Information Staff Guidelines

[skylion]

This thread provides all of the need-to-know information for moderators and administrators.

1. General Information

1A) Do not leak or stream any form of in-game admin chat, discord channels and/or forum boards. Leaking any one of the aforementioned is a severe offense and will lead to immediate suspension if not outright removal of your privileges.​

​

1B) Do not verbally abuse other members of the community or badmouth them in private. Staff talking about players behind their back can lead to them feeling unwelcome at the community. Venting is one thing, but there is a difference.​

​

1C) Do not use your admin status for any form of personal gain. This includes forcibly inserting yourself into other people's RP, giving yourself or others unfair advantages by spawning free items or setting flags, metagaming, powergaming, and moderating situations you're actively involved in.​

​

1D) Do not try to bypass donator-only functionality or let other players do so by using admin commands. This includes setting donator models for yourself or your friends; These models take time and effort to create and you're detracting from their work and taking money out of their pocket and the server's by giving them away freely.​

​

1E) Do not handle in-game situations by punishing somebody without any communication. When handling a player that possibly broke a rule on the server, respond with respect and common decency. The way we treat the player base is important, even if you don't always get the same in return. Follow the ban guidelines below on players and do not ban them for absurd amounts of time because they called you a dick or because they blew up your car in-game with a flying prop. Remember that most of them are here to enjoy themselves, and that a little understanding can oftentimes come a long way in cooling tensions.​

​

1F) Do not ignore admin requests when you're perfectly able to respond. Regularly ignoring requests while you're "busy roleplaying" can quickly put an unfair amount of pressure on the rest of the team. Sometimes you'll have no choice but to tell the people you're RPing with that you'll be back in a second - they will understand. Your position necessitates that you sometimes put the needs of the of the server ahead of your own. If you absolutely cannot answer a request or just really need a break, communicate it. It is the collective responsibility of the staff online to make sure that requests get responded to, regardless of who ends up doing it.​

​

1G) Treat new players well and with respect. New players always have the potential to become good roleplayers and functional members of the community, but that oftentimes will require an admin or player taking time out of their day to explain how everything on here works and making sure that this server is the right server for them. We cannot afford to scare away or simply ignore legitimately interested players, even if they may not have any prior experience. All of us started in that same place at some point, and if someone shows a willingness to learn they deserve to be given a chance and cut some extra slack where appropriate.​

​

1H) Do not badmouth the community or other staff members. We are a team, and if we don't look like one, facilitating any sort of roleplay will become immensely difficult. It's okay to have your issues with the community, the server or other admins - discuss them with an RDA and let us help solve these issues rather than letting them fester in private.​

​

1I) Do not roleplay on your staff character slot. This only applies to moderators - these characters are for running events, facilitating roleplay and making sure the server is running smooth with no troublemakers. They are not for roleplaying on; the only exception is if you're roleplaying a necessary character for an event you're running.​

​

Items

2A) Spawning free equipment for yourself or other players on the server is not allowed under nearly any circumstance. Characters that need items spawned in order to function are obviously exempt.​

​

2B) Do not abuse custom item permissions. Custom items are meant to be used for event items or special one-off things that don't have a real reason to be implemented into the script. They're not for creating goofy vanity items like body pillows, personal effects or common objects like cigarette packets.​

​

Faction Interactions

3A) Unless a situation is drastic enough to call for administrative intervention, leave faction matters up to the leadership of that faction. Only decide to intervene when it's deemed absolutely necessary.​

​

3B) Do not leverage your admin powers to take lead over a faction you're not in charge of. Never leverage your OOC admin position to persuade players to follow and listen to you in character; this is a roleplay server, and you detract heavily from the experience when using your power to make characters do something that they'd not ordinarily do. If you need a faction like COTA to do certain things during an event, try to instruct them through their own leadership first before any kind of direct OOC ordering around.​

​

3C) Do not give yourself characters in any faction without clearing it with the leads first. This causes extreme confusion. You, as an admin, are not entitled to free positions within factions because of your scoreboard badge. You still have to play by the rules of either applying or getting permission as anyone else would.​

​

Punishment guidelines:

This is the guideline that all staff members should try to follow when deciding if they should ban a player, and for how long they should ban them for.

Keep in mind that guidelines are just that: a guideline. You were made staff because we believe you will be able to make the right call. If you think 5 minutes is okay, you can do 5 minutes. If you are utterly convinced someone is entirely malicious, you are obviously not required to first give them three temporary bans.

This section also comes with a "golden rule": communicate. You cannot effectively administrate with script features alone when it comes to disciplinary action.

A ban has little to no impact if there is no confrontation prior to it. Ideally, it should be a time in which they reflect on what happened and how they can avoid it happening again, and not something to simply wait out. We are trying to correct unwanted behavior, and this should be understood by them. There can be no doubt in a player's mind as to what exactly they did wrong, who banned them or why someone else got away with it but they didn't.

Use common sense and decide whether someone's rule break is worth a kick or a ban in the first place. There is no need to jump straight to punishment when a normally well-behaved player commits a minor offense or makes a mistake. A quick PM can be all it takes to let someone know they are being disruptive.

Respond to incidents proportionately, and give people a chance to learn from their mistakes before resorting to heavier punishment. When in doubt, ask other staff or an RDA.

Minor disruptions: People that won't stop messing around or are otherwise detracting from the server's quality in small ways. Things that seem too nitpicky to immediately resort to punishments.

• Individual discretion. Usually, confronting the behavior and communicating that it will not be tolerated is enough.
  If not, you can resort to kicks or short bans. People that persistently repeat this kind of behavior despite numerous interventions may need something more serious to understand that no means no.

Moderate disruptions: This is the run-of-the-mill insulting players, punchwhoring, trying to swipe up scripts in an unfair manner, or otherwise disrupting the experience for other players.

• 1st strike: one hour.
• 2nd strike: twelve hours.
• 3rd strike: one day.

Metagaming/powergaming: Metagaming is using knowledge gained unfairly to impact in-character roleplay, despite the fact that your character wouldn't have said information. Powergaming is unfairly roleplaying in accordance with someone else or a general situation: brute-forcing your way through someone blocking your way and refusing to stop and let them emote, suddenly deciding that your gunshot wound is healed, inappropriately responding to someone's punch and saying it kills you to put them in a bad light are all examples of powergame.

• 1st strike: six hours.
• 2nd strike: one day.
• 3rd strike: three days.

Hacking/exploiting. Hacking is using an external client for purposes such as aimbotting, ESPing, or bunny-hopping. Exploiting is using an unknown bug in the script for personal gain or otherwise using features of the script in a malicious and unfair way.

• 1st strike: permanent ban.

Repeat offenders: Discuss with staff. People who pass over their third strike will either be subject to a week ban or depending on severity, a permanent ban with the opportunity to appeal.