Welcome to Gaia! ::

Welcome. I'm not going to make this
very pretty, so bear with me. I'd like
for us to have an open discussion
about how/what to do administrative
functions in this guild--it's just healthy.
Feel free to post in this thread, but
first let me give an overview of my
expectations from each level of crew.


Crew:

These are going to be the "workhorses,"
for the most part. The more ancillary
tasks like:

*oversee a section of the guide,
assigned them by a VC

*check literacy in their given section

*settle disputes between members
(if it is too much to handle please
defer to VC)

*enforce activity rules

*work with VC to keep forums clean

*report all god-moding to VCs at once

*accept join requests

are the responsibilities of crew.


Vice Captain:

There are more responsibilities for
VC than any other--they are trusted
to take over if a captain cannot lead.
Their responsibilities seem like less
work, but there is more thought and
trust required from them to administrate
effectively.

Vice Captains will...

*Approve profiles

*Confer with the captain on ranking

*have complete control over a section
of the guild--and report to the captain
on the state of that area periodically.

*settle disputes when crew cannot

*investigate god-moding claims

*ban members, should the need arise

*send announcements when the time
is right

*help organise and plan events

*supervise crew

The Captain will...

*Oversee all major decisions in the
guild

*dictate announcements to be made

*initiate events

*oversee all ranking decisions (unless
power is given to VC to do so)

*call for timeskips

*supervise VCs

Next, punishments for breaking our rules.

1. Breaking ToS: this will get you permanently banned no matter what. We would rather our guild not be shut down.

2. Mary Sues: If your character is suspected to be a Mary Sue, we will first ask you about it (and most likely ask you to change it). We will not approve anything which resembles a Mary Sue. If it is noticed that your character has somehow grown MS-ish, we will ask you to either play the character in a better way, drop the character and try again, or simply leave the guild if this is too much trouble.

God-moding: Any instance of god-moding will result in banning from the guild--for a first offence. Players may return after a month; if they god-mode again they will be permanently banned.

Autos: these carry the same punishment as god-moding, as autos are the most common mode of GM-ing.

3. Illiteracy: It is less easy to enforce a thing like this, especially at the upper levels, so the punishments here are generally more relaxed--mostly warnings. However, if it is brought to our attention that a player is using illiteracies such as "tho, thru, thnx," or cannot remember basic grammatical rules such as capitalising the start of a sentence, where to put an apostrophe, etc., they will be first warned very sternly, our crew being sure to provide links to resources; on the second offence, the offender will be banned for a month; on the third offence, permanently banned. If an application to join shows massive illiteracy, they will be declined and informed that they do not meet our literacy standards. Bear in mind: we will not witch-hunt our own; rather only grievous errors will be treated in this way.

4. Activity: players who cannot meet the requirement of two posts per week will be terminated (allowing that they haven't posted in the activity check (it should be noted that no hiatus is too large if this thread is used))--that is to say banned until the player makes contact with one of the crew. The player will be put on a list so that he/she/they will not be invited again.

5. Respecting the Crew: If it is sensed that a player has been unprovoked and rude toward our crew, that player will be banned for a month on the first offence with no warning. The second offence is a permanent ban, at which time all the player's characters will be deleted.

6. Separation: punishment included in rule.

7. Format: if the player cannot fill the requirements stated in the rule above, that player will be given a warning and referred to the resources thread. If the problem persists, the player will be banned for a month at a time. If the problem simply will not be resolved, a player may be permanently banned for this (three times).

8.Exit: Though this is an important rule, it will be enforced less harshly than most others. Three warnings, then a month ban; everyone makes mistakes.

9. Character Creation: Crew reserve the right to judge if a player is ready to create a new character/if the story will integrate a new character smoothly. If a character goes a month (real time) without a post, crew will ask you to make that character an NPC or simply post with said character. If an NPC has not moved for a month (real time) we will ask you to delete them or simply have an RPC interact with them. Please note that "I have no one to RP with" only highlights the problem; one should not make characters when they are not needed (see: "excess characters" ). Dropping characters is a good indicator of activity drops. For this reason we will not ban a player for dropping characters unless it is also an activity issue; only banning players if they post with no one for a month.

Moar God-moding:

In the interest of steamlining, here are my parameters of god-moding/Mary Sue/Autos for this setting.

Let's get some things straight. Mainly: this is Zelda. Characters are powerful in this universe, but they are few and far between; there are not a bunch of sayains running about shooting lasers out of their hands; this is not an anime, despite the tag. So, anything that "breaks" the universe's sense of normalcy is out.

So, we have mages. Here's a regular mage, mid-ranked:

Creates a sphere of condensed shadows and fires it at the dragon with the aim of striking its tail. If it hit, it would leave an explosion about ten feet in diameter.

And now a character of comparable rank...

The mage creates giant runes all over the arena using all his power. The creature would have to avoid these markings if it wanted to stay alive. Next giant lightning bolts would rain down from all corners of the ceiling.

while that might be an acceptable move for a boss, it most certainly cannot fly for the common player character. If the character has attained master rank in mana, then maybe--if we hold them to it that it takes all their mana--but not in this case.

If two characters are in different speed tiers, one must tire out or make an error--something must happen out of the ordinary--in order for them to be caught; otherwise, it is perfectly legal for a low speed tier character to outmaneuver a struggling tier one 9/10 times. Now, the point here is that if the latter decides to catch the former without doing anything special (trying to damage a joint, environmental hazard, waiting out the other's stamina, etc.), that player is essentially turning their character into a god-moding Mary Sue. Plain and simple.

Auditions:

There comes a time when we must decide who will play who. For those times, there are auditions. The thread will function like so:

Auditioning player will quote a VC or the captain. Quoted person will respond by prompting the player with a scenario and will RP with them for a little bit (maybe a page), with NPCs and the like in order to gauge their take on the character--you know, an audition. It is good practice to give more than one prompt; doing so will allow one to see a range of emotions from the character.

This is going to (hopefully) solve the problem of what to do with characters once player activity drops. A player may just not post with all their characters, but still be active. If the player drops off the face of the planet, we will wait until they are banned before we start auditioning for their characters... That is, of course, if they are playing anyone integral to the plot who should not be killed at the moment; otherwise, you can bet we're going to off that sucker. whee

Crew Activity Expectations:

I expect the crew to be at least as active as the most active player. That said, life will happen. No player, crew or otherwise, will be booted for inactivity if they post in the activity check before leaving.