A Few Rule Updates

So we have another wave of rule updates. A lot of them are minor changes which don't change the substantive content of the rule (things such as style/grammar/spelling etc). BUT there are quite a few significant changes, which I will start with.

Green text shows additions.
Red text shows text that has been removed.
Orange text is to show key changes in an easy to read manner

If you have any questions regarding any of these, please don't hesitate to ask and I will try and explain Also, please ignore the weird formatting of some of the bullet points in this thread

As always, please give feedback and we can adjust them if needed
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1. Town Ownership Definitions​

• We have decided to alter the terminology used for town ownership as the phrase we currently use 'original owner' isn't strictly correct due to town claims/town transfers etc.
  • Official owner, legal owner and co-owner = newly defined terms.
• Only the legal owner can remove co-owners, and not the other way around.
• Rules are now in place for LWC removal requests in towns which have the interact flag.
• Lowering the standard required to remove someone from your town immediately as a result of griefing.

Section 5, Clause 1 - Town Ownership and Town Residency

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  • Town owners have the right to form any laws, living or building rules within in towns, so long as they do not interfere with our universal server rules.
    • Rules must be posted clearly in the town with locked signs, or agreed to via contract in order to be enforced by staff.
      • In the event the town rules are posted via signs, the mayor must provide screenshots of the member agreeing to the town rules when filing a complaint.
  • Town owners are expected to have respect towards their town’s residents.
  • Scamming and taking advantage of your town’s residents is strictly prohibited.
    • If you are the victim of a Mayor/President town scam, you may submit proper evidence of such to our Complaints forum.
  • Mayors may remove anyone from their towns for any reason, as outlined in Clause 3 - Seizure of Property.

• • There are different terms of ownership, with different legal rights.
    
    • Official Owner: The player who currently owns the town as stated in the town application. This is either the original owner, or the player listed as "New Owner" in the town application. Only the official owner is able to file town feature applications.
    • Legal Owner/Town Mayor: The owner of the town as defined by agreement (contract, in game agreement, etc.) with the official owner of the town.
      • There can be more than one Legal Owner per town (2 equal owners for example). This must be clearly expressed in the agreement.
    • • A contract is by far the most reliable method of transferring legal ownership of a town and is the best way to prove that you are the Legal Owner.
    • Co-Owner/Co-Mayor: Added to the town but not legal owner. Powers are defined by the legal owner of a town.
    • Note: The town mayor may be either the official owner or a legal owner. It is whoever is currently in charge of the town.
    • An official owner is able to contact a GameAdmin+ at any time to request their town be returned to them, the request of which will be filled at the administration’s discretion.

Clause 3 - Seizure of Property & 3 Day Eviction Notices

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  • By owning the town, a town Mayor has the right to remove you from the town at any time, for any reason, so long as the Mayor gives the user a 3 day eviction notice.
    • An eviction notice may be given by in-game (either by PM or /mail) or by tagging evicted users in a thread in the Town Evicitions sub-forum within the Towns Discussion forum. It is not required to post a thread for any eviction, although it may be easier if you are evicting multiple users.
    • The eviction notice must contain the name of the town. Be sure to collect evidence of this for LWC Removal Requests and/or proof should it be required at a later date. It is crucial that the screenshot has a timestamp (double tap f2).
    • If the user being evicted has LWCs in the town and the Mayor intends to file an LWC Request to have them removed, the eviction notice must include a specific request that the user removes their locks within the 3 days.
    • The evicted user must have had the opportunity to view the eviction notice. If the user has not been online, in-game or on the forums depending on how the eviction notice was issued, during the 3 day period then the eviction is not valid. The mayor or co-mayor must wait until the user is inactive (at least 7 days offline) or has been online to view to the notice before removing the user from the town or filing an LWC Removal Request.
    • Only the Official Owner or the Legal Owner of the town (via contract or other agreed means) may evict players who are region owners/co-mayors.
  • However, under the following circumstances, the 3 day eviction criteria need not be met and the user may be removed from the town:
    • A user is inactive (by staff standards, this means at least 7 days offline.)
    • A user who has been banned for griefing in the town or warned by a staff member as a result of a Grief Report.

Clause 4 - LWC Removal Requests

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  • LWCs in towns may only be removed with a request in the Staff Requests forum by the mayor or co-mayor of the town under the following circumstances:
    • A user is inactive (by staff standards, this means at least 7 days offline.)
    • A user has been issued a 3 day eviction notice that complies with the requirements above in Clause 3. Proof of the eviction notice must be provided.
    • A user has been banned for Moderate+ grief in the town.
    • A user has been requested to remove their locks via an eviction notice and has outrightly declined to do so (timestamped proof of declination to remove locks must be provided with the request.)
  • Any other request that does not follow these guidelines is considered attempted theft, and in serious cases, you may be punished for attempting to illegally remove locks. Locks in the wild and locks belonging to the applicant owner of the town may not be removed.
  • Locks in the wild and locks belonging to the applicant Official Owner of the town may not be removed.
  • You may not block access to any locked belongings of the evicted user at any time. Staff will deny all requests in which the LWCs have been blocked in an attempt to protect items.
    • If your request has been locked for this reason, you must re-issue the 3 day eviction notice and may only file a new LWC removal request once the 3 day eviction period has expired.
    • If the player was not issued an eviction notice as they had been offline for 7+ days, then you must still wait 3 days before re-filing the request.
  • If the town has the interact flag set to deny, players must still have perms to the town when the request is filed and may only be removed after a staff member has handled it. This is irrespective of whether the 3 day eviction period has ended.
    • A player who has been removed from the town for griefing under Section 2, Clause 3 above (Being warned by a staff member or banned for griefing in the town as a result of a Grief Report) does not need to be left added to the town.
      • Note: For a warning/ban for minor grief - A 3 day eviction notice must still be given under Section 2, Clause 3. During this time the player must still have the opportunity to collect their items. If necessary a town mayor can request the assistance of a staff member to supervise re-adding the player temporarily to collect their items to ensure that no further grief is committed.

Clause 5 - Town Claims

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  • With the addition of the Town Claiming feature for Tycoons+, town transfers are possible by means of attaining a rank and claiming it under any of the following criteria:
    • The owners of the town are offline for a minimum of 6 months.
    • The owners of the town are permanently banned from the server, and a period of 7 days has passed since the ban was issued.
    • The owners of the town have signed and consented to the sale/transfer of a town officially, to be completed in full via the Town Claim application.
  • When a user claims a town, the former applicant Official Owner loses all rights to the town and its ownership. The user who has claimed the town becomes the Official applicant Owner, and may apply for town features and have all the other benefits associated with being the Official applicant Owner. There is nothing that can be done about this and This will not be reversed under any circumstances.
  • If you purchase another user’s town not via a Town Claim or Town Transfer, be wary that the Official applicant Owner may contact a GameAdmin+ at any time to request the town be returned to them, the request of which will be filled at the administration’s discretion.

Clause 6 - Town Transfers

• Town transfer applications allow you to transfer a town via contract for $250,000. When doing this make sure the contract specifies you are now the legal owner of the town. The contract must specifically state that you are permitted to apply for a Town Transfer to gain Official Ownership of the town
• Please note that until a town transfer or town claim application has been filed the town may be reclaimed at any point by the original Official Owner at the discretion of the administration.
• When a user transfers a town, the former applicant Official Owner loses all rights to the town and ownership. The user who has claimed the town becomes the Official applicant Owner, and may apply for town features and have all the other benefits of having a town in which they are the Official applicant Owner.

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2. Accusations of rule-breaking​

Section 4, Clause 3 - Inappropriate/Touchy Subjects and Discussions

• EcoCityCraft is a server community consisting of many age groups, religious groups, and political backgrounds. As such, there are many touchy subjects that we do not allow in our public channels in order to keep the peace and prevent arguments and flame wars from occurring.
• All chat must be kept appropriate and clean at all times. There is to be no discussion of anything deemed inappropriate for a workplace, including, but not limited to, sexuality, excessive violence, alcohol/drugs and inappropriate or dark humor.
• This rule extends into subjects about illegal substances or actions, including drugs.
• Politics, religion and suicide are common “touchy subjects”, however they are not the only ones. Should a staff member ask you to change a subject they feel is touchy and/or is causing the direction of chat to deviate towards an argument or flame war, you must drop the subject immediately.
• Discussing a banned user's ban reason and why they were banned is not allowed, however simply mentioning a banned player's username is allowed.
• Accusing other players of breaking any of the Server Rules is not allowed. Use the proper means to address these concerns such as speaking to a staff member or filing a complaint.

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3. Harassment, Trolling & Staff Disrespect​

Section 2, Clause 2 - Trolling

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  • This rule is super simple. Don’t be a troll, and especially don’t troll others away from the server. Please look up “Troll (Internet)” for a more comprehensive definition.
  • This includes flaming or attempts to start any form of chaos and discord within the server.
  • Trolling is not allowed on the server, especially any trolling that is directed towards another user. This includes, but is not limited to:
    • Flame baiting
    • Harassment (See Section 2 Clause 3.)
    • Cyber-bullying
    • Attempts to start any form of chaos or discord within the server

Section 2, Clause 3 - Harassment

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  • Harassment constitutes as any form of action (chat or game play wise) that makes another player (including server staff) feel threatened or otherwise ruins their game play.
    
    • Griefing in the wild does not constitute harassment. Harassment in the wild is strictly chat/command based.
  • This includes, but is not limited to; blackmail, bullying or any other form of harassment that occurs through our chat system.
  • Attempting to kill other players in any non-PvP zone also constitutes as harassment, and succeeding in killing other players in non-PvP areas is a very severe offence that will result in a ban.
  • Harassment is absolutely inexcusable on EcoCityCraft. If you are engaging in this behavior expect to be removed from the server with little to no warning.
  • Disrespecting staff falls under this rule - They are players too.

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4. Nickname​

Section 8, Clause 10

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  • There is to be no abuse of our Nickname or Nickname+ feature.
  • This includes, but is not limited to, having a nickname which:
    • Uses vulgar language
    • Impersonates another player
    • Amounts to harassment of another player
    • Is blatantly spammy; or
    • Anything else which the Staff team deem to be inappropriate.
  • Refusing to change your nickname when requested to do so by a member of Staff may result in further action being taken.

 

The major element of this part of the rule is to prevent someone pretending to be someone else when it comes to transactions - Ie. to pretend to be someone respected/with a good reputation etc. Some users may not know ranks of players. Similarly, the consent of the person isn't that relevant in this situation as the victim would still be deceived.

 

Also, a minor edit regarding equal co-owners and Legal owner status thanks to @MCHelix3000 who pointed out that the updated wording didn't really allow for multiple 'Legal Owners'

 

Yes, they are allowed. And co-mayors can evict/file LWCS on all players added as a member of the town. The only thing a co-mayor can't do is evict a Legal Owner (who has evidence of the agreement which makes him Legal Owner).

The idea behind it is to give extra protection for Town mayors who get removed by co-mayors for various reasons - It just makes it very clear that if someone has evidence of being Legal Owner (best way is a contract), they can't be removed by other co-mayors that they add. I know that this was already the case, but I hope that people start using the terminology in contracts which will help staff to easily identify ranks/positions within town ownership.