I noticed some points in the Wiki rules that the staff may want to review for possible editing. Hope you all find this helpful! In Section 4, Clause 2 (regarding vulgarity in chat), you may want to change "(ie. WTF?)" to "(eg. WTF?)", as the former implies that this is the only instance of possible abbreviations of swear words. In Section 4, Clause 8 (regarding mini-modding), you succeeded in explaining your definition of mini-modding, but did not explicitly state that mini-modding is discouraged and/or prohibited. A 'trolly' (borrowing your lingo) player could interpret this as consent to do so, despite your warning to "be wary". NOTE: You did correctly prohibit mini-modding in Section 10 (General Forum Rules), so that doesn't need changing. It doesn't explicity apply to in-game, however, which is why I believe this change to be necessary. In Section 5, Clause 1 (regarding town ownership/residency), you state that the rules of a town should be "...posted clearly in a town via locked signs...", and what a mayor should do in the event that they have such rules. There are towns/nations that prefer to use the forums as a place to post rules, and have players review them. To cite a specific example, I'll use the town of Lancaster. Now, I haven't met Lancaster, and they may very well have their rules posted on locked signs per your rules. However, the wording of this Clause is imperfect, and could be misconstrued as Lancaster being in violation of your rules, because they make the players review a forum post instead of the locked signs before agreeing to them. Recommendation: Add official forum threads as an optional method for rules posting/reviewing. Personally, I like what Lancaster did, but again, the wording could put them in the gray area. --------------- As previously stated, I hope this helps, and apologize in advance for 'lawyering' your work. I actually think you guys have done one of the best jobs on server rules that I've ever seen. Well done!
But anyways, thank you for bringing this to our attention @wijic318, we'll take a look at them as soon as we can.
Thanks for this @wijic318 - I have to run out now but I will take a look at these when I get home later today
I have changed the i.e. to an e.g. in the vulgarity rule, thanks As for the mini-modding clause, I just added this as a simple addition but I would appreciate your input on this. It achieves the aim of making it clear that mini-modding isn't allowed, but I'm not if it may be better to just take the definition of mini-modding and re-write the Clause. Do you reckon that this is ok as it is? Clause 8 - "Mini-Modding" ECC is a community where users should be helpful to one another. Informing others of the rules is allowed and encouraged. Telling or threatening others with the consequences of breaking the rules is considered mini-modding and is not allowed. Please be wary about how you inform others of breaking the rules. Being demeaning, condescending or rude could come off as mild mini-modding as opposed to being helpful. If the consequences need to be spelled out, please leave that to the staff online. As we deal with things on a case-by-case basis, it's impossible to know exactly what a staff member would actually do to a member breaking the rules, even if you can give a good guess. ________________ As for the Town forum threads you have actually, perhaps even without realising, unearthed an interesting point in our rules. We have always given quite a lot of power to town mayors, in that they can evict players from their town for whatever reason provided that they give them the necessary 3 day eviction notice. This is of course subject to other rules such as scamming/harassment/trolling etc - for example if you were selling perms and then immediately issuing eviction notices you would be deemed to be scamming the victims. Our rules provide for certain situations when this eviction notice doesn't need to be given and they can be removed immediately - simply put they are if the player griefed your town or if they are inactive. In the past, we also had a rule that a town mayor could remove a player without this eviction notice if the resident had broken a town rule. This is why the rule which you highlighted (Section 5, Clause 1) is as it is. It was an attempt to get town mayors to have clear, enforceable rules which the player had agreed to. We found however that this just caused a whole host of problems. Town mayors would change rules after there had been an agreement, evidence of agreements wasn't being taken. So we resorted to our current position of requiring an eviction notice for if a player broke a town rule, as with any other eviction. Unfortunately, the wording of that rule must have skipped us by when we made this change, which is why it may seem a bit out of place. A town's rules therefore, are not actually ever enforced by staff as staff no longer have to assess the validity of the rules, any agreements to them etc. The rule is now that a town mayor must provide a 3 day eviction notice, in comparison to the old rule of breaking a town rule justifying immediate removal. So to relate back to your example of Lancaster. In my view, the town rules don't play a direct role in allowing the mayor to evict a player. The town mayor has the discretion to do this regardless under our rules. But what they can do is play a very significant role in defining what sort of situations a player may expect to be issued a 3 day eviction notice by the mayor. In this regard, what Lancaster is doing now with the thread is serving that purpose. Residents who sign up to the rules on the thread are aware at what the mayor expects from them and so they know in what circumstances the mayor may use his/her power of eviction with a 3 day notice. ------- I know it may seem a little excessive for me to have gone into all of that detail, but to be honest it was something which surprised me when I looked at the rule. I read it and was left thinking how I fix the rule so it makes sense when read alongside our eviction policies, whilst also trying to emphasise how town rules can be effectively used. It is now midnight for me, and I'm extremely tired so I'm going to get some sleep rather than rush into re-doing it now, but feel free to give your thoughts on the above and I will have a think over the next day or two when I get a moment on the best way to phrase all of this Thanks once again for bringing these points up!
Phew, and I thought *I* was good at walls of text! Regarding Mini-Modding: That edit looks like an elegant solution. IMO, the reason this one jumped out at me was because the wording was inconsistent with the rest of the article. Adding that phrase in should properly re-align the flow. More importantly, now it looks like the following bullets are helping to define WHERE you draw the line at, as opposed to drawing the line in the first place. Regarding Town Ownership: Firstly, thank you for all the background information. It gave me a different perspective to work with while assessing the wording of this rule. You'll notice that I only gave a recommendation on correcting it, as I didn't really have a specific idea. It was intelligent of ECC staff to remove a direct cause/effect to the town rules. From what you told me, it sounds like it was giving way too much exploitative authority to people, esp. to folks whom had never been through your rigorous staff-application process (liked that too, BTW ). That said, I agree that the town rules shouldn't be completely eliminated, as it provides players (and admins!) a kind of base-line that helps to understand how the mayor of a given town operates. Here is a quick brainstorm of a couple ideas floating in my head. Please bear in mind that my understanding of what you're capable of/willing to do is limited: Keep it enforceable, but separate. Make the "town rules via locked signs" a separate bullet that is required in order to have a town. If found to be in violation, you could enforce by fining/arresting mayoral privileges until it's corrected. Anything else the Mayor does with the rules is (mostly) optional. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Tack on something small to make sure folks like Lancaster stay in the clear, and let the rest remain as a piece of additional security in case any disputes come up. Re-assign the town rules' role. Make the rule an addendum of this clause... notate it as a "Recommended Safe Practice" for Mayors to use at their own discretion. Or you could cut it out of the rules entirely, and instead make it part of informational section on the Mayor's Rank. ------ Whatever you decide, I think you're going in the right direction with this. Please feel free to reach out to me if you'd like any more feedback.
Hey all! Thought on this a little more, and I think I have a reasonable recommendation now. Please review the changes highlighted in green. ----------- Clause 1 - Town Ownership and Town Residency 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. Any rules must be posted clearly in the town with locked signs, via their official town thread, or via a contract approved by the staff. Mayors should collect screenshots of the member stating that they've reviewed the rules and agree to them, as a staff member may ask you to provide these at any time. 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. ----------- Since town rules aren't as heavily policed as before, it seemed reasonable that the only direct stipulation (aside from not interfering with server rules) should be that they have them clearly posted SOMEWHERE. As discussed previously, they can now choose to evict at anytime with the proper protocol. Erego, any rules they implement aren't directly affecting the staff or outside players, so it's on them to maintain. That said, it will be inevitable that Mayors and/or Town Members will reach out to the staff looking to mediate some dispute (I've already seen several just by browsing your forum archives ). This is where the 2nd bullet comes in. Note the operative word: "should". It's not an explicit directive, but it sets an expectation: if the staff requires the screenies for any reason, and the Town owner doesn't have them, it's not going to bode well for them. I also made sure to tack on that the Town member should state that they "reviewed the rules", as additional evidence during a dispute. As always, I hope this helps!
