Policy/Rule Updates. by rinn February 18, 2016 at 12:02 AM UTC

Hey!

This week, the Administrative Team has set our goal to updating and adding policies that we believe need to be implemented or fixed. Some of these policies have been suggested by ViceWatercolour and have been accepted, others have been created by Arigenn, Posighdun, and I in our department.

Updates are as follows:

(N) POLICY 3.6 - Developer punishments

Developers do not receive proper punishment or moderator training, therefore may not warn, kick, or ban any users on any Avicus platforms. If any given developer (excluding any who has received an additional rank given the permissions to deal punishments) is caught giving out an infraction without the permission of a senior staff member, they will receive a warning. If more than two of these incidents occur, the developer will be taken to the lead developer directly for further action. A developer may only punish if they ask permission from a senior moderator, or administrator.  

(N) POLICY 6.1 - Administrative Demotion Policy

Administrator demotions are handled by the owner exclusively. No other user or group may impeach an administrator. An administrator or senior moderator should be given 3 days before demotion to wrap up projects, prepare posts, clear up things, assist with others in transition, and contribute final works before gone. They are alerted before their demotion, and after the third day, gone.

Groups that are formed to assemble and impeach a senior moderator or administrator should be given no mind and ignored, as shutting them down causes unnecessary drama. If there are valid complaints, it should be processed through the owner.

(U) POLICY 3.5 - Authority Respect
You may not lie to authority, abuse your powers, mislead the community, mislead your fellow staff, break the rules on other networks, be immature, create groups that's purposes are to harm a person, or group of people, be irresponsible, lead others into retirement, discriminate, be inactive, be disobedient, or represent the server poorly in public. This policy will be enforced on all staff members (senior moderators, moderators, and junior moderators), and administrative action will have to be taken through staff warnings, or demotion.

(N) POLICY 10.1 - Staff Referral Usage
A. Staff referrals are in placement to where any staff member (excluding map developers) that have been staff for exactly 1 month and over can ‘refer’ or recommend a player for a junior moderator trial. The user recommended must have over 24 hours of playing time, at least 4 pages of forum posts, and be active on a majority of services.
B. They are bound to the same conditions as a junior moderator normally is, except they didn’t get in from applications.
C. There should be a majority vote by the entirety of the moderating team excluding junior moderators, and a template should be used somehow to tally your vote (e.g. a green box provided in the stickied thread). When a referral meets a majority of no, it will be locked.
D. The user cannot know that they were referred from staff due to confidentiality purposes. This is the only user-related restriction on referrals. They also cannot request a referral.

(N) POLICY 11.1 - Translation Project Rules

The rule translation project is to include the languages that are relevant to the user base. These would be at this current state English, Spanish, and German. Any other languages may be added, however they are not required to be updated consistently with the others. If a ruleset is outdated past a translation and it cannot be updated properly, in a time frame of 2 weeks, that specific ruleset translation is considered deprecated and removed from the website. If there is an incorrect translation, the senior staff are to forward it immediately to a developer (if the user does not do it themselves). Incorrect translations, minor or major, should be attended to with any available user to translate it. Keep in mind, revising or translation will not be available to users who are not fluent in a language. If the community wants a new language to be added, and they veto for it under proper basis, they may make such a request for the language, and ALL staff groups are intended to discuss it. Under no circumstance for a translation language request should it be private. A translation team is not recognized officially as a staff group, but a translator group is recommended to tackle the rule project. The translation project is lead especially by an administrator.

(U)

POLICY 2.2 - Retirement Policy

Reassessment is a system used to reconsider if a staff member has been falsely demoted from the network, or wishes to return. The staff reserve the right to decline any reassessment request for consideration. If a retired staff member wants a reassessment, they are to contact the user relevant to the group (mapdev -> head mapdev, mod -> senior mod), etc. and wait up to a few days for an official response. If a user returns, they may only return once on that condition. Multiple retirements will not be permitted, and will restrict you from rejoining the team.

KEY:

(N) = New policy

(U) = Updated policy

Any comments/suggestions about these, other, or future policies should be posted below.

Footnote: Expect a new/updated appeal system with guidelines/rules soon!

Footnote: I'll update this thread whenever something in the policy changes.

Regards,