Quote Originally Posted by 'mackenziemi',index.php?page=Thread&postID=69834#p ost69834
That's not even remotely true. The sucessful guild leaders are the ones who make solid, well thought out, fair guild rules in the beginning, a solid officer structure not based on favorism, and are firm in keeping within the rules that he started with irregardless if it means their friends and favorite guildes don't get loot over ones they don't like. The push-overs and the ones who constantly change the rules in a way to benefit themselves and their friends are the ones who don't run guilds for long.
I would argue that it's true, but depends completely on perspective. I've run MMO guilds since Ultima Online in 1996, I've been the GM of the same core of players since EQ in 97/98, and we have all been together since Beta in WoW.

We have a VERY established ruleset, it's very fair, and we've gone to great measures to ensure that it's fair, not just to the guy who shows up 100% of the time, but also to the guy who just showed up and is contributing at that moment. (In our mindset, going on a raid with NO chance of winning loot isn't any more fair than the guy who shows up 100% of the time losing a bunch of items to a guy who showed up for 1 raid. That is not the discussion at hand though.) It's well documented, well communicated, and very well managed.

Over the years of running a raiding guild in WoW I have consistently been called an asshole by nearly every single person who left the guild. Yet at the same time, we have never had a looting dispute during a raid that stopped progression and wasn't clearly defined in the rules we abide by. Every dispute ever tabled was someone upset they didn't win when they thought they should have.

So my point is this, every guild leader must have an inner asshole and not be afraid to bring him out as the situation applies. The fact is every time you make a decision in a guild, someone isn't going to like it. Even if the decision is to give everyone 1000g, someone is going to bitch that they should have gotten more and someone else shouldn't have gotten any. Being asshole enough to tell the bitching minion off and put them in their place is a good thing.