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Informational Devinity Staff Guidelines

Discussion in 'Staff Applications' started by counter, Nov 20, 2017.

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  1. counter

    counter Moderator Staff Member Server Moderator Platinum VIP

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    This thread is made public for everyone and especially aspiring staff to see how our structure is like as a community. We want you to not only represent Devinity, but to also have fun beyond just simply moderating.

    General

    If you have been recently accepted and are reading this, I would like to say thank you. Before you hop back into the server and start representing us, we would like to first stress out 2 key points that we want everybody to know.
    • You don't have to dedicate a certain amount of time each day. While we do expect our staff to be active, it's just not possible as everybody--including us--have different circumstances in their life (school being one of the most prevalent out of this). This is the reason why we strongly encourage you to not dedicate your time to just moderating, but to also have fun and enjoy the social aspect of the community!
    • Don't be afraid to ask for (any kind of) help. Don't be shy! If you're having a problem or you're unsure about something whether it'd be server or personal issues, don't be afraid to approach any one of us! We want to help you.
    Staff Etiquette and Responsibilities
    The prosperity of any community and its servers begins with its staff. As much as we encourage everybody to have fun, it's important that all staff members practice good ethics, manners, and morals which is essential to leave a positive note to players and our overall image as a community. We want you to:
    • Uphold maturity and professionalism at all times when it comes to moderation. We expect our staff to handle server conflicts in a reasonable (and hopefully affable) manner.
    • Be respectful and mindful of others. We expect you to treat our players like you treat us. Avoid lashing out against players that are being rude to you and/or others, two wrongs don't make a right in any type of situation.
    • Find a happy medium between personal disputes. We all don't have to like each other, but we do need to get along in order to maintain peace within this community. Unless if the staff member is causing drama or mischief, we're not going to punish or demote someone just because you don't agree with them. Come up with a resolution away from public view—whether it'd be on a forum conversation, steam, discord, etc. Keep in mind that if your argument starts to spread around, causes drama or becomes out of hand, we will have to step in and punish everyone involved regardless of whoevers at fault.
    It is also important to keep note of what role you partake as a staff member. The list below is used as a rough guideline of what we generally expect staff members to partake corresponding with their rank (you are still expected to follow all of the lists below your rank; if you are an admin you still have to handle ban requests and be active on our servers, etc.). Some parts may be reiterated from above just to emphasis or clarify our expectations.



    Admins

    • Ensure that all staff members are getting along and following etiquette on all Devinity platforms (forums, discord and servers).
    • Capability to handle community and staff disputes in a reasonable fashion.
    • Admins are also generally seen as gamemode developers whether it'd be changing values on the database or adding stuff for the gamemode.
    • This list is kept broad but being in an admin role entails a lot more than a normal moderator would beyond just taking community/staff initiatives or being active on our servers.
    Moderators
    • Handle ban requests or appeals (if you are the person who banned the player).
    • Moderate Discord whereas applicable (or whatever we're using by the time you read this).
    • We expect to voice your opinion more on important inquiries such as applicants or the status of the community/staff team.
    Junior Moderators
    • Moderate the servers with the newly profound privileges given to you in a reasonable and affable fashion but also be sociable with the players on the server. No player wants a staff member who strictly moderates, not even me!
    • Considering this is seen as a trial period, we expect you to be active within a reasonable medium. If you have school or other important outside affairs, please focus on that but as a staff member, we expect you to hold at least some type of activity.
    All Server Ranks
    • We expect you to not just simply go in !afk mode and spectate for rule breakers. We want you to be proactive on our servers and interact with players.
    • Be involved in community (public chats) and staff initiatives (#jrmodpub, #voting, etc.) on our forums and/or discord.
    • Contribute any ideas you have for our servers via GitHub, forums or discord. Not all ideas will be accepted by Bayrock but it opens up to a lot of discussion that we heavily encourage!
    • Help your fellow colleagues with and beyond staff affairs.
    • We expect all staff members to be mindful of each other. Abrasive and rash attitude towards our staff and players is strictly prohibited here.
    Enforcing Server Rules
    Unless the server itself is in immediate danger or the player is causing large disturbance that needs to be quickly irradiated, follow this simple rule:

    Warn → Kick → Ban

    • Warning Players
    When dishing warnings out to players: please try to be nice about it. Avoid immediately dishing out kicks or bans if a player is breaking a server rule, politely inform them that they are currently breaking a rule and to not do it again.

    Common rule breaks like trucing and prop farming should fall under that guideline. If the player repeats the same offense next round, warn them. However, rules like harassment or prop minging are usually done intentionally and should be taken less mercifully. This is where warning them without confrontation would be most appropriate.

    Additionally, you should in no way favor individual players, especially VIPs, or players that you have a relationship with.

    • Multiple Infractions
    In acts of where a player has multiple infractions, the fairest approach would be awarding a more lengthy ban based on repeated offenses if the player shows obvious incompetence to learn from such actions.

    IE: Player has 5 infractions previously and is seen breaking the rules yet again. The previous infractions weren't enough for the player to learn from their actions. Giving a harsher, yet fair punishment is the right choice.

    A permanent ban should only be used if the player is causing major disturbances to the community and/or its players.

    Visit this thread to view the punishment basis regarding our Flood rules.
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2019
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  2. counter

    counter Moderator Staff Member Server Moderator Platinum VIP

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    Handling Requests
    If you're a server moderator, requests should be handled based on these following factors:


    Ban Requests
    • Validity of the evidence provided. If the player provides evidence that are lacking or otherwise, hard to tell, it would unfortunately have to be denied (better safe than sorry). Violations such as harassment and chat spam are usually very easy to detect with screenshot evidence/server logs but however, malicious ones such as trucing, prop minging are usually very hard to tell without video evidence. Unless if the screenshot evidence are very thorough, it would have to be denied. In rare cases, you find out that the evidence has been forged, ban the accusing player without remorse.
    • Repeated offenses. Depending on the type & reasoning of the infraction(s), users with a long ban history are subject to lengthier and harsher punishments.

    Unban Requests
    • When evaluating an unban request, consider the following questions and this thread to help with passing off the appropriate judgement.
    • Is the player sincere with his/her words?
    • Does the player appear remorseful/apologetic for what they had done?
    • Does the player appear to wish to be apart of the community?
    • Did the player appear to take his time into creating the appeal?
    • Is the ban justifiable if I was this player?
    • We have a zero tolerance standing on cheating.
    • There has been no case of the anti-cheat banning an innocent player. If someone claims he didn't cheat, he's lying.
    • Cheaters caught by the anti-cheat shouldn't be unbanned in any case, no matter how remorseful or apologetic.
    • All final decisions are to be applied fairly, equally and justly between staff and member alike.
    • Favoritism, relationships, affiliations, etc. are to play no part in influencing an outcome.
    • Please respect your fellow staff member's final decision when it comes to accepting/denying an appeal.
    • If you disagree with the outcome of a specific appeal, discuss it between the staff member of concern, then feel free to message one of the higher-ups.

    Queries
    Other relevant topics that isn't necessary to have its own category.


    Promotions
    • All Junior Moderators who show genuine interest to the community will be promoted on an estimated 2-4 week interval from the time their application has been approved. During this time, we expect our Junior Moderators to start becoming familiar with the server rules, carry reasonable jurisdiction to players and get involved within community and staff-related discussion. As this is seen as a trial period, there is no status quo for obtaining a server moderator position.
    • We will consider and handpick select and a very limited moderators for the Senior Moderator or Admin position that will be based on many factors. To keep it short, we will look for and nominate Admin candidates that consistently shows interest and representative behavior throughout the community.
    Activity
    • We expect all staff to maintain activity on our servers, idealistically whenever you have the free time to do so. However, we will be extremely lenient on cases such as during school years or holidays.
    • If you are going to be inactive within any medium, please let us know in advanced on #inactive-notice.
    • Staff members that have been inactive for an extensive period of time will (in most cases) be notified on a 1-2 week basis by one of the admins. Staff members who have been demoted for inactivity may choose to reapply again.
    • Moderators who resigned may choose to return back to their position without having to reapply by the discretion of the admins.
    Incognito

    Incognito should generally be used for the following reasons:
    • To catch players breaking rules who would otherwise not be doing so if staff were present
    • To watch current staff to see if they are doing their job correctly.
    • To watch staff applicants as a way to get a feel of how they act without staff present.

    Incognito is NOT to be used for the following reasons:

    • Impersonate a player or staff in a deliberate and malicious fashion.

    While dishing out punishment for breaking the rules. If a player has broken the rules, you must come out of incognito to address it.

    You may not punish any player if you are using incognito/hide other than to seek for a potential rule breaker (this includes if they reveal your identity).


    Forum Mod
    • Moderators have access to modify any thread within the Administration board (eg: for handling ban requests, staff applications).
    • If you wish to have global moderator permissions on our forums for whatever reason, you may ask me.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2019
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  3. Donkie

    Donkie Founder & Senior Developer Platinum VIP

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    Added section about cheating unban request
     
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  4. counter

    counter Moderator Staff Member Server Moderator Platinum VIP

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    posting here to bump this thread to the top

    also a quick sidenote that I recently edited the list above containing what we generally expect for each rank, so you can view that there
     
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