Advertising is dragging someone from the topic of the site to another game or product, like stealing customers from the community.. Since guild recruitment is in-game, there is no rule infringement of any kind. This is why we can have threads that introduce public contests like the Halloween and Holiday hat contests we've seen in the past. A separate forum wouldn't hurt, but for the number of guild recruitment threads created, is it really worth it to create an entire sub forum just to place these threads? If there are more threads created, I would see no problem with it.

Regarding the guild system, it has been like that on this server for nearly 3 years now. Thousands have been small and general, proving to be nothing more than the next guild. However, many have gone on to become significant. Less on this server than any other, but the common fact still stands. I agree, there are tons of guilds that don't serve much of a purpose beyond just another name. I applaud the ones brave enough to take the guild to the next step by implementing a public informal/casual recruitment bulletin.