Code Of Conduct

Illuminati Code of Conduct

We, the Illuminati, honourable gamers, must conduct ourselves with proper behaviour. Thus, these properties or rules have been created to govern ourselves.

Member Conduct
You are expected to keep a cool head, and be courteus to others in our organization. You are a member of a gaming brotherhood, you are among family. We expect you to act decently at all times. Even if you feel angry, there are ways to express this without causing conflict. Tolerance is key in a large group of people such as this, remember not everyone may believe as you believe and their views are just as valid as your own.

Flaming, cheating, hacking, exploiting, starting arguments with fellow members, disobeying direct orders, are all breeches of the code of conduct. Members found violating will be punished.

Foreign Forum Rules
We will carry ourselves with honour and dignity. If someone flames you, you are free to comment back, but do not stoop below or to their level of immaturity. Remember you are not only representing yourself but also the entire Illuminati.

Conduct Violations
If members are found to be out of line they will receive a strike. This strike is marked in our forums to be tracked over time. We in the Illuminati have a three strike policy to punish breeches of the code of conduct. These strikes are tracked and maintained in our officer area. You will be informed via private message if you have been striked and for what reason. It takes one month to remove a single strike. Meaning if someone has two strikes against them, it will take two months to return to normal status.

We follow these rules that govern us so as to continue the fine tradition that has already been established. From the standard member, to the board of directors, all follow the Code of Conduct.

Forum Moderator Guidlines

Moderators should always reply to PM's, regardless of if all you have time for is "I'll get to it tonight when I get home". Let people know you saw their request and that it'll be handled.

Deleting any posts is strictly prohibited. We use the logs as proof in an argument. Deleting any of it leaves us with nothing, obviously. If there's a post with a lot of offensive language, done in poor taste, editing is fine.

Regarding profanity, we allow it. However, this doesn't mean we encourage it. Tasteless swearing is just that, tasteless. A full paragraph with only 5 words that wouldn't make Jesus cry is uncalled for. There are a lot of younger people on our forums, and we need to be aware of this more than we have in the past if we want to expand. Besides, we do have certain "off limits" areas for the adult members The one grey area is the Construct/Crypt, as those are artistic productions. Hopefully we won't have any issues there and people will keep their language appropriate to the setting, or post adult content warnings like Anjin-San has.

Don't be afraid to PM members about posts! Flamebaiting will stop under the "Apoth Administration" (hopefully better run than the Bush Administration). When you encounter flamebait:

1. PM the member and ask them to edit their post if they are still online.

2. Post a link to the thread in question in the Mod Forums to make the thread known. This will help us monitor reactions, and when five people have time to watch results, we have a better chance of putting flames out as soon as they come up.

3. If a hostile response begins, simply lock the thread for flamebaiting/flaming. PM the offenders warning them that continued flaming and flamebaiting will get them a strike and possibly a temporary ban from Illuminati services including Forums, IRC, and Teamspeak.

4. If you have to lock a thread, update your message in the Mod Forum with the outcome. Also, explain in as much detail as appropriate who the offenders were, and if strikes were issued. This will help us micromanage problem members, and isolate situations so that they won't carry over into other threads.


THE MOD FORUM:

The mod forum consists of two sections: Disciplinary, and Precautionary. A sticky in the Precautionary forum will hold the moderation guidelines. Another sticky will be up in the Disciplinary section to track member strikes.

Threads to watch will be posted in the Precautionary forum. I'd prefer if all threads started there matched the name of the thread in question. For example, if you want us to watch a thread called "Apoth is a noob", title your own thread "Apoth is a noob". Feel free to post your comments about the thread, and the concerns you have about it there.

All threads in the Precautionary forum are open for discussion and comment by any mod. Along with this, if you are unsure of how serious a situation is, ALWAYS report the situation for another mod, or several more, to review as well. And under absolutely no circumstance should you ever respond to a thread about you. If a flame is directed at you, you are to report it to the other mods. DO NOT do anything about it yourself.

The other purpose of the Precautionary forum is to discuss possible situations and how to deal with them. I can't possibly cover every situation here and how you should handle them. And I really don't want to either, you're all intelligent and I'm already tired of writing =P If something comes to mind and you want to discuss how we would handle it ahead of time, post it there. Always better to be prepared for anything than get blindsided and have to rush to make a decision. Premeditated action is always a more effective and well thought out solution than a knee jerk reaction. Lets avoid the latter as much as possible


Threads in the Disciplinary forum should be titled with the offender's name. For example, if I was moderated for needless profanity, you would title the thread "Apotheosis" and detail what action you took. This will help us, again, to track problem members and who breaks what rules.

Now you may be saying "That's a lot of work to report every bit of moderation I do!" The goal is to not have to moderate much at all. Ideally, the Mod Forum would be empty, and I really hope its not a very high traffic part of our site. If we're doing our jobs well, and people respect our rules, we'll never have to use any of it. If we're getting 5 threads a day to watch, we have an issue. Also, reporting is only for conduct violations. There's no need to report threads being moved, and no need to report announcements or stickies being made for people.

If you do move a thread, please just include a link to the new location on the old thread, lock the misplaced thread, but leave the clone there so people don't lose it with no way to track it. Never delete the clone, simply lock and link

Moderate lightly, we're an easy going group, but flamebaiting and flaming our members on tIGS public forums is forbidden starting right now. That's the focus right now as far as I'm concerned. As our situations change, if they do, we'll adjust our priorities as needed.