Sm Duties, Etiquette / Professionalism

[Urasept 1361]

(Most of this is from a thread made by Danny)

The following thread discusses the professionalism, expectations and duties of an SM. It is expected that every SM reads this entire document at least once (regardless of their time spent as an SM). The thread will discuss the following topics: player relations, bans, participation within the community, transparency, admission and protocol. As an SM it is your job to follow the following guidelines. Failure to adhere to these guidelines, will result in disciplinary action.

 

SM Duties:

• Providing essential support to players in need of assistance - regardless of platform, e.g. ModReq, TeamSpeak or the Forum.

• Ensuring server rules are followed by members of the community.

• Ensuring that players are enjoying themselves - if they are not, then attempting to deal with the issue of why.

• Creation of roleplay to increase player enjoyment

• Ensuring the world is clean and attractive (removal of landscars)

• Implementation of whitelist applications.

Things you should not be doing:

• Do not teleport people around the map, unless they are caught in a glitch. Even then, tp to them and at most tp them just outside the glitch. We are not personal taxis, nor do we tp our friends around.

• Spawning of items should only happen on the occasion of replacing items lost due to a bug / glitch. Even then they will need to have ample proof of the items in question, with a time stamped picture.

• Do not make bias decisions. If you feel you cannot remain unbias in a decision get the assistance of another SM or a GM / Admin.

• If your friends / RP group you belong to come under scrutiny, get another SM or GM / Admin to help. Even if you are 100% in the right, as this cuts down on bias claims.

• Creative should not be given to a player for any reason.

• Never leak chat.

• Do not give fly or godmode out.

• DO NOT USE COMMANDS YOU DO NOT KNOW. If you need to know how to do something ask the correct way for it to be done.

 

Professionalism and Expectations

 

Player Relations

As a staff team we should be ensuring that our relationship with the players is at a maximum level, meaning that we are friendly, helpful and polite at all times regardless of whom the player is. That means that you should not refuse to aid any player, ‘hunt any player’ to get them banned, complain publicly about any player or show any hint of dislike towards any member of the community. Remain polite at all times.

 

Showing interest in players is something that we should be aiming to do, rather than simply getting on with the job of moderating. We should be focusing on ensuring that the community is able to speak to us, and to trust as - a way of doing this is by greeting them with a friendly hello, e.g. “Howdy! How can I help?” and once you finish wish them a good day and tell them to contact you if they have any further problems.

 

You should not act aggressive or in a negative attitude towards any player, regardless of what they have done -- being stern is different from being aggressive -- you should obviously show that you are unhappy with the player, but no staff member should go to the extent of shouting at a player or to the extent of swearing at them.

 

Manners and politeness are a key factor in ensuring the community is able to trust and respect us. Saying please and thanks is something that most people do, however some do neglect to do at certain points -- notably when they have faced problems in the past with a player. Holding grudges against a player is simply disregarding your duties as a SM. You should never express dislike towards a member of the community in a public chat channel, or to another player -- showing your annoyance in SM chat is of course another case entirely.

 

We should be putting effort into providing detailed and helpful responses to players who request assistance, and not simply give them a short and snappy answer. For example, if a player asked you if they had to re-apply for a new character - you shouldn’t just say “No.”, you should explain the steps that we expect them to take in order to make this new character. This also applies to bans, which is discussed further in.

 

As strange as it may sound, the usage of smilies when speaking to players can quite often lead to good relations, whether it be a simple smiley face, or a cheesy-grin face - it doesn’t matter, it just gives of a good impression of you. Injecting a bit of humour into your discussions is also something that can greatly improve relations -- do ensure that you do not become some form of joke-box, and instead make only the occasional joke (and make them appropriate).

 

Bans

A ban from the server should not be a decision taken lightly. Depending on the offence the evidence and events should be discussed between multiple SMs in order to reach an unbiased conclusion.

 

All Server Bans should be written up in detail with sufficient evidence that supports the claims made in the post -- no evidence, and the player will be unbanned.

 

When banning a player, said player should be contacted via PM after the ban has been made (or before, if they are in-game) and have it explained to them why they were banned along with the evidence. If a banned player inquires into their banning or into anything else then they should be spoken to the same as any other player regardless of why they are banned -- you shouldn’t not speak to them like rubbish, refuse to communicate or act aggressively towards them.

 

Participation with the Community

It is important that we as a staff team are seen as humans and approachable, therefore we should be actively participating with the community on all available mediums. Examples on how we would achieve this is through posting on general threads throughout the forums often -- this displays our interest in the community and our interest in that specific thread. The posting by staff members should not be restricted to being work-posts, discipline and news -- it should be the same as any other players, and show that the staff team is human. Indeed, other mediums could be used such as Skype or TeamSpeak. A final way that the SM team could ensure participation within the community would be via the OOC chat channel -- there should be staff in there at all times, not only for moderation but also to communicate with the players in it.

 

Transparency & Admission

Transparency is a factor that the staff team does seem to be missing. Indeed, it is often present -- however with certain members of staff this is not the case. If a mistake is made then the SM who made it should admit to it rather than attempting to cover it up. Players should be able to point out mistakes that you have made and criticism of the way you worked with them without facing any kind of lash-back from yourself - we learn from our mistakes, therefore you need to learn your mistakes.

 

If you make a mess-up and you notice it - but a player doesn’t - you should still apologize and say “Whoops, messed up there. Just a second and I’ll fix that.” - it shows that you are not hiding behind a false facade of perfection.

 

Protocol

This is something that every SM should understand and should abide by, but there is one specific rule that a SM must keep in mind at all times:

 

Do not discuss any information that private to the staff in front of any player, regardless of whom they are or how much you trust them.

 

Some staff members do ignore the above, which results in the leaks of confidential and important information which in-turn can cause major problems for us. Ensure that you are one-hundred percent sure that information is permitted to be made public before even opening your mouth to say it.

[Aislin 4354]

Nods once.

[Telanir 6975]

Nods once.

 

Yes, this applies to you too Aislin, don't even think of trolling. <3

[cruzazul 2815]

Aye aye.

[Aislin 4354]

Yes, this applies to you too Aislin, don't even think of trolling. <3

[ski_king3 0]

I can do this *inserts friendly smile* :)

[SparehoeCakes 547]

Awesome, thanks. This clears up a bunch.

[Zarsies 6795]

Mighty helpful, thanky.