Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

Okay. Well here are some rules. If I have missed something let me know. I was up until 2:30, and had about 4 hours sleep, so the chances are there are gaps. Also I didn’t go through them to check for grammar etc..

Anyway here are some basic rules, I will re-format it after comments, and additional rules.

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Copyrighted Files/Names:
Names and files which are copyrighted should not be used on any playerworld. For example you may not upload copyrighted images or have guilds of a copyrighted name.

Hierarchy (Level of Authority):

If you are working on a ‘rented’ playerworld, you can not fire/remove the payer. If the payer chooses to let somebody else be the ‘manager’ then he/she is under the payer, and not above. The payer will be restored if a manager tries to take over a playerworld.

The Chief of Admin of a staff area (GP Chief, Levels Admin) is above the regular staff in that area (GP, Level Maker). Regular staff should not attempt to take over an Admin, or over throw them.


FTP (File Manager):

Buying a playerworld does not give you the right to host whatever you want within it’s file space. If any material that you upload is not your creation or that of your staff, you must have explicit permission to use it from the creator. You are not permitted to upload any copyrighted material, nor inappropriate content liable to cause offence to a reasonable portion of Graal's playerbase.

Where possible, avoid giving 'rw' access to main folders. Consider creating folders for individual staff, into which they can upload their work - a high staff member can later transfer the files into the main folders. Though this may seem inconvenient, it is a prudent precaution given the potential damage if a staff account were to be taken over by a malicious individual.

If you wish to revive an old playerworld project, you must first obtain permission from the previous manager (earlier managers or the original creator are not authorised to give this permission). Furthermore, you may not copy the content, style or ideas of any playerworld currently in existence. And you must get permission for every file you wish to re-use online.

Everything uploaded into the file manager becomes the property of Graalonline. However, this does not mean the files can be used by anyone. You must get prior permission from the creator, before uploading or using any content which is not yours, or made by your staff team.

Midi's and music files should not be uploaded into FileManager. It is hard to check if they are yours or not. For that reason, they should be hosted else where. [e.g: Website]


RCs:

'Guest' and 'VIP' RCs are forbidden, as they constitute serious security risks. The 'staff=' server option is only to be used for permanent, active staff. If necessary, examine your staff every few weeks, to ensure that all listed members are indeed active and necessary for the operation of the project. Any staff that do not fit these criteria should have their account's rights revoked, and should be removed from the 'staff=' list.

It is recommended, for the sake of readability, that you sort your staff list as follows:

staff=(Managers),manager1,manager2,etc,(Admins),ad min1,admin2,etc,(NPC),scripter1,etc

If the staff members are grouped in this way then it becomes much easier to read the list, both for you and for global staff members.

Only public playerworlds should give RC access to non-developers (such as GPs, Event Team members or FAQs), as such staff are only necessary when there are players on the server. Any unnecessary RC access constitutes a security flaw.

Every RC should be IP protected. If they are not, all rights should be removed, straight away. Please check all accounts have IPs when you read this, and at least once a month, or after mass hirrings/staff changes.


Staff:

Please limit the amount of people with RC access. The more there are, the more difficult it becomes to ensure that they are all active and the more likely it is that one will be hijacked.

When hiring staff, please be careful. Do not hire any staff which are affiliated with anti-graal groups. Even if this person has not been with the anti-graal group for a long time, Stefan does not wish for such people to be within graal.


Bannings:

When you ban an account, for whatever reason, you should include the following information:

Reason for ban: Straight to the point, clear, reasonable banning reasons.
Date: The date of the ban
Staff who banned this account: For reasons of contact over possible wrongful banning.*
Contacts for staff who banned the account: e-mail, instant messenger**

In comments you should add any proof to support the ban, such as PM history.
* If a staff name is not included, the account may be unbanned straight away.
** You may add these to the comments of the account, for privacy.


Security:

No more than three people should have level four RC access (or similar). Managers (and, tautologically, co-managers) should have level four, and possibly also assistant managers, but no others.

Each staff member should have only what they need to do their job and no more. In the past, staff have been awarded unnecessary rights as gifts or rewards for good work. This practice is foolish and illegal.

If possible, consider creating (or asking your staff to create) NPC tools that allow staff members to fulfil their roles without RC access. Bear in mind that RC is a tool for working, not chatting. If a person does not need RC access to do their job, do not give it to them.


Guilds:

You are not allowed to use 'GM' or 'Game Master' or any similar variants as a staff position on your playerworld. The GM rank on Graal (and many other games) already has meaning, as a global admin. Using this title on your playerworld misleads players into thinking that the holder is a 'real' GM rather than just local staff.

You are not allowed to create a local guild with the same name as a global staff guild, without special permission or a justifiable reason (eg you want to block global guilds but still want global staff to have access to a tag - in this case, you must never allow anybody else into the guild).

You are not allowed to create a local guild with the same name as a global guild. Before creating a local guild, use the GraalOnline website to check that its name is not already in use as a global guild. Even if a member of the global guilds wishes it to be added locally, the leader of the guild must give permission.

Looks great Spark, now people will have a nice little page to redirect unexperienced staff members to. All playerworlds would do fine following these rules, I'm sure this'll be a huge help. :D

Thanks Spark, maybe some of this crap will stop with these new PW's now

Only if the rules are actually enforced.

Celestia Reborn is in violation of this rule.

Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

what if the person who is renting the world gives permission for the new manager to be above him? =x can someone transfer a PW?

and also, can you creat a local guild, for a global guild, if you have permission from the global guild's leader?

Looks good.

The permission to recreate servers needs tweaked.

According to that, Prov could be recreated by permission from someone who did not make much if anything on the server. It should be such that permission should come from the staff most responsible for creating/improving the server.

That way those whose brainchild the server had been have the say. Not necessarily the original owner or any of the managers, though they certainly CAN fall under this.

EX: Not Steve or Kamuii, but Tyne, Jagen, SK, Marty, and myself.

About time someone stood up <3 . But on the other hand what if a playerworld doesn't agree to take out stolen property and what if they ban you and stuff for no reason which has been done to TifaKhan ? Would there be any actions to be taken upon this PlayerWorld?

useing n-pulse as an example, who would be able to give permission to re-make n-pulse? could Geo (the founder of n-pulse, and manager for several years) be able to give this permission under the way you are saying, or would it have to come from Moon God, who was manager for the past like 2.5 years? (i understand that this is talking about dead servers... but n-pulse is the only server i know well, so i used it as an example...)
Arkland banned a friend of mine, for pointing out that they stole a level from n-pulse
-_-

I would like to say it should be the majority, rather than a single. While in the case of providence, I trust the judgement of the other people I list as the true creators of the server, I would still like to see more than one consulted.

I don't know much about NPulse, so I would say, in general, find whoever the five or so greatest contributors are, then ask their opinions. It may be the case that the owner got sick of the server and shut it down in a fit of pique. In which case, the majority may allow for a recreation, and may even help. On the other hand, it may be the case that a single obsessed individual, whether player or staff, wishes to revive a server which was disbanded by some sort of consensus of staff. In this case, the majority would not want the server to be revived, as their names would be irrevocably linked to the remake, even if it becomes bad.

good point
=)
hmm.. would a recreation of an old version of a server be allowed? like, if someone wanted to make 'old n-pulse' back when it used that kingdoms tileset, and used the old levels (which have all been changed now)

(just wondering)

*afflicted with = affiliated with

Re: Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

First Bit: That would be transfer of 'payer'. So the payer is authorising this. The rule is there, as manager is normally the highest position on a playerworld, while payer is now, so it’s just letting managers know, they aren’t at the top anymore on a rented PW. So can’t just kick the payer off. I believe you can contact Unixmad to get a transfer, not fully sure though.

If you have permission from the global guilds leader(s) then it should be okay. But I think you'd have to authorise every hire into the guild? As the leader may not wish for anyone, and everyone to join it.

That was the general reason for that rule. If you look its saying the past manager must approve, and then its saying you must have permission to re-use any files again online. So you could end up with the name. If course, that rule will be different that the others. Depending on how long the last manager was in position, we may ask for the player wishing to re-open that playerworld, to get permission from more than one manager, maybe two. But each case for that rule will be looked at. As we know sometimes some playerworlds wish to stay shut-down, or wouldnt be the same with whoever wishes to restart it. As a PW is a personal thing, we would review each case seperatly. But getting the last managers permission, would be a start.

I wouldn’t go this far, but I could get someone to shut off the staff list, if they agreed too. I will try and keep these rules as rules, and stop people who think they do not have to follow them. Of course if the rule broken was stolen material, the material would be removed, and then the staff involved would be reviewed.

Thanks :D

Thank you Spark
WarLord and i have read through it and we like what youve done.
As an off-note, i was unbanned from Griffin after a friendly discussion with the Manager who came to Doomsday.

Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

So does that mean that every image in the webgifs folder we aren't allowed to use unless permission from it's creator? So tree.gif is no longer allowed unless u make ur own and name it "tree.gif", then no one can use it besides u? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Half of those images don't even tell you who they are origanally from.

Re: Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

Uh, the basic graal gifs we are allowed to use, I believe stefan also said we could use classic's gifs (whatever it's name is now). The problem is, alot of times it is really hard to tell which we can use, and which we cant, that's why we have the PWA to keep us in line :D

Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

you need stefan's permission to validate that.

Re: Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

I needed stefans permission to validate them all.

Each server should get a folder in webgifs. That would help solve the graphics problems. It'd be easier to track that way.

I agree.

Re: Re: Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

do you HAVE his permission for all these rules?
or are these just the rules you think should be made, and you are still waiting on stefan to validate them, and give you the power to enforce them?

Those rules seem to be good.
About gfx: It's allowed to use gfx and scripts from Classic (?) and Graal2001, also it's ok to use the 3d terrain, picso.png and the trees from Graal Kingdoms. If you use things from other playerworlds the rules say that you need to get permission for that first, because it's an unfair act to push your own playerworld with someone elses work.
It's not allowed to upload your own music to the servers, because it's hard to check if music or melodies are already copyrighted. If you want to let people use it then put it on your own website for download.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Playerworld Rules! [Basic Outline]
 

Fine, I got Stefan to post so you can see he approves of the rules, to sort out all of those problems.

Um, I am reasonably certain that applies only to the old things already made for graal2001 before it went to classic; if someone steals new stuff we make then that is completely unfair.

Bull****, if you want them off RC, YOU should get me a place to host them. :)

That's some bad logic there. He doesn't have to do anything for you.

lol, thats hilarious....you think Stefan owes you something?

Gee, who do you think hosts the file manager?

The whole POINT of getting the files hosted elsewhere is so that graalonline doesn't get into a legal problem. If Stefan hosted them, it may as well be Graal hosting them.

Speaking of illegal.

Admin.

You mean that stared out word in my forum title?

Yes.

Its to stop people who aren't admin, putting it there. So I need to change it, forgot about it. Will have to settle with just 'PWA'.

Reasonable - but then the Play command should learn to play URLs, not just local files. ie play http://bally.fortunecity.com/beckett/22/cammy2.mid; instead of play stef7.mid;

Then all is right in the universe.

I thought that was already possible? Ah yes, you need to use http:// to make it work though.

Well seeing as 2001 is more of a 'playerworld' now. Its not.. but you know its no longer gold, and is run by players, they may not wish for people to use their scripts and GFX. If they gain permission, then I suppose it would be okay.

.......iiiiiiiiiiin that case nevermind. I was thinking tilesets, but that's a seperate problem that's being fixed with the increased filesize cap. (No more "Please go to our website at 404 Not Found to download the tiles before playing!")

Ah yes, it should be able to download off a website, without having to leave the graal client. Like:

Tileset : filename.png
Size: xxxKb

Download? [YES] [NO]

Not just that, but how about images? Then people can make newspapers, and update the pictures daily without causing a overload on the NPC server :D

How would changing a large picture everyday affect the npcserver?... o_o

I really think we shouldent have limits on the file sizes. I then can upload my tileset which has tons of colors. Its gonna be hard to get that uploaded by stefan. Then I have house .PNG files which is also over 256 colors, so every time I make graphic I have to have stefan upload it. And dont say well just use less colors because I USE LOTS OF COLORS!! Thats the style.

Well, with the fact that playerworld buyers ARE paying for their playerworld to be put up adding to the fact that even still players need a Gold/VIP account to play on those already payed-for servers, Stefan, being partly responsible for Graal Online ("By Graal Online, we mean Stefan Knorr and Stephane Portha" is the quote I believe), he should go out of his way to help them.

Although you may have to excuse me, I'm not an expert on modern day European business proffesionalism.