Punishments / Things you shouldn't do

This is actually a pretty important topic.  While this can be seen as a negative, all staff and players-alike need to follow certain rules and not following these rules can lead to punishment.  

There are 3 types of "Conducts" that must be considered when punishments are to be handed out:
- Forum Conduct:  This dictates how a person acts, in general, on the forum. This is basically aimed towards the OOC areas, but it can bleed over to the IC areas as well in the form of OOC posting within an IC post, etc etc.
- Roleplaying/Character Conduct:  Nope, this isn't telling you HOW to roleplay, but this is more along the lines of don'ts during roleplaying.  Violating these can be considered a hassle to deal with and some could find the performing any of these to be outright offensive/hindering of fair roleplaying.  This also incorporates things you shouldn't do, like cheating.
- Staff Conduct:  All staff, including myself, must abide by certain rules to.  The staff have specific special things they cannot do, otherwise they may lose their staff position.  I sorta can't since I'm the owner, but I have penalties for abusing my power that would affect me differently.


The following are do nots in Forum Conduct:
1)  Flaming -- The act of insulting a player.  Depending on severity, the warnings can be skipped.
2)  Flame-Baiting -- The act of baiting someone to lose their cool, causing them to counter-attack with a flame.  This is seen as antagonistic and will not be tolerated.
3)  Talk about Taboo Subjects -- The taboo subjects are pretty well known, but I'll list a few taboo subjects that shouldn't be talked about on the forum (due to the fact that they can cause huge arguments that I don't want to deal with, nor would any other mod).
- Religion:  Everyone has their own interpretation on religion.  So let's leave it out.
- Politics:  Just like religion, everyone has their own political view.  Keep politics (other than IC politics) out of the site.
- Social Justice:  Leave how you believe about gender politics, racial politics, etc off the site.  This isn't the place to discuss gender identity, racism, proper pronouns, etc etc.  This is a place of escapism, so leave that off-site.
4)  Arguing with Staff -- If there is something you don't agree with that a member of staff posted (whether in terms of their behavior or how they graded something) please start with taking it to PM before PMing an admin about your grievances.  Remember that if you are professional with staff, the staff will be professional with you.
5)  Pestering Staff to do something -- There is a specific thread where you post things that need to be done.  If you need something graded or want to buy something, post in the appropriate threads and wait. The staff will get to your requests when they can.  Remember, they are volunteers!  If you harass them to do work, it'll only strain them further, so don't pester the staff to do yours above all others.  Be patient!  Now if they are taking too long grading your stuff, a simple PM asking for the status would work (find more on that in the grading rules).
6)  Threatening to harm others or the site -- Simply put, if you are seen threatening to harm the site (even on off-site mediums) you will be banned from the site.  We won't tolerate that here.  However, if you threaten to harm others on-site, you will also get a very, very harsh penalty towards you.  Simply put, play nice.
7)  Posting anything X Rated -- This includes pornography and extremely violent images.  This should go without saying that this will be escalated straight to a ban.

If any of these have been violated, the following are a list of punishments.  This scale is the guideline and some steps can be missed depending on the severity of the action.

1st Offense:  Official Warning in said post -- Blotter post created
2nd Offense:  Official Warning via PM -- Blotter updated
3rd Offense:  1 Week Ban -- Blotter updated with date banned and date to return.
4th+ Offense:  Add 1 more week cumulatively to the ban -- Bloter updated with date banned and date to return.



The following are do-nots of roleplaying.  Avoiding these things will ensure everyone has a fair RP experience.

1) Meta-Gaming -- Meta-gaming is basically using OOC information IC.  Information that you, as the player know, that your character doesn't know.  
Example:  Say someone is walking around in the shadows somewhere in your base (pretty far away from you) and you have this sneaking suspicion that someone is sneaking around on your base and know who, what, where, when, why, etc and without any just reason, discover said person.
2) God-Modding -- Yep, basically acting like all of your actions either hit or your dodge everything in a roleplay (not including modded combat, that's a bit different).  Everything happens the way you want it to, making your character practically immortal.  
Example:  Joe is getting shot at with machine guns from a group of 5 soldiers in front of him.  Joe avoids every single bullet to get close enough to knife all 5 soldiers in the throats without getting hit/knicked once.
3)  Profile Cheating -- Yep, if you have stats and you over-inflate your stats prior to a battle, you'll get in some trouble~~  Basically, keep your stats up-to-date and don't cheat your stats and everything will go cool.  This also applies to anything that you don't actually own being in your profile.  
4)  Loop-holing -- Simply put, if you find something that is considered a loop-hole, tell someone about it so it can be fixed.  If you discovered exploiting a loop-hole, you will be punished for it (especially if you brag about it to other people).

1st Offense:  Warning in thread -- Blotter Post created/post added
2nd Offense:  Official Warning in PM -- Blotter Post added
3rd Offense:  -10% EXP -- Blotter Post Added
4th Offense:  -25% EXP -- Blotter Post Added
5th Offense:  -50% EXP -- Blotter Post Added
6th Offense and on:  Death of character -- Blotter Post Added



Yes, staff are also players and are also held to a higher standard.  So here are some of the things that the players should expect from a member of the staff.
1)  Professionalism-- A member of staff needs to be professional at all times.  They must be courteous to the players and not lose their cool.
2)  Unbias-- While it is impossible to be completely unbias, the staff member shouldn't show any preferential treatment to any players (including their friends).  This means the staff member needs to stay by the book and accept things in the order they were received.
3)  Busy-- Yup, we want our staff to remain busy.  If they aren't doing anything, they'll be removed for being dead weight.

**That's all for now.  There will be more added in the future.

NOTE: Just because it's not on this list and is considered a bad thing, doesn't mean you can't get in trouble for it. If it's not something you should be doing, don't do it.

Punishment Blotter

What is this Punishment Blotter you might ask?
Well, glad you asked. Whenever someone is given any form of punishment, a person's mis-deeds are placed within the blotter with a link to the offending post(s) to show people that someone isn't being punished for no reason.

Regardless of the reason, a person's mis-deeds will be highlighted and explained. However, if what happened violates the forum's and Forumotion's rules, it will not be posted there. Each player will have their own specific thread dedicated to what they have done (This spans through all of their characters and alts).

This Blotter will also highlight a player's ban date and return date.

Permanent Ban
When enough is enough, the admin will deliberate (when someone becomes too much of an issue) to determine whether someone should receive a permanent ban. This can extend between different types of Conduct Rulings, frequency of rule-breaking, and severity of the rule broken. If the admin deems a player not suitable for the RP environment, they will receive a permanent ban. This means, that a person will be considered gone forever. Unless, of course, they decide to appeal.

Permanent Ban Appeals
After 6 months from their permanent ban, a player may request an appeal to which they send in why they should return. The PM/Email, etc will be sent to the admin team and it will be their decision on whether or not to re-integrate the person back onto the site. If a person is brought back in, they will be watched and scrutinized until a time comes to where that person is, once again, trusted. However, someone who returned from a permanent ban will not receive this same treatment if they are, once again, permanently banned.

If a person is denied their appeal, they may re-apply for an appeal every 6 months thereafter.

Jurisdiction
In terms of where we are allowed to look into in order to correct bad behavior, it's simple. We are only allowed to correct bad-behavior on-site.

If someone is acting like a fool on the forums, we can get them.
If someone is acting like a fool in PMs, we can get them.
If someone is acting like a fool in the Chatbox (if available), we can get them.

However, if they are on skype, Discord, etc etc, we cannot and will not police behaviors on those mediums. Even chats that are related to the site cannot be policed as those are considered "unofficial" chats and aren't sanctioned by the site.

The only bit we CAN do, however, is if someone threatens to hack the site off-site, we can and will ban them permanently. That is the only thing we have jurisdiction on.

So, essentially, if someone is acting like a moron in your skype, skype group, etc etc, it is up to you to police them. Sorry, but we don't have any reach there.