Shartak - Clarification of the Terms of Use

Main Terms of Use - these should be read first.

Scope

Some parts of this may apply to the IRC channel #Shartak on DALnet where we have it as a registered channel. Although not hosted within the shartak.com domain, the IRC channel is moderated by Shartak appointed volunteers and as such rules regarding offensive or inappropriate behaviour may be applied at their discretion.

Definitions

Offensive or inappropriate behaviour includes:

• zerging, which is defined as one person using multiple accounts or characters in such a way as to gain an advantage in-game
• trolling, which is defined as posting inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages with the intent of provoking others or disrupting on-topic discussion
• griefing, which is defined as repeatedly attacking (any action that adversely affects another player) or otherwise intentionally disrupting the gameplay of a character or group of characters
• posting pornographic, erotic or hateful content on the forum or wiki in the form of images, text or links
• adding pornographic, erotic or hateful content to forum or in-game profiles
• whispering, emoting or saying out loud, writing on huts/trees/beaches/etc any pornographic, erotic or hateful content in-game
• publicising someone else's personal information such as (but not limited to) address, email, telephone number, or workplace
• offensive depictions or ridicule of basic bodily functions e.g defecation or urination
• allusions to, or depictions of acts of sexual violence e.g rape, molestation or sexual assault

Pornographic content (as far as Shartak is concerned) is defined as material that is predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.

Hateful content includes, but is not limited to, discriminating comments about race, ethnicity (what country someone is from), religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and political beliefs. Shartak Admin hold complete and total discretion to decide what is hateful.

Whilst considered inappropriate, zerging is generally dealt with automatically. Examples of zerging include:

• searching with one or more characters and passing objects to another of your characters
• attacking another character or npc with multiple characters in a short time period
• attack/heal farming (repetition of an action or sequence of actions that lead to XP gain) of someone else with multiple characters of your own
• attack/heal farming of one of your characters with another of your characters
• attacking a group of characters with multiple characters of your own

Punishments

We generally work under a 3 strikes policy. A first offence results in a warning. A second offence results in a 1 to 14 day ban and a third offence results in a lengthy or possibly permanent ban. Warnings and bans remain active for six months during which time your account may be subject to monitoring. If you have numerous expired warnings, these may be taken into account and count as a first strike resulting in a ban of 1 to 14 days. Note that severe offences may receive stronger action, even on first or second offences. Bans may be for any of the game, forum, wiki, the Shartak IRC channel or any combination of these.

If the player holds any sort of moderator power (Forum Moderator, IRC Operator, etc) then this will be removed if the player is found to be breaking any of these rules and banned for any length of time. Depending on the offence we reserve the right to remove the moderator status even if the player is only given a warning.

Reporting

To report an offence committed in game please use the feedback link and include as many details as possible. To report an offence on the forum, click the "report to moderator" link on the post or "report to Admin" link on the Personal Message (PM).