GUILD CHARTER & BYLAWS

Purpose
The purpose of Jademoon is to enable our members to enjoy online gaming together, emphasizing respect, camaraderie, tradition, community, maturity, and fair-play, while encouraging creative RP, PvP sportsmanship, and PvE challenges. Jademoon is a general gaming guild that has been operating nearly twelve years through as many and more games, with male and female members from all over the world. Most of us are in our late 20s/30s nowadays, though we boast college students and grandparents alike. Due to our long experience as a guild in so many games, and our focus on real-life over gaming, we recognize that no game is permanent, and thus we discourage applicants who are more interested in the game-of-the-month than in us. Additionally, we have a distinctive humor that includes mature language that may not be suitable for the easily-offended (or the very young). We suggest perusing our gallery or slang dictionary to see our OOC personality first-hand.

Leadership
Jademoon is led by a Guildmaster and up to four appointed officers, each managing a coterie of members and various specific duties. They are expected to work together as a team to lead the guild and uphold guild standards. While the specific duties of each officer shift from game to game, their basic roles (if not their occupants) remain constant. The Guildmaster is responsible for communication and RP coordination as well as anchoring the other officers; the Warmaster oversees guild events with an emphasis on guild PvP when possible; the Spymaster acts as the guild intelligence agent and diplomat to outside groups, websites, and alliances; the Quartermaster manages guild craftsmen, treasuries, and assets; and the Oathmaster handles all recruiting issues and membership adjudication. Our current officers include Saioka (Guildmaster), Cal Mihe (Warmaster), Tess (Spymaster), Zaphir (Quartermaster), and Torlith (Oathmaster).

Membership
Led by the officers, but outranking recruits, are Moonies - full members, all of equal rank. Generally, the rights held by full members over recruits and outsiders include access to private structures and communications (channels and forums); the right to vote in guild matters of import (recruiting and alliances); and the honor of wearing guild emblems and tags. In larger games with RP elements, we further divide the membership into RP'd divisions, which may be joined upon becoming a full member, usually during the ceremony. The Moonies group on the forums serves as a roster of current members; it includes a system for PMing and emailing fellow members, as well as names, contacts, locations, and character details each member chooses to make available. (Registration is required to view this listing.) Game-specific rosters include our LOTRO kinship, our WoW armory roster, and our old WAR Herald roster. We also maintain a thread for peripheral groups like our Steam social network; a bio thread in the private forum for higher-security contact information; and a private gallery with images of our members and our various real-world gatherings.

Recruiting
We are always looking for good recruits whose interests lie in the fellowship of the guild, though we seek members who wish a permanent home, not a lay-over in one game or another. A potential applicant should become familiar with the website and forums, participate in our events, chat channels, and RP, and, most importantly, convince another member to serve as his sponsor, after which he will be asked to submit a formal application to the Oathmaster (our recruiting officer), who will review it and arrange an interview before pronouncing the applicant an official recruit. The recruit then has no less than two weeks and no greater than two months to complete the following requirements: participate in at least one guild event, plan and host an event, post a character biography, post an introduction to the public forum, dye his gear orange in the Jademoon recruit tradition, adhere to guild policies, and any other task specific to the game, as determined by the officers. Note that it is the sponsor (not the officers) who is responsible for ensuring his recruit's requirements are satisfied, at which time he will petition the Oathmaster for a vote, to last up to one week on the private forums, and to be won by a simple majority of active members with no negative votes cast, or a three-quarters margin if dissentions arise. A failed vote will necessitate further discussion and other measures left to the discretion of the Oathmaster. If the vote passes, the Guildmaster will organize an in-game promotion ceremony to formally induct the recruit into the guild as a full member.

Factions
Jademoon will generally charter only one primary faction in one game at any time, subject to the discretion of the current officers. Game-specific charter rules remain in effect until a game's faction is officially retired by the officers, which usually occurs when membership and interest in the game has dipped dramatically. We do not regulate members' affiliations outside our primary game, presuming they do do not conflict with the interests of the guild. Members given permission to host a Jademoon faction in a non-primary game are generally restricted to non-recruiting status. 

Loyalty
Joining Jademoon means joining the guild as a player, not just tagging a character in a game. Our members are not permitted to join alts to other guilds in our active factions, as this causes conflicts of time and interest, and we expect our members to participate with us, if they wish to remain as members. We do not discriminate based on character properties (such as species, class, or gender), but we do expect our members to play primarily on our chosen side of any factional wars, display their guildtag at all times, and join all of their alts to the guild. Members must design their RP to fit the guild, or (and only as a last resort) RP around the tag.

Suffrage
Every full active member receives an equal vote in major amendments to the charter, in all recruiting matters, and on all political alliances. Minor decisions are left to the discretion of the active leadership. Excepting those pertaining to recruiting and admissions, all votes are won by a simple majority, though consensus is the goal. The Guildmaster retains the power of veto on all non-recruiting votes, but her veto can be overridden by a three-quarters majority of members or the unanimous agreement of the remaining officers. Members are encouraged to make suggestions to improve the guild; those who do not participate effectively waive their right to complain.

Participation
Participation is expected of our members, across all our communication tools, including the forum, IRC channel, ventrilo, and in-game chat channels, as relevant. Members must maintain a functional email address, or one will be provided. Ideally, members should adventure together when possible, and attendance at formal guild events and guild meetings is required for all online members. We do understand, however, that real life always comes first - just keep us posted. If a member must go inactive, he should notify the guild or officers by forum, PM, or email. He will lose game-specific voting rights, but will retain the other privileges of full membership, provided he maintains contact. Members who vanish without notice, depart in bad standing, or fail to keep in touch, must make a suitable application to the officers and undergo a trial period before reinstatement will be considered.

Conduct
We expect our members to be respectful, mature adults (regardless of age), with a strong sense of humor and proportion. Members should conduct themselves with dignity while gaming, as every member's behavior reflects on the rest of the guild. Griefing, cheating, harassment, lying, compromising security, betraying private guild communications, disregarding treaties, insubordination, hostility towards allies and innocents, and disrespect towards fellow members, are all grounds for disciplinary action or removal. Any personal conflicts that negatively affect guild affairs will be investigated and dealt with by the officers. RP'd PvP combat and IC hostility is completely acceptable, as long as the line between RP and reality is not blurred; in fact, we ask members to make an effort to RP, to distinguish between IC and OOC, and to work with other RPers to ensure that everyone has a good time. We're cooperative, not competitive, RPers, and we do enjoy realistic RP, but not at the expense of entertainment, so RP police begone. To this end, we've collected a large library of stories and RP resources over the years, all organized on the Arrpee Forum.

Uniforms
We issue uniforms (or their equivalent) to all members and recruits in all games which support such customization. They are not required of full members except at certain RP events, although the traditional orange is mandatory for our recruits, game permitting. In WoW, we have a standard tabard consisting of a crescent moon on a midnight blue field of stars, bordered in jade leaves; in UO, our uniforms are generally "DE blue"; in Camelot, we wear the eye-symbol over quartered blue and white; in SWG, we maintain an elaborate black and olive green uniform combining padded armor and striped pants; in WAR and LOTRO, we stick to our traditional jade green; in GW, we bear a blue and green cape with a silver moon sigil; in CoH and CoV, we use green and black under dueling moon emblems; and so on. Launching a new faction generally necessitates discussion and voting on a new uniform.

Treasury
The officers reserve the right to implement a dues system to fund guild buildings, events, loans, vaults, and other fees and necessities, as dictated by the current game and faction. The current quartermaster will coordinate with the membership to determine the appropriate amount of dues/taxes/tithes necessary to fund the guild's endeavors. He will then collect the dues at appropriate intervals if the game does not provide an automatic means of doing so; maintain and administer a guild vault or other location to store items or funds whether or not one is not provided by the game mechanics; and record transactions as needed on the private forums for the review of the guild. Members are expected to pass down gear and excess resources to needy members, and assist in making us self-sufficient insofar as trade-skills. We tend to follow a general policy of need-before-greed when it comes to looting, though officially, we leave loot policies up to individual event leaders.

IRC
Our public IRC channel, hosted by Epig, is primarily used for daytime chatting, meetings, word games, RP games, and general time-wasting. It's our most important resource when we have no primary game, and when we do, usage peaks on patch days. Guests are always welcome to hang out with us. Most of us use a shareware client called mIRC, which we've been using since UO (which had no global chat), or you can use Epig's browser-based client, if mIRC isn't an option at work. Here's the connection info: server www.baastad.net (148.122.48.226); port 6667; channel #jademoon. Members can look here for more help. If our IRC channel is down, we're probably hanging out in our Steam channel.

Ventrilo
Ventrilo allows us to voice-chat with each other while gaming; we tend to use it for specific events, grouping, raids, and online RP games, but it is always available for other purposes. Even those without microphones can still listen in, with just the Ventrilo client. Moonies are free to bring guests to the channel, but you'll need to supply guests with the password. Here's the connection info: hostname/IP ventrilo11.va.powervs.com; port 5081. Members can look here for more help.

Channels
In most games, guild chat (/gu) is open to all full members of Jademoon. Officer chat (/o) is for the use of the officers. If possible, we will also maintain a public channel, open to our friends, allies, recruits, and potential recruits, to help coordinate RP, raids, and other events. Full members are likewise required to join it, and any other alliance channels available. Conversation in these chats is generally considered OOC unless otherwise stated. We maintain public channels in WoW (/join jademoon), CoH, SWG, LOTRO, and several other games - please contact an active player for details.