A Walkthrough of our Application Process for Potential Applicants
A person learns about SOK through friends that are members or ingame encounters and becomes interested in joining the guild. If he is a member of another guild he will respectfully deguild himself in preparation for his consideration of SOK membership. He will spend time learning more about SOK and its members, traditions, and culture. This includes things such as message board/private message activity, using the sok.org chatroom, and not referring to the guild as SoK. He will learn our history, make friends with members through /tells ingame, email, IMers, xp groups, and events. The roster and the command "/who sok" can be useful in finding Knights ingame to befriend. Knights should be happy to get to know potential applicants and include them in their events, though this is not always possible.
Once he knows more about SOK and has firsthand experience with our members, he will post a personal introduction in the Meeting Hall forum declaring his interest in joining the guild. This raises the awareness of Knights about the person. A thread is opened in our private Application Forum for the newly declared potential applicant and his progress. As the person participates on the forums, ingame channels, events, and groups, Knights note his perseverence and behavior. It is forbidden for members to share information about posts from private forums with anyone outside of those forums. Similarly, any applicants asking a Knight what has been posted in their thread will find their thread removed from consideration. Any questions about application progress are encouraged, as long as they are directed to officers. The person might show that he can follow instructions by attending some raids and working with the raid leaders' directions, display his maturity in handling frustrating ingame deaths positively, or show his ideals by only accepting the ingame loot he can use while making sure everyone that participates is fairly rewarded. The officers will decide when the person is ready for an application based on how much attention the Knights have given his potential applicant thread. This is important to note because it means that a person's progress through the application process is a direct result of their impact on the Knights, which is in turn a result of their participation level. Once issued an application by an officer, the person will carefully and honestly fill out and submit the application.
The application, posted in the person's thread in the private Application Forum (with personal details removed), gives the Knights a chance to better understand the person's references general attitude, and outlook. As a large portion of the guild will not be active in the applicant's current game, or will be of a different character level or playing time, this application (and his message board participation) will be the only way most Knights can get a sense of the applicant as a person. This is important because SOK will not recruit someone who clearly does not share the guild's values. Whether the person is a fit for SOK usually comes out during this courting period. For instance, it will be apparent if the applicant does not understand that SOK chats are kept PG-13 out of respect for parents with children nearby, or that SOK recruits the person behind the computer and not the ingame avatar; that ingame class, level, gear, playing ability, and availability only matter in that they aid the applicant in better getting aquainted with more Knights. Higher level more active people will be knighted more quickly on average simply because they make more SOK friends faster and thus earn more support on their thread sooner. The applicant will show their interest in joining SOK by maintaining their behavior and determination over what can be a lengthy application process (depending on the applicant's ability to earn support, the process can take weeks, months, and even more than a year in some cases). The applicant's ability to take responsibility for earning Knights' support and persevere for this spread of time is primarily what earns the attention of the officers. In the end, an officer will make a judgement call and accept the new Knight or deny him. Officers can be reached individually via PMs or email, or collectively at officers@sok.org.
A Note on Returning Knights
Sometimes former guildmembers seek to join SOK again. In these instances, the ex-Knight will contact the officers at officers@sok.org and inform the leadership about his intentions. The officers will send the ex-Knight a short Re-Application form that asks questions about where he has been since his membership and what he has been doing. The officers post this Re-App (after removing personal details) in a thread in the private Application Discussion forum so that current Knights have a chance to share any negative interactions that might have occurred between the ex-Knight and themselves since he left the guild. For this reason, any re-applicants are encouraged to work out such personal issues with current Knights before reapplying. Once a suitable amount of time has passed, if the Re-App still looks favorable the officers will re-accept him into the Knighthood. It should be noted that if a member loses contact with the officers and the guild for a significant amount of time without explanation then he shall have to reapply if and when his activity returns.
