Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines

Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - Printable Version

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Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - fencore - 09-17-2011

The following are guidelines for posting rule violation reports. Please follow this template as closely as possible, it makes everyone’s lives just a tad bit simpler.

Remember, each member is only permitted to file one rule violation report per day. Any more than that and your additional reports will not be considered. This is done to prevent malicious reporting or multiple reports of extremely trivial behavior. Just go out, play the game, and have some fun.

That said, we do realize that the players make for the best eyes and ears for catching rule violations both on the server and forums. If you find yourself in the position to report a violation, follow the guidelines in this thread to help us out.

BEFORE YOU START
Go get these things together, if you would.

The rules that were broken - Go pull up the server rules in another tab. Browse ‘em through and find the ones pertaining to your report. Keep this open, you’ll need it during your report.
[Discovery GC Server Rules]
Your evidence - This will be submitted with your report in the form of screenshots of the suspected violations from in-game, or in the case of forum misconduct, links to the posts as well as copied quotes of the offenses. The screenshots must be unedited, with the only exception being that we recommend you change the format to something other than the raw .bmp the Freelancer generates. The PNG or JPG formats work well.
Ask yourself the following questions - If your answers to these might be a little sketchy, odds are your report will be too.
1. Am I filing a relatively petty report because I’m currently angry?
  - If you’re a little hot under the collar, the Sandwich Rule* always helps to keep yourself from looking silly. Just step back for half an hour, then come back and decide whether or not it’s worth pursuing.
2. Do I really have enough evidence to make this stick?
  - Sanctions won’t go through unless sufficient evidence is provided of the report. You were there for the entire incident, yep, but the administration was not. All we have to go by is what you give us. Is that enough?
3. Is what this person did really worth removing all his credits and guns?
  - That’s the standard punishment for server offenses. Is what the suspect did serious enough to warrant this sort of punishment?
4. Is this person clearly just a new player who doesn’t know better yet?
  - You should know by now that while most of the rules are common-sense, we’ve got a lot of ‘em. Go ahead, swap tabs to that list you’ve got open. There’s a lot of them, and to new players that can be daunting, or perhaps they haven’t even seen the forums yet. If you suspect someone of being a new player, unless the violation is serious, you’re better off pointing them in the right direction than slapping them with a violation. Remember, we were all in their shoes at one point.

GUIDELINES
Before we throw you the template, read through these guidelines. The closer you follow these, the easer time we’ll have processing the report.

The Topic Title of your rule violation report thread should list the violations committed. Some examples could be “F1 during combat”, “OORP Docking” or “Re-engagement violation”, please include the shipname(s) of the ships being reported.
The Topic Description should include the numerical designations of the rules violated for easy reference. Pull these from the Server Rules you’ve got open in that other tab.
Upload your screenshots to an online image hosting site, such as tinypic or photobucket. Please provide direct links to the images, not links to a page on the website, if possible. Remember, any edited screenshots will be thrown out and not considered as evidence for the sanction. Editing includes, blurring or blacking out text, removing the background of the chat window, really, any editing of an original screenshot
Include timestamps of the event in your violation report if you can. Server time, please. The more specific you can be, the better.
Roleplay topics generally remain unmoderated due to the fine line that stands between rule regulation and RP dictation from the administration. In general, the following policies are acceptable for RP moderation, provided that any attempts to resolve the situation via PM and such fail.
- Posting without invitation in a communication channel, story or other roleplay thread
- Meta-gaming (metagaming can be defined as any out of character action made by a player's character which makes use of knowledge that the character is not meant to be aware of)
- Power-gaming (a style of interacting with the aim of maximizing progress towards a specific goal, to the exclusion of other considerations such as storytelling, atmosphere, camaraderie, and playing
- Out of character (OOC) posting in roleplay threads that is beyond an attempt to clarify something for the purposes of information

TEMPLATES
Alright, here's the standard templates for reporting rule violations. Please don't alter these. The administrative clerks start foaming at the mouth and gnashing their teeth when you do. Your information for the report will go in where the *text* is.

Server Conduct Violation

Code:
[size=12][b]My account/character name[/b][/size]

*Put it here*

[size=12][b]Name(s) of the violators[/b][/size]

*Put that here*

[size=12][b]Server Rule(s) Being Broken[/b][/size]

[quote=Rule Being Broken]*Paste rule being broken here*[/quote]

[size=12][b]Sanction Context or Background[/b][/size]

*Put that there. I mean here. Just a little summary, please.*

*Screen shot link(s)/forum link(s) here please. For forum violations, place the copied offense between some quote tags.*

Forum Conduct Violation

Code:
[size=12][b]Offending thread and post[/b][/size]

[quote=Quote of the Offensive Post]*Paste quotes here*[/quote]

*Paste links to the post and thread here. Note the post number, please*

[size=12][b]Reasons why it requires moderation[/b][/size]

*Put 'em here*

[size=12][b]Did you attempt to contact the offending party and work it out reasonably prior to this report?[/b][/size]

*Yes or No*

TIPS
Here's some good tips on making an effective report.

1. When it comes to some ooRP stuff, like tech chart violations for improper mixing and whatnot, it helps to throw in a screenshot of the suspect's ID and/or IFF so that we don't have to dig for their ship.
2. Again, for the love of God, DO NOT EDIT THE IMAGES!
3. Try not to make the report a giant wall of text. Include the necessary information, but don't tell us a bedtime story. Your violation report isn't the only one. Remember that.
4. When taking screen shots, sometimes its best to take a screen of the chat window so that admins can get a frame of reference for the time.
5. If you're screening chatlogs, provide context! When you're showing us what happened prior to being silently engaged or otherwise mistreated, be sure to screen enough before the event to give us context for what led to the event. You might know what was happening, but little ol' me, I've no idea what led up to your encounter. As administrators, we've seen hundreds of different permutations of what appear to be straightforward events, and we don't have yours, in photograph form, it won't cut it - text backgrounds are helpful, but not considered to be evidence. We consider all the angles, and unless you provide enough context, we likely won't assume that the "offender" needs sanctioning. If the evidence is unclear, we often give the benefit of the doubt to who you claimed was violating.
6. It highly recommended that you enable timestamps for all your ships - The command is /set chattime on. Otherwise, if you just tell us when this happened, we have to dig through logs and logs in order to find the interaction. Which is a Ctrl-F, and dig through hundreds if not thousands of lines of dialog. A pain really.

Original Content Credit To:

Fletcher for the original template post writeup
Athenian, Cannon, Del, Jinx, Mjolnir, and Dieter for adding content in various threads to help clarify the policies within. All I did was make it look pretty.
Subsequent credits to all admins and community for helping.

Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - fencore - 08-08-2012

AWRIGHT GUYS. LISTEN UP!

So, Felix and I got us caught up on the sanction backlog. We processed nearly 120 violation reports today and another 60 or so a week or two ago. There's a few things I wanna note! Helps us all! For science!

1. Use the template, damnit! I didn't format that big post up there for my own benefit, use it! It helps us understand exactly what it is we should be looking at. And that really covers the bare minimum for what we need. If you don't provide us all the information there, we've got no hope of processing. We had someone put in a report without giving us screens or the name of the violator. How the hell are we gonna process that?!

2. Provide Screenshots! If you don't give us screenshots, we ain't looking at it. I know that makes us sound lazy, but as many of these things as we have to go through, screenshots are what we need, and not only do they provide textual evidence but if you capture them during the action, it gives us some visual context as well. Just giving us a text log won't cut it. If you don't have screenshots, don't bother posting.

3. If you're screening chatlogs, provide context! When you're showing us what happened prior to being silently engaged or otherwise mistreated, be sure to screen enough before the event to give us context for what led to the event. You might know what was happening, but little ol' me, I've no idea what led up to your encounter. As administrators, we've seen hundreds of different permutations of what appear to be straightforward events, and we don't have yours, in photograph form, it won't cut it - text backgrounds are helpful, but not considered to be evidence. We consider all the angles, and unless you provide enough context, we likely won't assume that the "offender" needs sanctioning. If the evidence is unclear, we often give the benefit of the doubt to who you claimed was violating.

And lastly, but more importantly, if you post another violation report, I'll cut your fingers off.

Okay, I won't actually cut your fingers off, but I'll certainly think about it. A lot.

Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - Tanker - 09-07-2012

TO ALL SANCTION REPORT WRITERS:

LISTEN UP!

In an effort to process the sanction reports in a timely manner, We have taken the first step. Which is bringing some New Admins on to help with this task, and many others.

Now, The second step is yours, The Player, We NEED you to follow the guidelines in writing a report.

What does this mean? It means:

That you need to give as much information as you can. Include screenshots, timestamps, chat logs, etc.

It is a waste of YOUR and OUR time when we see a report that has to be closed due to either "inconclusive evidence" or the failure to follow the report guidelines. Read the above posts!

Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - Doc Holliday - 09-07-2012

Another thing....and I've mentioned this before. We have a template that you can use to post violations. USE IT!!! If you can't bother to use it, provide some evidence AND quote the rule broken, we can't be bothered to process. NO EXCEPTIONS!!

RE: Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - Widow - 02-03-2013

Time for another reminder folks.

You need to use the template. I've quoted it again here:

(09-17-2011, 01:25 AM)Gheis Wrote: TEMPLATES
Alright, here's the standard templates for reporting rule violations. Please don't alter these. The administrative clerks start foaming at the mouth and gnashing their teeth when you do. Your information for the report will go in where the *text* is.

Server Conduct Violation

Code:
[size=12][b]My account/character name[/b][/size] *Put it here* [size=12][b]Name(s) of the violators[/b][/size] *Put that here* [size=12][b]Server Rule(s) Being Broken[/b][/size] [quote=Rule Being Broken]*Paste rule being broken here*[/quote] [size=12][b]Sanction Context or Background[/b][/size] *Put that there. I mean here. Just a little summary, please.* *Screen shot link(s)/forum link(s) here please. For forum violations, place the copied offense between some quote tags.*
Forum Conduct Violation

Code:
[size=12][b]Offending thread and post[/b][/size] [quote=Quote of the Offensive Post]*Paste quotes here*[/quote] *Paste links to the post and thread here. Note the post number, please* [size=12][b]Reasons why it requires moderation[/b][/size] *Put 'em here* [size=12][b]Did you attempt to contact the offending party and work it out reasonably prior to this report?[/b][/size] *Yes or No*

As Doc has said before, if you can't be bothered using this template and providing evidence, we can't be bothered processing it.

RE: Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - mwerte - 09-25-2014

No template = no attention from the Admin team.

RE: Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - Arioch - 10-27-2014

Hello community -

Seems we need to have another reminder, including the one above from Mwerte.

If you submit a report, that either has no template, or has a screenshot that has been edited, it will not be used/discussed. If it does not have any timestamps, it more than likely will not be processed either.

Edited screenshots include:

Blurring or blacking out text
Removing the background of the chat window
Really, any editing of an original screenshot

Any example of an edited screenshot is included here.

Also, if it highly recommended that you enable timestamps for all your ships - The command is /set chattime on. Otherwise, if you just tell us when this happened, we have to dig through logs and logs in order to find the interaction. Which is a Ctrl-F, and dig through hundreds if not thousands of lines of dialog. A pain really.

So remember, no template, editing of a screenshot, and no timestamp or time indication will result in your report not being processed.

Thanks!

RE: Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - mwerte - 05-21-2015

Ok, a quick reminder here. If your report does not have screenshots, it will not be processed. If your report does not follow the template, it will not be processed. If your report includes edited screenshots, it will not be processed.

Thank you for your co-operation.

RE: Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - Pavel - 07-05-2015

Sweet mother of mercy, again oversized pics in a report...

People, regarding direct cping links into your reports: on all types of ore, DON'T DO IT.

THIS IS BAD:
[img]link1.jpg[/img]
[img]link2.jpg[/img]

THIS IS GOOD:
link1.jpg
link2.jpg

Helping us, you help yourselves.

RE: Rule Violation Report Templates and Guidelines - Tunicle - 08-18-2015

Time to bump this.

We are currently having a spate of reports without conclusive evidence. Remember we need to see some proof of what is claimed, screenshots, chat logs and essentially timestamps to help track things down.