Day five - DKP

Hey again guys welcome back to my twaddle, I don't know why but I'm getting quite used to this blogging thingy :p Anyway as promised this post is going to be about DKP and how my guild has evolved it to do what we want for us.
Now there are many different ways of running dkp and to be honest I don't know much about most of them, I have heard tell of an EQ DKP system and also a Zero sum DKP system. To be honest to me its all so much Bollocks. When I was handed the guild there was already a simple dkp system in place. You earned dkp, you spent it, about all I can remember about it was that you earned for attending raids and boss's downed and had the opportunity to earn up to 5dkp a week through contributions to the guild bank and there was a minimum spend of 10dkp per item. However we only used this on 25 man runs. And as we dropped down to only being able to run ten man runs the dkp system kind of got put on the back-burner.
However when we made the decision to restart 25 man runs, it was obvious that we needed a fair system to distribute loot. Remember that at the time we were still very much a social raiding guild so not that many were high geared raiding wise. The aim was quite literally to find a system that as well as rewarding people also ensured that we geared up together thus making progress easier. We researched into the current dkp systems and after looking at all the different types of system we decided to basically create one of our own. We decided to stick with certain aspects of the system that we were left so kept the guild bank contributions 5dkp max. at the same time we decided to award dkp for signing up, something that very few guilds offer. We abolished a minimum spend and said that if ppl wanted it it was how much that item was worth to them. At the same time we decided that each 25 man raid should award a minimum amount of dkp. This was set at 4dkp broken down as follows. 1dkp is earned for being on time and available to raid. 1 dkp for being there at the start of the raid. 1 dkp for being there at the end of the raid and finally 1 dkp for being there for the full duration of the raid. At the same time we decided that progress boss's would award 3 dkp.
Now please remember we did not decide all of this in one go. The system has evolved over maby a year and we are still tweaking the system. For instance we found that sign ups were slowing down so we decided that if someone signs up every day that we are due to raid then we award them with a weekly bonus of 3 dkp.... just for taking 2 min to click a box on the website. But that isn't all you get the bonus if you sign to say you can raid and if you sign to say you cant :O.
The basic ethos behind the system is that everyone has the same opportunity to gain dkp, no matter if they get picked to run or not.
So many people then say to us "well how do you stop people building up silly amounts of dkp and then just out-bidding everyone else?" the answer is that we don't have to. Because we run a blind bidding system people bid what each item is worth to them. It may mean that people wait for a while for certain items but due to the members we have in the guild and the fact that we are able to still (yes even in summer) offer a minimum of three 25 man runs a week the items will drop again and it is generally not long before their turn for a certain piece of loot comes around.
Also because bids stay at about the same level for items we tend to find that we have a very Even spread of loot through out the guild meaning that we all progress at around the same rate.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post again and if you have any questions about the dkp system we have set up that are not answered in this post ask away and I will try to explain and also give reasons behind the system we have set up.