Public TOS / Enforcement Announcement
Over the past few months, or perhaps even years, the rules have either not been clear enough or have been enforced too unilaterally. This has resulted in people being disgruntled or even trying to experiment with the rules and how far they could go without being banned.
This stops now.
As of the Enforcer meeting on the 9th of november 2014 the Enforcement team has started a new effort to enforce the rules and terms of service without favouritism no matter the rank or personal connection to the offender. This means that guides, artists, staff members and/or long standing members of the community can expect the same consequences for an offense as someone who has just joined the server.
I would like to bring some attention to easter eggs or other such changes to the world. It was not too recently Q made the decision to ban any additions to the server that did not fit in the lore. This means anything found by an enforcer that is lore breaking (signs, secret bases, kebab shops etc.) will be treated as grief, and thus bear the same consequences.
Rule Amendment
When it comes to the explicitness of the rules and terms of service, we’re working to amend those as soon as possible. Instead of working with specific rules and restrictions, we want to provide a set of umbrella rules that cover any form of abuse. At that point whether or not there is a specific ban on what you’re doing doesn’t matter if it breaks one of these umbrella rules such as: ‘don’t harass others in the community.’
Some amendments to the rules and TOS will focus on the forums and Teamspeak. On the forums we will aim to weed out posts with profanity or posts aimed to shock, incite or provoke, on top of the already existing rules and regulations.
TeamSpeak
Teamspeak is a lot less easy to moderate but we will try our best. Future rules and TOS will not allow for profanity or discussion on political/religious subjects in public channels. These rules will also apply to channels that were started privately, without intent to discuss one of these subjects or allow for swearing, but have become a public channel simply due to the amount of people in it. If one does want to swear, use slurs or debate subjects that can lead to heated arguments, he or she is to make a specific channel for this purpose, with it’s name preceded by the tag i.e [18+] or [Debate]. In such channels rules banning profanity and specific discussion are lifted (but keep in mind rules against harassment or incitement still apply).
Soundclips / Music
When it comes to music or sound clips these should only be played in the music channel or after inquiring with the rest of the channel whether or not they are okay with it. If someone asks you to stop playing music or sound clips the same rules apply as those for profanity. If your channel is not a public channel, and it has not become one, consent of the channels creator overrules that of an individual channel member.
Channels that are being made for the sole purpose of being AFK or playing a game on your own will henceforth be prohibited. Teamspeak is a social platform to communicate with other people on the server. Cluttering the server with several one man channels is unnecessary and distracting. Channels that end up as one man afk channels can be removed at any time.
In teamspeak staff and guides have to exercise additional restraint when using their privileges. Your abilities to kick and/or move people should be used only when necessary. Systematic misuse of these privileges will lead to consequences.
Reporting
If you have seen something that is against the rules be sure to make a Report when the incident is still fresh on your mind, rather than waiting for an enforcer to show up. This will prevent us missing each other and will let us react to the issue as soon as possible. When writing a report be sure to be as detailed as possible, if you do not have any screenshots be sure to note the time as it helps us find the incident in the prism logs. You can read up on the how to here, and submit anonymous reports here.
When it comes to serious incidents in Teamspeak be sure to make a complaint on the forums rather than using the built in complaint function on Teamspeak. Enforcers are not able to check these complaints and as such they will go unnoticed.
Conclusion
Minecraft Middle-Earth will not tolerate acts of wider or subtle instances of complicity among it’s members or anyone in relation to the project as a whole. Individuals or a collective of people who are seen to encourage, induce or abet prohibited behaviour will be brought to question and the applicable measures will be applied.