News Rules

Rules: Masq's OOC Rules and Discipline Policy

In order to maintain a friendly and orderly environment, the staff has composed the following regulations. We expect players and staff to abide by these rules and to treat one another with courtesy and respect.

• AUP Masq's Acceptable Use Policy.
• Conflicts When you just can't get along with someone.
• Discipline What happens when you break the rules.
• Non-Consent Just like real life, bad things will happen.
• Retirement When you feel it's time to let go.
• Housekeeping Character purges. Don't stay away too long!

** indicates new information!

Acceptable Use Policy

This AUP is a guideline and not a comprehensive list of prohibited behaviors. Conduct that is not expressly defined may be deemed by staff to be in violation of the spirit of a particular policy. Staff reserves the right to add or modify the AUP at any time; however, changes to the AUP must be approved by all of staff.

The following are currently sections of the AUP:

• Alts
• Character Death
• Database
• Harassment
• Public Forums
• Spoofing
• Spying

If you have questions or want clarification of any rule, please feel free to contact staff.

ALTS, DEATH, and DATABASE

Alts While you are allowed to have alts (alternate characters), you may not:

• +xp/vote for your own alts
• Hire your alt as an employee or have your alts living together
• Create an alt to benefit an existing alt
• Fight in the same combat with multiple characters
• Share SK or other knowledge between alts
• Create an alt to avenge or investigate the death of another alt
• Be in a relationship with your own alt (that's playing with yourself - you'll go blind!)

Basically, your alts should not do anything which might bring them into close IC contact or conflict.

Death

• Any character investigating the death or disappearance of a PC must have been created prior to the PC's death. In other words, no one can make a new character to investigate the death of a character... only existing characters can investigate.
• IC Wills and "notes to be opened in case of my death" must be approved by RP Staff PRIOR TO the character's death.

Database The following will be treated as grounds for immediate expulsion from the game:

• Deliberate malicious tampering with MUSH code
• Any attempt to crash the MUSH, destroy the database, or gain unauthorized powers
• Attempting to "hack" into someone else's character (aka "identity theft")

HARASSMENT, PUBLIC FORUMS

HARASSMENT

• All Masq players have the right to an environment free of harassment. In this instance, harassment is defined as offensive, belittling, stalking, or threatening behavior directed at an individual player or group of players. Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated.
• Deliberately hurting feelings or insulting another player with the intent to cause harm is not allowed. This includes direct verbal abuse and defamation. The player need not be logged in if said abuse occurs in a public forum.
• Verbal abuse can include obscene, profane, and vulgar language directed at another player. While different people have different definitions of "obscene," the language must be stopped immediately if requested by the other player.
• Harassment of another player via email or other electronic means shall be considered a violation of MUSH policy. If you take your harassment off the MUSH and into another forum you will still be subject to the MUSH disciplinary procedure. (Proof such as the email in question must be provided to establish guilt.}

PUBLIC FORUMS (+bboards, etc.)

• No prejudicial statements are allowed in public forums regarding race, religion, gender, occupation, sexual orientation, intelligence, or other personal attributes.
• Obscenity is not permitted in our public forums. Obscene rants / flames will be removed at staff discretion.

SPOOFING, SPYING

SPOOFING

• Malicious spoofing is not allowed. In this instance, we define 'malicious spoofing' as using @emit or @pemit to anonymously make nasty statements or pose questionable actions (or make it look like someone else did it) for the purpose of causing trouble.

SPYING Spying by player characters using the DARK flag or puppet code on other player characters is a sensitive and easily abused matter, as the OOC privacy of players must be balanced against the need for characters to be able to gather information in a covert fashion. Because of this, there are strict guidelines of which all players should be aware so that both spying and spied-upon characters know their privileges and obligations.

1) Any IC conversation in a public or private area may be eavesdropped upon. 2) While OOC conversations taking place via observable means in public places may be observed, OOC conversations taking place via observable means in private rooms are considered private. Spying upon them is a violation of this policy. Please note that an OOC conversation is denoted by use of the OOC speak command. 3) Any DARK object used for spying must be approved by the staff, and must be used in a manner that the staff deems appropriate. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Players who violate this policy will have all of their characters disciplined, with punishment up to and including the removal of said characters. Players should be aware that their conversations may be monitored; because of this, staff strongly recommends that all private OOC conversations take place over pages, which are not subject to any kind of eavesdropping.

Conflicts

Though we wish everyone could just get along, conflicts will happen. We hope that you will first try to work out problems amongst yourselves, but that is not always possible. Whenever you wish to bring up a valid concern to staff, we encourage you to do so. Staff is always open to constructive feedback, and we will do our best to address your concerns and resolve the problem. We can assure you that your concerns will always be taken seriously and you will be treated with respect.

If you have an escalating conflict with another player or feel that someone is violating any of the rules listed in the AUP, please bring it to the attention of your particular sphere wizard. The staff member will attempt to investigate and to mediate the conflict as appropriate. To avoid "he said/she said" types of arguments, staff might request logs from both parties in question.

If you have a problem or conflict with your sphere staff that can not be resolved directly, please bring up your concerns to Augury. This can include issues such as challenging a judge's ruling in a combat or other kind of scene. Augury will be the final arbiter of most player / staff conflicts.

If you have any sort of issue regarding Augury, please direct your concerns to Prophet and Fate. If necessary, the rest of staff may be called upon to mediate this type of conflict.

Discipline

The following discipline procedure will generally apply to AUP violations and other major offenses. An AUP violation will be considered proven if: it is witnessed by two or more players other than the accuser; it is witnessed by a staff member; and/or proof is provided via log to the MUSH staff.

As all situations are different, discipline may vary slightly between offenses. Please note that it's possible for multiple offenses to occur in the same day. Also, staff reserves the right to @boot or timeout abusive/offensive players at any time.

First Offense

Staff member will give a warning to the offender and will set the SUSPECT flag.

Second Offense

If immediate action is necessary, a staff member may set the offender gagged/slaved for the period of 30 minutes. Following which the staff will attempt to set up a conference to discuss the problem with the offender. Blatant refusal by the offender to follow the policy (when being discussed, if they refuse to adhere) shall be considered a third offense. If the offender refuses a conference, they shall be gagged/slaved indefinitely until they agree to confer. Any privileges held by the offender shall be removed. These include but are not limited to staff position and building privileges.

Third offense

Offender shall be @newpassworded for the period of one week. To be reinstated, a player must send email to augury@masq.org to receive a new password. Any attempt to connect to the MUSH during this week, via the guest character, the creation of a new character, or by borrowing someone else's character shall be deemed a fourth violation.

Fourth Offense (and following)

Character is @newpassworded indefinitely. To be reinstated the player must obtain permission from the complete wizard's board. During this period the character shall be subject to the purge regulations and if they do not return within 35 days they shall be deleted. Any attempt to return to the MUSH without express permission of the MUSH staff shall result in permanent sitelock.

Non-Consent

Given Masq's "World of Darkness" theme, it is inevitable that bad things will happen to your character IC. Masq is a "non-consent" game, meaning that IC events will happen as they do, whether you like it or not. After all, when bad things happen in real life, we don't get a choice about it. It's not like you can tell the thug who is mugging you, "I'm sorry, Mr. Robber, but I don't consent to having my wallet stolen."

However, Masq is a game and we respect that different people have different levels of tolerance for playing out graphic themes and situations. Even though IC events are "non-consent," players should never feel forced to RP out any graphic situation that makes them OOCly uncomfortable (including, but not limited to: rape, torture, or the death of their character).

In other words, just because it is happening IC, doesn't mean you have to RP out all the gruesome details. The "Fade to Black" (FTB) scenario must always be available as an option in such cases. We trust that you will communicate with one another and be considerate of each other's RP preferences (which can be set in your +finger attribute -- +HELP FINGER). Any proved instance of graphic RP "forced" on a player will be treated as a third-level offense under NEWS DISCIPLINE.

Housekeeping

Certain steps are taken to keep the database down and to reduce the number of potential conflicts. Such policies include:

• All unapproved characters will be nuked after 14 days of idling.

• Players may keep their characters for 7 days after death in a PlayerDEAD state. After that, you must create a new character.

• Players who are absent for more than 35 days will be purged and THEIR BELONGINGS RECYCLED. If you are going to be gone more than 35 days you must set yourself on vacation (see +help vacation).

• Characters who are absent for more than 365 days will be nuked regardless of their vacation status. The player may re-apply upon their return, but all of their property will have been redistributed.

• Please note that if you are in IC possession of an object owned by a deleted or deceased character, you will need to contact staff requesting ownership or it will be deleted.

• Quotas are strictly enforced. This helps us keep our DB bloat down as much as possible.