Community Update

[Murray]

There has been a lot of confusion recently with some events that have taken place. I am going to take some time to clarify the core teams position when it comes to banning users, proper procedure of appealing bans, definition of the core team and some recent events that have hampered our ability to move forward at the rate we were.

User Banning Policy

We have taken a lot of consideration in putting forward an infraction system, so there is a way for users to quantify bans. The system has proved to work very well with this community. It has also been very useful to the moderators and administrations as a collaboration tool. We feel that the system does it's part when it comes to banning users and it is here to stay.

Now there are situations where the infraction system's scope just does not cover actions of users. Recently a user made an attempt to "artificially" increase the view count of a thread. There are 2 different types of DoS attacks, ones that attack the server code and ones that attack the bandwidth. Ones that attack the code base of the server, for example this happens when a request from the client takes less CPU power then the server, and this is repeated. Message boards being dynamically generated content fall into this type. The other type is an attempt to max out the upload bandwidth by sending large amounts of useless data.

Intentionally or unintentionally the user in question caused the site to become very slow and degraded other users experience. This is an example of something that goes past the scope of the infraction system. Regardless if this is intentional or where the attacks originated from, they will all have the same response. The user(s) in question will no longer be able to participate in the service, and there may be legal repercussions as well.

Ban Appealing Procedure

If for whatever reason a user becomes banned, they are expected to serve the entire duration for the consequences of their actions at the time the infractions took place. Attempting to circumvent this policy will result in most cases a ban duration increase. If a user creates an alternate account and posts on that account until the ban on his main account is expired, and only after does the administration staff discover this action. The user will still face all consequences that should have been applied to his account(s).

If our policies change in favor of a user that has been banned such that he should no longer be banned; the ban will not be lifted as the user has already accepted the consequence of his actions when the infraction took place. In the same way, if our policies change such that it is not in favor of a user, the user will NOT have his ban duration increased.

Sending private messages to message board administrators or moderators on behalf of a banned individual is considered collusion and both users may face additional consequences. The only way to appeal a ban is to use the Contact Us feature at the bottom of every page.

Separation of the Game and Message Boards

This seems to be the highest area of confusion for most users. If a user is banned from the forums using the standard infraction system, the user can still access his game accounts, the account management tools, and still access the forums. However, the user will not be able to post. This is a new system and new users will be banned like this when the infraction system is used.

However, there are situations where we may have to bring a users ability to play the game into question. This is because it is the only "final" punishment that our administration staff can impose to potential disruptive users within the community. Any users that continually disrespect our policies may find themselves in this situation.

Moderators, Developers and Designers will not have access to any tools that would modify the game state. So they will not be able to change anything in the game outside of the normal user. Anyone who is working on the game in an administration capacity is expected not to participate in the game as a normal player. This is to ensure we don't have any cheating accusations.

Definition of the Team

To clarify this completely. There are 3 members of the team who make most decisions in regards to the project as a whole. These 3 users include Claymore (Dave), Otlichno (Cameron), and myself (Brent). Each of us comprise the required base knowledge to continue this project. The 3 of us, help out wherever we can best be used, as such I am fulfilling an administration role for the purposes of this post.

Additional Team Groups and members;

Development Team
This team deals with the advancement of our server architecture directly.

• RichV
• Sysreq
• terrorist
• Eighty
• dokks
• burfo

Design Team
This team deals with retrieving game information required for the development team.

• KonradKnox
• ArkanisGath
• Daymar
• Dyson
• hideand
• Sixteen

Moderation Team
This team keeps the forums clean and maintains the correct image we wish to portray to potential new players.

• Solar
• Hidetade
• LoginServerDown
• Agelmar
• MaryJane
• Ramsonne
• Allura
• BurtReynolds

Recent Events

There recently has been what you could call a leak in the development and design team. We figured this always had the potential to happen. Never did we assume it would have happened so quickly. The team is very displeased with the actions of the users that caused these problems.

This has caused the administration team to take another look at the users that are contributing to the project and question their motives. We now need to filter all of the work done by most of the team's members and as you would assume takes a large amount of time away from development. The selfish actions of a select few individuals has now impacted the community and the project as a whole. Any release date estimates are now out the window and you have them to thank for it. Development will continue, but at a greatly reduced rate.

Conclusion

In closing we expect all users to respect the policies that the administration team have laid out. This applies to developer, designers, moderators and users alike.

Discussion Thread

http://www.shadowbaneemulator.com/fo...ead.php?t=5055