As many of you are aware, the Moderation team here in TSP recently came under a good amount of justified criticism over its handling of some reports. In the aftermath, Moderation did some significant reflection and took input from many members of our community. Stemming from that we issued this statement, answered questions publicly, and expanded the team in addition to some internal process changes in terms of documentation and team communication. We are committed to continuing to work to improve our moderation processes so that, in the future, our responses to reports are prompt, decisive, and consistent with our community’s values.
As part of that process, we have begun to rewrite the Community Guidelines. The goal of these rewrites is to:
- Clarify the authority of individual Moderators to rule on reports and simplify the procedure for appeals in case an individual Moderator gets it wrong (which will happen from time to time!)
- Eliminate single points of failure in Moderator communication patterns – individual Moderators get busy, so we’ve done away with the RMB team liaison role so that instead the RMB mods communicate collectively with all other Moderators
- Clarify the scope of jurisdiction we have as Moderators – the updated Guidelines below make it more clear which offenses that happen external to our Discord/forum/RMB we will and won’t consider when making Moderation decisions.
- Provide more clear reporting channels – there is now a Discord ticketing system and a platform on-site for RMB reporting.
- Streamline the Community Guidelines in general – after discussing with the RP team, we’ve eliminated the Rules of Bantam Harbor from the Community Guidelines. We will repost these (possibly with edits coming from the RP moderation team) in their relevant subforum, where they will still be considered relevant/binding. We also re-ordered the document to keep the most important information at the top and embedded the RMB-specific rules within the general rule set.
At this time, we welcome input from the public for one week, per Article XIII(3) of the Charter.
Jurisdiction
Principally, our community standards cover all interactions related to or originated from the NationStates region of “the South Pacific” or its official off-site property. This includes private/direct messages.
Interactions on unrelated websites or services will be considered on a case-by-case basis. In general, we will consider evidence from elsewhere when it relates directly to violations of our policy on offensive materials or raises concerns that a user may present a threat to the safety of our community or its members (e.g. explicit content, privacy violations, etc.).
We have a specialized RMB Moderation team who are responsible for monitoring and ruling on on-site violations (including both the RMB and nations themselves). Junior and Senior Moderators may also monitor and rule on on-site violations.
General Guidelines
PG-13
We want our community to be accessible to anybody who is allowed to play NationStates. This means we’re not an adults-only community. Everybody is expected to behave as they would in a setting with minors as young as 13.
IC/OOC
The idea of there being different “realms” of behavior is strange and some people have difficulty understanding it. “IC” stands for “in-character” and refers to behavior expressed in the game itself— debating laws, criticizing political campaigns, etc. “OOC” is “out-of-character” and is basically when we’re talking about the actual people behind the nations names and Discord handles. You can’t avoid punishment by claiming your constant insults are IC. While we handle IC and OOC behavior differently, at the end of the day we’re all actual human beings, and you-the-person-at-the-keyboard are expected to follow the rules no matter what role you see yourself in.
English Language
Our community primarily operates in English. We expect all posts to either be in English or include an English translation. Some leeway may be given on greetings or common expressions.
The Rules
Spamming: Spamming is posting off-topic, inane, irrelevant, or distracting content in an inappropriate or inapplicable location. In general, stay on topic and purposeful. Context matters for spam - in a general chat thread or on the RMB, asking another user about their day is fine, but in an Assembly debate thread it is considered spam. Given that, there are several types of spam:
- Advertising: Whether you’re a bot or a well-intentioned player just wanting to grow their own region, both of these things will likely earn you a permanent insta-ban.
- RMB spam: This means avoid meaningless or unnecessary, repetitive, or single word/emoji posts. Don’t post three or more times in a row and use spoilers or “~snip~” quotes when quoting a long or rulebreaking post. If you’re quoting a post that tags people, take out the tags (often surrounded by [nation][nation] code). Avoid “gravedigging”, or quoting/responding to very old posts from long past conversations. Using puppets to talk to yourself on the RMB is also forbidden.
- Endorsement requests and region advertisements are prohibited. Information about how to exchange endorsements can be found in the SWAN dispatches.
- Threadjacking: While discussions will naturally drift from the original topic from time to time, excessive off-topic comments and threadjacking will be addressed by moderators. If you feel a thread is being threadjacked, please report it, rather than arguing about whether or not the thread is being hijacked. This rule does apply to Discord as well — while the real-time nature of that platform inherently leads to a much more fluid transition between varied topics, don’t obnoxiously barge into an existing topic and try to keep each conversation in an appropriate channel.
Offensive Material: To maintain a friendly and welcoming community, we do not allow certain types of material:
- Material that is discriminatory based on race, sex, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or appearance.
- Material that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people.
- Material that espouses political or ideological views that are hateful, extremist, or radical. This includes, but is not limited to, Antisemitism, neo-Nazism, neo-Confederate views, white supremacy, fascism, xenophobia, nativism, and alt-right views.
Please note that the restriction on offensive materials applies to posts made on TSP platforms as well as a nation’s custom fields, name, flag, and factbooks/Dispatches. Users are also responsible for content they link to on a TSP platform. If applicable, TSP moderators will also report violations to NS moderation, but content being permitted by NS moderators does not mean it will be permitted by TSP moderators.
Explicit Material: We’re not all adults here. Erotic roleplay, sharing pornographic or overly suggestive material, sending nudes, cybersexing, or excessive public displays of affection are forbidden on all offsite property regulated by TSP and will likely lead to an immediate permanent ban. Sexuality should be avoided entirely and may at most be mildly hinted, but anything explicit or excessive will result in a proportional moderation response. Excessive gore, violence, or incivility may also be considered actionable. In general, do not post anything would not be allowed in a PG-13 movie.
Flaming: Hostile and insulting behavior against another player, particularly based in personal attacks, is unwelcome in our community. Depending on the severity, you could be banned. Being in-character does not excuse anybody from this rule. Erudite slams while maintaining a veneer of politeness can also be considered flaming.
Flamebaiting: Posts that are made with the aim of angering someone indirectly. Not outright flame, but still liable to bring angry replies. Flame baiting is a far more subtle and covert action; it is an underhanded tactic that is designed to provoke a response from another player. It’s in the same context of trolling but with flamebaiting it’s just the one person. Also included under flamebaiting is malicious quote editing, changing the contents of a quoted post without showing the original text, either through color changes or strike-out.
Harassment: Persistently contacting another player when this is unwanted or otherwise undesired on their part. Just because we share a region that doesn’t mean we all are going to be friends, and if someone doesn’t want to talk to you and makes it clear that they want you to leave them alone you need to do so.
Trolling: Posts that are made with the aim of soliciting an angry response from the general community, or to mess with the community for their own amusement, and any other bad-faith content that a poster knows will be annoying, start a fight, etc.
Privacy violation: Players on NationStates have a reasonable expectation that their privacy will be respected. It is not permitted to post or otherwise share another player’s personally-identifying information (i.e. social media accounts, IP addresses, postal addresses, E-mail addresses, telephone numbers, etc.), and neither is it permitted to post or share information that may not be identifying but is nonetheless of a personal nature (i.e. medical history, relationship status, etc.). The only exception is if the player in question has shared that information themselves and does not mind its dissemination.
False Accusations of Misconduct: Making a claim of serious OOC misconduct (e.g. bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, etc.) against someone else, without providing evidence to moderation/administration, is considered malicious harassment. It will result in an exceptionally long ban. This applies anywhere, not just on our forums and Discord server.
Bullying: This is a form of harassment and will not be accepted in our community. Bullying is any long-term targeted flaming, flamebaiting, or over-the-top attacking of somebody based on your dislike of them personally. Being a longtime political opponent of somebody isn’t bullying, but if it crosses into the territory of regular personal attacks, it may be considered bullying. This is another rule where you can’t claim exclusion by being in-character.
Warnings & Punishment
For any violation of the rules, you may face consequences depending on the severity of the violation and past moderation history. Exact punishments vary – you may be issued a formal warning, have the offending post suppressed or removed, or find yourself unable to post or banned completely (temporarily or permanently). Bans may apply to the forum and the Discord server.
For content which violates the offensive materials policy, users will receive a warning at first if it is likely that their comments were due to misinformation, propaganda, or lack of awareness rather than explicit discriminatory intent. When such a warning is given, the moderation team will ensure the person is given access to educational materials and an opportunity to ask any questions. If someone demonstrates they refuse to learn from these efforts, or if someone’s discriminatory content was posted out of active malice or intent to troll others, they will receive a summary ban.
All moderation decisions and punishments will be logged for review by other moderators.
Appeals
If you believe a moderation decision was made against you in error, you are welcome to lodge a request for an appeal. This can be done by opening a help ticket on Discord, posting in the Operations Center, or privately contacting any Junior or Senior Moderator.
Appeals of warnings or short-term bans may be ruled on by any Moderator who was uninvolved in the initial ruling. Appeals of longer-term bans or permanent bans from the region will be heard by a panel of three uninvolved Moderators, at least one of whom must be a Senior Moderator. The majority of the panel’s vote will determine the outcome of the appeal. After an appeal is heard and decided, the player requesting an appeal will be informed of the decision. Third party appeals will not be considered. RMB Moderators and ex officio Moderators may only be involved in considering appeals in an advisory capacity.
If a punishment is handed down after having been considered by the entire team and with a consensus in favor, then it is not subject to appeal. Only in cases of moderator misconduct, an appeal may be made to the Administration team.
Moderation Team
Moderators are trusted individuals responsible for enforcing our community rules. They are granted access to relevant moderation tools on all official off-site platforms of the South Pacific. The Moderation team consists of three groups: RMB Moderators, Junior Moderators, and Senior Moderators.
RMB Moderators are trusted individuals who are solely responsible for on-site content – primarily but not exclusively the RMB. They are appointed and dismissed by the Junior and Senior Moderators through a process of their choosing and report to all Junior and Senior Moderators collectively.
Junior Moderators are appointed by the Senior moderator team through a process of their choosing. Officials of the Coalition of the South Pacific will be considered Junior Moderators ex officio, but will only receive moderation access over those areas related to their office’s duties, and only for as long as they hold that office. Junior Moderators can be suspended or dismissed by the Senior Moderator team (this includes ex officio Moderators).
Senior Moderators may appoint an individual that has served as an active appointed Junior moderator for ten consecutive months, or has served at least 12 non-consecutive months as ex officio Junior Moderator, to be a Senior Moderator. The Senior Moderators may dismiss one of their own through a vote.
By default, Moderators only have moderation access in those areas where they would otherwise be permitted to read and post anyway. They will not be granted additional viewing or posting privileges through their moderator status, except for explicitly moderation-related forums or channels. However, all areas, no matter how restricted or hidden, are subject to our community rules, and therefore Senior Moderators may be temporarily granted view access to an area otherwise restricted to them for the purposes of investigating a report or an appeal.
Any case that involves personally identifiable or otherwise real-life sensitive information will be handled by Senior Moderators only. If necessary, they will coordinate with Administration to receive technical information such as IP address and email addresses.
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How to report something
Our community spans multiple different platforms. We have different methods for submitting a moderation report on each of those platforms. In general, we encourage reporting issues on the same platform as the issue itself.
- On the forum: When reporting a topic, post, or private message, please use the forum’s built-in reporting features rather than messaging or tagging individual moderators.
- On Discord: Use the ticket feature in the #welcome channel.
- On the RMB/NationStates website: Post on the RMB of the region TSP reports
Forum and Discord reports are visible to all moderators; NationStates reports are visible publicly. If you’d like to report something sensitive, private, or requiring discretion, privately message any Senior Moderator on any platform.
A Note on Adult Interactions
Over the years, we’ve run into the problem of people not quite understanding the meaning of consent or what a healthy adult relationship looks like. However, we are cognizant of the social aspects of the game as well as human nature, and realize that relationships between players will inevitably develop, and whilst these are not against our rules, they are strongly discouraged. NationStates is a political simulator, not a dating service. If a relationship does develop in spite of this, we demand that the following basic standards are met:
- Do not use TSP offsite property to conduct your relationship. Again, NationStates is NOT a dating service.
- We expect any relationships to be consensual and emotionally healthy. Should we suspect otherwise, action may be taken.
- Relationships between adults and minors are explicitly forbidden, and it is your responsibility to confirm the age of a player before entering into a relationship.
- Your relationship does not absolve you of the rules toward each other or any other players.
Private areas where adult issues may be openly discussed may be created on offsite property regulated by TSP, and in these areas, the PG-13 standard does not apply, however even in such areas, any explicit graphic or auditory content is still strictly forbidden. Access to these areas is strictly regulated, and limited to players for which we have a very reasonable assurance that they are eighteen years of age or older.
Safeguarding
We have a legal duty to our users, and the Senior Moderation team investigates any concerns we have about vulnerable adults and children. Due to the nature of NationStates we are primarily concerned about sexual abuse and exploitation, emotional abuse, and extremism and radicalization. If we have have reason to suspect that a vulnerable user is at risk, either from a fellow user or from someone they know in real life, we will conduct a confidential investigation. If necessary we will refer the matter to the appropriate legal authorities.
If you feel you or anyone else is affected, you can at any time privately contact a Senior Moderator you trust, or contact the team privately, confidentially, and (if desired) anonymously via safety@thesouthpacific.org.
While we claim no jurisdiction over offsite property regulated by others, if we become aware of actions or behavior on your part that we consider to break our safeguarding policies we will take preventive action to limit your access to our community.