:v_host: Staff Ranks, Code of Conduct and Protocols

General Announcements
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Staff Ranks

Heads

:host: Host
The job of the Host is to keep the server and forums running smoothly and manage the entire staff. His or Her job is also to ensure that this document is followed by all staff and to make sure that each staff member is held accountable for their actions. Finally, the host must ensure that all appeals, applications, and complaints, are processed fairly and without bias.

:v_host: Vice Host
The job of the Vice Host is to assist the Host in his or her duties. The Vice Host will oversee the management department, and make sure staff duties and responsibilities will be performed

Management Team

:a_manager: Admin Manager
:m_manager: Moderator Manager
:d_manager: Discord Manager
:f_manager: Forum Manager
:maint_manager: Maintainer Manager

The job of the Managers is to help manage their assigned areas of the community. These areas range from staff management, complaints, investigations, whitelists, appeals, and more. For major internal issues, they should be the first step to refer to.

Admins

:admin: Admin
Admins are the step above moderator, and they’re given more staff tools in-game, mostly used to run events and handle things moderators can’t. They still do in-game work but additionally are responsible for forum work, such as pulling logs for reports and moderating threads. They can run minor events anytime they want in consideration, and major events with a permission from management.

:t_admin: Trial Admin
Trial admins hold powers similar to the Admins, but they can’t run major events and spend most of their trial getting used to their new responsibilities and tools. After 1 month of the trial the performance of the Trial Admin is reviewed and they are either accepted as a Game Admin, returned to Moderator, or extended an additional month.

Moderators

:s_mod: Senior Moderator
A moderator who has the ability to run limited events with permission from a Manager. They also have in-game powers to assist admins with events.

:mod: Moderator
The moderators are the police of the server. Their main focus is to ensure that rules are not being broken and that the integrity and fun of the server is maintained. They take ahelps before anyone else. Player enjoyment and enforcement of the rules are their top two priorities; however, the rules are NOT unbend-able, and if bending a rule allows the server to have fun, then a moderator can use their own judgement to determine the proper course of action. The most important thing is making sure players are enjoying themselves as much as they can be!

:t_mod: Trial Moderators
These are the potential new moderators. They have very limited powers and should be given a chance to answer any ahelps before anyone else. Moderators, Admins, and other staff should help them with the ahelps and only take over if the situation is escalating. They have a 2-week trial period. After the 2 weeks, they will be promoted to full moderator, extended, or demoted back to a normal player.

:maint: Maintainer Team
The Maintainer team contains many ranks. All of them hold the equivalent rank of a moderator on the server, but have custom permissions. Their primary focus is development on the server, and will only aid in moderation when necessary. They are also bound by the same code of conduct and procedures like the rest of staff. Their other duty is to review Pull Requests (PR) and Test Merges via GitHub

Community Maintainers

Wiki Maintainer
Mentor Overseer & Mentor Coordinator
Whitelist Overseer & Whitelist Coordinator

The community maintainers are responsible for ensuring the smooth operating and upkeep of their assigned areas.

Community Mentor
Handpicked members of the community who volunteer their time to answer in-game help questions. They are not staff members and have no rule enforcement powers, nor in-game abilities except they can spawn in as a marine “Senior Enlisted Advisor” to mentor marine players in-character and within roleplay

Staff Code of Conduct

Do not use your Power with Malicious Intent

  • Powers should be used in an official capacity. Using powers to Maliciously cause grief to another player without justification will result in swift punishment.

Do not cheat

  • Do not use powers to gain an advantage while playing the game. Do not use powers to respawn yourself, or heal yourself. Do not use observation powers to determine locations of the enemy side. If you have a reason why powers should be used, file a ticket, and explain it to another staff member.

Remain Unbiased

  • If you are the victim of a rule break, report it through the ticket system for another online staff member to handle. You should only use moderation powers while playing as a last resort/emergency situation if you are involved.

Remain Professional, no matter what happens

  • Constantly stay cool. Regardless of what a player says to you do not act unprofessional and get angry with them.
  • This also applies to the forums/Discord. Retain some level of professionalism when posting in player reports or ban appeals.
  • Do not release information from the staff chat to the public. EVER.

Preserve the RP and enjoyment of the server

  • If a player breaks a rule, but increases the enjoyment of the server in general, (through roleplay or other such things) it can be overlooked. If no one admin helps (ahelp) a complaint, or seems to be complaining or taking issue with it, it may be best to let it go.
  • We’re a server focused on the enjoyment of the players. As long as the players are having a blast and not every single rule is being broken, it’s okay to let some things slide here and there.
  • Do not try to heavily influence the game unless it is for very good reasoning such as for an event, a player purposefully holding up the game, dishing out punishment for rule breaking (Examples: a commander killed a marine unjustly, a squad of marines are killing other marines for no reason, a queen is slashing every host known to man, aliens have stacked too many huggers) or other such things.

Enforcement of the rules

  • Whenever a player receives a punishment they should know why and what they are being punished for.
  • Ensure that all incidents are adequately investigated before giving a ruling.
  • If you’re unsure if the situation you’re investigating is a rule break, please consult higher level staff online, or ask for clarification from a manager/head in staff discord. If its a situation that requires immediate intervention, a good-faith judgement call is acceptable, as rule clarifications can always be done after from management.

Listen to higher ranking staff members

  • Every staff member should comply with what the higher ranking staff member decides on. They have been promoted to a higher rank for a reason. If you have a problem with the staff member, do not argue with them. Bring it up in the staff discussion areas provided outside the server (such as the staff discord), or mention it to your respective Manager.

Protocols

1. Send a personal message (PM) to the violator asking them to explain their actions

  • Give them a respectable time to respond. They might not be able to respond that second. If there is a group running and fighting put the individuals to sleep that seem to be causing an issue, inform them through LOOC or OOC that they’ve been put to sleep by a staff member, then deal with them accordingly. Make sure that other people don’t steal from them or anything of the sort.
  • It is recommended that you get a second staff member to help with larger groups of possible rule breakers so you can resolve the situation faster.

2. Investigate the situation

  • Contact anyone involved and get their side of the story. Also, check logs. It may not be immediately visible WHO caused the situation, and you may need to talk to several people to figure it out. Try to do this as quickly and efficiently.

3. Determine the seriousness of the issue

  • This is very important because the seriousness should match the punishment. For example: using light netspeak (emoji’s and such) is not a bannable offense for first time offenders; however, killing a marine for an insufficient reasons is.

4. Investigate the player’s history

  • Check the player’s notes. If they frequently break the same rule, then the punishment may need to be more serious. If they haven’t had a new note or violation for a few months, it would probably be best to give them a more minor punishment.

5. Determine the punishment.

  • Determine the bare minimum punishment. There’s no reason to jump straight to a ban, especially if the incident didn’t cause a major disruption to the game. Try to use warnings, and if you do need to ban don’t be excessive. Most bans should not be above 24 hours.
  • If a player has previously been issued a 28 day ban, and continues to violate the rules, you may want to file for a permanent ban.
  • If you feel someone needs to receive a permanent ban, give them a ban for 40320 minutes (28 days) and make a post in the Permaban Request section of the admin forums explaining the situation and why you believe a permaban should be enforced. This should ONLY be done per escalation guidelines or rule breaks that are considered cardinal rulebreaks (multikeying, ERP, Massgrief, etc…)

6. PIN NOTES TO PLAYERS

  • Take proper notes after, or when banning players, warning players, and when noticing excessively bad behavior from players.
  • After banning a player, a note describing the ban reason and time should always be placed.
  • Remember that all player’s can view their own notes at any time, so please be professional in documenting the note.
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