Thoughts about the guild app.

I looked at it and tried to ascertain which bits were most "diagnostic" in terms of the information we get out of them relative to the information we need in order to make an app decision. Note this: When people read my comments, they're likely to think, "Mmmmm...I don't know about that one, we use that information sometimes for _______." I thought that myself, but in many cases we're getting redundant information from people. Here are my thoughts, then, in no particular order.

1. Probably don't need fields like what is your furthest experience in instances / raids. We can tell what kind of experience they've got on the toon they're applying for by looking at the gear they have in armory. Also, favorite / least favorite bosses is a question of lesser diagnostic importance to me. I understand that a person can disclose things there that are telling (i. e., "I hate Grobbulous bcuz other ppls r stoopid." but there are other fields in the app where a person is likely to make similar disclosures that can affect our judgment. In the end, the bad app will make clear that she/he is a bad app elsewhere, and I don't really care which bosses she / he does or doesn't like. I don't like faction champs, but I did it every week of ToC raiding.

2. This question, "Would it be a problem if you had to wait 3 weeks or 3 months to get into raid?"  I wonder if this could be reworded. The way it is currently asked causes apps to prattle on about how they know that it's important to be a part of a team...cause, well, it's the "right" answer to this question. I wonder if we might get a tad more honest answers if the question read something like this: "I can take quite some time to get into a raid, sometimes 3 months or more, what's the longest you'd be willing to wait?"

3. I wonder if being directed to the loot page could be a prerequisite to even filling out an app. If this were the case, we wouldn't need to ask if it seemed fair. I've been in DF for a while now, and it doesn't seem that, generally speaking, loot drama is a huge problem. And, if it were going to be a problem, I'm not sure this question would diagnose a person as being a "loot whore". I think we might better be able to diagnose this sickness from questions such as "What do you expect to get from membership in Downfall?"

4. Given that we can check a person's server / guild history out (we can do that can't we?) perhaps we can cut the "server currently on" and "how long have you been there" questions.

5. We could probably pare down on some of the personal info stuff. I understand that we want to get a feel for the person, and I agree that we should. However, the state the person lives in (when we've already asked about the timezone they're in) and things like other significant hobbies may be a bit ancillary and could be best left to interactive information seeking (i.e., chatting with the person in dfrecruit to figure out.)

6. I understand the value of organizational socialization and know there's some history behind questions like "Your ass or a hole in the ground?". If these things are just minor server loads, cool, let's keep them. But, in terms of being diagnostic, I have NEVER put one iota of value in anything I've learned about a guild applicant on the basis of these questions. If we're looking for stuff to cut, this might be it. If it's a question of a fast website vs. a question about my ass or a hole in the ground, I'll take the website.

7. "Anything else you'd like us to know?" I'm on the fence on this one. Answers tend to go one of two ways. 1) Good app: "Nope, that's just about it." 2) Bad app: "<insert joke of bad taste / racial epithet here>". It seems we're inviting idiots to be idiots...which, in retrospect, may not be an awful idea. That said, even idiots sometimes just leave this one blank.

Only mean to be helpful with these thoughts, take all, none, or some suggestions. No skin off my teeth.

I see you gave the strats its own block on the right hand side, though couldn't you have used the weights I assigned them instead of listing them alphabetically?

I'm focused like a laser today and installed Google Analytics again so we've got our entire history and activity to report on again.

So the old one can only handle 50K users a day.   What's the limit on this one huh?

Points on the site are still broken :P

I dont feel like I am on dial up anymore when logging on!!! ;)  Great job G!!!

Love it!  Thanks G!

www.downfallguild.org has not propagated up to the northwest yet. I think by tomorrow morning we'll be able to hit www.downfallguild.org and see the new, faster site.

wow, now i'm feeling like in Formula 1 using the website!