Most here seem to agree that more guides would be a "good thing". But who? To paraphrase Douglass Adams, "Those that want power don't deserve it, and those that deserve power don't want it".

Regardless, I will put forth the question. Who would make a good guide, and why? Emphasis on the good, and the why.

No one.

We are in a completely different situation in 2017. It is not a lack of commited veteran players. But the problem is that once you start getting into combat - which, despite everyone being aware of there being a ton of other "ways of RP" - is the biggest thing in VO. And you will naturally make enemies.
Moreover, the pick would be with the developers, not with the playerbase. So the developers already cannot pick somebody who is a commited combat vet. Because his enemies would complain and scream "What? NO!". That already eliminates the biggest amount of possible candidates.
Even "traders" or "medics" or generally peace-oriented players would not qualify, since even them have made enemies. ONE for example doesn't trust EMS. They're at war with TGFT. The more prominent members of SARC have also gone into problems with other players once in a while.

All in all, none of the "prominent" players qualify. Imagine Bojan in power. He would mute everyone who is "unethical". Imagine Dirty 'oRe in power. He would mute everyone who is a "bedwetter". Imagine Blaqk in power! He would mute everyone who doesn't like... Trump. Imagine ME with the power to mute people? Oh dear NO! Haha. Of course I say the aforementioned names with a wink and know it's exaggerated. Outside of RP, I think we can all agree that we would not appreciate each other as guides. And of course, that player X is a total asshole and therefore doesn't qualify for the job. etc. etc.

You see, it cannot be a player. Even if handpicked by the devs... trouble WILL happen.

That's why I have been suggesting paid mods. I'm sure that you can "hire" people for a few bucks per hour that you can give a list of things to look out for on chat/forums. It will take getting used to in VO for them, but it would be the best and the only true "neutral" option. Sure, it would probably make the sub a bit more expensive. And this is probably where some of the younger players will complain. But that's another issue to discuss.

Everquest, as an example, had a volunteer guide program. You would apply to it in a similar fashion as the PCC program here. The big difference was that guides in EQ were required to use a new character (possibly account) that was unaffiliated with any in-game groups and refrain from identifying themselves or doing anything to unfairly influence the game. Further, EQ guides had different levels of power based on time in the program. Part of the requirement for remaining in the program was that they spend time logged in as a guide for a specified minimum amount of time per week. This requirement obviously made more sense within the context of a game with significantly more players that needed help with lost items getting unstuck from the geometry or help resolving player disputes.

The building blocks in the EQ guide program could work here. The big limiting factor is that it would need someone to administer it, something the devs may not have time to do. Which is likely why they've stuck to asking players who have demonstrated themselves over time and been very reluctant to add more.

Regardless, if more guides are added I think they should use new characters at a minimum and attempt to maintain their anonymity.

Thanks but no thanks. Most of us long time players play VO to have fun.
It's not that the most of us who are sane enough can't be impartial to try and uphold the community rules to the best of our abilities - we can but... shelling out some snide comments, puns and jokes on 100 is part of the fun too and I don't think anyone wants to turn his fun time he is paying for into a job with strict rules and obligations he has to fulfill as a guide.

EDIT: All guides I ever met in VO were level headed and did their job quietly and efficiently. Some of them were (still are) members of combat/pirate guilds and did enjoy pvp on a daily basis.
Except anonymous warnings they issue, every stronger action or punishment for perpetrators is subject to developers supervision so no, none of them abused their powers and any new possible guide would not be able to show bias and abuse his powers either.

Regardless, if more guides are added I think they should use new characters at a minimum and attempt to maintain their anonymity.

The only problem with that idea is: VO population is ridiculously small. Everyone has gotten good with identifying anonymous alts based on vocabulary usage and personality. EQ had a much bigger population so it's more doable to use anonymous volunteers.

So, there are NO experienced players that could fill this role? I find that hard to credit. I agree that any final decision is up to the devs, but surely there are a few potential candidates that can maintain a level head. Phaserlight and Whistler didn't just sprout from the ground. Presumably they were regular players before they were guides, and so we can also assume there are a few more Phaserlights or Whistlers around? Come to think of it, I would be particularly interested to hear who the current guides think might fit the bill.

It's not that there are none, just that those who could do it well don't want to. Like SBC said, personally, I play to have fun, and some of that is smart-arse comments, etc. "Representing GS" is not something I would want to be considering in every encounter, which I imagine GS would expect from a guide. I'd expect it, were I in GS's shoes.

"Representing GS" is not something I would want to be considering in every encounter...

That's the whole point about anonymous guides. Play how you want to play, but when you're a guide you're the respectable person a guide is expected to be. As you've also said, there are likely lots of people that would be excellent guides, but because they feel they have their character roleplay to maintain, they may often look like asshats unfit for such a position.

Yeah, if it was anonymous, I'd prolly put my hand up. Chat is rife with spammers right now. I'd like to be able to assist beyond a mere /vote mute.

The guide system does inherently have the anonymizing factor of guide-chat. Which is why the warnings come in from "guide32784" instead of of <character>. That way, people could be on with their main character, but still engage problem-individuals more anonymously. We could certainly make that more robustly anonymous.

But, in the end, Guides still have to deal with a lot of flak from grumpy people who don't like to be told to "stop". Being a guide is pretty rough, and requires a lot of patience. As a result, most of my thinking lately has been along the lines of trying to build less-administrative systems, like what Riot has been doing with League of Legends. But, those all take a lot of time to implement, and are still challenging with a smaller player base.

In the old days, I picked the first few Guides, and then we had Guides watch the players and nominate other Guides based on the way people behaved. But, taking "applications" has always been problematic.. as noted in the OP here, the people who tend to seek power are often those who are least suited to wield it.

I would personally like to put forward a motion to elect Sieger as a guide.

Can I say a 'Hell No', Ore?

Let's not getting into "nominating" super controversial people. That seems pretty thread-derailing..

If I was a guide on VO I would have only used guide powers once, that was during the great Interstellar rant of 2012. That much racism spam on 100 earns at least a temporary ban.

Other than that, I am thankful for the lack of policing that VO has had over the years in-game. On the forums there has been abuse of the mod powers from time to time, but that doesn't really ruin the immersive experience of being logged in on 100, so it's forgivable.

But we're talking about the days where PC players comprised a reasonable proportion of the population. These days it seems there's a majority of android players who are filling 100 up with nonsense.

Not sure why the guides have to have the unlimited powers they have at the moment. If you had specific guides that handled Serco/Itani/UIT/Unaffiliated, you could work on providing the more partisan leaders with control over members of their race when it came to controlling things like chat spamming or abuse.

I think the idea that just because a player plays in EMS or some other person's idea of a "neutral guild" makes them more suited to preventing unwanted use of chat etc.. is a misnomer. I'd be happy to have Sieger rule over all the grey plebs with an iron first, it'd be great for recruitment. Which I think is what Dirty Ore is alluding to with his Sieger nomination.

I disagree with the premise of faction-aligned/-assigned Guide moderation. I don't think roleplay and official moderation mix well together.

Neutrality or rather 'the ability to be neutral' does come into play in the sense that when asked to nominate someone for a Guide position, I would prefer a person who has shown they can put affiliation bias aside.
I do agree that definition of neutrality does not equate automatically to the neutrality of players/guilds who state they are neutral, which I deem roleplay.

Granted, I'd also like to see player guild leadership take up some responsability for its own members, and regular players moderate more, but that is moderation outside of the official guide-system. Yes, I realize that we might not be having this thread if actual player moderation worked better. But regardless, community leadership should count for something.
(And who am I to say internal guild moderation isn't happening? I am not familiar with guild internal affairs. I only see what leaks out on 1 and 100. If I haven't /left them.)

I would support a Guide nomination for Faille as she seemed to tick the boxes for maturity, experience, respect of the community and ability to use fair judgement. Even though our time of play hasn't coincided in a while.

So I pondered what I could do today. There was a period of heavy spam mixed with some light racism. I made /mute votes and called for them where I thought appropriate, and PMed a few individuals regarding feeding trolls or the /ignore function. 30 mins later, chat seemed much less "toxic".

Maybe all we need are a few folks willing to spend 5-10 mins like that, rather than official guides...

Would it make sense if guild leadership had the tools to mute their own members?

Exactly. I found roleplay was the solution more often than not. The times that I've been online, people are usually too busy asking what the criteria are that we will use to decide whether or not to shoot them rather than spamming or being racists.

You have to galvanise the player-base against something, otherwise they'll drift into talking about some retardedly off-topic stuff like Trump or the holocaust.

I nominate myself.

Edit: I was joking but seeing how bad 100 was during British hours again today makes me think that despite my less than polite sense of humor, I could probably do some good.

What are the requirements for guides? When do they have to step in? Is that documented somewhere? Or is it just like a average "your crossing the line" situations when they step in?

I'd mute spammers and people who try to ruin people who still are in the newbsector, other stuff i wouldnt care unless i gets too toxic. A neutral non-personaly management is crucial, ie i wouldnt mute <someone> just cause hes spewing his trump madness or w/e usually goes on.

Is that how a guide should operate? Im mainly interested if it gets those spammers away and those wo ruin people in the newbsector (quite many intentionaly mislead, not even in obvious ways).