Hello everyone!

Back with our regular memo at roughly the start of every even month. These posts are to encourage two-way conversation between the mods and the community, giving updates on policy changes and hearing any concerns you might have about the game. For reference, our Code of Conduct can be found HERE and guides all TagPro policies. You can also find the Code of Conduct at the bottom of the TagPro homepage.

What’s New:

IRC updates:
The mod IRC is no longer supported or monitored by the team. We have removed all mentions of the IRC from the Code of Conduct and any other forum we found where players were previously directed to IRC to contact us. Please continue using the support site and modmail bot in the official discord to contact a moderator.

Changes to the Mod team:
We have three mods leaving our team today. Each of these players made large contributions in their time with us and we sincerely appreciate the work they put in to move the team forward. Jerry., WRIG, and Vntus are still around in the community but will no longer be active moderators. Thank you to all three of you!

Moderator applications now open:
It has been almost exactly 1 year since we last opened applications and we have determined that there are tasks and times that would benefit from having additional moderators on the team. If you are interested in applying, please do so HERE. If you want to reach out to me before applying to understand your chances of being accepted or discuss part of your application I am happy to talk it over with you. Players with a decently clean record, a lot of time available for the foreseeable future, and a history demonstrating that you care about the community should consider applying. Applications will remain open for at least 1 month and will be reviewed on a semi-rolling basis. We have not chosen a specific number of moderators to add and will make that decision based on applications. If you have previously applied and would like to view your past application(s) we do have most of them on request.

Usage of “braindead” and “smooth brain”:
We’re in a bit of a transition period with these words. We had a lengthy internal discussion that highlighted a broad range of opinions on how to handle each and if they fall into what would be considered ‘offensive’ or what is within the norms of ‘fair’ in-game banter. We have begun warning usage of each and will be muting repeat users while we continue to assess the impact on the in-game environment. If you feel strongly either way please leave a comment below or reach out to a moderator and ask them to forward your thoughts to the team.

Additional changes to the chat filter:
We have continued pushing regular updates to our filter for messages that would result in an immediate mute (generally blanket mute words found in the Code of Conduct). If you have noticed a message you sent being blocked that should have been permitted, please contact a moderator or respond to this post to let us know!

Updated mute names:
We have made adjustments to the list of possible animal names a player might receive while muted. This was primarily to avoid untimely instances of names like “ape” and “monkey” appearing and making a bad situation worse but we took it a bit further and added in some animals that we like for fun. If you would like an up-to-date list of possible names, please message a moderator.

In closing:

Community Moderation:
We see a lot but we do not see everything. Please remember to make use of the report system for players going against the Code of Conduct, use the !mods command in game chat to call mods to your game for time-sensitive conflicts, and make use of the replay extension or VCR script to send us clips of players breaking the rules (and make some sweet montages). It takes everyone to build a supportive and friendly community and we hope that you will help us achieve that goal!

Ban decay:
See this post for full instructions. Please note that you may apply more than once and are encouraged to continue applying when you are eligible until your ban and mute counts reach 0!

Thank you for reading, now it is time to turn things over to you. Have a policy recommendation you want us to consider? Not happy with something in the CoC? Concerned about a trend you have noticed recently? Want us to work with the developer team to implement something? This is the place to let us know. I encourage everyone to comment below but feel free to message me privately if that is more comfortable. Please keep in mind that the moderation team does not control things like base gameplay, map rotation, flairs, servers, or events so we may not be able to address every concern.

Link to previous announcements: April 2022, February 2022, December 2021, October 2021, August 2021, June 2021, April 2021, February 2021, December 2020

-Cheezedoodle and the Moderation team