(based on catanika's original post)

The guild is its members. This means taking an active part in the guild

joining in events
- grouping with other guildies of similar level on a fairly regular basis is encouraged.
- helping others with quests.
- doing what you can to help the guild as a whole.
- participate in raids, both progression raids (if your gear is up to it) and retro/fun raids

That does not exclude soloing, grouping with others, or not jumping in to help every person who asks. It is about finding the right balance to benefit you and the guild.
Don't forget the old proverb "If you give a hungry man a fish he will be hungry again the next day, if you teach him to fish, he will never be hungry again". Pointing out to guildies where they can find the information they're looking for might be more helpful than giving the information itself. For example: http://www.wowhead.com


Conduct
Never forget that you carry the guild's name above your head at all times, which makes you an ambassador of ALIVE, conduct yourself in a manner which will earn respect from your fellow players. Be proud of being part of ALIVE, and make those around you happy to see one.

- Be polite, both to guildies and fellow travellers. Be a nice person.
- Don't spam.
- Don't ninja-loot.
- Don't kill steal.
- Try not to get caught up in abusive arguments, especially in public channels.
- Have self-respect. No begging in guild chat, and especially not in general chat or /yell.
- Don't ask for boosts of any kind

By all means ask for help when you need help, but make the distinction. If it is not immediately urgent, try the forums. For quest assistance, do some research, plan a date and time, and ask for help from people via a forum post. It is easier to help those who help themselves in this respect.. Do not spam the guild chat asking for help, if you don't get a response after the first or second time asking understand that no one is able to help at that very moment.

ALIVE is a respectful guild and so shall be it's community and the environment they are in. Do not under any circumstances verbally abuse, offend or fight with fellow guild members in guild chat, or at any public chat, if you have any issues or you have been offended by someone, discuss it in private and ask for the presence of an officer if necessary.


Trade
- Do not sell via guild chat unless you offer guild member's substantial discounts.
- Requesting services (trade skills, etc) should be polite and specific.
- trade skills should be free to other guild members providing they supply the materials.
- If a guildie offers you something cheaply, buy it to use it, not to sell it on elsewhere.

If no response to your request is received in guild chat, then direct w/whisper should not be used. By all means repeat the request after a polite amount of time but do not spam.


New Member Applications
you must be 18 or older to apply.
There is no minimum level to join <ALIVE>, but keep in mind we are an end-game, raid orientated guild. Do not expect guildies to boost you through the levels. Leveling is extremely easy ever since patch 2.3
Alts are welcome in the guild, in fact it is appreciated if you bring your alts into the guild. This makes it easier to keep contact.
Applications are managed either in-game by messaging an officer or online via the Application form found here.

All new recruits have a probation period and in that time they should spend as much time as possible interacting with the guild - grouping with members, attending events/raids, being active in guild chat etc. After some time (depending on your activity) and when the officers are satisfied that the person fits in with the guild they are promoted to a full member.


Re-joining Ex-Guild Members
Under officer's discretion rejoining is allowed as along as players have left on good terms.


Events
The primary aim of the guild is to have fun. Please try to remember this, before you get caught up in loot worries, panicking about not having a group, or a myriad of other things that spoil both your enjoyment and that of others.

Any member may arrange an event, raid or quest group, as long as they do not conflict with existing guild events. Every raid / event should have an informational post in the Events board with set information included (based on a template) or a calendar invite using Blizzard's in-game options. This will include raid leader/event organizer, level limit (if any), start time, finish time, with specific details and any specific loot details (if applicable).


Guild Bank
The purpose of the gbank is primarily to support our raids and raiders.
To that effect the gbank contains all sorts of buff items such as drums, fish feasts etc. people in dire need can buy flasks, dust/crystals/..., gems, pants patches and all other things to get your gear properly ready for raiding.
The gbank will also contain mats of all sorts to support crafting such things, such as meat/fish, herbs and so on.

The other use of the bank is paying for the repair bills of people with raider rank or higher. The amount that can be used will be adjusted, depending on how much money the bank has. This is mainly a token of appreciation for all the people who help make <ALIVE> a living, progressing, fun guild.

To make sure the guild is financially able to fulfill its role, it needs an income. This income will come from all green and blue drops in the raid and from donations. Greens and blues will, from time to time, be AH'd or DE'd.
The guild bank is open for deposits from everybody, any donation is welcome, be it gold, mats, items, gems, whatever. I will make sure that it will all be put to good use. Even greys are welcome as they can be sold to fund our repairs.

When you might need something from the bank, you can talk to an Officer or to the GM, who can then help you with your request. You are expected to pay for the items, current AH price -25%, but other arrangements can be made if you so desire. (e.g. trading one item for another).
Selling items bought from the gbank with a discount is considered stealing from the guild and fellow guildies and punishments will be SEVERE.


Lower level instance assistance
- Low level characters are every much encouraged to instance with other guild members around their level.
- Limit asking for high level character's help.
- Learn and get the experience. from running through instances without higher lvl help.

It will teach you how to work together in a group and play your class effectively, the instances are there to prepare you for end-game, Occasionally higher levels will help out in instances, but this will only limit your experience and should only be at their leisure, if they decide that they have time to help out, this should not be begged for in guild chat.


Raids
Everyone with decent gear is welcome to join us on a raid. Full T9 PVE gear and reasonable items in the other slots is a minimum for the first wing of ICC10. We DO NOT use the GS add-on. It says nothing about your gear, and even less about your skill. Often lower ilvl items are better then higher ilvl ones because the stats and effects benefit your spec more. The guild strongly discourages using that add-on, it leads to people picking gear for the ilvl and thereby possibly downgrading their gear and performance, also the GS add-on is murder on your frame rate, hindering you in raids.
Alts are allowed in raids as long as they are decently geared, alts provide flexibility and can help out the guild on slow nights. But keep in mind everyone is responsible for gearing up their alts, our raids are not boosts for your alts.

Raid invites start roughly around 20.00 server time. Non progression raids, such as retro raids often start at 21.00. People are strongly encouraged to join raids even when there's no loot gain for them. WoW and the guild do not exist solely to gear up your characters, it's a social game.
At the moment we have 2 separate runs in ICC10, one starting on wednesday, continued on thursday, the other starting on friday and continued on monday. this will change, however, as plans are being made to keep extending a save to get more tries done on the harder progression bosses. joining that progression raid is (if your gear and skill is good enough) highly appreciated.

We do not use steady fixed groups, as this always leads to elitism and animosity in the guild. Therefore we use a rotation system, if people who are signed up for a run (and online when the invites start) can not come to a run because that run is full they will be given priority for the next run (I write those things down, don't worry).
Standard procedure is that I first invite everyone who has signed up and is online to the raid, and then try to form a balanced raid group from that. Usually this leads to having to turn down and remove people because we are to many, but don't despair, with our rotation system you will be raiding next time.
Signing up for raids and not showing up is frowned upon and if that happens too often may lead to you losing raid spots. If due to IRL events you are not able to come to a raid you signed up to, please try to inform the GM by sending him an in-game mail or whisper, or making a post on the forum, and if possible change your "accept" on the calendar to "declined" or "tentative".

Special note: when ICC is the random weekly, priority will be given to players who can promise that they well join the continuation. This is necessary because it is very hard to find replacements when ICC is the weekly as nobody wants to join a saved run and thereby losing the possibility to complete the weekly

Extra rule: invites to the lich king fight will from now on be restricted to people with top gear and skills and some basic knowledge of the fight. It is highly appreciated that all people who have been invited to this fight reply to the calendar invite by either accepting, declining or putting yourself on tentative. As always people who do sign up get priority. If we are too many I will try to form a balanced group, normal rotation rules apply for the people invited to the LK. If we are not enough to fill all 10 spots, we will CANCEL the run, other people will NOT be used to fuill the empty spots, so pls come online. People coming to the LK fight will get TWO raid points (see loot rules) instead of one, even if the raid gets canceled. Also, the guild bank will provided for all the flasks for free


UPDATED Loot Rules
Loot rules are /roll with MS having priority over OS. New people will be below OS in terms of rolling priority until they have joined 2 raids, as of their 3rd raid they have the same priority as everyone else. The RL has the right to overrule a roll when a person has been exceptionally lucky, in order to maintain a certain fairness and happiness in the guild.
It is very much appreciated to pass on items if it is a bigger upgrade for someone else.
People are allowed to roll on items of lower "armor type" such as shamans rolling on cloth, but these rolls are always considered OS. And keep in mind the game will punish you for wearing the wrong armor type once Cataclysm goes live.
If you win a BoE item you will be asked to equip it immediately to make it soulbound.

Loot rules are adjusted to motivate people to join raids more often and to reward people who have loyally raided a lot with us a lot.
The concept is that people earn loot points which can be used to increase their chances to get an item they really want.
It shares traits from both DKP and EGPG, but I feel this is mathematically more sound then EGPG, more flexible and allows the raiders to use it the way they choose it to.

how to get loot points:
- you get 1 point for joining an ICC10 guild raid, an ICC25 co-op raid (depending on the agreements with the other guild you might not be able to use the points during the co-op, but you will still earn them) or a "retro" raid if i announce so (like I will do for yogg saron in the future). people must stay till the end to get the point.
- continuation runs on day 2 count as a new raid and give another point
- you get 1 point for coming to a saved run to replace people who have left early
- killing a progression boss yields an extra point. this only applies to guild firsts. (only 5 left!)

how to use points:
they are used either to influence rolls or to force wins (can be used on MS or OS rolls)
- influencing a roll: BEFORE rolls have been made people can whisper me, telling me how much points they are willing to spend with a +10 per point on that roll (the whispers are initially secret to avoid people being influenced by other people). After everyone has had time to whisper, the whispers are made public (to show that the RL isn't cheating). Then rolls are done as normal and the +10 per point are added to the rolls. Whoever has highest wins the roll. the winner loses the MINIMUM amount of points he needed to spend to win, the losers lose nothing. Examples will be given further below.
- only once in a raid can you successfully use points to influence a roll (small update: if you influenced a roll and it turns out nobody else is rolling on it, it does NOT count as the only successful influence you can make that raid)
- to avoid having people spending points just to force others to spend more points, people can only attempt to use points 3 times in a raid. So if you wish to be an asshole by forcing others to spend points, you're shooting yourself in the foot since you limit the tries you get on items you really want. If i see this safety measure is not enough i will make it stricter and might even take action during the raid. i will not tolerate people being assholes!
- forcing a win: if you have been hoarding points for a specific item and you have more than 5 you can force a win by spending 6 points BEFORE any rolls are made, you automatically win the item without rolls. people MUST whisper me if they want to force a win. This is at the same time when people are whispering to influence a roll! All whispers will be made public after a winner is known (so that you guys see that the RL isn't cheating). Keep in mind that when you force a win, you might lose more than 6 points if other people whispered me for a forced win as well. (see next point).
- if multiple people want to force a win, the person with the most points wins and loses x+1 points where x is the total of points the second highest has.
- only once a day can you (successfully) force a win.
- just like with influencing rolls you can only attempt 3 forced wins, this is to prevent abuse. same comments apply as there. Abuse will be punished.
- points can be used for OS, whispers are done at the same time as for MS, just mention it's for OS, and keep in mind that MS still has priorty, meaning that MS roll > OS force

Examples of influencing rolls:
imagine loot drops and 3 players (A, B and C) are interested
example 1:
A whispers nothing
B whispers 4
C whispers 1
whispers are made public and the players roll
A rolls 57, B rolls 18, C rolls 85. Adding the whispers this gives 57 for A, 58 for B and 95 for C. C wins the rolls. The minimum amount of points he needed to spend to win was 0, since 85 was still the highest, therefore C wins without losing points, but this IS considered a succesful influence and thus he can no longer influence any more rolls this raid.
example 2
A whispers 3
B whispers 1
C whispers 3
whispers are made public and the players roll
A rolls 34, B rolls 41, C rolls 22. Adding the whispers this gives 64 for A, 51 for B and 52 for C. A wins the roll. The minimum amount of points he needed to spend to win was 1, since 44 would have been enough to win over B's original 41, therefore A wins and loses 1 point. he can no longer influence any more rolls this raid.

Step by step overview
- kill boss
- people cheer on vent
- RL links all loot in /ra
- RL announces which item to be rolled for first and calls out for whispers
- people who wish to spend point to increase their chances on the loot whisper the RL, either a number between 1 to 5 (influencing the roll) or something else which makes it clear you're forcing a win (whispering "win" for example)
- if 1 or more people forced a win, no rolls are made and the forcing player with the highest amout of points wins the item losing 6 or more points (see above)
- if no players forced a win, rolls are made and +10's from the points are added, a winner is determined who then loses the minimum amount of points he needed to win the roll
- if nobody wanted it for MS, RL announces to roll for OS
- RL announces next item, etc

notes:
- I'm implementing this system retroactively, so people who have raided with us in the past few weeks (i have always written down who joined) do get their attendance points for that.
- points are linked to PEOPLE, not characters. if you raid on char x one day, and on char y the next, y can use the points x earned.
- feel free to ask questions, comment, criticize or praise
- changes might be made when deemed necessary
- you can see how many points you have in the raid section of the forum, i will make a sticky there
- before the raid starts I will announce on vent who has how many points, since points are earned after the run, the points you have at the start are the only ones you can use.

why this unusual system and not a well known system?
well it's not because something is widely known and used that it is good (like GS). I don't like EGPG because the more loot you have the less impact new loot will have on your priority ranking (since you're dividing by it) and it has no flexibility, you might like getting a certain item but there's another one you absolutely want, so in EGPG you don't want to take the first item because then you lose your priority, here you can spend some point to try to influence your roll and still have a good chance to get your dream item, whereas in EGPG you're screwed because you fell down the priority system.


Final words
Finally we are here to be your friends and not to discipline you =) however when necessary, a warning will be issued for breaking rules or even possibly a kick from the guild.

Thanks for taking the time to read through ALIVE rules. this will prevent a lot of avoidable awkward situations and misunderstandings =)

Rules will be updated and edited as issues arise.

*thumbs up*