Conduct Players are expected to adhere to the following rules of conduct while on this game. 1. Be OOCly courteous and polite to other players. You know what we mean. This doesn't mean you have to like somebody, or agree with them. Joking around and teasing are one thing, but nastiness is another. Once somebody stops taking it as a joke, it ceases to be one. Respect people's requests to leave a topic alone. 2. In the unlikely event that you find a way to hack around the code and cheat, DO report it to staff. DON'T use it to cheat. 3. Abuses of code can constitute a threat to the game. Those who abuse code may be subject to immediate nuking or sitebanning. 4. We rely on your logs as a means to verify things that happened. Please don't falsify them. See the section below on logs. 5. Harassment is bad, m'kay? (+news policy harassment). 6. Lying to other players (including admins) OOCly about IC events is not acceptable. This especially applies to situations where your OOC words can have an IC effect (such as, say, a Detect Lies spell). Lying about intentions within a scene can also result in major problems due to consent issues (see +news policy consent). 7. Please don't randomly pick up objects that don't belong to you. This is not a MUD, and items lying around are not free gifts from the game to pick up as your own. Instead, please notify a staff member. 8. The Admins are not always right. We are human beings and fallible. If you believe something is wrong, whether with a plot, a queue request, or whatever, then please feel free to let us know. However, continuing to argue a point with a given admin once they've said they are no longer willing to debate the point is not allowed. If you still feel there are grounds for a complaint, contact the Chief of Staff and/or the headwiz. 9. Spoofing of other players (i.e. using @emit to cause poses, messages, OOC comments/bbposts/channel chat, etc. to be displayed as if they had typed them is not allowed. 10. Do not enter private areas of the grid without either the approval of an admin (i.e. as part of a plot or +judge sequence) or the permission of the player who owns the private area, even if those areas are unlocked via code. Private areas include apartments or any other area that is clearly set up as not intended for general public access. If you inadvertently enter a private area, leave immediately. Escalation Most conduct violations start out as debates or arguments, and escalate to insults once one side gets upset. It then escalates from there as insults are traded. The rule is simple: I don't care who started it. You are responsible for your own words. If you answer somebody else's insult with another one, then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. If somebody insults you, then they're in the wrong. Calmly and politely tell them that you considered that insulting, and prefer not to be addressed that way. Don't be sarcastic, don't be nasty. Just be clear. Failing to do this will make you as guilty as the other party, and dealt with accordingly. Crying Wolf… Or Harassment One common thing that gets done is that people get angry at someone and try to invoke the harassment policy as a weapon against others. Doing this without a good reason is going to also result in penalties. I'm tired of the harassment policy getting used to 'end' a discussion when one person feels like they're not getting their way. The harassment policy is there to protect people, not to be used as an argument. Logging Often, players will be asked to submit logs of things on the game. Things such as playerplots, OOC discussions of consent, IC situations in which consent arises, etc. For the most part, we will trust these logs — until and unless a dispute arises. If that happens, then the following things will happen. 1. The global MUX logs will be pulled for the time period and players in question (see +news policy privacy). 2. The logs will be compared to the submitted logs. 3. Punitive action will be taken if it turns out a submitted log was falsified. Falsification of logs includes: 1. Significant changing the content or sequence of poses (correcting typos is fine, as is omitting irrelevant content). 2. Inserting additional content other than explicitly marked commentary. Please don't falsify logs. It makes your site admin grumpy because he has to pull out those massive things and parse through them. Punishments This is a subject that nobody likes to talk about. What can happen to you if you break the rules? The following are possible punishments that staff can mete out, at our discretion: 1. Verbal warning. You've been a bad boy/girl/trog/cyberzombie. 2. The 'time-out' box. You may get sent here for a short period of time to cool off if a situation is, in staff's opinion, getting out of hand. 3. Jailing. There is a jail on the game. You wouldn't like it there. It's boring enough to make an airport departure lounge seem like a theme park. Basically, jailing takes you out of play and most forms of communication for a period of time, usually from a few days to a few weeks. 4. Karmadocking/Repdocking. These are primarily for violations relating to in-character matters, but they can be used for other situations. 5. Nuking. Yes, if things get bad enough, you can in fact lose your character. 6. Sitebanning. We really, really hate to do this. At this point, we basically say, "You are no longer welcome here. Go away." Please don't make us have to say that. Please? Thanks. The 'My House' Rule Finally, when you log on to this server, you are in effect a guest in my home. If you begin behaving in a manner that would cause me — or any reasonable person — to ask you to leave my home in real life, then you will also experience consequences on this game. Things like this include intentional, blatant harassment or insulting or just plain being obnoxious toward the staff here or another player, or things like chronic bitching to the extent that it seriously interferes with people's enjoyment of the game. The 'My House' rule makes it clear that you are a guest in My House, and that you should behave like one. Have an idea for improvement? Great, let's hear it. Have something you'd like to see fixed? Great, cool. Does something on the game piss you off because it isn't the way *YOU'D* do it, and you feel the need to insult anyone and everyone involved with the current situation? Keep your mouth shut or leave. Pretty simple, actually.