Member Conduct, and Reporting Abuse

[Christof Drescher]

Member Conduct and Reporting Abuse. 

• What does the staff of MA expect of me as a member?
• What actions or behaviors will result in a warning?
• What actions or behaviors will result in being kicked off the site?
• What are the general attitudes of MA staff towards abuse and harassment? 
• What is and is not harassment/abuse/bullying ect. ?
• How do I report another member?
• Can I defend myself from another member's report? 

[Christof Drescher]

What does the staff of MA expect of me as a member? 

The following is our 'code of conduct', or in other words, what we expect of our members.

• Members must follow the rules of the site. 
  
  
• Members must not encourage, or engage in the defamation of other individuals or sites, either in the forum directly, nor in any chat or shout box affiliated with the site.  This includes owners, administration and moderators of others sites. 
  
  
• Members should be courteous and respectful of one another, administration, and guests. 
  
  
• Members should not use manipulation  or 'sob stories' to attempt to circumvent rules or excuse misbehavior on their part.
  
  
• Members should not encourage the sharing of real personal information,  and should report any incidents of suspicious soliciting by others through the site. 

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[Christof Drescher]

What actions or behaviors will result in a warning? 

• Regularly failing to meet the minimum word count for IC posts, and/or failing to meet literacy standards
• Over the top 'foul' language and/or hate speech
• Failure to uphold requirements for being active (unless on a leave of absence)
• Powerplaying, Godmodding, or Ghosting
• Insulting other members, guests, or staff.
• Defaming others, or other sites in any non-private venue affiliated with the site. 
• Pressuring other members to play their characters in any particular way. 
• Harassing other members into letting your character do what he/she wants

If a member causes problems in these areas too often, warnings will change to being suspended and/or banned. 

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[Christof Drescher]

What actions or behaviors will result in being kicked off the site? 

• Mass advertising/soliciting anywhere other than the designated advertisement threads. 
  
  
• Persisting in verbal or emotional abuse of members. 
  
  
• Persisting in pressuring a member to engage in private RPs when you have been told no.
   
  
• Persisting in pressuring a member to give personal information or meet with you in real life (after being told no)
  
  
• Asking for personal information or to meet with any member you know to be under the age of 18 (sorry, US based, and we're going with the highest age of consent in the country, and no we don't care if you claim to be under 18 as well)
  
  
• Persisting in defaming other sites, or the admin of other sites on any non-private venue affiliated with the site -or - through mass PMing. 
  
  
• Submitting or linking any serious pornographic or otherwise harmful imagery and/or web pages that attempt to spread Trojans, Worms, Viruses or other serious malware through any venue associated with the site. 
  
  
• Threatening suicide or self harm as a means to manipulate site admin. (There's a difference between seeking us out to talk through problems, and  showing up on day one, being disrespectful/breaking the rules/looking for special privileges and then faking a melt down to try to get what you want)
  

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[Christof Drescher]

What are the general attitudes of MA staff towards abuse and harassment? 

    Staff take abuse and harassment very seriously.   We encourage members who believe they may be having problems with other members (of staff members ) to contact us immediately with their concerns. 

    That being said, we do expect those who are accusing others of harassment, bullying, or abuse to provide us with proof.   We don't believe this is asking to much in a completely digital environment.  Screen captures, forwarded messages and similar manners can be used to document anything that a member wants to discuss with staff about.  

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[Christof Drescher]

What is not considered harassment/bullying/abuse (ect)? 

• Most in character behavior
  
  MA is designated a mature theme site. As such, it isn't surprising that some characters may behave in ways that other characters (and even members) may not appreciate. In most cases, these are not matters that admin are going to deal with. Exceptions to this can be found in 'What is considered harassment/bullying/abuse (ect)?' below.
  
  
  
  If you and another member find yourself in a situation where one of you is uncomfortable, communicate this, and seek admin's help if you need a viable way to get your character's out of a situation. (ie. say your character is going to seriously beat up another member's character in a way that is extreme and makes the other member uncomfortable, you may ask admin to have a teacher happen to come by to create a valid reason for things not to come to that)
  
  
• Misconduct on other sites
  
  The facts are, we are not here to police the internet. If there is someone you have concerns about, feel free to let us know, and we will keep an eye on the situation, but we will not punish members based on what they have done on other sites. Even if we felt we had a right to do this, we have no way of even knowing of the person being accused has actually done anything. Exceptions will be made if the misconduct was both sever -and - took place on a site run by admin, or if there is some third party -official - documentation being able to tie the accused to having used forum/RP sites as an avenue to break the law, bring harm to others, or compromise/violate the rights of others.
  
  
  
  We don't like to put ourselves in a position to judge, but we will protect our members from proven threats.
  
  
• Asking if you may/want to continue RP through PM or Chat (especially in cases where the RP may be going beyond what is allowed on site)?
  
  
• Asking what you think of trying a certain plot? 
  
  
  

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What is considered harassment/bullying/abuse (ect)?

• Pressuring others to play their characters in a certain way. 
  
  
• Pressuring others to play out extreme scenes after being told no (or that the other person prefers to fade to black)
  
  
• Pressing others to give out personal information or meet in real life
  
  
• Berating other members, their characters, and/or other matters affiliated with them personally. 
  
  
• Discouraging others from interacting with another member
  
  
• Encouraging others to disrupt another member's on site experience
  
  
• Sending threatening, or inappropriate material to another member. 
  
  

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[Christof Drescher]

How do I report another member?

Reporting another member is fairly straightforward, and similar regardless of how an incident took place.

• Contact one or more of the members of staff, send us a PM detailing your concerns and what incidents have taken place.  
• Be prepared with documentation of any exchanges between yourself and the other individual. Use screen capture, forwarded messages and the like to demonstrate the conversations that have taken place between yourself and the individual. 
• Send us as complete of a picture/archive as possible, so we can the full feel of the situation.  
  
  
• Other than in cases where one of us has deleted something offensive (in which case we'll know it did happen)  There isn't much we can do if you don't have any proof.  However, bear in mind, since everything we do is online, it is easy to provide us with the information we need. 

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[Christof Drescher]

Can I defend myself from another member's report

We on MA understand that sometimes there can be misunderstanding, or that allowing people to make accusations without concern that they might be challenged may allow people to make false accusations, and cause innocent members to be punished.

As such, admin may approach you and ask if you have anything further to say about the matter, or if you can provide more completely documentation that may prove the evidence submitted against you was taken out of context.

That said, we never accept 'I was having a bad day', or 'all these terrible things are going on in my life', or any other such sob story as an excuse for your poor behavior. In cases of minor infractions, we make take this into account (if you are expressing your sincerest apologies). However, with major infractions, don't expect these sorts of things to get you off the hook.

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