Hello Ecocitycraft Community,

The intent of this suggestion is to be a thread that starts a discussion that helps clarify how the rules are written, without changing the intent of the rules. If you read through the current server rules, there are some outdated and / or poorly phrased clauses that exist, and this is my attempt to bring attention to them so they can be fixed by the administration. At no point in this thread am I attempting to change any rules, I am just trying to make the rules be more accurate and up to date in their wording. As such, any sections or clauses that I have not changed in anyway will not going to be present in this post.

As for the ones that I did change, I will leave a spoiler containing the formatting key of what my mark-ups means if you happen to be unsure. This post is written with the comment found in Section 2, clause 4 of the rules to file a suggestion if you happen to see any ways of the rules being unclear.

Also, before anyone comments this isn't in the suggestion format, the sticky says the format is only a suggestion, and not required. Seeing as having the format breaks the flow of how this is written, I have decided to discard it for this post.

Spoiler: Formatting Key

Example Text means it was part of the current rule that I suggest gets removed.
Example Text means it was text I suggest be added to the rule
{1} means there is a comment below the spoiler that explains further on a certain point. Only used in areas with multiple edits, or where I want to bring up a comment, without editing the text. In the cases where there are no number, and only a comment below the spoiler, the comment is direct to the only edit in the spoiler.

The color of the comment text has no meaning besides to help break the pattern of pure white text.

1 This is an example of how a comment will appear with an additional explanation as to why the number is there.


Section 1 - General Gameplay:

Spoiler: Section 1 Clause 1

Clause 1 - Universal Living

It is up to each individual user to survive in the best way they can. A large majority of the main worlds and the mining world is unprotected, and grief can and will happen in those areas.
If you wish to reduce the possibility of grief, it’s encouraged that you seek out a mayor or president who has a town with plots for sale and speak with them about obtaining a plot. For more information about obtaining plots in protected towns, and the rights of the mayors and presidents of a protected town, please see Section 5 of the rules.

The edit is there to reflect the change that Rising and Legacy are both main worlds now, instead of just Legacy.

Spoiler: Section 1 Clause 2.1

Clause 2.1 Disallowed Structures

There are several disallowed structures on this server, which are prohibited even in the wild:

Blocks spelling out inappropriate language.
Signs with defamatory and/or vulgar language.
Cactus farms.
Player traps in non-PvP worlds.
Continuous redstone clocks are not allowed.
Temporary, small redstone clocks are fine so long as they are only used for a short period at a time.
Farms that operate by means of Redstone Lamps or turning off the lights in order to break crops (aka. "Light farming")
Large passive mob farms or any large collection of passive mobs are strictly forbidden.
Small farms (roughly 50 mobs or less) are allowed so long as they do not cause any server lag.
Any buildings deemed inappropriate by staff.

The rules are meant to set a hard limit on the amount of mobs in an area. Saying "Roughly X or less" makes it seem more like a suggestion of how many mobs you can have -- rather than a hard limit, as this rule should be.

Spoiler: Section 1 Clause 2.2

Clause 2.2 Spawn Shops

Spawn Shops are server-owned shop plots that have their own portal leading from spawn directly to the shopping area. You must be a resident or higher rank to rent one of these.
A minimum of 8-10{1} trade signs must be in your store area. Not following this rule risks getting evicted. This is not your personal private plot; this is your commercial store plot.
If after 2 weeks of rental you have not placed the minimum trade signs then you risk losing the shop.
There are a few materials that cannot be placed in spawn shops, having any of the following in your shop may result in you forfeiting the shop without refund:
No lava, fire, water, horses, natural trees{2}, or vines.
No item frames.
No redstone lamps or working redstone.
Decorative redstone, such as redstone blocks, is allowed so long as there's nothing in adjacent blocks for it to power (ie. It can't work at all, it can only be pretty.)
No active music notes.{3}

1 Having a range of numbers -- as with Section 1, Clause 2.1 -- makes it seem like a suggestion, instead of the minimum requirement. Seeing as this is a requirement that is affected by no other circumstances, it should be a single number.

2 Not listed in the forum thread, however natural trees should still be listed in there.

3 Note blocks are also not explicitly listed in the forum thread, and seeing as the only effective way to activate them is with redstone, the working redstone rule would cover this. If the staff still feel this should be in place, they should edit the rental thread to also include these as something separate.

Spoiler: Section 1 Clause 2.3

Clause 2.3 Locks and Protection

You cannot build a house out of or protect a house with anything that is considered a tile entity, or otherwise have a massive number of any of these items in an area for purposes other than their general intended purpose within Minecraft game play.

It does not matter if these blocks are locked by LWC or not.

Tile entities include (but may not be limited to based on future Minecraft updates): Furnaces, Signs, Enchanting Tables, Brewing Stands, Chests, and Noteblocks.
You are still allowed to use these blocks for their general purpose.
Having buildings built almost or completely out of any of these blocks may warrant them being world edited out.{1}
If you need to protect a building in any of the methods that using any of these blocks used to be used for, you are now able to lock Obsidian in replacement for these tile entities. Please note that this is still limited to the number of LWCs you have available.

1 Nowhere within the clause does it specify, or attempt to specify, how many tile entities are considered too much. For example, say a user wants to have a 10x3 furnace wall to smelt items, and uses them to do such. Would that count as a legitimate use of the blocks, or an attempt to bend the rules? An exact number needs to be set for this to prevent people from accidentally making something too large and getting in trouble.

Spoiler: Section 1 Clause 5

Clause 5 - Inappropriate Usernames and Skins

Any skin deemed offensive or vulgar is not allowed. This can include anything from Hitler skins to nude skins and this is moderated solely at staff discretion. Offending users will be asked to change their skin, and failure to do so may result in removal from the server.
In addition, inappropriate Inappropriate usernames are not allowed on the server, and may be removed once brought to the attention of the staff team.
The most common inappropriate username offences are those with vulgar language and/or racial slurs within them. However, other types of inappropriate usernames may be locked if the staff team deems them not suitable for our playerbase.
Users who are normally law-abiding members of the community but get banned for an inappropriate username may appeal by following the steps below:

1. Change your Minecraft username (You may do this at www.minecraft.net by purchasing a new minecraft account)
2. Make a Ban appeal through your old forum account at our Ban Appeal Section
3. Have 2-3 users from our community vouch for your character.
4. Once approved, we will transfer your entire account over to your new username.

You keep:

All balance, homes, mail, and basically everything in your essentials userdata file.
You will also keep ownership/membership of any towns you are part of.
Your McMMO levels will be transferred over for you.
Your old forum account will get a username change and will keep all posts, threads, and everything else associated with it including password, pms, etc.

You lose:

Any exp you currently have on you.
Your inventory currently on your user.
Anything in your enderchest.

We suggest storing these items in a chest somewhere before the account lock-out is final as well storing the exp in a trade sign somewhere.

You will lose your current Survival Game stats located at http://www.ecocitycraft.com/sgstats.

You need to:

Transfer over any LWCs you have yourself. We suggest logging in from both accounts simultaneously and doing this transfer yourself with our LWC commands.
Once all of the above is done please contact our staff to permanently lock your old account out.

5. We may offer you a $25 ECC coupon code which will be pmed to you via our forums. You will be able to redeem this in the EcoCityCraft Shop after approval of your new name.

Minor grammar change that makes the rule flow better.

Section 2 - Griefing, Trolling and Harassment

Spoiler: Section 2 Clause 2

Clause 2 - Trolling

This rule is super simple. Don’t be a troll, and especially don’t troll others away from the server. Please look up “Troll (Internet)” for a more comprehensive definition.
This includes flaming or attempts to start any form of chaos and discord within the server.
Trolling is not allowed on the server, especially any trolling that is directed towards another user. This includes, but is not limited to:
Flame baiting
Harassment (See Section 2 Clause 3.)
Cyber-bullying

The way this rule is written currently is condescending, and provides no examples of what trolling actually is. While I only included a short list of things that it can count as, the concept fits much better as a rule than the current verison, as it defines the term trolling, instead of telling them to search the web for it, which may turn up different results for different people, causing some people to be confused.

Section 4 - Chat, Channels and Discussions:

Spoiler: Section 4 Clause 1.3

Clause 1.3 - Shouts and Lottery

For Shouts:

No advertisement [that is forbidden by Section 4 Clause 1.2], touchy subject/discussions, special characters that are not used in their correct context, and {1}languages other than English.
Only numbers, letters, basic symbols found on a standard American QWERTY{ 2}keyboard may be used.
Shouts with the intent of causing other users to spam or spam another user in any way, such as requesting others to private message them, are not allowed.
Shouts disguised to look like server messages, private messages, balance payments, etc. are not allowed.
All types of chat formatting are available for shouts. CAPS, in-game advertisements, colors, and font styles (Italics, bold, underline, strikes) are completely allowed.

For both Shouts and Lottery:

Spamming either shouts or lottery is allowed to an extent. Excessive use of either command which results in chat being hard to read may result in a warning or a kick from the Staff.

1 This should be an important change, as there are some characters that can be used correctly that would be excluded, such as currency symbols besides the dollar sign if this rule was to be enforced exactly as it is currently written.

2 "Standard Keyboard" can be very different based on where a user may be located. As such, a key that is commonly found on one keyboard, may be completely absent on another. By adding what keyboard counts as "Standard" will allow this rule to be enforced better. "American QWERTY" may not be the best term to use to define it, however it gets the point across better.

Spoiler: Section 4 Clause 2

Clause 2 - Vulgarity

Inappropriate and vulgar language is not allowed. This includes anything put on signs, said in chat, written in books, renamed to on items (see Section 3 Clause 2.1), spelt out in blocks (see Section 2 Clause 2.1) {1}, or any other way of communicating.
Occasional mild to moderate vulgarities that are not directed at anyone (such as "slip-ups" or saying them in the incorrect chat by accident), self-censorship of a swear word or abbreviations that may imply a swear word (ie. WTF?) are allowed unless it is directed at another user.
Repeated or excessive swearing, and especially vulgar language directed at anyone, is not tolerated under any circumstance.
Racist language or prejudicial language of any sort falls under the vulgarity rule, and is considered a very serious offence, punishment of which may not warrant a warning before being given a ban {2} .

1 Added the section in parenthesis that explains that in more detail, as there is with the renaming of items.

2 The sentence isn't finished in the current version of the rules. Kick / ban may be a more appropriate term for what the rule is trying to say that just being explicitly a ban.

Spoiler: Section 4 Clause 3

Clause 3 - Inappropriate/Touchy Subjects and Discussions

EcoCityCraft is a server community consisting of many age groups, religious groups, and political backgrounds. As such, there are many touchy subjects that we do not allow in our public channels in order to keep the peace and prevent arguments and flame wars from occurring.
All chat must be kept appropriate and clean at all times. There is to be no discussion of anything deemed inappropriate for a workplace, including, but not limited to, sexuality, excessive violence, alcohol/drugs and inappropriate or dark humor.
This rule extends into subjects about illegal substances or actions, including drugs{1}.
Politics, religion and suicide are common “touchy subjects”, however they are not the only ones. Should a staff member ask you to change a subject they feel is touchy and/or is causing the direction of chat to deviate towards an argument or flame war, you must drop the subject immediately.
Discussing a banned user's ban reason and why they were banned is not allowed, however simply mentioning a banned player's username is allowed.

"Drugs" need to be defined better as it seems to cover much more than the rules intend to do. For example, is talking about alcohol allowed on the server, since it is legal in (most) places, including where the server is hosted? If not, how about discussion about caffeine, seeing as I have never seen anyone warned for that, even though it is a drug. In addition, would this rule include talking about medicine you got from your doctor? A rule shouldn't leave this many questions about what it is trying to state, and needs to be cleared up.

Spoiler: Section 4 Clause 5

Clause 5 - Auction Channel

Only auctions and questions pertaining directly to an auction are permitted in this channel.
By starting an auction, you are committed to sell that item.
You may not cancel an auction after you have heard the first bid.
Make sure that you start the auction at a reasonable price, as even if you are unhappy with the final bid, you must sell the item.
You are allowed to ignore bids from certain players at your discretion, however, you must do so inclusively. Once you have heard a bid from a player, you may not ignore that player’s bids for any reason for the duration of that auction.
False bidding is not allowed. If you are caught bidding something that you cannot pay, you will face punishment.
Please make sure you have the money in your balance and/or items in your inventory at the time of bidding.
Auctions must use the same currency for all bids.
You are allowed to use netherstars or any other form of currency you choose, so long as it is EcoCityCraft related, as long as the auction remains in that currency for the duration of it.
If not specified, it is to be assumed that all auctions are to be bid on with EcoDollars.
Bids can only be accepted in the auction channel, and auctioneers may not accept bids from other channels or via Private Message.
Do not extend your auction because you are not happy with the results. Long auctions should be taken to the forums.{1}
There is to be no “mystery auctions” - all items in auction must be specified exactly as they are, and must follow the rules for renamed items and any other trading rule regarding how to be specific about what your item is.
On the same token, it is the responsibility of all bidders to be 100% sure of what they are bidding on before they bid on it. If you are not sure, ask the auctioneer to specify what exactly is being auctioned, or any other questions you may have pertaining to what is up for bid.

1 Extending your auction, and what a long auction is should be explicitly explained in this clause. How long after the last bid is an auctioneer allowed to wait before it is considered extending the auction? 10 seconds, 30 seconds, or 60 seconds? There needs to be an explict standard that everyone needs to follow otherwise issues can and will arise. In addition, by setting an explict number what counts as extending an auction, that will then define what a "long auction" is, as any auction where the intend is to wait longer than the allowed time between bids would fit into that definition.


Section 5 - Towns, Nations and Property:

Spoiler: Section 5 Clause 3

Clause 3 - Seizure of Property & 3 Day Eviction Notices

By owning the town, a town Mayor has the right to remove you from the town at any time, for any reason, so long as the Mayor gives the user a 3 day eviction notice.
An eviction notice may be given by in-game (either by PM or /mail) or by tagging evicted users in a thread in the Town Evicitions sub-forum within the Towns Discussion forum. It is not required to post a thread for any eviction, although it may be easier if you are evicting multiple users.
The eviction notice must contain the name of the town. Be sure to collect evidence of this for LWC Removal Requests and/or proof should it be required at a later date. It is crucial that the screenshot has a timestamp (double tap f2).
If the user being evicted has LWCs in the town and the Mayor intends to file an LWC Request to have them removed, the eviction notice must include a specific request that the user removes their locks within the 3 days.
The evicted user must have had the opportunity to view the eviction notice. If the user has not been online, in-game or on the forums depending on how the eviction notice was issued, during the 3 day period then the eviction is not valid. The mayor or co-mayor must wait until the user is inactive (at least 7 days offline) or has been online to view to the notice before removing the user from the town or filing an LWC Removal Request.
However, under the following circumstances, the 3 day eviction criteria need not be met and the user may be removed from the town:
A user is inactive (by staff standards, this means at least 7 days offline.)
A user who has been banned for moderate or greater grief in the town.

Simply wording change so it is consistent with Section 5, clause 4's wording.

Spoiler: Section 5 Clause 4

Clause 4 - LWC Removal Requests

LWCs in towns may only be removed with a request in the Staff Requests forum by the mayor or co-mayor of the town under the following circumstances:
A user is inactive (by staff standards, this means at least 7 days offline.)
A user has been issued a 3 day eviction notice that complies with the requirements above in Clause 3. Proof of the eviction notice must be provided.
A user has been banned for Moderate+ grief in the town.
A user has been requested to remove their locks via an eviction notice and has outrightly declined to do so (timestamped proof of declination to remove locks must be provided with the request.)
A user has locked an item that is not their property (Troll lock), and are able to prove it. The burden of proof is extremely high, and if the Staff Member that reviews the request denies it, the standard 3 day eviction process must be followed.
Any other request that does not follow these guidelines is considered attempted theft, and in serious cases, you may be punished for attempting to illegally remove locks. Locks in the wild and locks belonging to the applicant owner of the town may not be removed.
Locks in the wild and locks belonging to the applicant owner of the town may not be removed.
You may not block access to any locked belongings of the evicted user at any time. Staff will deny all requests in which the LWCs have been blocked in an attempt to protect items.
If your request has been locked for this reason, you must re-issue the 3 day eviction notice and may only file a new LWC removal request once the 3 day eviction period has expired.
If the player was not issued an eviction notice as they had been offline for 7+ days, then you must still wait 3 days before re-filing the request.

While a very rare occurrence, troll locks do happen, and they are not mention in this clause, however there are comments that forbid the action of doing them. As such, it only seems fair to include it into the lwc removal request rules too.

Section 6 - Hacking, Exploits and Unfair Play:

Spoiler: Section 6 Clause 4

Clause 4 - Third Party Programs, Auto-Clicking, Auto-Farming, etc.

The use of third party programs that create any form of advantage that does not require you to do work while playing Minecraft is strictly prohibited, and can result in a ban.
EcoCityCraft staff have measures in place to test for users auto-clicking and using third party programs. Users caught auto-clicking, auto-fishing, using an aimbot, or any other distinct advantage to exploit game play will be punished appropriately.
Any form of auto money generation, including, but not limited to, auto-farming and auto-fishing, is completely prohibited by any means.
If you are caught using macros or clients to generate money without having to do any work, you will be punished, up to and including the extent of being permanently banned and having everything you own wiped off the server.
Be warned that we take this very seriously, and processes that result in auto money generation are a serious risk to our economy's stability.

Seems more like a plea not to do something, than something that supports the first part of the sentence.

Section 7 - World-Specific Rules:

Spoiler: Section 7 Clause 1

Clause 1 - Aether

The Aether is a world where people are supposed to work together to build in a grief free environment.
There is to be absolutely no grief whatsoever in the Aether. Any users who grief the Aether will be immediately banned, rolled back and can lose their Aether access.
To build in the Aether, you must use your common sense.
There is no land claiming or framing of land - if you wish to build something, build it, and if you see something that is not yours, do not touch it. Framing includes[, however is not limited to] walls that serve to block things off.
Building anything pointless may result in everything you've built in the Aether being rolled back.{Define pointless. As someone may say everything except for bridges in the aether are "pointless}
Additionally, landscape grief and mining the Aether will also result in a ban, and a rollback of your actions.
Though the Aether is free-build and a place for you to show off your amazing creations, farms are disallowed in the Aether.
Any farms found in the Aether will be world-edited out by EcoCityCraft staff. No notice will be given and in addition a possible fine may be placed on the user
Regular crops for decoration are still allowed; however, the size limit is 15x15x1.

Changed to make more consistent with the earlier statements in the clause.

Spoiler: Section 7 Clause 2

Clause 2 - Mining World

Using any means (including water and fire/lava) to grief any protected area in the mining world (which can include protected warps and the main Mining World spawn) is not allowed.
Legacy/Rising rules apply to all areas of the mining world, including trolling rules.
As the mining world is not PvP enabled, this 100% includes rules about attempts to kill players in this world, no matter what the reason.
Please keep in mind that the mining world does not allow LWC locks, and therefore anything you leave in chests in that world is free for all.

Percentage isn't necessary to the point, and makes it stand out in a bad way.

Spoiler: Section 7 Clause 4

Clause 4 - Survival Games

All normal server rules that can apply to Survival Games carry over into this world. The most important of these are the Universal Chat Rules, which carry over into all SG chat channels including the local chat of Survival Games.
Users caught abusing exploits will be punished appropriately, most often with a fairly severe ban.
We ask that you properly report any and all exploits either in the Bug Report forum, or report major bugs directly to an administrator. We thank you in advance for doing so.
There may be times when you get stuck, or glitched out of the world. If you become stuck to the point where you are no longer in the game, you must get yourself out of the game using one of the following methods:
/sg leave and /sg join (depending on the type of glitch that got you stuck) will always take you back to the Survival Games boards in spawn.
If those fail, log out and then back into the server, and it will remove you from the Survival Games world.
In the rare case that fails, contact an online staff member to assist in removing you
Any action that disrupts the flow of SG matches will result in a kick from the game. This includes, but is not limited to:
Being afk in such a way that the game cannot end
Exploiting glitches in such a manner that it ruins the game for other players.
Getting kicked from the game will kick you from your SG game, and, multiple offences of needing to be kicked for these reasons may result in a ban.

Seeing as the rules decided they want to explain how to fix the issue, which I disagree with, I added that last sentence to fully complete the steps of how to fix it.

Section 8 - Supporter Rules:

Spoiler: Section 8 Clause 3

Clause 3: Stealth

If you are asked by a staff member to undisguise momentarily you must obey the order. They will only ask you if deemed necessary.
Griefing while mob disguised will earn you a ban be treated the same as if you were not disguised. Our anti-grief tools will still detect this and you will still be logged.
Engaging in harassment or excessive stalking while mob disguised is against our rules. We have commands in place to detect this. If you are caught doing so you will be warned and punished as necessary.
You may not use mob disguise in order to PvP unless previously agreed upon by both parties.
Bypassing our rules against PvP in disguise by using potions is not allowed.

Seeing as some types of griefing is allowed, the wording of this rule should reflect that. Seeing as griefing as a mob is allowed -- as long as it would be allowed if the person isn't disguised -- that should be made clear in the rule.

Spoiler: Section 8 Clause 9

Clause 9: Fly+

Using Fly+ to PvP {1}or to interrupt an ongoing PvP fight in the nether is against the rules and is an abuse of your feature; you may use it to flee from PvP. The purpose of this feature is to allow you to fly over the lava, get to high places and get places faster in the nether. Using it to harass other players isn't allowed and is not the intent of this feature.

1 This rule still needs to be more clear on what counts as "to pvp". For example, User A is flying, and they see User B on the ground, and they want to fight him. How close / far does User A have to land before they can engage User B without breaking the rule? Can they airdrop right on top of them, or do they need to land a few blocks away and run up to them?

Spoiler: Section 9 Clause 2

Section 9 - Ban Information and Policies

Clause 2 - Ban Requests

If there is an absolute need for your account to not have access to the EcoCityCraft server, you may request a ban in the Ban Appeals/Complaints forum.
This ban is automatically a 3 day tempban, not to be appealed sooner, and will not be extended for any length longer.
Ban requests are only to be used in times of absolute necessity. ECC staff do not issue permanent bans on request, only 3 day temporary bans.
EcoCityCraft staff are not responsible for things happening outside the server, and cannot be expected to moderate your life. If you need help outside the game, please visit the Getting Help section(Section 4 Clause 9).
Staff will not deny a Ban Request, however, using Ban Requests often for trivial reasons may result in you being unable to request bans for a period of time.

Added a Section and Clause number

 

Yes that is correct about what is left. Also, you may want to look at the redstone light question that subxplorer brought up.
-- Thanks for the quick response Dewsy ^_^