07 Apr, 2009, Kayle wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Due to recent events involving a particular individual formerly participating on the network, the following guidelines were drafted, and will become effective immediately.

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The MudBytes IMC2 Network Administrators (henceforth referred to as "we") would like to document the following set of guidelines for use of the sanctioned channels of the network.

1) The point of this network being up is not free speech.

2) This network is up for the following purposes:
* To provide technical help for muds.
* To provide a friendly space for chat between muds.

3) The network is not up for testing security of an IMC network. Attempting to exploit the servers is not ok, and will likely land you in hot water. If you find a security weakness please email the admins so it can be handled discreetly. Credit for discovery will be given to you when an updated release of the server code is released.

4) The following are not tolerated on public channels:
* hate speech
* racial slurs
* x-rated material (a.k.a. porn)
* social engineering hacks
* unwarranted hostility toward newbies
* spamming
* commercial advertising
All of these will be judged by our subjective opinion of what constitutes a violation. Types of violations can be added to this list without warning by administrators.
Inappropriate content (x-rated material), as long as it is marked as NSFW (Not Safe for Work), will generally be tolerated, however, excessively crude or offensive content may still warrant being asked to stop.

5) Please do not advertise your mud on a channel viewable by mortals of other muds. This is looked upon as poor conduct and will likely be met with a poor reaction. Many in the community work hard to get the players they have, and they would prefer to not have to deal with people siphoning them off via the IMC2 network.

6) If what you're doing is within the stated rules, but it interferes with others enjoying the network or it interferes with the network's operation in any way, count on being told to stop.

7) If you don't like these rules, set up your own network.

8) We will not help or support you in any way in setting up a server outside of our network. If you lack the understanding to set up a server and make channels on said server, you probably shouldn't be attempting to set one up to begin with.

9) You can file complaints to us by email, MudBytes Personal Message, or by explaining the problem on the appropriate area on www.mudbytes.net. We prefer to deal with complaints from the admin of the mud in question, since the responsibility for maintaining that connection is theirs. Please note that we are not here to play arbiters of inter-mud disputes. If someone is being mean to you through tells or on a private channel, you need to find some way of dealing with it yourself. Also, if someone logs onto your mud and starts abusing channels you haven't secured, this is not something we're in a position to control.

10) We are only human and will sometimes err in judgment. If you think we have made an error, please email one of us. Perhaps we banned your mud out of a misunderstanding. Perhaps the problem on your mud has been fixed. We try to be open minded about this stuff, if you try to be reasonable.

Channel Guidelines:
inews This channel is for the display of Real World news by the news bots and, discussion of said news as has been displayed.
imudnews This channel is for the display of Mu* related news by the news bots, and discussion of said news as has been displayed.
igame This channel is for playing the games available from the IMC MegaBot and should be kept as close to PG-13 as possible.
imusic This channel is for broadcasting your musical lyrics to the world. And for the discussion of music in general. Please try to keep swearing to a
minimum, and keep things clean and free of offensive language.
icode This channel is for the discussion of programming topics. Discussions should be limited to programming/coding.
ibuild This channel is for the discussion of building topics. Discussions should be limited to building.
ichat This is the flagship channel of the network for Immortals. Although we do not strictly outlaw swearing or crude language, please be civil.
Please refrain from using language that is commonly considered to be racist, sexist, or degrading. Use your own good judgment so that we
don't have to. We want people to join the network and stay, not end up driven off because of crude or offensive language.
pchat This is the flagship channel for non-immortals on the network. Please do not advertise for players on this channel.
ifree This channel will be the only channel where Guideline #4 will only apply in a very restricted sense. Anything goes. The only thing that will be
deterred from this channel will be that which is illegal (eg. threats against the president, etc).

Clarifications and suggestions:

- A channel may have guidelines more restrictive than the rules here show. Use your common sense and try to follow the guidelines of a channel. Showing up and expecting a channel to accept your topic and discussion habits no matter what is not really a good idea.

- An email address in your imcinfo is not explicitly demanded, as you can see. However, it's *strongly* urged that you put a valid email address in there. This is because if someone on your mud is getting out of hand, or your connection is causing technical problems, we need a way to talk to someone in charge of things on your mud.

- When someone on a mud is violating rules, they usually get a number of warnings, and if they are not admins, their admins are also notified as possible. Whether warnings are issued is obviously dependent on the type of behavior. Sufficiently disruptive behavior (at our discretion) can subject a mud to immediate action without warning. But this is extremely rare. Warnings are provided when reasonable. If the behavior doesn't stop, then that mud may be excluded from the channel where it's causing problems. If the mud then causes problems on other channels, it may be banned from the server entirely. This is a drastic and very unusual situation.

- Sometimes a mud causes technical problems and we can't get a hold of an admin, something will have to be done to prevent the mud from connecting until an administrator of the mud can be reached. If your mud just won't connect to the server no matter what, something like this may have happened. Email us and we'll straighten it out.


Administrator emails available upon request.
07 Apr, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 2nd comment:
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So out of interest, what happens if a disruptive player starts causing trouble on the channels? Could they get the mud banned?
07 Apr, 2009, Kayle wrote in the 3rd comment:
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That would effectively be up to whichever Admin is around at the time, generally speaking though steps will be taken, such as exclusion from the channel they're being disruptive on for a period of time. If they make an effort to continue being disruptive, by say, switching channels, things will need to be taken to the next level. If the individual is the admin of the mud in question, being banned from the network is a possibility, as was the case with the individual which sparked the need for these guidelines to be drawn up.

If the individual isn't the admin of the mud, then every effort will be taken to contact the admin and have them attempt to rectify the situation on their end, before further action is taken on the part of the administrators.


[Edit:] Because I can't spell this early in the morning.
07 Apr, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Kayle said:
That would effectively be up to whichever Admin is around at the time, generally speaking though steps will be taken, such as exclusion from the channel they're being disruptive on for a period of time.

Exclusion for the individual, or for the entire mud?
07 Apr, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 5th comment:
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Scandum, I think the point of that item is exceedingly clear…

KaVir: I'm assuming that it would be the individual at first, and if the admin refuses to take action and allows the player to continue by changing names etc. it would eventually be the whole MUD.
07 Apr, 2009, Kayle wrote in the 6th comment:
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David's right, It would indeed be the individual first, and if continued, would then become the whole mud. And if they still continued, it would eventually lead to the removal of the mud from the network.

And Thank you Scandum, for stating the painfully obvious. Would you like a cookie?
07 Apr, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 7th comment:
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I strongly support the effort to establish clear and documented boundaries
for behavior on intermud. +5, would read again.

-Crat
07 Apr, 2009, Vladaar wrote in the 8th comment:
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The Guidelines are a good idea. Should've been done when IMC first started.
07 Apr, 2009, Guest wrote in the 9th comment:
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Vladaar said:
The Guidelines are a good idea. Should've been done when IMC first started.


Very possibly true. However I also find a second irony in that once Paradigm and I were running the network no such guidelines ever really seemed necessary. There were occasional fights, but they usually ended quickly and people went back to the usual chatter. I only ever had to ban one person from the network in the entire time I was administering it, and that was because he was attempting to exploit the servers for his own gains.
09 Apr, 2009, The_Fury wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
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6) If what you're doing is within the stated rules, but it interferes with others enjoying the network or it interferes with the network's operation in any way, count on being told to stop.


This would seem to be highly subjective and open to interpretation and abuse. Maybe it could be better worded to not allow for such open ended and speculative actions of admins. IE: DO what i say or i ban your ass See item 6, you just interfered with my enjoyment. Which was very close to the old rule of "Don't piss off the admins or you will get your ass banned"
09 Apr, 2009, Guest wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
The_Fury said:
Which was very close to the old rule of "Don't piss off the admins or you will get your ass banned"


What old rule? Before Kayle posted these, IMC had no rules of conduct.
09 Apr, 2009, The_Fury wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
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What old rule? Before Kayle posted these, IMC had no rules of conduct.


Yes there was a don't be an ass rule which ass subjectivity enforced, which mostly amounted to do not upset Kayle or you get your ass banned.

That aside, it does not make rule 6 any less subjective as to what constitutes taking away someones enjoyment, the very presence of some people on the network might take someones enjoyment away. The posting Cratpegs could fall under this taking away my enjoyment with the Austrian/Australian map which some Austrian might deem offensive or good old shitting dick nipples.

This is why i see rule 6 as being too subjective in its wording, it comes down to what each individual considers to be an infringement on their enjoyment, which leaves it open for admins to selectively enforce this rule against those they might not like.
09 Apr, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I'd say that on the whole, the very subjective rule worked very well since an exceedingly small number of people got banned.

The point of the rule I think is pretty clear: it means that you should not go out of your way to deliberately harass somebody. If somebody was truly bothered by some particular activity and tried to resolve it like an adult, and things were to not work out, then action might be taken.
09 Apr, 2009, Guest wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
The_Fury said:
Yes there was a don't be an ass rule which ass subjectivity enforced, which mostly amounted to do not upset Kayle or you get your ass banned.


Funny, I've been on and off the network for years now and I don't remember there being any off the books versions of rule 6 anywhere.

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The posting Cratpegs could fall under this taking away my enjoyment with the Austrian/Australian map which some Austrian might deem offensive or good old shitting dick nipples.

This is why i see rule 6 as being too subjective in its wording, it comes down to what each individual considers to be an infringement on their enjoyment, which leaves it open for admins to selectively enforce this rule against those they might not like.


I think you already know where I stand on political correctness and I shouldn't need to say so here. I raised a small objection to how rule 6 could be too broad, but Kayle decided to leave it in, and it was his decision. I have no idea what your incoherent ranting example even says, much less how to interpret it.
09 Apr, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
I don't think that content like the map or shitting dicknipples (NSFW) was
what that line item was intended to address. I don't think "delight"
was the focus as much as "being able to use imc".

At least, that was my interpretation.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
09 Apr, 2009, Guest wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Remind me not to click on your NSFW links again. That was… gross.

Even so, I still don't know WTF he was trying to say.
09 Apr, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 17th comment:
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I thought IMC had an ignore command? Doesn't it work?
09 Apr, 2009, Guest wrote in the 18th comment:
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It does have an ignore command, at least in the last client coded I uploaded. Other clients would only have that if they chose to implement it.
09 Apr, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
The_Fury said:
This is why i see rule 6 as being too subjective in its wording, it comes down to what each individual considers to be an infringement on their enjoyment, which leaves it open for admins to selectively enforce this rule against those they might not like.


Unfortunately, you'll pretty much always have that kind of fuzziness in any system that actually works. Whenever someone tries to spell out what's "offensive", it either becomes a loophole mania festival where everyone does stupid and annoying things because they aren't "offensive" in the letter of the law…. or it results in lots of people getting banned for trivial offenses.

The MUD community is already small and fractured. While I don't think we should have to put up with the occasional trouble-maker, I also don't want to see the ban-hammer swung so often that the only chatter we ever see is an occasional router error message.

In short, I don't see any real problems on the horizon, as the rules seem to only spell out how things have been working anyways. If we actually get enough new traffic for a problem to show up, that'd be a good thing! :)
11 Apr, 2009, Kayle wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
I'd like to take this opportunity to clear a few things up. As there seem to be quite a few misconceptions about the network at the moment.

I'm not trying to turn the network into a bunch of people who kiss my ass. I hate people who kiss my ass. I'm just trying to make IMC2 a place where new people to the community can come and get assistance on issues, or just have people to talk to while they learn their way around setting up a codebase, be it Diku-derived, or LP.

I think it should be pretty obvious that I'm extremely tolerant by the fact that there have only been 2 bannings in the history of the network one of which was reversed by a show of good faith and a change of heart in the individual banned. Both individuals I have absolutely no grudge against, there were complaints filed, and the problem was dealt with.

These rules are merely the same standards the IMC2 community has held itself to over the last 8 years, the only difference is that now I've decided to document them in a clear and concise written format. I inherited Server02 from Samson when he decided to step down. Since then I've done my best to really learn the ins and outs of the Liberty Servers themselves, and the Freedom Clients. I try to address issues as quickly as possible, but sometimes fate conspires against me. Such s my unexpected 3 week absence because of surgical complications.

On the issue of punishments, A player on a MUD on the network can not generally get the entire mud removed from the network. If the owner/admin of a mud on the network is causing problems, then yes, that mud could very well find itself banned. But I don't like banning people. I try not to. But sometimes, I'm not left with much of a choice. If a player is being disruptive, I try my best to get in contact with the owner, and if they can't be reached in a timely manner, I generally try to handle the situation as delicately as possible. You'll see me joke about waving my ban-hammer around while on the network, but that's just it. A joke.

I try to keep the network as lighthearted as possible. I'm not looking to make it a prison. That's why the MegaBot offers games like trivia and uno. And if I find the time to sit down and work on it, some other games. I'm not making these guidelines to be a fascist, I'm making them to try and make the network a better place. So I invite you all to come by, hang out on Talon, play trivia or uno, kick back with us. After seeing the network, offer suggestions. Give me ways to make the network better. Give me more ideas for bots to be added to MegaBot.

As long as you're not an obnoxious jackass, and you stay within the guidelines, you have nothing to fear from me. I mean, look at Crat. :P He takes any pot shot he can at me, and he's still around. I'm not a vindictive bastard. I'm not a fascist. I'm not a Nazi. Well.. No.. I *can* be a bit of a spelling and grammar nazi… beside the point. The guidelines are in no way meant to take away anyone's rights. They're simply what they sound like. Guidelines for conduct on the network. They're seriously little more than the rules of common sense laid out.

[Edit:] P.S. If you have some kind of grievance with me, or anyone else on the network. Please don't drag it all over the channels. If you have a grievance with me, take it up with me in private, I can be reached through the email thing on MudBytes or SmaugMuds.org, and by PMs in both places. Also, if you ask me on IMC2 I'll generally give you other ways to contact me, such as Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, or AIM. If you're really lucky, I'll let you on MW to talk to me.
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