• March 28, 2024, 06:39:19 PM

Author Topic: Rules / Guidelines:  (Read 5580 times)

Offline Deathâ„¢

  • King Of Death
  • Head Administrator
  • Forum Master
  • *****
  • Posts: 2465
  • The Unholy King Of Death
    • View backpack
    • View SteamRep
    • View Steam Profile
Rules / Guidelines:
« on: June 05, 2015, 12:31:05 PM »
Rules / Guidelines:
Staff are encouraged to make best judgements with respect to moderating the gamesmanship on the servers.  They may place actions against others as they see appropriate to the offense.  The following set of guidelines are examples of when actions are placed on players, and serve as a warning for those who may be ignorant of what proper gamesmanship is and what is expected while playing on TF2swapshop servers.  It is not the responsibility of staff to inform players of rules but we will do our diligence in informing you of infractions depending on the severity of your activities but is not demanded of staff.  Failure to comply with staff requests, disrespecting staff or deliberate behavior against staff members may constitute your demise.  Staff have a job to moderate the game play in the best interest of all players and as such they should be respected for helping out to that goal.  Bans placed on others may not need to be permanent either, but long enough to get the message across to shape up.

A)- Gaming Guidelines:

Trade related
- People with Steamrep Scammer status are renamed as a scammer automatically in game.   We understand that your trading status may not reflect on your gaming skills and as such are allowed to play, but to protect other players, you will be under the microscope.  If you are found to be disruptive, disrespectful, dishonest, exploitative or continuing scams, you will be banned with extreme prejudice.  Those who ignore the "Scammer" in their name and choose to trade with these scammers have been warned.  Those reported for scamming with scammer status will not be challenged and be awarded a instant ban.  It is the responsibility of those with scammer status to appeal their scam with steamrep.com or risk receiving a ban on our game servers.
- Phishing is not tolerated.  To protect our users, those found guilty with phishing schemes will be permanently banned.  Anyone who submits a properly filled out report on our forums regarding phishing attempts within game, outside game or in our community will be considered valid ban consideration.  For those with a hacked steam account who wish to be unbanned may submit a new thread in the appealing section.  Appeals must include proof of steam account recovery.
- Sharks are frowned upon, preying on the ignorant is part of life but bragging about it makes it easier to live with placing a ban on you.  Misleading others of what the value items are, is considered a scam behavior.  Exploitative behavior will lead to actions being placed against you.  However, asking more than market value for items is fine so long as they know and are willing to pay more than it is worth (Not a scam).
- No private backpacks.  However if you have no interest in trading, we have no issue with that, but if you are trading with a private backpack, you will be asked to make it public or asked to leave.
- Raffles / Gambling activities are allowed only with permission.  Those raising funds on tf2swapshop servers without permission or not forwarding the winnings to server staff / owner is subject to kick / ban.   We do not condone such activities and that if players engage in such activities it is at their own risk.  Trading TF2 items however are allowed.

Gaming related

- No hacks. If you aimbot or speedhack = immediate permanent ban without warning. A plugin is installed to detect hacks and to automatically ban those people who hack. For those who get away with a hack our system doesn't recognize, you may be reported by other players and be investigated and evaluated for a ban by staff.
- Exploits are tolerated to the discretion of the staff. If users are exploiting features to disrupt or cause grief in game or refuse to explain how they exploit features to staff, constitutes a ban.
- No admin impersonation. There is a report feature you can use to allow staff to come to your rescue, so there is no need to pretend to be one in the interim.  Coercing players while impersonating an admin for any reason is a ban offense.  Steamrep will be notified of those who scam players while impersonating an admin.
- No admin disrespect.  Staff are not hired for good looks, backpack contents or popularity, we have a job to do.  Baiting, critiquing, criticizing, disrupting or teasing the admin in game may result in unfavorable actions being placed against YOU!  If you have an issue, you may take screenshots or video's and post them in our forums as an official complaint.
- No making false claims of rules which do not exist.  Just because you suck, doesn't give you the right to say that it is against the rules for people to kill you.
- No usage of hate related, pornographic or unethical sprays. If staff disapproves of your spray, they may ask you to discontinue using it or face a kick or ban at their own discretion.
- We understand that taunting players is often done with name calling and general mind games with words.  This is sometimes may be considered a disruptive behavior or not respectful of others in the game.  If participants with racism, religious or cultural slander, vulgarity, insults, potty talk, stereotyping, homophobia (gender chauvinism), or age discrimination with voice, chat or names may be tolerated at times, this generally disruptive behavior can be attributed to a short life in our community. Staff have been informed to deal with these issues at their own discretion.
- Disrupting others over the mic, employing mic distortion or being irritating may result in actions placed upon you. Repeat offenders may find themselves permanently muted.
- No spamming of /report improper-usage, taunts, text chat, mic and other things that can be obnoxious.
- Name changes may result in actions placed against you.  Staff can easily ban those who evade actions placed against them by frequent name changing.  Changing your name to be the same or similar to others is disruptive to game play which may also result in actions placed against you.  Please be mindful with how often you change your name or how you name yourself.
- We prefer to speak English.  If you are not speaking it, we will not understand you.  You will not understand our warnings if you are in conflict with our guidelines which may lead to your mute, gag, kick or ban, unless a staff member is fluent in your language. Don't be mad if you don't understand why actions were placed on you if you are not English.
- Everyone that can't handle winning with grace and losing with dignity should go join a different server.  In general, if you find yourself getting angry over the game, losing control of your mouth or typing fingers and frothing at the mouth, take a break, wait for your patience to rebuild, your IQ to return to normal and the burning homicidal rage to fade. Just stop playing for a bit until you calm down.  And finally rage quit in silence, or leave with a "gg" or "laters".  Leaving with "you all fucking suck / server sucks, I'm going to go play somewhere else" is one of the better ways of catching a temp ban.   
- This is an adult game.  Adults caught baiting adolescents or adolescents irritating adults will result in consequences to both guilty parties.  Although we do tolerate ignorance and accommodate common courtesy to people of young ages, we give preference to Adults with maturity.

B)- /report USAGE

-=For for rules violations use only.=-
USAGE:In chat, type /report [Type Reason you are reporting a person] (press enter) and then select from the menu who you are reporting.   Ignoring these guidelines will result in your pleads for help being ignored or you being banned from the report feature.

- Before making reports against other players, refer to the guidelines.
- One word reports are not acceptable.  Must post who, and why they are being reported.
- No whining, poor gamesmanship, bug reports, griefing, name calling or the proverbial "calling WOLF" or asking staff to rescue you.
- No bug reports.  Place a new bug report in the forum for bugs, not in the report feature.
- The report feature is only used for rule infractions that must be identified in a emergency level of priority only.  If any infractions can wait until later, please use means of contacting staff directly or by leaving comments inside the forum.
- Don't be surprised if staff shows up, after you alerting staff improperly, to join your game in progress only to dominate, troll, grief or spawn-camp you if you call wolf improperly or frequently.
FOR STAFF:  You may ignore the report bot any time you like.  We have several staff members for this purpose, so we can trust that someone else may answer the calls for help.  Do not let the report bot consume you.


C)- ADMINISTRATION CONDUCT

1: Administration may not exploit the admin functions to convince users to give items or accept offers for administrative favors (Conflict of interest)
2: Warnings or Votes should be made prior to taking actions against those who break rules (depending on severity / situation).
3: Abusing your powers because someone is kicking your ass does not give u the right to abuse them, but you are welcome to dominate them using your gaming given skills.
4: Any administrative actions that may provide the server a bad rap for poor admin or people that abuse power (not related to regular game play) is not tollerated.
5: Do not enforce rules which do not exist or by which have not been properly implemented and approved by all admin staff.  Temporary notification of why and how long there will be a temporary new rule may exist.  If you make silly rules for your personal benefit in game, it will reflect poorly on you.  We do allow staff to use best judgement for how powers are used and we hope it is in the best interest of the community.
6: Everyone is encouraged to participate in the evolution of these TF2Swapshop policies but only the owner or Pixels are permitted to revising these rules. (or by special permission)
7: Testing your administrative powers out is permissible so long as it is not disruptive to game play.  Staff may lock a server to perform tests on other staff members or obtain permission from players.
8: All demoted staff must be listed as demoted on the staff member list with the date of demotion. (This is also a Recruit Specialist / Owner / Forum Admin duty during admin demotions)
9: All staff will be open to criticism by other staff.  If staff cannot be challenged in how they make decisions, just how are we to understand why actions took place or how can we evolve as a community when changes need to be made?  If you cannot openly accept questions by other staff without taking it as a personal attack, maybe it's time to reconsider your occupation in our community.
10: It is acceptable to:
10a: Use powers to assist with achievements
10b: Use powers to instruct on usage
10c: Use powers to warn individuals whom break rules or are causing grief
10d: Change their name to operate incognito to catch people with improper gamesmanship
10e: Use any Administrative powers to do your job
10f:  By creating little in-game events that's chosen by votes or by making the game interesting or fun to play.
10g: For demonstration purposes when requested, so long as it does not disrupt others in game.
 
11: If you are going to chew bubblegum, you are supposed to give everyone bubblegum.  Special favors for one individual creates a uneven game play.  Try to keep things fair when handing out administrative favors.
Inactivity:
12: It is required for staff to be participants in the forum and members of the steam community group.
13: It is also required that the staff member inform others of any extended absences or reduction in activity or are no longer able to fulfill duties. Failing to check the forums for messages = Reason why you are deemed inactive.  Game play staff activity is not monitored.
14: If you get VAC Banned, consider yourself demoted to a regular user.
Gameplay:
15: Reset any game play modifications before you leave the server.  Admin staff are encouraged to generate a vote prior to applying effects to @all.  Staff are not to apply an @all effect without removing it, as people who join after the effect is applied do not have that effect and makes game unfair. (ie: Crits, noclip, Infinite ammo or other non-standard individual based server setting)  This does not apply to a global server setting like Gravity unless users request a permanent change in the forums.
Identity:
16: All staff must add all other Admins to their friends list.  It is suggested to tag all staff as "TF2SS admin" so you can easily access other staff members.
17: All staff listed in the member list must reflect their original registered name and subsequent changed name (if applicable).
18: All new staff members must be added to the member list. (This is a Recruit Specialist / Owner / Forum Admin duty)
19: All staff members who change their names must submit a request to update the member list with their new name or change back to their registered name as previously listed. - See below comment (*)
20: All staff members must have a registered e-mail address for use of sourcebans.  Failure to provide your e-mail address for sourcebans will mean you opt not using it in the event you forget your login name or password.  If you change your e-mail address, let us know so we can edit it in sourcebans. (This is a Recruit Specialist / Owner / Forum Admin duty)


  (*) The server will identify staff as being an administrator in game-play text chat, if you wish to be incognito, use the fakesay command in the developer console.  Name changes make it difficult for others to familiarize themselves with staff members and makes it difficult to manage usernames in the admin configuration settings. It is preferred that staff do not change their names, as it does get difficult to associate with who is who, especially when many staff are renamed at the same time.

Sometimes votes may be placed whereby the majority of users may agree to enforce conformity.  Allowing players to take part in deciding actions against offensives gives them the feeling that their opinion matters and creates a community gaming atmosphere.  Admins are encouraged to permit others in decision making and users are welcome to submit input in the forums.

Staff found guilty of violating policies will be asked to explain themselves or possibly be demoted.  Those demoted who are unable or unwilling to redeem themselves will not be offered another opportunity to be a staff member unless deemed otherwise by the remaining staff.  Staff who request demotion may request to be re-promoted providing that they fulfill the requirements outlined in the rules and application thread.


D)- Forum Guidelines

- If you cannot see any groups or threads other then this one, maybe time to log in.  Only members are permitted to view content in our forums.
- No Selling and / or trading of Steam Accounts. However, you may sell and / or trade TF2 items and gift game copies.
- No attempting to hi-jack someone else's thread.  Make your own!
- No unauthorized raffles in the forums. You must have a staff member assistance with raffles.
- Be polite and respectful when posting.
- You should close your own thread when you are finished with it.
- Staff are encouraged to not stereotype posts but investigate as to what posts actually mean. (Asking questions can be a positive moderation attribute)
- Staff reserves the right to modify or remove posts, without notice, but are encourage to attempt to provide courteous notice if applicable.
- Staff reserves the right to Lock posts which is deemed "permanent historical reference".  For this reason, be mindful of what you type, as if it represents you poorly, it will likely be in the forums for a long long time to come.
- Each message group may also have specific guidelines to follow - Please familiarize yourself with the sticky threads at the top of the groups before posting or replying.


Lastly, the owner, Death, is exempt to all rules and may change them without notice.  If you do not like the conduct of the owner in game, you are encouraged to leave.  If you retaliate or whine about the way he plays, you may become his new target for pure enjoyment purposes (admin commands may apply).

If anyone otherwise have any suggestions for rules or conduct, please place them in a new thread in the Suggestions / Feedback Group.   It is up to you to re-read these rules from time to time as they may change.

Thank you for being a part of TF2SwapShop.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2015, 01:49:30 PM by Deathâ„¢ »