Staff Ethics
From FiranMUX
DO NOT ALTER THIS PAGE WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM Adam OR Steph!
Contents |
Code of Conduct for All Staff
This code of conduct lays out a standard of behavior for all staff, whether Player Helpers or Wizards. Every member of staff is responsible for reading, understanding, and complying with these rules. Do not modify this page in any way without permission from Adam or Steph.
Purpose
Firan has a code of conduct because we want to behave ethically as human beings and because we want to present the best game experience for our players. These rules, we believe, protect the interests of individual players and staff, the players as a group, and the game as a whole. At the end of the day, we feel we can be proud of the behavior of the staff if we follow these rules.
Principles
The guiding principles behind this document are simple:
- Treat other people with respect, fairness, and professionalism.
- Protect the privacy of individuals.
- Protect the integrity of the game.
- Perform the business of staff with as much transparency as possible.
Rules
These rules focus on the proper use of staff authority and power.
- Use staff power and authority for staff business only. Do not use special privileges to benefit your character or your friends' characters.
- Exception: Because wizards give up player time for staff duties, they get one or two little perks. It's fine to do very small things like @bathe your alt when you're in a hurry. It's fine to @teleport your alt to save time now and then (but not to avoid IC consequences). That's about the extent of the shortcuts you can take. These are extremely minor perks.
- Use staff power and authority only when you are sane and sober. Don't do staff things when you're under the influence. If you're having a freak-out emotional drama day, take the day off and don't inflict that on players.
- Respect player privacy. Do not share private information that you learn in the course of your staff duties unless failure to share it could threaten harm or danger to a person or the game.
- Players have no expectation of privacy as stated in the game policy with regards to role-playing (including use of the OOC command) or channel discussion. Players should expect that their pages and @mails will be private unless there is a legal or security-related reason why they shouldn't be.
- A player's private information includes the identity of their alts, their email and login addresses (past and present), their applications, the text of their @requests, and other information that only they and the staff know.
- It's okay to page a player privately and discuss their own private information with them. For example, since they know their own email and site information, you can discuss that with them. But don't act like a stalker; don't make them feel stalked!
- When a "whistle-blower" shares information about other people cheating, they may want to remain anonymous. Make it clear that we'll make an effort to protect their privacy, but it's not ideal or guaranteed. Except when the transgression is great, try to use the information to catch the transgressor yourself, leaving the whistle-blower anonymous.
- When a "whistle-blower" shares information about the unethical behavior of staff, you are obligated to report it to a senior member of staff. We do not protect our own. We hold them to the standards we hold for ourselves.
- When a "whistle-blower" wishes to remain anonymous, you still have an obligation to fix the problem that they brought to your attention. It is not acceptable to do nothing. Either you fix it or you report it to someone who can. This may result in your having to divulge the name of the whistle-blower so as to get to the bottom of it.
- Anonymity is not the ideal mode of interaction on our game for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the fact that the worse consequence anyone can suffer on Firan is not to be allowed to play anymore. We're not talking about the the Underground Railroad or Tiananmen Square here.
- Separate your personal player issues from your staff role. Don't use your increased contact with other staff to solve your own player problems. When you do, it calls to question your objectivity as a staffer. Staff should @request their player issues like other players.
- Exception: It's silly for a wizard to get on Help and ask for a wizard to do some small thing for you when you know the answer is yes. You're just wasting staff time. Just do it. If you're not sure the answer is yes, go ahead and ask on Help.
- Avoid the appearance of impropriety. Not only should you act proper at all times, you should avoid situations that look improper, even if they're not. We want to avoid people questioning the ethics of the staff. Not only do we act ethically, we act in a manner that builds trust. Never put staff ethics in doubt.
- Don't read information you don't need to read, such as the secrets of characters. (You may need to read secrets for TinyPlotting purposes and that's ok.)
- Don't share sensitive IC or OOC information unless someone needs to know it. Sharing information can spoil tinyplots and force people to pull out of tinyplots because it is difficult to avoid the appearance of impropriety when someone just told you something that could give your alt an advantage.
- Pursue staff business with a minimum interruption to players role-playing. Avoid @walling unnecessarily. Avoid strolling around the database without being DARK. Avoid interjecting yourself into player role-play. Try not to @summon players without warning them first and giving them time to wrap up role-play. Don't change character data (or kill characters) as a joke.
- There are times when joking around is perfectly all right. If you prank someone and they find it funny, great! If you prank someone and they don't find it funny, then you've just acted unethically. Knowing the difference is your responsibility.
- Maintain player autonomy. Don't @force people without their permission unless there's a thematic reason to do so. Don't @boot them, @newpassword, or siteban a player except for disciplinary purposes (and only when it's a serious offense). Don't log into another person's character.
- Yes, it's sometimes funny to prank other staffers. Yes, it's okay to do this now and then but don't abuse it. Certainly don't interrupt real staff work with pranks and definitely don't interrupt role-playing with pranks. Under no circumstance is it cool to lock someone out of the game or log into someone else's character as a prank.
- Maintain the integrity of the Firan intellectual property. In short, it's owned by Steph and Adam. If you need a copy of some code for your own project, ask Steph and Adam for a license and they'll most likely say yes. Adam and Steph do not license the thematic material.
- If you wrote the code, you already have a license to use it without permission. We still like to know it's being used as a courtesy though.
- Be excellent to each other. Treat every player and every other staffer with respect. Even when you're angry or upset, and even when someone has done something awful, act with integrity and treat them with respect. Remember, there's no use being rude to someone you are going to ban, and you certainly don't want to be rude to someone you want to stay. In fact, the more likely you are to ban someone, the more polite and formal you should be to them.
- Own up to your mistakes. If you mess up, let people know. We'll respect your honesty and you'll join the broad ranks of staffers who have made mistakes. Most likely, we've made bigger ones. If you make a mistake and do something unethical, we'd rather hear it from you than someone else.
- Keep confidential staff information confidential. Staff often discuss things on staff channels and trust that it will not be repeated. Staff often rant and vent and say things they don't mean. Confidential staff discussions should not be shared with other groups. That means that confidential discussions among Senior Wizards shouldn't be shared with the broader wizstaff. Confidential Wizard conversations should not be shared with Player Helpers and players. Confidential PHer discussions should not be shared with players. This is not because we want to hide information from people, but because certain kinds of discussions require that we foster an environment of trust. Ironically, trust sometimes requires keeping confidences.
- That said, if you are negative on channel more often than you are positive, there's really something wrong.
