Interesting

Player-guild interaction mechanics are part of the game, HOWEVER utilizing them to cause distress, hurt, anger, and grief is not - that is a direct violation of Rule of Conduct #1, as I explain above.

It's unacceptable in any situation, high-level guild or otherwise. Promoting someone to Officer whom you do not know has malicious intent is not an unwise decision. The anonymity of the internet protects their true intent from you. Yeah it sucks, but because you can't read minds of other people there's nothing you can do about it. That's why something here needs to change.

Both suck, and the leader needs to be wary and only mae trusted people his officers. People he has known for a while, not new people he doesn't totally know.

Are we just talking about officers here or Leaders as well? The leader of my guild kicked everyone and reinvited a select few, if he'd been banned before being able to reinvite it would've been somewhat disastrous...

The guild leader is the owner of the guild and as such can add or subtract people at will.

Hmm, in that case, he's the leader. He should be allowed to have whoever he wants (or doesn't want) in his guild.

It really sounds like there are 2 different problems here.

1. Immature brat gets a guild invite. Brat: "make me an officer NOW!!!!!"
Brat: "make me an officer NOW!!!!!"
Brat: "make me an officer NOW!!!!!"
Brat: "make me an officer NOW!!!!!"
Brat: "make me an officer NOW!!!!!"
Leader wisely promotes him.
Brat kicks all members and laughs.

2. Mature? conniving player from Guild X has a strong rivalry with Guild Y. Perhaps both guilds are competing for ownership in a town. Perhaps they are neck and neck on the guild rankings ladder. Doesn't matter. For some reason, Guild X comes up with a scheme to knock Guild Y out of the competition. They have a few spies resign from Guild X and apply to Guild Y. Over time the spies gain trust and eventually get bumped up to officers. Spy then disbands Guild y and goes back to Guild X to join the celebration victory party.

Risky Ranger and nbajammer's guild was the victim of attack #2. Is this bannable? Is it considered outside the realm of fairplay? That is Arena Net's call to make. Some online games actively encourage this sort of behavior. It's all part of the strategy involved in moving your guild to the top of the ladder.

Risky Ranger, you said that your guild contacted A-Net and they did take action against your spy. This sounds like A-net is not condoning spying. If so, I think they should implement a few tools to help combat this.

- First, allow Guild Leaders and Officers to see a list of all the guilds each of their members have been in along with dates they were in those guilds and their status in each guild. If you see a new guildie has been in 20 different guilds this year, I'd be very leary of promoting them. If you see a new guildie that was a member of a prestigious rival guild, seriously question why they have applied to your guild.

- Allow Guild Leaders and Officers to see how your members left their previous guilds. (Left willingly or were kicked)

Can't you rejoin a guild if you're kicked out by mistake?

If we are going to ban people because they are cruel and spiteless...I want every PuGer banned!

It's the Guild Leader's fault that he became an officer.

yea i agree with zinger... wow did I just say that? hehe

basically the position of officer isn't something inherently given to players by arenanet. it is not a standard feature that is abused. it is a position of power granted solely by the guild's leader. kick them from the guild, don't let them rejoin, blacklist them, whatever... but its not a ban issue. you wouldn't want to go and ban every party leader that kicks someone from the group would you? lol

just know who you are promoting to officer and all is good

I agree that something should be done, but the problem lies in proving intent.
Was it the intent all along to sabotage the guild or did some string of events unfold that caused the perpetrator to act in such a malicious manner.

The two cases above shouldn't be treated the same, although they produced a similar result.

Unmitigated intent should be a permanent ban, whereas a bad reaction (or over-reaction) to a series of events should be dealt with a little less harshly.

This is where the problem lies.
How can you prove the action was rancorous or an emotional overreaction?

This is out of context. The most a PUGer ruins a mission for maybe 11 people at the most.
Stripping an entire guild of 20, 30, 80 members is much worst than that.
Most times, if it is a decent group, everyone regroups in the outpost and replaces the bad apple.
It's not that simple with 80 members kicked and scattered all over, especially when all of the guild members aren't always on at the same time.

definately no need to ban unless its a whole group of the guild (like all the members) or if its just cause the guy is an officer and he doesnt like the other person. same thing goes for the guild leader...but they do reserve the right to invite promote demote and kick from the guild at whim.

example and ive seen this quite a few times actually since factions:
youll be in your kurz/lux guild and someone will say HEY can i join your guild...so you invite em blah blah blah and they say "hey can i become an officer theres a lot of people who want invites ill pay for em blah blah blah" thats usually when i say just give me the names and ill do it...i never never never promote unless i like you. but in the instance where they do promote next thing you see is "HAHAHAHA STUPID NOOB luxons/kurzicks" and theyll just start kicking people at random. that should be a bannable offense because its abuse and just flat out friggin rude.

Again, it all comes back to the guild leader. If you have a decent leader who's on the ball he'll have a copy of his roster. He can then re-invite all the members on the roster. Sure it's a pain for the leader and costs him some gold but for a well organized guild it shouldn't be a major disruption.

If your guild is a major player in the ladders then ALL your officers should have some way to contact the leader outside of the game. This could be his e-mail address, personal phone number or an IM name. If you don't feel comfortable giving your home phone number or email to your officers, then why are they promoted to officers? Hmmm?

If a rogue officer disbands the guild, the other officers need to immediately contact the leader if he's offline and inform him of the problem. At his earliest convenience the leader should log on and start re-inviting. The only disruption should be to the guild members who are online when the attack occurs. The offline members should come back to find themselves guildless and an invite back to the guild. A 1-2 minute disruption at best.

If your guild leader is a 12 year old kid who's at school when the attack occurs or is grounded from the computer for a week by his parents, then you have a problem and yet another reason why I don't think kids should be guild leaders, unless it's just a casual guild for you and your buddies.

ROFL, gotta echo Miral's statement. I agree with Zinger. Now that's a FIRST!

Yep, definitely abusive and rude, but in this case he's correct. The leader is a STUPID NOOB who just learned a valuable lesson.

I totally agree with Zinger here with one exception. I think there should be a way to track these idiots and if they roam from guild to guild just kicking people, then maybe look into something like a ban, tag or whatnot. This can distroy alot of people enjoyment of the game.

In our case, the guy was with us quite awhile before he was promoted, and thus isn't someone totally unknown to people. This isn't the case with all the other happenings of this, either.

Thank you TheRaven for acknowledging the true problem here. We are fortunate to have recovered from the attack and rebuilt into something much bigger and better. However, the problem remains (as suggested by the OP's post) and still should be addressed.

Absolutely. But in cases like these not everyone will want to because they will not know why they were kicked. In FLG, people know why they are kicked - if they arent actively playing they know that is why they were removed. But in the attack on FLG last October, the individual in question was not kicking people by mistake. We countered by re-inviting everyone we could, but because so many people were lost, many names scrolled off the list and were not recoverable. The most meaningful members (our core group of people) all returned, no questions asked, and they swore off the guy that did it.

Since then, we've not only rebuilt ourselves but also have grown immensely, showing that the strength of our community far superscedes the actions this guy took. Anet took action, and he disappeared for a long while, but it all depends on if the people kicked knew why. Many here didn't, and sadly could not be reclaimed.

No it isn't. Remember, people are more than welcome to show any face they so desire, using the anonymity of the internet to their advantage. In our case, the intent was sabotage, as TheRaven pointed out. I still have his confession screenshotted that a guildie took and subsequently sent to Anet, resulting in them taking action. No one is suggesting people be banned because they are cruel and spiteless, people are suggesting people be banned that violate RoC #1 when it comes to a guild and its members. We were lucky, other guilds might not be.

Miral, you like Zinger, are missing the point. In our case, and presumably the OP's as well, the position was not inherently given at will. This was, in our case, an individual who worked to gain our trust for a number of months for the purpose of kicking everyone out. That is a RoC #1 violation. Anet apparently agreed, as they took action against them. RoC violations are bannable issues if Anet thinks them to be so. They write the rules, they handle the consequences. The two of you need to stop equating party leaders with guild leaders, they are two entirely different matters.

In our case, the intent was sabotage and we have this captured on several screenshots where he openly admitted to it. This is likely what sealed the deal for Anet. But like TheRaven, you too see the real issue here and your point that Zinger took it out of context is very true indeed. Community/Guild disruption should be bannable, especially when intent can be proven.

QFT. Said better than I could (if only because this post is rather lengthy).

QFT

This kind of stuff happens all the time in MMO's...and of all the MMO's I know the official policy is that it's up to the guild to take care of it. Officer spots are given out like they are candy it seems. I see guilds (usually new ones) offering officer spots just to get recruits....and then they wonder why 2 weeks later their guild is in disarray because an officer they invited and promoted kicked everyone from the group.

The best guilds don't need to offer officer spots to get people to join....people simply want to be part of the guild itself...that in itself is a reward.

The best guilds also think long and hard before putting someone in a position of power over the guild. A decision like that is not to be taken lightly.

Bottom line is...someone got careless and promoted the wrong person. It is not up to Anet to police such activities. Sure if someone is going from guild to guild and kicking everyone that person should be reported for griefing...because that is griefing. If someone kicks everyone then laughs about it and the guild leaders can prove true intent to disrupt the fun of other players...then the person should be banned fro griefing. Banning in these instances should only come after evidence is presented that shows a lot of griefing activities....it should be the exception to the rule. Anet should default to letting players handle their own matters and only step in when the person in question is causing a significant disturbance amongst several guilds or went in with the clear intention to disrupt the guild. The second case is sticky because there are times when infiltrating a guild to break it up is a valid tactic...it's not a nice tactic but it is a tactic...and should be allowed...within reason.

To sum it up....banning a player for such activities should be treated like every other ban. It should require plenty of proof, both player provided and anet generated (from logs or whatever)...and it should be an exception to the rule. By default Anet should take no action.

Ummm.... WHAT? (I assume you're being sarcastic)

I agree with everyone who said that Guild leaders are responsible for making good decisions when promoting people to officer status. But, a poor decision by a Guild leader does not excuse someone booting everyone from the guild for spite, vengance, or just to be "funny." Pulling that stunt is inexcusable and pathetic. A ban wouldn't be out of the question.

or just add a "kicking cap" such as guild officers can only kick 5 members in a day or something and if the guild leader thinks that officer is kicking a surprising amount of people each day then that officer can get demoted and the leader is the only one without a kicking cap.

Infiltrating a guild to break it up is griefing and is a violation of RoC #1. There is NEVER an acceptable situation to do it, unless you are looking to get banned. Anet set the rule, and it is their responsibility to enforce the consequences of violating that rule. That is the default action, and anything less would be unacceptable.

That's actually a very good idea. I'm surprised someone in this thread hasn't suggested it before now. I wonder how difficult that would be to implement.

Those are jokes right? Seriously, your kidding right?