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Introduction

Hello everyone! /u/Sharpcastle33 and I have been very pleased with the attention the previous dev post received. Many people contacted us with interest about helping work on CivEx, and we've been doing our part to get them set up to contribute. There is plenty of work to be done however, but if this aid comes it will hopefully bring First Light to you all sooner.

Now, today we are going to talk about the rules of CivEx. We would like to share our outlook on the old rules, highlight the areas we believe need some work, and communicate with you guys on how they might be changed (or even altogether rewritten) to best create an ideal experience. Nothing is set in stone here, so if you have suggestions on how to improve the ruleset we will listen! Now, here are our thoughts, collected over the last few days in a discord voice chat (bearing in mind that these are only a few points, and you are free to bring up anything else rules-related for discussion):

Rules Discussion

A Clean Front Door

First and foremost, we would like to implement a more stringent policy on the quality of content present on out “front door” (that being the /r/CivEx subreddit and the #general chat of the discord). This is related to the old Rule 6: “No Excessive Shitposting”. We understand the compulsion, but there is another subreddit (/r/CivExCircleJerk) where you all can happily shitpost away, and of course in the discord all channels other than the #general chat are open for it.

There are a few reasons why we would like to make this more of a focus. Primarily, we would like to present ourselves well to any would-be newfriends. The civ genre has a bit of a reputation for turning them away, but if we want any hope of bringing some life back into it we need to look presentable to the public. Secondly, we would like to keep submissions (on the sub especially) directly related to server content. You shouldn’t have to navigate through a sea of memes to see what claims people are making, important announcements, declarations of war, etc. We are looking into flair-filters to allow people to search for specific kinds of posts as well.

We understand there might be some concern over what we might deem a shitpost, we agree that line can sometimes be unclear, but generally we would err on the side of assuming a post is legitimate. This is a point we would like to discuss further.

No Alternate Accounts, and No Botting

This has in the past been accepted as the standard for CivEx, and we would very much like to continue that trend. Indeed, many of the features we have planned for the future revolve around counting active players as a real resource, so it is absolutely paramount that this rule be enforced. If anyone has experience in this area we would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

No Bug Exploitation

This rule in particular has, in the past, had rather questionable rulings by the administrative team as to what constitutes bug exploitation, and responses to the various infractions have also been fairly poor. It is certainly a deep issue and we’re not entirely sure ourselves how we would like to see it dealt with, however there are a few things we would like to lead off of.

We would like to make distinctions between the severity of a given infraction based on the circumstances in which it occurs. For instance, duping a pickaxe or two to see if it works isn't necessarily bug exploitation. Duping them en masse and selling them for profit is. We would also not outright remove items gained in part by things gained via the exploitation of bugs. Sure, you might have duped a pickaxe and that is certainly an infraction of the rule, but you also spent a significant amount of time acquiring all of the diamonds you mined with it. We would not necessarily remove those diamonds, but you would be punished with a ban and the duped materials would be removed.

King of the Ashes No Intentionally Being a Scumbag

If your goal is to raze the server to the ground, you're going to need to have a talk with us. We aren't just going to let you do that.

Now, we have to be very specific here so as not to anger the mob, but hear us out. If your intention is to make the server an undesirable place to play, and are unwilling to change, you will be asked to leave. CivEx is meant to have wars, politics, feuds, but most of all to have fun. We won't tolerate people who try to ruin that experience for everyone. It’s perfectly okay to be the World Police, and it’s alright to be a group of Bandit Pirates, but there is a line between those that are doing that and actively participating in the server, and those that do similar things for no other reason that to make others unhappy.

For instance, going around in groups pearling newfriends in your end-game gear is unacceptable, and a clear violation of this rule. Randomly pearling people so that no one can play on the server is another. Lag machines would be another example as well.

As for how we would penalize someone for infractions against this rule would, in most cases, simply be a warning and perhaps a discussion about the reasoning behind their actions, and how they could better contribute to the server. Ultimately this rule is to ensure everyone is having fun playing this game, and at the end of the day if there is one person ruining it for everyone, and it is absolutely intentional, we see no reason not to put them in timeout.

Free Speech, Harassment, Personal Attacks, and Doxxing

This always seems to be a bit of a touchy subject in the Civ Genre, so we would like to be perfectly clear as to how we will handle situations where this might come up. First of all, no, we are a private organization of volunteers giving our personal time to create and maintain this content for you all, for free. You do not have free speech. ^{relevant xkcd}

Now, what does that mean? It means that we intend to curate our content. Mostly this will be coming in the form of our focus on having a “Clean Front Door” (see the first point), but it will also take other forms. We will not tolerate harassment of our players--that is aggressively pressuring or intimidating people in a way to intentionally make them (not their character) feel personally threatened. We will not tolerate doxxing, that is publicly sharing someone’s private information without their permission.

However, we don’t believe in banning people for saying bad words. You can and should mute players who regularly use words you are not comfortable hearing. However, if someone is going out of their way to circumvent a mute, or is specifically targeting an individual, that does qualify as harassment, especially if they have been told to knock it off.

Another thing we would like to make absolutely clear is that we will not tolerate public appeals. That is, if you have been issued a ban and you think it is unfair we won’t allow you to post about it on the subreddit. Talk to other staff members if you like, try to make your case, and of course you can always talk about it in private with whomever you choose.

Now, we would also like to reiterate, this is a rules discussion. We aren’t coming down from the mountains with stone tablets. We want your opinion on everything, especially this. The goal of all of these rules are to encourage the development of a fun community where everyone can have a blast playing some solid Minecraft.