The State of The Funk - Rebirth

[Ori*n]

I am writing this tonight with deep thoughts as events transpired today that left me wondering what has happened to House Sole. I consider the hours invested in this guild by countless people for their own entertainment and took a step back and questioned to myself for the first time if this is worth it.

The reality, this is a game. To each their own how they approach it, what they do with it, how they act, and what they expect to gain from the hours they invest… As a guild, we came together on a handful of principles – brotherhood, honor, honesty, integrity, and purpose. For those that don’t know or don’t get it, there was a swagger and arrogance that came with those virtues. We set standards and expected our members to live up to the principles and goals that we had as a guild. These standards were set to make others wish they were on our team. Like any organization, these things become watered down in time, and personally, taking responsibility for it, it is a leadership issue as I failed to instill this attitude in our recruiting process as we grew and expanded. I continued to abbreviate and shortcut our uniqueness as I lessened my expectations of our members on entry. I further failed to empower and support the officers as they are extensions of this code. In the coming months, there will be changes as we refocus and reinvent ourselves with this foundation of brotherhood.

So, here we are on the eve of an expansion. From my perspective, a near-founding member of this guild left based on the reaction of several guildies in reaction to sticking to the principles that this guild was founded on. Granted, emotions were heightened at the time across the board and things blew up.
For those not involved, the jist is these things happened.

1.) A guild member made a fresh application with a second toon pretending to be more than one person. This façade continued through our forums and in-game until discovered by some officers who felt these events were inappropriate and one officer removed this individual to sort out the “mess.”

2.) Guildies were “in on it” and felt this was a joke and sarcastic as the player in question is a known RPer. However, those coming late to the party were offended and felt this was a mockery of our principles and ultimately actions unbecoming of a member of this guild.

3.) Further sentiments arose regarding a separation of the guild *again* over officers and 10m groups. A great deal of built-up animosity continues to fester towards players on both sides of this fence.

So where does that leave us…What’s done is done.
1.) Tardicus, this isn’t personal, but it isn’t going to work. I have been known in the past to make decisions swiftly to protect the integrity of the guild, and we didn’t get to this point by turning our backs on the principles of our founding. In life, you need to stand for something, and I have planted my flag. Intentional or not, this lie was perpetuated and at this point in time, a stance is necessary for the sake of the guild. This may not be popular, but I need to roll the dice and err on the side of conservatism based on the feedback of many of my officers regarding these events.

2.) Recruiting is closed until Cataclysm. There is enough to sort out that we need to circle our wagons at this time and re-evaluate what we are about and our focus moving into a new era of this game. This includes RL relationships. If people really want to be a part of the guild, they will hang out until the expansion and prove that they want to be a part of the guild. I will potentially create a forum group with limited access for non-guildies to participate in guild forums and contribute, proving their worth. This is not in stone and will be determined in the coming weeks. For now – doors are closed.

3.) Some of you that don’t agree, it’s your prerogative. However, the inmates are not going to run the asylum. I trust my officers to act responsibly. They have been selected as officers because of their understanding of the game and dedication to the guild, but more so because of their like-mindedness and beliefs in what makes this guild great. If you don’t agree, I hold no grudges if you decide to leave. In no way am I going to dictate how you entertain yourself, it is your game and your money. I won’t beg for you to come back and re-entry will be based on reapplication once recruiting re-opens at which point you will be evaluated by your peers. The exception to this is Zenara, whom I intend to reinvite as I feel his departure was in haste and a stance that opened my eyes to a bigger picture. Ultimately, those of us that built this guild refuse to have our entertainment impacted by people that do not share our values. If you leave, it is simply because we have different philosophies and that you want more freedom in your game and guild than what we provide. If this is elitist, so be it. It’s about time someone say it.

4.) We intend to champion the values of House Sole. We will be a mature guild, with honor and integrity. We will have fun and be tolerant of each other’s place in life. We will support and cheerlead the success of others, competitively rise to the occasion, and hold no personal grudges as individual and group accomplishments occur moving forward. Everything you do publicly and privately on Azgalor is representative of House Sole. To the membership, know your environment and your audience at all times. Harassment, spamming, abusive chat in public, guild, tells, and vent will not be tolerated. If there are issues, I will not hesitate to discipline and remove people.

Tldr – it’s a rebirth of House Sole. Brotherhood 1st, all else 2nd served as law.

[Fiddlesnarf]

Well said as always Orion.
I feel another point needs to be addressed, whether or not I should be in this guild.
I love this guild and its members so much, everything I do has been an attempt to better the guild, I know my intentions haven't always been obvious. I harbor no hard feelings to anyone in guild, if I have trolled your application in the past, which I plan on ceasing from now on, know it was never anything personal.
I recently have found out that the dislike people have for me comes from my incident with Hunglo's son, where I cussed him out. I was having a bad day and Hunglo Jr. did something that made me angry, I went off on him. I did not know it was him at the time, I would never cuss at or around a kid knowing they were there. I did realize it was Hunglo Jr. and I apologized profusely to him in whispers, he seemed to understand. Again, I apologize to Hunglo, your son, and the rest of the guild.
People dislike, that I can live with, what I can't live with are a large amount of guildies disliking me. I don't know all who exactly has a problem with me, else I would apologize to each personally.
I will apologize to those of you who I know don't like my presence.
Sorry to Kraken, I know you think I'm elitist.
Sorry to Dramnol for your application.
Sorry to Furin, our little argument some time ago.
Sorry to all the Tanks, I know I pull too much threat... and too many ghouls.
Sorry to all the Healers for standing in fires and tanking mobs.
Sorry to everyone else.

I want to thank Fen and Zen, you're the only ones who seem to know my intentions and methods.
I apologize to all the Officers and especially Orion, I didn't mean for any of this happen.

So, I think some discussing needs to happen. I will remove myself from the guild in the meantime for all of you to freely discuss my membership.
House Sole has been my home for a collective 4 years, I have absolutely no desire to play anywhere outside this guild.
I hope to hear from you guys soon and regardless of what happens, I hope some of you will forgive me.

[Ori*n]

Fiddle - you aren't going anywhere...see you tomorrow.
I'm not letting you quit either...

[Fiddlesnarf]

I love the hell out of you too Orion, but I do really feel a discussion with the entire guild needs to take place. Your opinion on me is bias, I've known you longer than any other Sole and we've clicked and agreed on most everything. The last thing I want to do is leave, but I also don't want to stay if a vast majority doesn't want me.

[PsychoSole]

I don't think it's a vast majority. I know we joke that half the guild doesnt like you and the other doesn't like me. Its just a joke. It is a select number of people. There are a number of people I don't like or get along with. Mori use to be one of them, for some reason we started talking again and ended up putting the stuff that was said between myself and her aside and chat/bs often. IDC what anyone says, I like fiddle. I don't think he should leave the guild because a few members got their panties in a bunch towards him. I will not stand in his way if he honestly feels that it is the path he must walk though.

[randomness]

Man I missed an interesting day. Anything that would make Zen leave must have been crazy.

[Slaye]

Fiddle we tend to have opposite view points on a lot of things on thes forums and Ive never hid the fact I am not the biggest fan of some of your actions however that is all very minor. There is no need to gquit of all this garbage. You are a part of HS. We are all adults and we all can get overly emotional at times, we are all guilty of it but what makes us adults is the ability to wake up the next day look over the facts and realize mistakes were made(or the mistakes of others arent really that big of a deal)

[confussion]

to me this is all bs if ppl want to lie and be deceitful they dont need to be here and thats that. fiddle everyone has thier own opinions on everything so dont sweat what ppl think. and as far as nate being an eletist some ppl are idiots for saying that! if you want to run a group thats consistant maybe some of you should show up to the things that you say you are instead of saying my wifes got dinner ready or my gf is mad at me.

[Slaye]

I blame fiddle for the maintence being extended by 2 hours.

[Muksis]

to me this is all bs if ppl want to lie and be deceitful they dont need to be here and thats that. fiddle everyone has thier own opinions on everything so dont sweat what ppl think. and as far as nate being an eletist some ppl are idiots for saying that! if you want to run a group thats consistant maybe some of you should show up to the things that you say you are instead of saying my wifes got dinner ready or my gf is mad at me.

I'm not quite sure you understand everything that took place or has taken place since before you were in HS. Although you are entitled to your opinion, it may be better to have an informed opinion on the situation? It’s the attitude of “so what it’s all bs” that may have caused things to come to a head to begin with, lack of explanation or understanding can do more harm than one may think.

[Zenar]

I blame fiddle for the maintence being extended by 2 hours.

I blame global warming! and Fox news!

[Muksis]

I blame fiddle for the maintence being extended by 2 hours.

I blame global warming! and Fox news!

Its global climate change and Obama!!

[brasco]

I blame myself for heavily endorsing a good friend whos removal caused the problems also per muks #1 rule of raiding I blame nanger

[confussion]

I'm not quite sure you understand everything that took place or has taken place since before you were in HS. Although you are entitled to your opinion, it may be better to have an informed opinion on the situation? It’s the attitude of “so what it’s all bs” that may have caused things to come to a head to begin with, lack of explanation or understanding can do more harm than one may think.

pm me so i can be more understanding of whats going on

[Rithale]

Hmm I haven't been around recently so I really don't have much room to talk, let alone have I been around as long as any of the old soles. (also this is gonna take forever to type because conf's avatar is awesome right now) As it stands my rule for video game drama is to forgive not forget. I am gonna use fiddle as an example for this mainly because if I offend him I can apologize in real life.(let him come over and sit on my couch and he will forgive about anything) Fiddle will always have something hateful to say about anyone should he even think about it. Unfortunately this comes to pass as him saying it about 65% of the time. So he is bound to piss off somebody somewhere eventually.(and by eventually I mean once every two weeks or so) So forgive his words but don't forget he will say them so you never nerd rage over just a fact of who he is. At least this is how I deal with fiddle. Of course it is always up to any one person if they even want to associate with a particular type of person.

I don't know how it this mess will turnout. I hope that I can come back in a couple weeks and still get to chat with most of you crazy people in g chat. 4 shows 2 weddings and 16 other appointments is all I have left lingering over my head till then. Would me having been around have helped....I doubt it but I still wish I had been simply because I hate the way I was forced to take a break from wow and you all deserve better than that from me.