Guildleader chores - The cost of responsibility as an officer/guild leader
We have had a guild website for ages - the problem is nobody updates it. I have to pay for it and it lapsed recently, but the officers realised that there was nowhere that people could head to for current information about the guild. I thought about it and perhaps I should find one of those free ones.
It made me wonder if people realised how much it costs to actually run a guild. Other than the time investment that you put into things (which isn't really that much - because I would be playing that much anyway or chatting incessantly in game).
The website cost me over $100 a year (yes yes I know, I picked a lousy plan it had all this DNS stuff on it which I don't really need), and Ventrilo also costs a little over $100 a year. I also have Mumble as a backup and that costs $120 a year.
I'm not asking for monetary donations. Of all people, I would probably be close to the last to be concerned with being strapped for cash. Besides, I think it's all for a good cause, and I am happy to pay for it which is probably why it's a good thing that I am the guild leader. But the website thing... I'm not really sure if I want to pay for that. Nobody is using it but we really need somewhere to put guild info especially regarding things like raids, looting systems, and BoEs. We have a Facebook group but not everyone is on facebook.
I could just make a free wordpress page that will just have the guild information on it. Or a google page. That would be easy.
Honestly, like I haven't got enough to do without trying to make a guild page as well. I have this blog to do (well, I should be posting more, it's not very daily, but REALLY, there aren't that many people reading my random ramblings, let's face it), and my other blog has been sorely neglected - there are so many more pop culture references and I've been a bit lazy about adding them.
Lately, I have turned my eye to more crafty projects. I was thinking of making a blanket for myself, and I saw this one on deviant art by Ninjakazz and I thought, hey I can do that! It's a crocheted blanket and I thought I could even make it double sided (and put alliance on the other side... though that seems rather distasteful to me).
It made me wonder if people realised how much it costs to actually run a guild. Other than the time investment that you put into things (which isn't really that much - because I would be playing that much anyway or chatting incessantly in game).
The website cost me over $100 a year (yes yes I know, I picked a lousy plan it had all this DNS stuff on it which I don't really need), and Ventrilo also costs a little over $100 a year. I also have Mumble as a backup and that costs $120 a year.
I'm not asking for monetary donations. Of all people, I would probably be close to the last to be concerned with being strapped for cash. Besides, I think it's all for a good cause, and I am happy to pay for it which is probably why it's a good thing that I am the guild leader. But the website thing... I'm not really sure if I want to pay for that. Nobody is using it but we really need somewhere to put guild info especially regarding things like raids, looting systems, and BoEs. We have a Facebook group but not everyone is on facebook.
I could just make a free wordpress page that will just have the guild information on it. Or a google page. That would be easy.
Honestly, like I haven't got enough to do without trying to make a guild page as well. I have this blog to do (well, I should be posting more, it's not very daily, but REALLY, there aren't that many people reading my random ramblings, let's face it), and my other blog has been sorely neglected - there are so many more pop culture references and I've been a bit lazy about adding them.
Lately, I have turned my eye to more crafty projects. I was thinking of making a blanket for myself, and I saw this one on deviant art by Ninjakazz and I thought, hey I can do that! It's a crocheted blanket and I thought I could even make it double sided (and put alliance on the other side... though that seems rather distasteful to me).
It's the first day of spring and there won't be much use for a blanket soon, but the rate at which I churn out blog posts may be a reflection of how fast my knitting/crochet skills go, so if I start now, I might have a blanket in time for next year's winter.
Forums were awesome in the past but social media has made them a bit redundant now, even if I am a reluctant user. You could easily drop the hosting of the site and set up a free blog, and wordpress and blogger both support having your own domain - I would recommend not letting that expire, otherwise someone will probably squat it. Maintaining just the domain will be a lot cheaper. Also if you can, jump on the site and grab/back up copies of anything unique on there.
ReplyDeleteAs for ventrillo and mumble, I've been meaning to suggest this to you:
https://discordapp.com/
It is free, integrates voice and text chat, has desktop and mobile clients but also runs via web browser. I tried it briefly and it seemed okay, but other people I know have started using it full time.
If this works, in the short term you could drop one of the voice servers and use discord as the backup.
I am definitely going to check that out, thanks for the tip! It would be nice to save a little bit of money. HK told me to do a wordpress thing but to support my own domain still costs money, but I don't really want to lose the frostwolves.com.au domain. I will have to think of something so I can keep it.
DeleteThe Alliance side would be to wipe your shoes on before turning it over and displaying the Horde side. :P
ReplyDeleteLOL, that would work for a mat but not for something I want to put against my body! :D
DeleteYou could do Horde on one side and Frostwolf banner on the other ... ;)
ReplyDeleteThat could work :) I like that idea!
DeleteWe use http://www.gamerlaunch.com/ ... there are a variety of plans, but even the sites made on the free "plan" are really good .. especially if all you're needing is something basic. They're also very easy to set up and maintain and generally their support, if something does go wrong, is very good. The only down side of having the free version is the advert shown. They also have plans that include voice chat.
ReplyDeleteAs for social media, in addition to the website I have a Facebook page and Twitter account for the guild. I have the Facebook page linked to twitter so that whenever I post something on Facebook, it automatically gets tweeted about. And whenever I post anything significant on the website, I will make a Facebook post about it. That way I get maximum coverage.
I think the problem with websites is (a) persuading people to register to use them in the first place and (b) giving them a good reason to revisit it.
We only take applications for the guild via the website .. which requires them to register before they can apply. So that is sorted straight away.
And we discuss the majority of raids (before and after) on the forums. Admittedly sometimes it's just me posting who has been accepted to the raid, in what capacity, and then linking the combat logs afterwards .. but other times we have decent conversations on them too. And the more often someone in guild refers to something mentioned on the website, the more often people will go visit.
We also have sections that don't have anything to do with WoW .. like different recipes :P
**Apologies if this is posted more than once ... Firefox flipped out on me and then Wordpress refused to let me post with Edge .. *sigh*
I have looked at doing a gamerlaunch thing (I even registered) but the ads are so annoying! I saw the plans with included voice chat and thought "GEEZ why am I paying for Vent separately!"
DeleteBecause we don't really recruit (and all recruits are done on a very personal level via in game chat) I don't really need the website registration to weed out all the undesirables. I like how you discuss raids on the forums - we don't really have anywhere to do that except in game.
Thanks Sprowt for the food for thought. And... what recipes are in your other sections?? :D
Many moons ago, I used http://www.freeforums.org/ .. as it suggests, it's free and, at the time, there were either no adverts or minimal ones (it was a while ago though). The only stipulation was that it had to be used fairly regularly .. if no-one logged into it for a decent length of time (I can't remember now, but it was months, not weeks) you got an email saying you had to visit it or it would be removed. Might be worth a look.
DeleteAs for recipes ... hmm .. a mix really .. various curries, bread, soups, chutneys, puddings ... :p