I feel I have reached a stage where I would stand to gain a great deal from joining a guild. My interests are currently:
Levelling up my main (currently 28) - alliance on aggramar
Starting to do instances
Social aspects of guild membership
Mucking around in game just for a laugh
And in future I expect to:
Do a little raiding, although not hardcore 4 times a week (can't afford the time), more as a stand in / casual raider
...and I am more than happy to help lower levels as I become a higher level.
So what I am looking for in a guild is:
Mix of levels - don't want to be the only lowbie or constantly higher level than most.
Mostly adults - because it would weird me out to hang out with loads of 14 year olds all the time (I'm 27).
NOT a hard core raiding guild (obviously) or a guild that claims they are not a hard core raiding guild but only gets together to raid.
Some opportunity to have a chat in game - whether game related or not.
Larger rather than smaller - so there is a greater chance of people being online - so no 10 person guilds if possible.
Occasional guild events would be nice.
I have no interest in borrowing money for mounts / equipment - that all seems easy enough to come by with minimum effort - so don't need a guild with serious banking going on.
PvE server - I can't handle the prospect of getting ganked constantly while I'm trying to level and I don't really want to do it to anyone else.
My problem has been finding an appropriate guild:
Obviously I ignore the spam in cities (not joining a guild which goes around asking people randomly).
Everyone advertising in game seems to be looking for 60+ raiders.
The official forums are a nightmare - both realm and guild recruitment (eg: 1st! 2nd! for several pages followed by 12 year olds flaming each other).
I can't join people I know IRL because MMO gaming is not a habit of people I know IRL (or if it is they keep it as quiet as I do - necessary amongst my social circle).
If someone could suggest a way for me to find an appropriate guild I would really appreciate it.
I would suggest looking for a social, leveling guild for now. In my experience, there are guilds that are leveling guilds with a range of character levels, and there are raiding guilds that are dominated by 70s. Raiding guilds often have players with alts, but the main focus is on end-game and the leveling toons are more or less on their own. Leveling guilds are much more likely to include a range a characters that will be looking to run lower level instances and/or quest with people.
For the time being, I'd suggest running some instances or group quests and finding people that you like to play with. It's a good way to identify like-minded people. You will undoubtedly run across some idiots as well, but that's the nature of WoW.
Don't think you necessarily have to find a guild that will take you from your current level to end-game raiding. Once you hit 70, you'll probably re-evaluate your guild and have to decide if they are capable of running end-game (if that's what you'd like to do) or if they were just a leveling guild.
In my own case, I ran with a guild from mid 20s until 70. I found the guild while doing a group quest with a couple of people from the guild. They were mature and cool, so I joined up. When I hit 70, it was clear that the guild was not going to be raiding any time soon as other 70s trickled away to raiding guilds. Because my goal was to start raiding, I eventually joined a couple friends in a new raiding guild. It helped to have those friends kind of scout out the raiding guild, so I knew I was going into a good situation.