We've been raiding since May 2005 and made to with simply doing copy/paste threads on our forum with polls which had the classes as viable options. This is functional but takes more work than the process ought to and provides limited logging (we can see the old threads of course but it hardly provides an overview) and I know that even reasonably simple software developed for that purpose could optimize that process quite a bit for us. With the expansion coming out, this seems like an ideal time to review old processes and and improve where it appears possible.

Which methods are other guilds to handle this (assuming you use signups of course - I hear it's uncommon outside the EU) and what software have you found useful for it?

Raidninja - http://www.lemonrage.com/raidninja/

Could be better, could be worse, but at least you get a sense of who might be coming.

Using a vBulletin board + vbadvanced and implemented my own modules for guild roster + Signup + a RAP (raid attendance points) system [explanation below].

Created own profile fields (ingame class, race, tradeskills) and using my modules to read the fields to create all those pages.
Means you set one time which race/class you play and the whole system is aware of you.
Thought of publishing the scripts but I found out that most guilds dont even manage to set up a phpBB properly so I cba to put it up and then support all the issues which would definately occur.

The RAP system reads our EQDKP 30day attendance and puts it into a edit box - if you have to sit out of a raid an Officer just adds the points and you'll be sorted descending depending on your class (might change it for TBC tho with all the hybrid stuff going).
If we have to decide who has to sit out for the next raid we just base the decision on who has the lowest RAP pool in the class.
In case we get a new trial he'll get class average as initial RAP.

For taking logs we used a logging tool found on curse and altered it so it fits our needs - EQDKP to manage DKP.
Homepage to check the roster/DKP page can be found in my profile.

My favorite feature btw is that I included a huge "SIGN UP, SLACKER" on top of the forums if you didnt sign up for the next mandatory raid yet :p

atm we are using a webinterface. it shows the upcoming raids and hovering over the raid shows you how many of each class signed up. officers can close the signing and finalize the raid list. then the signup button turns to a link with the final raid list, showing who of which class is in.
before we used an ingame tool, guildmanager. it shows who signed up sorted by when they signed. when we used that, there was no option to sort it by class or make a final raid list, so we dropped that.

We use phpraider: http://www.spiffyjr.com/

People sign up for raids using the guild website. Before the raid starts the raidleader can make a selection between the players that signed up if there are too many and this selection will be shown on the webpage. Works quite well, can't complain about it.

I'll shout about what we use, since I very much doubt that anyone else here is using it (I think it was developed by a guy on our realm):-

http://www.wow-raidar.com/

Basically you sign up, create your toons, complete with resistances & ctprofiles if required, then someone creates your guild and sticks all the characters he recognises in it.

From then on whenever you log onto it, you can see all PuG and Guild instance runs that are scheduled.

Whoever creates a raid is leader for that raid, he can appoint deputies, who can then change people's status from "listed" to "drafted" and so on.

It might not be perfect, but it works a lot better than a lot of stuff I've tried.

I'm surprised to be the first to say that we use nothing. No web signups, no nothing. People turn up at 19.30ish, and we raid from 20.00 to 24.00, 5 days a week, and we're fairly progressed as well, halfway through Naxx. And we're not a 200 people guild either. There's at most 45 online at raidtime, so it works for us. I'm not an officer in my guild, but when I joined I was surprised how well zero-management could work.

Edit: To clarify, for purposes of logging, we use EQDKP, which the RL updates after the raid, it lists what encounters we did, loot, and who was there for each encounter, some Addon logs these details, and I suspect the RL just uploads this data. So we have no signup procedure, but logging is provided by EQDKP and some in-game addon that collects the relevant data.

We almost got that. The only thing we got is a "sign-off" thread on our forum.
We're a raiding guild, so we expect everyone to show up and if they don't, then they post that they aren't.

We use Guild Event Manager (http://wow.curse-gaming.com/en/files...event-manager/). It's an addon where you just click the raids that you want to attend. Nice features include auto invite the first 40 signed up, display of classes signed up and a replacement queue for people that are not sure they can make it in time.

We use this as well, and I've found it to be really reliable in not only figuring out who wants to be there, but who checks the forums often (since a portion of the community is casual, not everybody checks the forums and knows exactly what's going on). It's simple to set up, and is actually pretty flexible in it's operation.

From a German author, so "Planer" is perfectly correct. ;)