Staffing Guidelines

Staff Rules

0. Training

It is important that new staff go through the rules with someone in training, rather than having someone read the rules alone; that way if they don’t understand something that is part of the rules questions can be answered regarding misunderstandings. (doing so removes the need for precedents because staff should know how to apply the rules to different scenarios).

There are two kinds of training a new staff member receives: event, and moderation. Event training is given to eventmins or moderators that wish to learn how to run, and run, events.

0.1 Moderation Training

Moderation training is fulfilled by a Head Admin (Headmin). Headmins are expected to teach potential moderators:

• How to use common staffing verbs, such as, but not limited to: Aghost, Jump-To-Area, View-Variables, Create-Command-Report, Spawn-Panel, Player-Panel, etc.
• Where to find the rules, interpretations of rules, Headmin rulings, etc., including asking the potential moderator to read and understand the rules in full themself.
• How to conduct themselves to fellow staff members, including maintaining positive relationships, refraining from holding grudges, harassing, consistently slighting, etc., fellow staff members
• How to conduct themselves in-game and reflect the staff team. This usually involves being respectful, refraining from forming negative relationships, and following the rules that they will hope to uphold.
• How to conduct themselves on the discord, through following the discord rules and maintaining positive relationships with staff and community members.
• How to conduct themselves within tickets, through clearly explaining problems and solutions to players, and clearly explaining punishment(s) and appeal time(s), etc.
• How to handle the misconduct of another staff member, through reporting it to a Headmin or a staff member one rank above the staff member who committed an infraction
• It is also expected that Headmin provide information regarding hierarchy, staff punishment, appeal times, ban types, holistic punishment, etc.

0.2 Event Training

Event training is fulfilled by a Head Event Admin (Head Eventmin) or by a Head Admin (Headmin) in their interim. Head Eventmins are expected to teach potential eventmins:

• How to use common eventing verbs, such as, but not limited to: Spawn, Spawn-Panel, Storyteller-Panel, Dynamic-Panel, Create-Command-Report, Create/Launch-Supplypod, Trigger-Event, Set-Security-Level, etc.
• Where to find the rules, interpretations of rules, Headmin rulings, etc., including asking the potential Eventmin to read and understand the rules in full themself.
• How to conduct themselves to fellow staff members, including maintaining positive relationships, refraining from holding grudges, harassing, consistently slighting, etc., fellow staff members
• How to conduct themselves in-game and reflect the staff team. This usually involves being respectful, refraining from forming negative relationships, and following the rules that they will hope to uphold.
• How to conduct themselves on the discord, through following the discord rules and maintaining positive relationships with staff and community members.
• It is also expected that Head Eventmin provide information regarding hierarchy, staff punishment, appeal times, ban types, holistic punishment, etc.

1. Responsibility & Power

As staff, the consequences of your actions fall completely upon you, and you alone; you will be held accountable for whatever consequences arise due to your actions. Examples of this are: handing out antagonistic roles, spawning in hazardous creatures or entities (such as xenomorphs or vines), leaving an event that you started, etc.

Although these things can or can not necessarily incur in breaking this rule depending on context, if they cause problems, you will be blamed for them, and suffer the appropriate consequences. Adminbus is only fun if other people are having fun. Staff are expected to act as game masters and refrain from doing things solely for their own enjoyment. Please make sure to coordinate any actions you make that could affect the round with the rest of staff. It helps to avoid problems and take care of them if they happen.

1.1 Power use

• You may not, under any circumstances, var-edit (variable edit via View-Variables) items for yourself or others in-round in a way that would provide an advantage (including quality-of-life) to you or others, unless such is in response to a ticket where you, yourself are uninvolved, and the var-edit does not circumvent intentional game design, the server rules, or the fun and enjoyment of other players.
• You may not, without special permission, spawn significantly round-impacting antagonists (heretic, wizard, or any antagonists currently not in rotation);
• You must not remain adminned (and must de-admin/deadmin) while you are playing in-round as a member of Command, Security, or as an Antagonist. If you are the only available moderator, this rule may be circumvented.
• You must avoid misrepresenting information or input on the punishment of other players where bias is evident. If you dislike a player, you are expected to avoid contact with them from a moderation standpoint.
• You must avoid handling the tickets of players you dislike or like. Consistent deviation in punishment toward specific players is grounds for administrative action.
• You must not, under any circumstance, handle, or attempt to handle, a ticket that involves yourself. Regardless of if the ticket is not warranting punishment, it is strictly forbidden to take tickets that are:
  • Regarding yourself;
  • Regarding a situation you were personally involved in;
  • Regarding a person (or persons) that you have interacted with significantly through the course of the round.
• The above is not exhaustive, and staff members are expected to use due diligence when handling tickets. If you believe you could be involved, there is almost no circumstance where you should neglect to hand the ticket to another staff member.

1.2 Duties of Care

• You must report issues of Server Safety to the wider staff team.
• You must ensure you respect the Server Safety rules.
• You must ensure that you handle sensitive situations with care, and avoid causing unnecessary stress or harm to both staff and players
• You must ensure that sensitive and private information remains confidential; this includes all staff conversations, and all messages or media posted in staff channels.

2. Respect

As a member of staff, you are expected to be respectful. You are expected to speak respectfully when discussing important matters, you are expected to respect the words and decisions of other staff members, and you are expected to act in respect to your own rank and role. As a part of the staff team, we are all expected to be able to speak cordially with one another, regardless of the circumstances; arguing, fighting, acting snide, aggressive, malicious, or otherwise speaking maliciously when interacting with other members of staff is grounds for administrative action.

However, converse opinions, and debates are welcome. SPLURT prides itself in having a varied staff team with varied opinions, and small disagreements are encouraged. Staff members are permitted to present opposing opinions, alternative explanations, etc., regardless of the circumstances.

2.1 Administrative Conduct

• You must not defame, bully, harass, or libel players, either privately or publically, through any medium.
• You must not shame players regarding their preferences or server playtime.
• You must ensure that you provide players appropriate information, whether this regard punishment, appeal procedures, or general help queries. Laziness is not an excuse to fail to perform your duties.
• You must avoid 'dog-piling' in staff channels. Dog-piling is when multiple people 'dog' (talk negatively of) a single person, even if all the involved persons are not necessarily fully-informed.
  • Avoid personally insulting players in staff channels. This avoids tension if they become a staff member in the future, and reflects better on you as a person.
• Avoid using your administrative tools to seek out and then use information that, while 'harmless', may be considered sensitive. For example, ERP logs of a player.
• Avoid discussing sensitive information found through your access to logs unless necessary.

3. Civility

As a member of staff, you are expected to behave accordingly, both in and out of tickets! This should be needless to say, however, handling tickets carelessly, in any way, completely violates this rule; For example speaking rudely to ahelpers/players, ignoring or otherwise leaving tickets unanswered, acting dismissively towards ahelpers'/players’ issues, or otherwise disrespecting the very players we are meant to serve all violate this rule. If you do not wish to handle tickets, you must de-admin yourself.

This rule also covers your attitude towards the community as a whole, along with individual players; incessantly insulting the playerbase, the community, specific players, etcetera, thusly violates this rule. As a staff member, we expect you to have interest in your duties, and look for the best for our station, since you represent us as a whole when you’re either on station or in our discord.

• SPLURT does not moderate the interpersonal relationships of staff members, unless this would constitute a violation of Server Safety rules.

4. Maintenance & Activity

SPLURT is a community dedicated to erotic roleplay, and staff members are expected to help maintain an ideal roleplay environment. This means you should refrain from actively disrupt the round and its environment through your intervention. Try and keep your interventions within our roleplay standards and the general mood of the round. Generally, be a game master, and make it less-than-obvious you are interfering with the round.

Each round is different and its environment and mood can vary, especially with different storytellers and for planned events, but it is important to avoid the round to have a sudden change of pace that disrupts its natural flow.

Additionally, staff members are expected to be present and active to perform their duties. This ensures that there is no loose power laying around.

4.1 Intervention

• Avoid spawning antagonists that are unable to spawn on the current storyteller, especially as non-event staff.
• Avoid triggering events that make the round needlessly unfun or unfair for players, such as a supermatter surge early into the round.
• TBD

4.2 Activity

• Staff members should ensure that they remain active while not on leave.
• A member of staff can be considered inactive if they do not log onto the SPLURT game server at least once within the last 30 days.
• Inactivity is grounds for demotion or removal.
• Staff members are expected to be active on the discord server, including taking discord and age verification tickets.
• Special circumstances may change the above. You are advised to speak to your head (Headmin, or Head Eventmin) if you have any queries about your activity.

5. Integrity

As a member of staff, you are expected to maintain the privacy and safety of all community members, and the community itself. Which is to say, you are expected to keep all information you discover as a staff member private, regardless of the circumstances. For example, sharing other players' Ckeys, notes, personal information, etcetera, is utterly against this rule; as is sharing the details of any tickets, contents of staff channels, etcetera, you might come across, in OR outside the server and discord. You may come across agevetting situations, you are REQUIRED to keep personal information about users to the utmost respect deserved, violation of which WILL see you punished by staffers and Discord TOS for privacy violation.

Likewise, you should not perform any actions that could endanger our community. Examples of such actions are violating Discord or Byond’s terms of service, inciting drama or competition between servers, knowingly allowing underage players into the community, etcetera

6. Enforcement

Your duty as a member of staff is to ensure the following of our server’s rules and standards. It’s important that you have a good understanding of our rules made for players to follow, so in case you have any questions about any of our rules, it is your responsibility to ask the rest of staff before enacting the rules. This rule covers staff responsibilities such as applying proper punishments for rule breaks, properly handling tickets related to rulebreaks, acting on any situations you notice break the rules, etc.

We do not aim to be always surveilling everyone’s actions in the server, and moreso try and enforce rules in an ahelp basis (wait for players to ahelp about a rulebreak, if it’s not broken don’t fix it), but it’s still your responsibility to act upon situations that diminish our server’s enjoyment and experience. Any situations that are visibly wrong and causing notable issues should be handled by staff. However, you’re not expected to, nor supposed to solve every inconvenience for our players, as that diminishes the experience in the station. Treat them like adults, and feel free to press the IC issue button whenever necessary. Only act whenever necessary as per our server rules, as a good measure.

Likewise, you’re expected to be active enough in our server to justify your position as a member of staff. This is achieved by connecting, handling tickets, helping around with events, showing interest and helping with the server’s direction, etc. Any proof that you’re actively helping the server is accounted for. However, failing to be active in the server enough to justify your position in staff will lead you to be removed from the team. It’s your duty to communicate with staff to tell us if there are any issues keeping you from being active enough.

7. Consequences

The consequences for breaking staff rules, and other forms of guidelines, vary greatly depending on the severity of the offense; furthermore, the punishment to be given is ultimately decided by the headmins.. Whilst they may CHOOSE to include other staff members in the process, this does not mean the result is chosen democratically, NOR is a vote required to issue consequences to an offending staff member. Deciding the fates of other staff members is not a responsibility given to administrative staff, as it is reserved solely for the headmins, specifically to the designated Staff Supervisor. With that all in mind, punishments will usually, but not always, follow a set pattern; first, an official, verbal warning will be given, then demotion with the chance to re-apply, and, lastly, demotion with no chance at re-applying If you must take an extended break from adminship, simply ask and you will be put on break until you are ready to return.