Leaving Your Guild Without Burning Bridges

There are certainly reasons for a ninja /gquit. Such as when your Raid Leader is a bully and the Officers you’ve talked to refuse to stand up to him. Or when the GL doesn’t have anything to say to you that isn’t full of venom and mean spiritedness and you are finally pushed a little bit too far. But unless you have the absolute worst luck, those situations are going to be the exception, and not the rule when it comes to why you decide to tell your guild Buh-Bye.

How Not to /gquit

If you want to leave your guild and still remain on good terms with the guildies you left behind, here are few things NOT to do:

• DON’T make a passive aggressive post on the forums about how you really hate to leave but mysterious unnamed forces and their <insert conspiracy theory> leave you with no choice but to go to that raiding guild.
• DON’T post your buh-bye note on the forums then linger around online, milking your goodbyes.
• DON’T log on in the middle of a raid and dramatically /gquit.
• DON’T /gquit without telling anyone what’s up, and ideally, without talking to an officer or your GM to see if your issues are resolvable.
• DON’T /w the guildies you left behind, chiding them for not camping on to your /gquit.
• DON’T start actively recruiting for your new guild from the one you just left.
• DON’T trash talk your guild or its members in trade or on the realm forums.
• DON’T log back in to your old forums to gloat over the new loot/achievements you just got with your new guild, or to tell your former guildies how they should change all their raid strats to match what your new guild does.
• DON’T decide to leave, and line up your new guild, but come to one last raid and blow all your DKP on BiS items. You may feel that you “earned it” but your guildies will be bitter you chose to take that payout and run.
• DON’T take all that you can carry from the gbank.
• DON’T be surprised if you DO all of the above and want to leave behind an alt and find them unguilded 48 hours later.

Making a Graceful Exit

It’s really not that hard to leave a guild with style, leaving the door open for your eventual return, and reinforcing the friendships you are leaving behind. A few tips:

• Make a thoughtful goodbye post.
  State honestly, but courteously, why you are leaving. Good examples are: leaving to raid more, to raid less, to play on another server with RL friends/spouse. If you’re leaving because your RL is a bully or you have another such personal conflict with a guildie, your goodbye note is not the right place to get into those gory details. You are trying to make a graceful exit after all, remember? Stick with something honest but more general in such a case, such as the guild did not turn out to be quite the fit you are looking for.
• Share any specific reasons you are leaving with an officer or the GL before you go.
  Ideally, you’ll do this before saying your goodbyes. This helps the Officer team understand how the guild may be improved, or if there are any gaps between the recruitment process and the reality of everyday guild activities that may need to be addressed. For instance, if you were looking for a casual raiding guild, but are leaving because once every two weeks is a lot more casual than you were expecting, that’s good actionable feedback. If you are leaving due to an ongoing issue that you’d informed officers about, consider sharing with a different person this time around to see if that message sinks in.

Leaving gracefully basically boils down to being considerate of others, and not surprising anyone. This goes double if you are in a position of leadership in your guild. When an officer or raid leader ninja server transfers or faction changes, or just /gquits and turns up in a competing guild  few moments later, it understandably leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

With Cataclysm on the horizon, we’re going to see a bunch more folks coming and going as guilds shake out and develop their identity — be it 10-man, 25-man, or no- raiding. You never know where your guildies are going to end up, so why not make an extra effort to ensure you don’t end up on their personal “do not invite” list?

It’s inevitable along the way to have one really guild break-up but there’s no reason they should all be that way. Safe travels and good luck.