Difference between revisions of "Staff Guidelines"

Revision as of 23:40, 2 January 2014

All staff members of Runsafe (Moderators and Admins) are expected to stick to the following guidelines listed on this page. The guidelines will be in effect as of December 31st 2013, and all new staff thereafter will be directed to this page upon initiation of their staff position within the community. If at any point we catch staff members becoming too lazy about adhering to these new guidelines, we will look to punish or remove them from the ranks if needed.

1. Every fellow player and staff member are to be treated with respect. Be polite to each other. If you are witness to an argument evolving between players, you should seek to diffuse it in a mature manner without causing further upset, and in doing so your views on the matter should appear unbiased toward either party. Friendly kidding around is permitted, but should you do this, make sure that fellow staff and players know you are only joking. Be very careful who you kid around with, as they may take it the wrong way. Avoid having a passive aggressive attitude towards anyone, and do not carry true malice in your words.

2. Any dispute you have with another staff member should be kept outside our public chat channels (TeamSpeak, Minecraft) and resolved in private. Do not bicker in the public eye. If you are in a situation where you believe another staff member is treating a player unfairly and you wish to stick up for them, you may do so in a unbiased, mature manner. The other staff member should respond to you in the same way. Any and all disputes that you feel must be in public should be kept calm and mature. Petty insults, rude behavior and mean-spirited communication will not be permitted. We understand this may all be very difficult, but we expect staff to at least make a strong effort to get along. If you feel another staff member dislikes you, know that there must be some reason behind this, and you should seek to find this reason rather than treating them poorly in return. You should focus on being kind to the other staff rather than brooding about those who are unkind to you. If you are doing nothing to agitate fellow staff and they are treating you unfairly without reason, it easier for the admins to address the issue, as only one person is being a problem. Do not lash back at other staff, and do not treat them unfairly in any way even if you dislike them.

3. You should seek to make yourself seen as a friendly, approachable player on our servers. This includes the avoidance of scamming, bad-mouthing, argument causing and immature language. Falsifying information for personal or other gains is not permitted. We expect staff to treat all players fairly, and we recommend you do not hold grudges towards certain players. Your position on the server means you are a role-model for the server, we expect staff to set a good example for our player base. Your behavior is expected to reflect the greater responsibility inherited with your position in the staff ranks.

4. If you believe players are breaking any rules, make sure they are aware of said rules before punishing. Do not immediately kick or mute without warning unless you believe the player knows better.

5. As a member of staff, the needs of players must be put above your own in-game experience. If a player on our game servers requires assistance, advice or help, you should seek to aid them providing another staff member has not done so. If multiple staff accidentally start helping a player at the same time, do not compete with the others to continue helping them. Allow the first person who responded to handle it. If you believe another staff member has provided insufficient information and you have something to add, you may do so. Staff should not get into conflicts over helping a player.

6. All staff members are expected to pull their own weight. At no point should you avoid fulfilling the role of your rank within the presence of others with the same responsibilities. Workloads should be shared across members of staff equally. We understand that you may not get as many chances as other staff to help the playerbase, and we only expect you to try your best. We also expect other staff to avoid hogging the workload. Staff who do the most work are not valued as much as staff who can share it properly. Nonetheless, if at any point you suspect another member of staff is not not making an effort to pull their own weight, it is not your place to call them out on this. Contact an admin in private and express your concerns. Our admins are constantly communicating with one another to keep general concerns of the server networked, and action will be taken if needed.

7. Staff members should work to educate members of the server on our rules and guidelines where possible. If a player does not understand something, you should take the time to explain it in a more understandable fashion. Do not heckle them, we welcome all age groups to the server and expect patience to be exercised where needed.

8. The server is prone to have bugs and exploitable mechanics, and staff are human making them prone to mistakes. If at any point you are presented with any of these problems, you should seek to contact an admin as soon as possible. If you suspect another person (or member of staff) is abusing a bug or exploit, they should be reported without question through private communication with an admin. If other non-staff players are involved in the exploit, you should advise them action will be taken if they exercise any means of exploiting it.

9. Being a member of staff grants powers beyond that of normal players, these powers should be used for their intended purpose only. If a member of staff is caught abusing their given powers, action will be taken to remove them from their position. If you suspect a fellow staff member of power abuse, report them in private to an admin. If said staff member is an admin, report them to another admin when the chance arises.

10. As a staff member, you are granted the ability to delete and regenerate Creative plots. This does not mean you should delete or regenerate any plot that you simply dislike. Use this power sparingly. You are looking to find and delete pointless piles of unfinished rubbish, not just tacky castles or silly creations that you consider "pointless" or "stupid". Unfinished plots should also only be deleted if the player has been offline for more than two weeks. If a plot only contains something that could be seen as offensive (sexual content, racism, etc.), you may delete it. If the plot also contains other quality creations that are not offensive, attempt to contact the player when they are online and request that they remove the offensive content. If they do not comply, you may regenerate the plot. If they player has been offline for more than two weeks, you are not required to contact them and you may delete the plot.

11. Your position on Runsafe does not extend past our walls, we are not responsible for anything you do on other servers. However, if we are made aware you are using your connections with Runsafe on other public services that show a negative view toward Runsafe. This includes, but is not limited to: Encouraging server wars, advertising Runsafe on other servers, unauthorized creation of advertisements/web pages/services under the name of Runsafe.

12. While we understand that not everyone is fully fluent in English, and that spelling and grammatical errors may occur, we expect people to avoid using abbreviations and exercise the use of correct grammar and spelling as much possible. Our staff are to be reflected as a mature team of capable individuals, and we ask that you help us in promoting this view. This also extends to our voice servers such as TeamSpeak. That being said, the use of acronyms such as "afk" and "lol" are understandable for quicker communication, and are acceptable if not used excessively. If you believe a staff member is not exercising the use of good grammar and spelling, do not confront them, inform an admin.

13. Staff should not immediately confront players for spamming or using capitals (seriously). The nChat plugin handles excessive use of capitals, extreme amounts of spam, and basic forms of advertising. Your goal is to help players and prevent them from getting into trouble. You should not be looking for reasons to call them out for any little thing. If a player says "I WON!!!!!" after a spleef match or spams a word a few times, just let it go. You should be looking to confront players who are actually causing a problem or annoying other players.

14. Account sharing is not allowed for staff under any circumstances. If someone's account is noted as insecure multiple times, they will be demoted in the interests of security. We reserve the right to demote for any reason, but this should be taken into account by all members of staff. When you are promoted you will be given a host key, this will replace the minecraft.runsafe.no IP. You will need this host key to connect to runsafe for security reasons. Do not share this host key with any other players this is for your eyes and your eyes only.

15. If a player is becoming a problem and an admin chooses to intervene, all moderators should stop responding to that player's messages. This is to avoid confusion when an admin is attempting to resolve the issue. Do not interject anything into a conflict with a player once an admin has stepped in, even if the player is speaking to you. If the admin grants you permission to speak, you may, but otherwise you should assume that you are meant to remain silent until the player has been dealt with. This appies to issues involving multiple players as well. We understand it may be extremely difficult to add your two cents to any conflict that you are already involved in, but you must resist the urge. If everything the player says receives a response from every staff member, it drowns out the only messages that actually need to be there, which are the admin's. We would also prefer you not respond to interjections by other players who are outside of the conflict, as this can further complicate and prolong the issue. The admins can deal with everything more quickly and efficiently without assistance from other staff.

Failure to adhere to the above guidelines will result in suitable punishment with possible escalation of a demotion or removal from the server.