Staff Guidelines

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Staff Guidelines

Postby TCS Staff » Thu Jul 18, 2013 5:07 pm

Hiya, dudes and girl-dudes! This is a list of rules that members of the TCS staff follow in order to make this an awesome place. We're posting it so you know how things operate around here.

1. Staff will follow the rules of the site, just like any other user.

2. Staff will maintain a professional tone when dealing with moderation and serious matters.

3. Staff will act within the best of their ability to maintain neutrality and a level head when moderating.

4. Staff will NOT abuse any of their powers.

5. Staff will be open to concerns. We encourage people to approach mods and admins directly to address any issues they may have. If no complaint is made and it doesn't break the rules, staff will generally be hands off.

6. Thread splitting may occur only if the new thread can sustain a whole new conversation that would disrupt the original thread.
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby Australia » Thu Jul 18, 2013 6:53 pm

Wow, sounds like you guys are just like prison guards. Only, of course, replace "thread" with "head".
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Thu Jul 18, 2013 8:07 pm

*shivs Australia when nobody is looking*

But on a serious note, does this come across as overly stern to you? Because that's sort of the opposite of what we're going for. We just want a level of transparency about moderation and for people to be aware that the mods hold themselves/each other to certain standards as well as the rest of the community.
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu Jul 18, 2013 8:12 pm

*shivs a shiv*
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby Australia » Thu Jul 18, 2013 8:18 pm

Not at all. It's just surreal how structured and organised the power regime is. It's very well structured and organised, don't get me wrong, and certainly to the benefit of the rest of us, but that it's used for something as simple as a place where people write random stuff and discuss things in their free time is either admirable or depressing, considering most workplaces don't put that much effort into ensuring a productive and content work team.

I mean... OW! I see there's nothing in the fineprint about no shiving. I'd get up and leave if I wasn't bleeding out right now.
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Thu Jul 18, 2013 8:33 pm

Eh, we discussed a no shiving rule, but we decided against it on the grounds that sometimes we really, really want to shiv people.

That's cool. Basically we do put a lot of thought into this sort of thing BECAUSE this is an awesome place with awesome people who on the whole are more than capable of self-policing any assholes who wander in, and we want to keep it that way.
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby Learned Nand » Thu Jul 18, 2013 8:56 pm

The rules here could be a bit more specific, but regardless, I think they do a pretty good job of defining the spirit of moderator action on this forum. I'm a bit worried they'd be insufficient basis to give a user recourse if he thinks a moderator has overstepped his bounds, but that really depends on administrative interpretation of these guidelines.

Ideally, these guidelines will serve a few purposes. First, they define what moderator action should look like to the moderators. Moderators know what kinds of things they should and shouldn't do by looking at this thread. Second, they define what moderator action should look like to the users. Users should be able to look at a post and conclude, to within a reasonable degree of accuracy, what kind of moderator action, if any, it would provoke. Third, users should be able to use this to explain how a moderator has abused his power if he has. For example, if a moderator has taken action against me because he's disagreed with me, I should be able to PM an administrator and basically tell him that a moderator is in violation of Staff Guideline #3, at which point there need not be dispute as to whether a moderator was acting appropriately.

Personally, and I recognize this might be unpopular, we really should have a "no-shivving rule". I get that you really want to shiv somebody sometimes, but those people don't want to be shivved. And as a person who doesn't like to be shivved, I think -

*gets shivved*
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby sunglasses » Thu Jul 18, 2013 10:55 pm

*Stands over Aviel with her shiv dripping blood. Whistles.*
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby Kate » Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:30 am

Aviel, I think you don't have to worry about pointing to a rule and saying "This mod broke that rule." These are guidelines we keep for ourselves more than anything, and we're pretty good at talking to each other when we think something is not in line with these guidelines. We're posting them here mostly so that you can see them. If you think you see mod abuse, there's a procedure for reporting it, and you just need to explain the situation and we'll sort it out.

We CAN have a no-shivving rule, but if we do that, then we need to drop one of the other rules. My personal vote is to get rid of that whole "Following our own rules" thing. I want to abuse our rules.
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:33 am

Fuck you, Kate, I want to get rid of the motherfucking rule about stupid professional stinking tone.
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:35 am

...
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby Kate » Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:36 am

I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT TO ME, ORANGE. No one else get involved here, I'm about to VERY UN-NEUTRALLY moderate the hell out of Orange.

...oh God...oh God we've descended into madness! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WITHOUT RULES!
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby Learned Nand » Fri Jul 19, 2013 3:28 am

Kate wrote:Aviel, I think you don't have to worry about pointing to a rule and saying "This mod broke that rule." These are guidelines we keep for ourselves more than anything, and we're pretty good at talking to each other when we think something is not in line with these guidelines. We're posting them here mostly so that you can see them. If you think you see mod abuse, there's a procedure for reporting it, and you just need to explain the situation and we'll sort it out.

I think you missed my point. My problem isn't that there wasn't a procedure for reporting moderator abuse, it's that what constituted "abuse" was entirely subjective. Now there's a slightly more specific definition than "anything the administrator taking your report happens to think at the time."
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby D-LOGAN » Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:58 am

WHO THE HELL TOOK ALL MY FECKING SHIVS?!?! DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE ...... DISCOMFORT I HAD TO GO THROUGH TO GET THEM IN HERE!!!!

*Well the joke's on you's, I never washed any of them afterwards*
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Re: Staff Guidelines

Postby AboveGL » Thu Dec 12, 2013 7:52 am

The only staff guideline I have is not to attack everyone you see with yours. Unless it's a child and they're carrying a toy you want.
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