the most common, is a Monarchy, where the leader leads alone(easy, isn't it?). The final, is the Secondary Monarchy, which happens when the leader no longer becomes active and the second-in-command begins leading the guild (Other times, it is seen when the leader hardly makes contact within the guild, but remains logging in). Choosing what kind of way to rule a guild can affect who joins. While a Democracy, Council, and Representation can bring great ideas to a guild, a Monarchy, Secondary Monarchy, and Partnership can help you practice your leadership skills and attract users who need a leader. The choice is the guild leader's, and the guild leader's alone. But there is another classification of a guild: the overall theme. Guild that are centered on a person or a small group of people are called Celebrity Guilds, also called Celeb guilds; These guilds are the second-most popular guilds. Movie-Themed guilds are usually about movies in general, or are centered around a particular one, such as Pirates of the Caribbean. Guilds that put the member into a position where they must act in character is a Role-playing Guilds, which is the third-most popular type of guild. Then, there are the neo-related guilds, which are usually about receiving help on Neopets, but all are centered around Neopets. Then there is the most popular: The Epoch Guild. Although there is debate of either the Epoch guilds or the neo-related guilds being the foremost popular, we will use the Epoch Guild as the most, since it is seen in the boards most often; These guilds are usually about a series, whether it be in books, graphic novels (comic books), movies, or a combined set. One example, would be the Harry potter series, Star Wars guilds, or even Lord of the Rings guilds; The Epoch guilds usually involve in some type of role-playing, speaking in character. Now that you know the classifications, which guild do you want to own? An easygoing monarch-controlled Epoch guild? Or a super-active council-lead celebrity guild? The choice is yours, and there are many choices.
Members: The army/core/friends/users/people of your guild. They are a powerful group who can either help you, do nothing, make, or break your guild. There are three types in the GOOD aisle, and two types in the BAD aisle. But the question is, what store are you looking in? NONE! Members are to be respected with your highest honor, and if you are 'shopping' for them, remember, only disloyal members can be bought. We will call them, the Disloyalists. Buying, in terms of members, is the act of giving items (usually rare or expensive) to guildless users in order to get them to join . The utter opposite of the Disloyalists, are the Honorable. They have a passion for the Guild's theme, topic, or the idea of the guild itself. The Honorable will help the guild; you want them as your members. Then there are your Friends. The Friends group has stayed with you before the creation of the guild. The Friends group, are your friends/neofriends (Obviously). They will stick with you, thick and thin. Then there are the Members. They like your ideas and share common interests in the club. They will semi-improve the guild and may even bring along a few members. Then there are the worst of the worst: Saboteurs! They will break neorules, cause members to leave due to their injustices and disrespect to the guild. The Saboteurs have one thing that sets them differently from the rest: at first, a Saboteur may seem like any of the other classifications, but their actions will eventually expose them. They are the opposite of Members. Guild leaders who think this is wrong to call different members all these might call this judging. But just like getting the words 'noob' and 'newb' mixed up, so are 'judging' and 'classification'. Does a king not call people his loyal subjects? Does a student not call others 'teachers'? Well now that it is cleared up, lets continue. When you have enough 'Ownership Sense', which is the skill you develop while having ownership of a guild, you can tell which type of users you want in your guild. Classifying members is in no way a common thing for you to do. It is merely a way of seeing what type of members fit your guild (and which ones you need at the time to expand the guild). There is one rule, however: Never try to recruit Saboteurs, unless you want your guild to fail! Disloyalists are somewhat useful, on the other hand, but risky to have. If you want a seasoned Neopian in your guild that demands for a high member count, then all types of members are usually used, except Saboteurs! I may sound like members are to be used like pawns, but they should NOT! Remember, guilds are for users to enjoy their share of common interests. Classifying members can help you keep your guild clean of disloyal members. Now for the next part: How do you get the good members? Well, looking at the first post can tell you a whole lot! Don't beleive me? Well, lets look. I want a guild that has newbie packs, giveaways, and pb giveaways. Post 1234 if you read this! is the usual Disloyalist post. Why? Because they want free stuff and did not state what type of guild they want. Now for a member's/Honorable's usual post: I want an hp guild that is active. I can help with layouts! Post HP Guild if you read this. See the difference? You should! By now, you should have some 'Ownership Sense.'
Success is measured in the eye of the beholder, which means, the one who wants success, knows when he reaches his/her goal. My goal could be to finish a race, but yours might be to win the 1st place trophy in the same race. Understand? The most common goal is to build a well-done, 10/10 layout and have tons of active guild members. This is a goal that only few can acheive. Some complain that there are too many guilds, but lets look at the true stats. There are thousands of guilds. Easy to see, right? Now lets look at users. Millions! One thousand into one million is what? 1000! But wait, guilds do not have the same number of people do they? But each user can have 5 accounts. The average amount a user actually has is three. So 3000,000/1000 is what, Enough! So if this is your excuse, it just has been busted. Even if the amount is still uneven, there is enough. Bear in mind that success in guilds comes with two variables from TNT and freezing: Following the Neorules and Frozen Accounts in your guild. The factors are stated throughout this guide. But these two, can immediately change the rate of success in your guild. So which would you like? A guild with many active members, or a personal goal, such as gaining leadership experience? Whichever you choose can ultimately effect your intake of your guild. I recommend coming up with a personal goal and a group goal that is set up by the council or members of the guild that you wish to share it with. But remember, in a group goal, all involved take accountability and share the work to acheive that goal. Do you want a successful guild that does not have inactive members? Try the 60-Day Policy! This is important, because at one point, one member will become inactive, or maybe everyone in the guild will always be active (Don't Count on it!). The 60-Day Policy works as follows: A member who has not logged in 60 consecutive days, is eligible to be deleted from the guild. Do you know why eligible is in bold? Because it is an intended loophole! You may not want to delete them as soon as the 60th day hits. Think of summer, two-three months of vacation. Now think of camp with no computer-access. Does that seem fair within the 60-Day Policy? No! That is why the word eligible is in there. But do not become passive! I would allow up to 100 days, no more. At one point in time, your guild's layout may change and you wonder who to go to in order to check if it is good. You can visit Guild Raters, users who wish to critique the layout of your guild. But, I would rather make a poll asking my members what they think of the layout than have a rater that probably doesn't even know what your guild is about until he/she clicks the guild link, but even then, visiting a rater provides the almost exact insight of a guildless user who is thinking about joining your guild and makes a final decision by seeing your layout. But remember, ALWAYS LEARN CSS AND HTML BEFORE MAKING YOUR GUILD!. This will ensure that your guild layout will be the best it can be. Just because you do not get 10 members in one week does not mean you have a horrible guild. There are many factors in guild-decision making.
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