Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Sharing accounts is an issue that I've talked about in the past (and I'm sure, in some people's opinions, beaten to death). Previously I've covered a few different situations. First there was a general question about the issue, which I answered back in 2007. Then there was an officer who shared his account with his girlfriend (which is still a terrible idea in my opinion). Finally, a guild leader's account was banned because he bought it from another player, and his guild's progression subsequently skidded to a halt. As if those examples weren't enough to convince you that account sharing can cause a lot of problems, here's another one:

Recently, my fellow guild officers and I decided to kick a member from our guild, which also caused three other members to leave. The person who we initially kicked from the guild had asked our guild leader for a BoE Epic item in the "Ask an Officer" tab of the bank. Our guild leader responded by saying he'd ask the officers about it before handing the axe out.

Not less than an hour later he asked another guild member to take it out of the guild bank for him. Being a good guild member, they asked the guild leader if it was okay. It was instantly perceived as being an attempt to ninja the item from the bank by trying to avoid the guild leader.

It becomes complicated here when two other new recruits come on asking why we kicked their friend from the guild. In short, they told us that there were five of them that were in the same house and all played WoW. Each had easy access to the other's account information. We were told that it was two separate people who had logged on asking for the axe.

Trying to quell things before they actually quit, I sent a letter to one of them as an officer saying how I appreciated how they approached the topic with care and did not just cause all hell to break loose in guild chat. On vent I pulled everyone down to the officer's channel [. . .] and there were mixed opinions.

With the new information that we received how one person did not know the other asked for the axe and how multiple people have all of their account information, feelings were mixed. Were we in the right for kicking this member? We couldn't have known it was two different people asking. Should we even consider letting them back in? Would it be safe not knowing who is actually taking a stack of materials out of the guild bank because they all have each other's account information?

I feel somewhat bad about the decision made, and I'd like to know whether it was right. I'm supposed to be one of the experienced officers in our guild but I'm just not sure about this topic.

With regards,

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