3.9. Create Your Core Guild Rules and Ensure Members Know
Them
If your guild is meant to more than a short term collection of friends sharing a common
chat room, then you will need some core rules to run the guild by. You should establish
those early and make them clear to all members.
What core rules you wish to have if up to you and your members as guilds come in all
shapes and sizes. The goals of the guild or who the membership is made up of may
dictate the rules. Whatever you decide them to be, they should be made clear to
everyone and reinforced as needed.
If you don’t follow the rules, then don’t have them. If you have a rule, then make sure
everyone follows it. Red-tape no one listens to is useless and will undermine your
authority. So either enforce your rules or get rid of them.
In addition, make the rules apply to everyone. Giving exceptions to your buddies or people
you feel you can't afford to lose will ultimately crush the guild and should not be done.
One set of rules that everyone follows is the way to go for success over a longer time.
3.10. Set and Maintain Your MoTD (Message of the Day)
Every guild member will see the MoTD every time they login. You can use it to
communicate important information to them.
The WoW Message of the day is displayed in green text at the top of the main chat
window every time a character logs in. It can be a very powerful communications too but
it is also limited. It is limited in the sense that it can be a MAX of 60 characters long, as of
the time of writing this article. Players have complained many times and asked for a
longer one so perhaps that change will be forthcoming.

You cannot say a lot in 60 chars. This sentence alone is around fifty characters. So you
really need to keep your points clear and concise and use meaningful abbreviations. You
might put up something like:
“Raid At XXXXX Sat. 8pm EST 1st 40 get spot”
or maybe
“Send all ore to XXXXXXXX and skins to YYYYYYY”
Keep messages short and to the point and clear. If you try to say too much or abbreviate
too much then too many people will misunderstand.
You can also see the Message of the Day by pressing O and selecting the guild tab. It is
displayed in the lower left window of the guild tab. This is how you can see it after you
have logged in and it has scrolled off your screen.
To set the MoTD you need to have the correct privilege. If you do, simply press O, select
the guild tab and then select the Set MoTD icon. A small window will popup and you can
edit the current MoTD or type a new one. When you reach 60 characters, no more will be
accepted. Delete some or abbreviate more.
3.11. Set and Maintain Your Members Public Messages in the
Roster
The in game roster feature has a public message section. Every member can read the
public notes and those with the correct permission can edit them. This can be a very
powerful tool for you.
You should consider the use of your notes wisely. When used incorrectly, they will just
become useless spam that no one reads. When used correctly they can offer value to
your guild. Some examples of how you might make use of them include:
●Tagging who your office holders are when your ranks don’t easily indicate who
those people are
●Tagging who the different guild craftsman are

●Tagging who your raid leaders are
●Tagging who the main char is for a guilded alt
●Noting the date people last paid guild dues
Since all members see the list it is important to put information there that you are
comfortable with everyone seeing. If you put “Johnny is a dork, watch him” then Johnny is
going to know you think that as is everyone else. If you put completely useless
information there like ‘l33t d00d” then no one will read the public notes and you have
wasted that valuable communication tool.
If you don’t have something useful to put for someone, then leave the public note blank.
That will make the useful information stand out more. If you do have a useful reason to
have a note there, then by all means, use them. In game communication tools are limited
enough that to have an effective guild, you need to make use of all of the communication
opportunities at your disposal.
To set the public note for a member, perform the following steps:
●Press O
●Then click on the Guild Tab
●Locate the member in the roster that you wish to set the note for
●Single click on their name
●Click the Public Note button located in the lower part of the guild window
●A small popup box appears. Type the note or edit the existing note and press ok
●Note: You may not see your note show up in the roster for 10-30seconds or until
you close/open the list again. There is a slight lag in getting the notes to show up.
Public notes can be a very valuable tool or they can just add spam to an already busy
window. Make good use of them and increase your guild’s effectiveness and cut down on
questions and issues that you have to deal with.

3.12. Decide How You Wish to Use the Officer Messages Part of
the Roster
In addition to the public message part of the roster, there is also an officer message
portion. No one can read that section unless they have the privilege granted to them to
View Officer Note. Similarly, only those with Edit Officer Note can add or edit them.
There is no column in the roster to show officer notes. To see one, you have to select the
member name from the roster and select the officer note button near the bottom of the
guild window. That will reveal to you, if you have the View Officer Note privilege, what is
recorded for that member.
To set an officer note, perform the following steps:
●Press O
●Then click on the Guild Tab
●Locate the member in the roster that you wish to set the note for
●Single click on their name
●Click the Officer Note button located in the lower part of the guild window
●A small popup box appears. Type the note or edit the existing note and press ok
Some uses for an officer note might include:
●Adding a note about a problem member to watch for
●Adding a note about someone who is overdue for dues
●Adding a note about why you aren’t kicking out a character that hasn’t logged in for
some time
●Adding a note about unguilded alt chars that member has or other guilds they are
in
●Tracking points.. Demerits.. blackballs.. votes or other point related systems that
you may use in your guild
Since the officer note is private to only those members with the View Officer Note
privilege, and since it doesn’t show up in the guild roster, then its use isn’t a large concern
in terms of causing spam or excessive text on members screens that they will stop

reading. However, if you do use it to record less that nice things about some members,
you want to be sure you haven’t granted the privilege to view that data to just anyone.
Even if a member cannot see it themselves, a screenshot or an officer with a big mouth
can still reveal what you have written there. Either control access to the officers note area
effectively or don’t write anything that you are unwilling to stand behind if it is make public
knowledge.