Despite numerous posts and resources on this site, explanations in guild and on calendar events, I still get questions about what the protocol is for signing up for raids. And apparently some of my explanations aren't good enough, as I still end up with confused people 
So here goes:
- Do NOT sign up as definite for any raid unless you have ALREADY reached the minimum level required for that raid. Even if you're CERTAIN that you will reach that minimum level by the time the raid is due to start, just don't.
- If you want to raid with us, you know you'll be able to attend for the full raid time and you THINK you will be able to reach the minimum requirements before raid time, you can sign up as tentative. If you later reach the target required, then you may change your status from tentative to definite.
- If you want to raid with us, you meet the minimum raid requirements, and you THINK you might be able to attend for the full raid time, but you're not sure - sign as tentative. You can always change to definite later.
- If you want to raid with us, you meet the minimum raid requirements but you know you'll be unable to attend for the full night, sign as tentative and speak to the raid leader. You may be okay starting a bit late, or finishing a bit early - but this does depend on others actually going, together with what role you'd want to fill.
- If you sign as definite - REGARDLESS of whether or not you're picked to be part of the raid group OR you're put on standby - you MUST be online, prepared and ready to be invited prior to raid start time.
- If you sign as definite and then you're unable to make the raid, change your status on the calendar if you can, and contact the raid organiser (usually myself).
- If you sign as tentative but then find you're able to fulfil the requirements and can attend for the full duration, change your status to definite or, if it's close to raid start time (or the raid has already started) contact the raid organiser/leader.
TL;DR? - don't sign up unless you fulfil raid requirements; if you've signed up, turn up; if you've signed up but can't turn up, let us know.
To be honest, these requirements are fairly common sense. It is only common courtesy to turn up if you've said you'll be somewhere at a certain time. If you don't, you are letting people down.
When a raid event starts, I should be able to simply click my "invite all" button, everyone in the raid should be invited and within minutes we should be in the raid instance. What actually seems to be happening is that I click my "invite all" button and people are on the wrong character, or they're in a group elsewhere, or they're afk, or aren't online at all. Then best case scenario I'm spending time working out who is missing and chasing up people who are on alts; worst case I'm trying to work out who is missing, what role they were, if they need replacing and how we can replace them. IF we can replace them. To you, it may seem like there's plenty signed so one person won't be missed - to me it's potentially completely changing the balance of the team, resulting in either some or none of the raiders raiding that night.
Every person who signs up, who then doesn't bother turning up without letting us know is causing the entire raid team who did turn up delay in getting into the instance and potentially stops some people raiding completely.
Every person who signs up, who gets put on standby, who then doesn't turn up, potentially misses out on a raid place (which has happened on virtually every raid so far), causes a delay in raid start time as we try to get a replacement for someone who was accepted who didn't turn up and potentially could mean some others can't raid.
As far as fulfilling raid requirements PRIOR to signups - again this is just common courtesy. Signing up to say you can raid and are ready to raid, when your gear isn't ready, when you haven't checked out the bosses, when you don't have your character set up ready for raiding and when you don't have any necessary addons or voicechat installed already, you're basically saying you think those requirements are redundant.
You may think that you will be able to get all of those things done prior to raid start time, but anything could happen between signing up and the raid time. We have had people in the past do exactly this - and in effect you're taking the place of someone else who has actually prepared. It is unfair to them, and it is unfair to the raid group. Again it causes delays and yet more stress.
These simple things .. that to some seem inconsequential, could affect the raid group drastically. We have in the past spent up to 20 minutes PAST raid start time just trying to organise the group, simply due to people not following the above rules. 20 minutes is, in effect, a boss kill.
Finally - I suspect I'm primarily preaching to the choir here. The vast majority of raiders are brilliant - they turn up, on time, prepared and have fun. The vast majority of raiders will give me notice if they're not able to attend, or their circumstances change (in fact I suspect I may have freaked some out recently, as I've been getting people telling me they're unable to attend even when they haven't signed up! - sorry!!). And those guys are the reason why I really want those who don't adhere to these rules to do so - it's unfair to the vast majority.
The rules really aren't that long or difficult. My news items about them are .. but that's just because I'm trying to work out how to explain how important they are. and WHY they're important.
I'm going to try and keep an eye on the website logins and see which raiders haven't been to the site recently, and give them a poke - but if anyone knows of raiders who aren't, for whatever reason, please do encourage them to do so. Apart from anything else, if we do get into the situation where I'll have to prioritise raiders based on how well they adhere to the above, I don't want it to come as a surprise to people. Having said that, I've been clear that "ignorance is no excuse"
