Forum Rules

[ArmageddonMUD]

1. You agree to follow the registration agreement that appears when creating a new GDB account, posted below for reference. Staff make the final decision on the judgment of posts.

2. Posters should be respectful of one another. Flaming, baiting, trolling or abusing other posters in any way is forbidden. This rule extends to criticism and baiting of staff, as well as responding to such behavior with the same behavior in kind.

3. The forum is considered to be work and lunch safe. Do not post pornography, or racist, sexist, or homophobic material. Don't post gruesome images inline. Don't hotlink images, as some websites change the image when they detect hotlinking - instead, host the image on an image sharing service (e.g. imgur, photobucket) or your own web server before posting it here. Don't post, encourage, or ask for illegal activity, including but not limited to piracy, hacking, etc.

4. Posters should post in English, and in a way that would be considered normal writing, to the best of their ability.

5. Do not post sensitive game information, including information about your character, other characters, plots, or magick/psionic mechanics.

6. Don't use this forum to bash other MUDs, private individuals or groups, or other posters.

7. Keep posts on-topic. Derailing a thread or posting off-topic is not allowed. Talking about moderation actions or attempting to revive moderated posts or threads is not allowed.

8. Spam is not allowed. If you see a spam bot, please report it.

9. If you are not a moderator, do not moderate. Do not reply to a poster you believe is breaking the rules. Please use the "report to moderator" function instead.

10. The above rules apply to posts, private messages, signatures, avatars and profile information.

A poster may be warned and/or have their thread locked or posts removed if a rule break is considered minor, accidental, or unusual for that poster. Otherwise, the poster will be banned for 3 days, or longer if the poster has been banned recently or has failed to correct their behavior after numerous bans. A General Discussion Board > Complaint or Appeal request in the request tool can be used to overturn bans lasting longer than 7 days.

All members are assumed to agree to the registration agreement:

You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this forum.

Note that it is impossible for the staff or the owners of this forum to confirm the validity of posts. Please remember that we do not actively monitor the posted messages, and as such, are not responsible for the content contained within. We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information presented. The posted messages express the views of the author, and not necessarily the views of this forum, its staff, its subsidiaries, or this forum's owner. Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to notify an administrator or moderator of this forum immediately. The staff and the owner of this forum reserve the right to remove objectionable content, within a reasonable time frame, if they determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, please realize that they may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately. This policy applies to member profile information as well.

You remain solely responsible for the content of your posted messages. Furthermore, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the owners of this forum, any related websites to this forum, its staff, and its subsidiaries. The owners of this forum also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any other related information collected on this service) in the event of a formal complaint or legal action arising from any situation caused by your use of this forum.

You have the ability, as you register, to choose your username. We advise that you keep the name appropriate. With this user account you are about to register, you agree to never give your password out to another person except an administrator, for your protection and for validity reasons. You also agree to NEVER use another person's account for any reason.  We also HIGHLY recommend you use a complex and unique password for your account, to prevent account theft.

After you register and login to this forum, you will be able to fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present clean and accurate information. Any information the forum owner or staff determines to be inaccurate or vulgar in nature will be removed, with or without prior notice. Appropriate sanctions may be applicable.

Please note that with each post, your IP address is recorded, in the event that you need to be banned from this forum or your ISP contacted. This will only happen in the event of a major violation of this agreement.

Also note that the software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.

[Shabago]

Guidelines for Staff Dealing with Players

1) Be polite.  Avoid being snarky or rude.

2) Be respectful

3) Try to understand the player's side

4) Do not assume the worst.  Do not assume their motivations are underhanded, or project a tone to their communication.  Instead, read it again while imagining a respectful, polite tone.  Remember, text is lousy at communicating tone and intent.

5) Avoid closing a request prematurely, be sure everything is answered even if it's a simple "looking into that", or "no, we can't do that and here's why".  It's better to give a simple answer than none at all, leaving them with the impression they've been ignored.

6) If you get upset or angry, don't respond immediately.  You can always ask someone else to look at the situation / request with you

7) Escalate if the situation becomes too difficult and you can't / don't want to handle it

8 ) Do not try to railroad Player ideas/plots.  Instead, try to work with them on world fit, while being an advocate for the game's setting, lore, and style.  But be forthcoming on what you think the effort would be, and if it proves to be too much, don't be afraid to say no.

9) If a player is frustrated, instead of taking it as a personal attack, try to get to the cause of their frustration and work towards resolution if possible.

10) When dealing with an issue with a player, especially in terms of any form of repercussions for their actions, handle it in a professional manner.  If you are upset about what they've done, see number 6 above.


Guidelines for Players Dealing with Staff

1) Be polite.  Avoid being snarky or rude.

2) Be respectful

3) Try to understand staff's side

4) Do not assume the worst.  Do not assume their motivations are underhanded, or project a tone to their communication.  Instead, read it again while imagining a respectful, polite tone.  Remember, text is lousy at communicating tone and intent.

5) If a staff member gives a short answer, avoid conflating that with rudeness.  Staff members can be quite busy and have a lot of requests to answer.  Generally a short, simple answer is not intended to be rude.

6) If you get upset or angry, don't respond immediately.

7) Submit a Staff Complaint if you feel you've been treated poorly.  All Staff Complaints are reviewed by Producers.  If it's a Producer who is the subject of the complaint, then the other Producers will review it.

8 ) Do not try to box Staff in.  For example:  A or B are the only options, and are all that I will accept as being ok.   Be willing to be flexible and understand that you can't always get exactly what you want.  Often an idea doesn't happen simply because it could mean a large amount of work.