Expectations for Staff

[Denevien]

Over the years, we've occasionally come across issues where members of staff (moderators and admins) have acted in ways deemed not fitting for a member of staff. Tompreuss was generous enough to write up this code of conduct (with edits and input from all the admins).

Expectations For Staff

Regardless of wording, this document applies to all members of staff (moderators, server admins, tech admins, and head admins)

1. Customer Service

Customer Service is the most important aspect of our role as staff.

You were asked to join staff of mcpublic because our servers need volunteers to serve the community: a group of people that work both directly with players and behind the scenes to keep the servers running smoothly.

We sincerely hope that the experience you have as staff is enjoyable, but the responsibility involved takes precedence.

We expect you to act professionally in all matters, even if you feel the person or people you are conversing with are not reciprocating. We expect a certain standard of conduct from our staff in serving players and dealing with each other. If there is a situation that you don't feel you can handle, defuse the conflict by deferring to an admin or another moderator. It's better to log out for a bit than to lose your temper.

Keep any arguments with players out of public chat. If you have a prolonged issue to sort out with a player, move it to /msgs, or IRC, or Mumble, or wherever you need to to go. It is your obligation to stop this, however that has to be done. Talk to just the people who are involved and get it resolved, don't drag the entire server into it by hashing it out in global chat.

Also, keep in mind that you may not always be the best person to moderate a situation. It is best to avoid moderating anything that directly involves you. This could be a case of combat logging (where a player logged off on you), griefing (people tend to be more harsh when it is their property that was damaged), or land-claims (if you were willing to give in to their demands, then there would be no issue to start with). Again, this is not an exhaustive list, but a general idea of situations to avoid.

When you become a staff member here at Nerd.nu you become a representitive of our staff. This means that your actions also become a representation of us. Your professionalism will have to come into play not only while in a moderating position, but also when you are just playing the game. Users recognise our staff as being staff while on the server and they expect us to act professional at all time. This doesn't mean that you can't have fun, and laugh and joke. What is does mean is that you can't get into a big, name calling, hateful argument on the server. People will hold us to a higher standard and will end up losing respect for the staff if this were to happen. If this is a problem for you, then being part of our staff may not be the right fit for you.

2. Moderator Permissions

Do not use your moderator permissions for tasks unrelated to moderating.

Moderators have the ability to give themselves any item in any amount. They can become invisible. They can access the commands for our LogBlock and WorldGuard plugins. On our survival mode servers, they can enter a mode where they are in godmode, can teleport, and can fly.

Moderators should only be using these additional permissions to help with completing requests made of moderators. These generally include things like flowing water, making protections, and fixing grief.

Examples of things that moderators should not use their permissions for:

• flying to get a better look at a build or to explore on P or S

• traveling around in godmode on P or S

• making a protection for a build that does not fit the requirements for protections

• using LogBlock to rollback or redo edits to save yourself or another player work

• using your ability to teleport, become invisible, and track edits to gain a PvP advantage on S

• giving yourself or another player free items on P or S

• breaking any of our rules listed at nerd.nu/rules or on the signs at spawn on each respective server

This list is not exhaustive and just serves as a representative example.

A good rule of thumb is that if it's something you wouldn't be able to do for a player who requested it via a /modreq, it's not something you're allowed to do for yourself.

Also, under no circumstances should you use any moderator powers while not under a hidden name (changing your name in mumble/IRC).

We trust you, but if you abuse your moderator permissions it's grounds for removal from your moderator position and could result in a ban of significant length.

3. Communication

Communication is the most important part of any relationship. If you don’t know, ask!

We ask that all players of our community work together to have fun building and playing together. The best avenue for achieving this goal is effective communication.

As a moderator if you ever have any questions or are unsure of how to proceed in a situation, there is always someone that can help. In most situations this will involve asking other moderators in game how to deal with a modreq, but even if no other moderators are in game you should never feel as if you have to do something you are uncomfortable doing. You can always leave something you are unsure of for another moderator to deal with later.

If you're asked a question and don't know the answer, either attempt to find the answer or direct the person to another moderator or an admin. If you say you're going to complete a task, please do your best to do so in a timely manner. If delays come up, communicate them to those that are waiting.

When approached by members of the community, all concerns should be treated as genuine concerns, and not brushed off as trivial or drama. If you find that you can not give an answer to their concern, tell them you will find out the answer, or point them to someone who can.

The most important thing to remember: If you find a debate getting heated, and you feel you unable to remain respectful to whomever you are speaking (whether it be a fellow staff member or any member of our community), it may be best to remove yourself from the conversation. Many times, we all find ourselves in situations where it is easier to step back and finish the conversation later. Though, as said above, if you say you’re going to finish the conversation, make sure you do.

4. Confidentiality

Please keep topics discussed in confidence private, unless authorized by involved parties.

There are some things that we don’t necessarily want to talk about before we’re ready. For example, announcements of map resets are often tricky. People obviously appreciate notice but as soon as the announcement is made server activity decreases and there is often “end of rev grief.” Therefore it is often best to develop the map and plans for reset in secret until the optimal time for announcement arrives.

Access to computer resources, discussions, and records granted for the purpose of performing staff duties should not be given to unauthorized parties, nor accessed after leaving the staff role. We have many different tools to help us in our day to day endeavours, but we trust that these shall be kept amongst the staff.

5. Activity Level

Do your best to remain active in our community, but if you're away for a while, check in with us when you get back.

We are all real people sitting at computers interacting over the Internet. In real life work, school, family, and friends can always detract from playing this video game together, and that's fine. If you've been unable to play with us for an extended period of time, we may remove your staff permissions and move your to our inactive staff list. If this occurs and you'd like to come back, simply contact us for a refresher on what you've missed while you've been away and to get your permissions back. Do your best to learn about how we do things now versus how things were done when you were more active and ease yourself back into the role.

While there's no set quota of activity we expect you maintain, an active staff member should be keeping up to date on staff communication on the forum and the subreddit.

If you are feeling stressed or burned out by staff duties, we can temporarily remove your mod powers at your request to give you a chance to take a break. We'll be more than happy to re-enable them whenever you are ready to rejoin us.

If you no longer feel that your staff position is right for you, please contact us for a removal of permissions and a move to the past moderators list. We thank you for your service but completely understand that staff isn't for everyone.

6. Ban Appeals

Ban Appeals should be handled by the banning staff member.

Part of our duties as staff members is to remove unwanted or harmful players from the environment, until we feel they are ready to rejoin the community. The unbanning process takes place through the Ban Appeals section of the forums. Each ban should be handled by the staff member who issued the ban. There are few occasions where we stray from this, including:

• A staff member posting a message similar to: “Your banning staff member will be with you shortly. Do not bump your appeal unless they have not answered for 48 hours. Ban for BannedPlayer by StaffMember for rule violation”

• If the banning staff member asks you to post something relevant in the thread.

• The banning staff member is no longer active (if you do not feel comfortable handling these, please allow an admin to step in)

If you feel you have relevant information regarding the ban, please contact the banning moderator via PM in game, on the forums, or on the subreddit.

If at any point the banned player wishes to appeal the ban to someone higher up the chain, find a head admin to analyze the situation and let them deem if they need to moderate the appeal. If a player feels that a staff member is being bias they should be free to contact a head admin to analyze the situation. This right shouldn't be denied.

7. Chain of Command

Certain things should always be left to the appropriate staff member to deal with.

If you are approached regarding something that should be better left for a server admin or a head admin, you should leave it for them to deal with. Direct interested parties or questions to them.

If you are directly told to not do something by a server admin or a head admin, don't do it.

8. Have Fun

We're playing a game of blocks.

We are here to play the game of Minecraft together. Remember that playing a game is supposed to be fun, for all involved.

9. Thank You

Seriously, thank you.

Thank you for all the time you invest into making this a great community. If we all keep these expectations in mind as we volunteer on the servers, the community as a whole will grow stronger.

If you have any questions please come find a head or server admin, we will be happy to talk to you about it.