Guildleader Chores - How "Mature" can be misleading in a guild advertisement

I am excited to have picked up 3 new recruits this past week, 1 of whom looks like a raider, another that has work issues that means a part time heroic raider, and the other who is probably a casual but is keen to work up to being a heroic raider. This is exciting to me because it will fill a bit of the hole that the Baecast boys left when they left to go to the other guild.

Looking through the recruitment forums I noticed a lot of posts looking for "mature" guilds, or advertising as "mature" guilds. However, I realised that actually could have two meanings!

When I think mature, I think of a guild that acts responsibly, with socially acceptable behaviour. However, mature could also mean R rated.

These two versions of mature are vastly different!

So then I have to try to read between the lines when I'm looking at posts on forums. What KIND of mature are people looking for?

Sometimes it's easy to understand a guild's version of mature, like this more R-rated one:

...at the moment consisting of mature people that enjoy fun too much to act our age (unless its entirely necessary)....We do come with a warning that guild chat can, a fair lot of the time be very adult orientated (AKA, definitely NOT PG), with this being said we are looking for people 18+

This one seems to be going for the non R-rated mature, but it's not very clear.

Our goal is to kill all bosses the game has to offer in a timely manner with mature and reliable people. To achieve this all our raiders are expected to research and play to the highest standards.

So keep that in mind when you are thinking about joining or recruiting and using the word mature! You may have to add some modifiers to make sure you get the people you are looking for.

Someone said to me that US players think Oceanic players seem to be more trolling/racist and homophobic slurs. I found this an unusual statement and sat down to have a think about it. This post was about an Aussie who played on US servers who then changed to Oceanic.

In the couple of guilds I've tried so far, however, I've found the people in general to be very different. I've experienced vastly more grown people in their 20s and 30s talking like they're still 15. The occasional dirty joke or whatever is fun, but it's overdone to such a degree that I find these people just embarrassing. Also, racist and homophobic terms seem to be tolerated and used WAY more than any US guild I've experienced. If you've grown past that, it's pretty isolating.

What I concluded is that I think Australians tend to have a more "joking" and "laid back" attitude where you can say offensive things and a number of Australians just overlook them and if you don't you are labelled as "you can't take a joke" or "being overly sensitive". Then you start building the culture of accepting abuse. Can you see a vicious cycle here? By accepting abuse and slurs, you are condoning it.

I've been thinking of the recent government campaigns on TV about violence against women, which I thought were quite powerful and confronting in a GOOD way. This sort of thinking needs to stretch beyond violence against women, to violence against EVERYONE.

I think it's something people are starting to recognise all over the world, and for those of us who care about it, are trying to change it. My small contribution is to offer a place where we do not condone violence and abuse, to act on it as quickly as we can, and to encourage and nurture players who would like to be given the opportunity to improve and learn. I have made mistakes in the past in my goal to do that, but I am trying, and learning too!