PRE-FINALIZED DISCUSSION: Playerworld Rules

[HoudiniMan]

These rules are not finalized and some are not in effect yet. Any problems reported that may or may not be against the rules in effect will have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis because they aren't written down anywhere.

If you want to discuss a rule:

• Quote the rule (not ALL of the rules)
• State your problem with it
• Propose a mutually agreeable solution

I am posting these here as a VERY ROUGH DRAFT of the soon-to-be official posted PW rules for CLASSIC and HOSTED servers only. Basically we have much higher standards for "visible" worlds that we don't hold for hidden projects that anybody can rent out a server and work on.

Any non-constructive or off-topic posts will be deleted, so if you have a tangent please make a new thread.

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Rules for Classic and Hosted Servers

Managers Role:

• All Managers are required to enforce these rules on their Playerworld.
• Managers should point any new/current staff toward this thread to make them aware of the rules in detail.
• All Managers are also required to enforce and comply with the GraalOnline User Agreement. This means if there is a player breaching the User Agreement, they should be warned/punished accordingly.
• All Managers are required to govern their staff. Nobody is above the rules; staff are no exception.
• Managers are responsible for all content on their server and should monitor uploading closely.

File Browser:

• You are not permitted to upload inappropriate or copyrighted material into the File Browser. If you are unsure if your content is "inappropriate" seek PWA approval before uploading at http://support.graalonline.com
  
• You are not permitted to upload content that you did not create, without first getting permission from the creator of the content, and the Manager of the Playerworld it comes from.
  
• You are not permitted to upload music to the File Browser. All music must be hosted on a webhost and played from the webserver directly.
  
• You are not permitted to use the File Browser for any non-Graal-related files.
  
• All files uploaded into the File Browser become the sole property of GraalOnline. Usage rights are automatically granted to the server where the files were originally uploaded.
  
• Once you upload a file into the File Browser you may not remove it if you decide to quit. Content you submit belongs to the server and is theirs to use except under special circumstances (e.g. Manager hires you, you upload whole town of levels, Manager fires you for no reason immediately afterward).
  
• All data held within the File Browser is subject to loss at any time. Managers should backup all files frequently to avoid any problems that may occur due to data loss (accidental or purposely). GraalOnline does not guarantee a backup of your work will be available or accessible in a timely manner if you should suffer data loss.

Staff:

• Recognized staff heirachy:
  Manager
  Server Administrator
  Department Chief
  Department Staff
  Department Trainee
  
• All staff positions should be genuine and with an exclusive purpose. E.g. You do not need someone to upload heads when the manager or graphics admin could do that.
  
• Staff should be given briefing and training so they know what their roles and responsibilities are. Staff may not be assigned rights they do not know how to use. It is the Manager's responsibility to make sure staff know how to use all the rights they are assigned.
  
• A staff member's role and responsibilities dictate their level of rights on the server. Staff should have the rights required by their position, no more and no fewer.
  
• Only Managers and Server Administrators should have high level RC rights. The Manager should be active to perform certain task that can't be done without a Level 4 RC. A second Level 4 RC may be granted to the ranking Administrator, but only if necessary.
  
• All RC’s should be placed under an IP or PCID lock to limit unauthorised access to the RC account. See Security.
  
• Only Managers and Server Administrators are allowed to set up new RCs and give out new rights.
  
• Staff should never PM or Mass Message offensive material. Staff should also not have offensive material in their profile.
  
• Staff should limit mass messages to important server announcements because (on or off tag) Staff mass messages override the "ignore mass messages" option in the Graal client.

Server-specific Rules:

• All servers should have an outline of what is and what is and isn’t tolerated on their Playerworld.
  
• These rules should comply with the GraalOnline agreement.
  
• These rules should be posted in a highly-visible fashion on the playerworld.

RCs:

• All RCs listed in the staff= server option should be active staff members. No "honorary" or "founder" RCs are allowed.
  
• RC should ONLY be given to those who need it for their jobs.

Security:

• Only managers and server admins should have a “Full Rights” RC for security reasons.
  
• Do not give out rights if they are not needed. If a staff member doesn’t use a right, they don’t need the right.
  
• Nobody other than the Manager should have rw access to any important logs such as rclog.txt. This is best achieved by only granting r access to the logs/ folder to staff who need to read logs.
  
• NPCs may be used to substitute RC actions (e.g. warpto) where possible. These should be secure (e.g. account and guild checking on the serverside). NPCs should not be used to substitute RC rights if they can’t be made secure.
  
• ALL RCs need an IP range or PCID lock. A PC ID can be used in the “IP Range(s):” field. When setting an IP range it needs to be at least 2 octets, or more if possible (e.g: 123.456.*.*). To set a PC ID as the IP Range, use /openaccess Account (while that person is online) you will see the PC ID in the title of the dialog. Enter the PCID in the IP Range field (e.g: pc:12345).
  
• Managers should limit the amount of people who have ‘rw’ (read-write) rights. This is a security risk. It is suggested that Department Chiefs transfer files into main folders from a temporary folder, and check for malicious scripts before uploading it to a “live” folder.

NPCs:

• NO staff tool should be abusable. (e.g. If you have a tool to change bad nicknames, the tool can set the offending nickname to the user's account instead of anything entered by the staff member using it.)
  
• All NPCs should be created by server staff or freely distributed. Stealing ideas from other servers will prevent the server from being Hosted or Classic status. Stealing actual code from other servers will result in removal of the npc.

Bans:

• All bans must be for a clear reason. You can not just ban someone because you dislike them.
  
• Players should be warned and go through some sort of punishment system before a ban, such as warning then jail. Big offences such as trainer usage and disruptive behaviour affecting the whole playerworld do not need a warning first. Jail should always be used before ban when possible.
  
• Bans that have invalid reasons, or a lack of a reason, can be overturned by the PWA if the banned player files a support ticket.
  
• Bans should also be documented in detail in the comments of a player's account. To record comments use /opencomments PlayerAccountHere
  
• Ban rights should only be given to responsible staff members who may need to ban players as part of their job. Ban rights can also be given to Department Chiefs and higher to assist when urgently necessary, however they should not be banning players if another staff member who is online can do it. (e.g. The LAT Chief does not need to ban a cheater if a GP is online and can do it)
  
• Jail rights can be given to trusted staff of any position.
  
• Sometimes a player ban warrants a PC ID ban as well. A PC ID ban will not allow any account from that computer to log on to the server. This is helpful when a player has many accounts.
  
• Should a PC ID be banned, record the PC ID in the comments of all known accounts for that player. This will help any Playerworld Administrator who may be responding to a support ticket submitted by the banned player.

Guilds:

• Do not make guilds that mimic any special of global staff guilds (e.g.: Playerworld Administration, VIP)
  
• Do not make local guilds that are the same as global guild names.
  
• No guilds should be offensive or have copyrighted names.
  
• No guilds should allow players to be in the staff list

Playerworld Websites:

• If you link to your server's website please make sure that all content found within your website follows Graal's rules and there is no offensive or illegal material. This includes any websites your website links to.

System Abuse:

• NO NPC should be able to change the nickname of a player to imitate an account name (e.g. *Accoutname)
  
• NO NPC should interfere with, or stop, the automatic disconnection for not moving.
  
• NO one should abuse staff tools by repeatedly disconnecting players, changing players' looks, etc.

GraalOnline reserves the right to make special-case amendments and additions to its rules and policies and the steps it takes concerning violation of these policies and rules. Players are required to keep up-to-date with any changes to Graal policy concerning rules and gameplay by checking them frequently. To keep users aware of any amendments they will be posted in the GraalOnline communication center forums, under the section 'PlayerWorlds Main Forum'.

[Galdor]

very nice but uploading heads are for noob staff not the glorious manager or gfx admin.

[Crono]

Yeah, it's become a norm to have a team responsible for all uploads.

[HoudiniMan]

Any developer can upload heads, you don't need a team to cover for their laziness.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by HoudiniMan

Any developer can upload heads, you don't need a team to cover for their laziness.

From what I've seen it's quite efficient. You have a dedicated team uploading around the clock. Seems to work really well on UN.

[Skyld]

NPCs may be used to substitute RC actions (e.g. warpto) where possible. These should be secure (e.g. account and guild checking on the serverside). NPCs should not be used to substitute RC rights if they can’t be made secure.

No no no no no!

The RC functionality is more than sufficient; there is no need to waste time reinventing these things because it just makes it more complicated when globals are called in to look at staff or security situations. I can't tell you how annoying it is when people reinvent the warpto and it either stops the global warpto working or people who are not removed from RC properly end up with warpto rights they shouldn't have.

Servers should be prevented from reinventing these things wherever possible, not encouraged.

[HoudiniMan]

Originally Posted by Skyld

No no no no no!

The RC functionality is more than sufficient; there is no need to waste time reinventing these things because it just makes it more complicated when globals are called in to look at staff or security situations. I can't tell you how annoying it is when people reinvent the warpto and it either stops the global warpto working or people who are not removed from RC properly end up with warpto rights they shouldn't have.

Servers should be prevented from reinventing these things wherever possible, not encouraged.

Agreed. Can you link to a source for the scripted RC or does that come with new servers?

How would suggest giving non-RC staff warpto?

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by HoudiniMan

Agreed. Can you link to a source for the scripted RC or does that come with new servers?

Scripted RC is added to players centrally from the login server and is therefore available on all servers.

Originally Posted by HoudiniMan

How would suggest giving non-RC staff warpto?

Non-RC staff should not have warpto. They should have very specific scripted warps that take them into necessary event rooms and locations (for instance), but if they are important enough to have unrestricted warping on the server, they are probably RC staff anyway.

[warp2ukew]

Looks good to me, except I do agree having at least 1-2 uploaders for content, because a GFX Admin or someone of development staff could be busy.

[Crow]

You are not permitted to upload inappropriate or copyrighted material into the File Browser.

What about the typical "temp" folder? For example to show your new GAT an example of something if you can't explain it very well or whatever.

You are not permitted to upload music to the File Browser. All music must be hosted on a webhost and played from the webserver directly.

Uhh...midis? They are small, and self-made, which can be proven in my case. I think the latter one was the problem with music being uploaded?

You are not permitted to use the File Browser for any non-Graal-related files.

Not even ones in the "temp" folder that are in there for like 2-3 minutes or something?

All files uploaded into the File Browser become the sole property of GraalOnline. Usage rights are automatically granted to the server where the files were originally uploaded.

Eh, I don't even think thats legally possible. If I made something, I own the copyright. Usage rights, yea, but nothing more. My opinion at least..

Once you upload a file into the File Browser you may not request that it be removed except in special circumstances. If you feel removal of content is necessary make a support ticket at http://support.graalonline.com

Don't really get it..

All staff positions should be genuine and with an exclusive purpose. E.g. You do not need someone to upload heads when the manager or graphics admin could do that.

Any developer can upload heads, you don't need a team to cover for their laziness.

The developers can focus on something else while the people who have to upload heads upload the players heads.

All RC’s should be placed under an IP or PCID lock to limit unauthorised access to the RC account. See Security.

That's an automatic process already, no?

Staff should limit mass messages to important server announcements because (on or off tag) Staff mass messages override the "ignore mass messages" option in the Graal client.

I hope something is done about that problem.

[Darlene159]

They look good to me.

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by Crow

I hope something is done about that problem.

Uh, that's the way it should be, so that when staff have to make important announcements that affect all players, the players cannot turn around and say "well I didn't get a PM so I didn't know" if a player loses or breaks something as a result of not knowing that something had changed/happened.

Long may it stay that way.

[Darlene159]

Originally Posted by Skyld

Uh, that's the way it should be, so that when staff have to make important announcements that affect all players, the players cannot turn around and say "well I didn't get a PM so I didn't know" if a player loses or breaks something as a result of not knowing that something had changed/happened.

Long may it stay that way.

I agree. Staff should just learn to limit their massing if they want to be staff.

[Crow]

But it shouldn't override that option if the staff member is off tag, it's just stupid.

[TSAdmin]

Originally Posted by Darlene159

I agree. Staff should just learn to limit their massing if they want to be staff.

This is exactly right, and the exact point I try to get accross to the staff who have a passion for massing out (especially stupid) information that doesn't help anyone, or links to sites that have nothing to do with anything on a 5 minute interval basis.