At the beginning of January I opened up a thread to discuss changes that need to happen to moderation with the community. We have finished making our changes and re-writes to the Staff In-Game Moderation Guidelines. Firstly I would like to thank you guys for all your input, it truly has been helpful. There are some enforcement changes that you guys should expect, should you decide to break the rules. There is no more tempban that is triggered by a warn-count. Yes guys, that means you can no longer troll and break rules till your 6th warn, rinse and repeat when your warns eventually wipe. Chat Offenses in the Staff Guidelines are organized now into “Degrees” depending on their severity. Each “Degree” has its own punishment scale. First Degree: First Offense: Verbal Warn Second Offense: Official Warn Third Offense: Kick Fourth Offense: Tempban for 6 hours Fifth Offense: Full ban Second Degree Scale: First Offense: Official Warn Second Offense: Kick Third Offense: Tempban for 12 hours Fourth Offense: Full Ban Third Degree Scale: First Offense: Kick Second Offense: Full Ban Fourth Degree Scale: First Offense: Full Ban We are giving you this so you guys can be aware of what might happen should you break the rules. We also scaled down the Disallowed Vulgar/Rude Language list. Which I will provide here for you guys so you can be aware of what we will and will not be warning you for. Please take note that this list does not save your butt from using an inappropriate word that isn’t listed here. Inappropriate language is still disallowed, even if we don’t list every explicit swear out there. Directed language is still disallowed in really any form. Spoiler Disallowed Swears: (These words are not allowed in any capacity/censored form or situation unless noted otherwise): -Fuck(Allow users to use in censored form but non directed, this is the only exception) -Cunt -Cuck -Douche -Penis/Vagina (and any words related or referencing to any genitalia including words/slang) -Slave/Slavery -Bitch//Whore/Slut/Prostitute/Skank -Masturbation (any variation/slang/any sexual references) -Chink/Nigger/Coon (or any racial slur/slang term) See [Third-Degree Offenses] for actions of using Racial Slurs -Gay (only if used in a negative/derogatory manner, normal use of the word is fine) -Fag/Faggot/Dyke (any negative connotations towards sexuality) Regarding &k We have also added some enforcement policy regarding the use of &k in Trade messages, as well as general chat use, you guys will be limited to a max of 16 chars per message that are in the &k format, you also still have the freedom to use &k outside of Trade messages provided you are not excessive about it and you still adhere to the character limit. Regarding the "Adult Friendly The Server" Suggestion. I've written a response here detailing how I addressed this suggestion, you can check it out here. Spoiler: Suggestion Thing When we were writing the new guidelines I was actually watching this suggestion at the time and keeping some points in mind. Some of the changes we've made that are relevant to this suggestion. -Swear List is shaved down. We don't enforce against what we used to consider "minor" swears now. Things like shit, damn, hell and such. -We also removed the "poo, pee, vomit" from the list. We never really enforced those anyway. -Added some more detail regarding differences between VIP/Global and what topics should/should not be allowed Regarding "Adult-Friendly" We have already been enforcing VIP as a Sensitive Topics/Politics channel for quite awhile now. This is no-where near the scale of "Anything Goes" that we had in 2016. The Guidelines have been made more clear on what goes where and where to draw the line. Staff have a short-list of hard-banned topics and to deal with blatant trolling with certain topics. They are also instructed to mind these conversations and discontinue them if they get out of hand. Global is still to be kept pretty clean. We still need to cater to all age-groups. I'm hoping this is a happy medium. As for any topics you may be asked to discontinue, it is really probably best suited for more private mediums anyway. We still have to remember we are a game server. Users who are made uncomfortable daily by chat leave, users who are simply told to take the conversation elsewhere do not, despite grumbling about it. Basically we updated the Guidelines to match what we are currently enforcing(not the dumb stuff... yeah) and to clarify what should be hard-banned since there were a few clarification issues regarding the legality of some topics somewhat recently. As Andrew said we would appreciate suggestions on any changes to enforcement in 1-3 months if things are not working out, for now we shall see how this goes. Your current Warns and Notes: We have decided with the implementation of the new moderation guidelines and a new enforcement procedure to wipe everyone's Warns and Notes. This was decided to better start off on a proper foot with a clean slate, we didn’t want the team trying to apply a new enforcement system on old notes and warns from a time when consistency is extremely poor and the actual moderation of chat is rather weak. This is a special case, we still hold the policy that warns cannot be removed if they happen to be wrongful. However you will no longer be subject to an early automatic ban because of a mis-warn as the tempban resulting from the warn-count has been removed. Warns and Notes will still be relevant for 30 days, Staff will be reviewing all recorded notes/warns within the last 30 days when issuing punishment. I will continue to leave the thread up in the Suggestions area for current discussion regarding moderation. We are looking at reviewing all areas, however in-game is what we needed to tackle first.
I appreciate all the hard work put in by the staff team and their openness to listening to members of the server as to how they think the server should be run. I have noticed more coherent modding of the server in the past few weeks and it has created a more pleasurable experience. I was even publicly apologised to by a staff member for a verbal warn that they did not think I warranted after they reread what I had said. Great job to everyone involved especially those that work mostly behind the scenes.
So just for clarification on the new degrees of chat offenses, those are permanent, right? Like let’s say I do a third degree today and get kicked and in a year I do another third degree. That’s a ban then, right?
30 days, your warns/notes still wipe after 30 days. So like, in a year that kick won't really be there anymore.
Got it. Thanks for the clarification. And thank you for doing this Clar. It looks like it took a while
Thank you so much for taking our suggestions to make ECC better as a whole. It’s so nice to see my own suggestions up there and know this is to not only improve ECC, but make the experiences as a whole a lot better.
Thank you for doing this, Clar! I am excited to see how this helps the server. I do have a few questions. Will the new guidelines be made public so we can know what degree each of the rules is? Also, are all the staff required to follow this exactly or is there room for them to decide, let's say, not to /warn but to just give another verbal?
We have decided to not publicize the guidelines, they really are written to Staff, for Staff. We let you know the severity varies depending on the offense so you are not surprised if one user receives a verbal, and another gets a /warn or kick because they did something more serious. I will think about posting a public list of what offenses we have listed under what degree, but not our full guidelines. They are required to follow the guidelines exactly, there is no room to decide a difference of punishment. Interpretation the rules broken is where the issues might come up when a user commits an offense. This area does need work and we already have some plans to work with the Staff on improving this.
Thank you for all the work and effort you go to in order to provide us a more enjoyable server experience. It is very sad that you have to spend so much of your own personal time simply because of trolls and players that are just not capable of being mature.
I would like clarification on the /warn system and 7 warns = temp ban as I have been told by staff in game something completely different than what is listed here.
I was told there are still tempbans at 7 warns they are just staff triggered now instead of automatically
No. There are tempbans issued if you continue to break the rules as shown above, they are not triggered by a certain warn count.
