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| Thread: Revising the Code of Conduct |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Valeriy
Mage of the Land
Naughty, Naughty Valeriy
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posted December 25, 2005 05:31 AM |
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Revising the Code of Conduct
What do you think admins do on Christmas Day? Revise the Code of Conduct of course! 
Anyway, on a serious note, I have revised the code of conduct to ensure that the rules are very easy to understand, and to enable the moderators to deal with offenders most efficiently, having a solid and clear structure to refer to. The current edition of the Code of Conduct has served us well, but in some instances it is not clear enough, and experience has shown that certain offenders could conduct their detrimental business seemingly without breaching the COC.
I've adopted the numbered structure, with clear explanation of each point and inspiration for personal improvement. Couple of new clauses have been added. Any suggestions are welcome.
CODE OF CONDUCT
It is important that all members of the Heroes Community read the following guidelines. They have been devised based on years of experience to ensure that the Community will remain as honorable and rewarding as possible. Any violations could result in penalties, silencing and expulsion from the Heroes Community. Please observe these simple rules and everyone's life will be much more enjoyable.
The Foundation: Respect.
* An attitude of consideration and appreciation.
* Courteous regard for people's feelings, opinions and actions.
1) NO insults, abuse, racism or sexism.
Insult is a remark that undermines another person. A simple way to avoid insulting people is to discuss their actions and opinions rather than their personality. For example: instead of saying who they are ("you suck" or "you are an idiot") say what you think about their opinions/actions and why ("Your post about me is wrong because I never said that heroes 4 is a bad game" or "I disagree with your opinion because centaurs have more hit points than gnolls"). This simple rephrasing strategy can resolve many conflicts and fights before they even happen, both online and in life.
2) NO bad language, profanity, vulgarity or swearing.
Censored vulgar words may be implied, but only for non-insulting purposes. To do this, the vulgar word must be replaced entirely with ***** characters by holding the SHIFT key and pressing the number 8 key (US keyboards). For example: f*** is not allowed, while **** is allowed, given that the statement is not an insult.
3) NO pornography, illegal software, warez, hacks, cracks, keygens or related discussion.
This includes discussing game information that is protected under Ubisoft's Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
4) NO spam, junk posts, thread killing, flooding or flaming.
Junk post is a post that fails to address the topic of discussion and fails to provide intellectual or humorous stimulation, or put simply: off topic, not interesting, not funny. Thread killing is making unserious posts in a serious topic, which discourages other posters from continuing their serious discussion. Flooding is creating several threads in a short amount of time. Spam is creating several replies that contain one or two sentences in a short amount of time.
Note that junk posts, thread killing and spam are allowed in the Volcanic Wastelands forum.
5) NO discrimination against newcomers or inexperienced players.
Messages that state or imply that someone is unworthy, inferior or not welcome due to their lack of experience with this community, computers, internet or the game will be treated as insults. Specific members may not be prohibited from posting in specific topics. Use of rephrasing strategy suggested for insults above is recommended in combination with positively helping other members learn. A true expert always lends a hand because he is confident in his abilities. A bully pushes everybody off to be king of the hill because he is insecure about his abilities. Welcome newcomers and guide them to your mastery, then you will make strong friendships.
If you believe that you have been discriminated against, notify a moderator. Newcomers and inexperienced players, however, may not use this rule for provocation (see below). If a newcomer or inexperienced player is spaming or sabotaging your discussion in the face of your polite requests not to, notify a moderator.
6) NO provocation or aggravaion.
Provocation is unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment from others. Aggravation is causing, continuing or increasing irritation or trouble. This includes being a detriment to the peacekeeping of the forums.
Each member is solely responsible for their own conduct - no amount of provocation or aggravation from someone else will justify the action of breaking the rules. Instead of responding to a member who has offended you, alert a moderator about this situation and let them deal with it, keeping you out of trouble.
7) NO moneymaking schemes or unauthorised advertising.
Approval from the administrator must be obtained before any product, service, offer or web site can be advertised.
These seven rules apply to all methods of communication offered by Heroes Community.
Should these rules be breached, moderators may, depending on severity of the breach, do either or a combination of: issuing a warning, editing/removing messages, issuing a penalty, or temporarily silencing the offender. Should the offender re-offend, severity of the consequences will be increased. Re-offenders who fail to modify their disruptive behaviour despite multiple requests from the moderators will be permanently banned from Heroes Community. Moderators also reserve the right to move, edit or delete any message for the purpose of keeping this community up to date, peaceful and organized.
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You can wait for others to do it, but if they don't know how, you'll wait forever.
Be an example of what you want to see on HC and in the world.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted December 25, 2005 07:09 PM |
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Great Job Valeriy
They seem more than adequate and specific enough. Thankyou for spending so much time on improving the quality of the Heroes Community experience. I appreciate your efforts and your understanding.
(*a small sidenote: couldn't help but notice #6; it is quite obviously the result of the Sir_Stiven experience; and is very much legitimate and warranted in my opinion*)
~sort of reminds me when Time magazine put Hitler on the cover as "person of the year". Love or hate the individual, one cannot ignore the significance of his impact on this community~
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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Nidhgrin
Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
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posted December 25, 2005 09:58 PM |
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You have performed a number of great improvements on HC over the past months Val, such as the messaging system (wow!), the new menu and a number of others. In my opinion this new CoC is NOT one of those improvements though.
This post is intended as constructive criticism, and since you say any suggestions are welcome I hope the things I want to bring forward will at least be heard.
Basically this post is a re-write of a couple of things I have already said before, but now put in a structured jacket of objectiveness, rather than being loose subjective comments on specific situations. The main purpose of my criticism is to point out where (in my opinion) the CoC, or rather the implementation of it, fails seriously and where in some areas it even functions as a catalyst for bad behaviour.
The old Code of Conduct was fine in my opinion. I agree that the document has to be clear for everyone and it has to be written in a fashion that leaves little room for interpretation. You may want to avoid using terms like 'Any violations could result in penalties, silencing and expulsion from the Heroes Community.', or 'Should these rules be breached, moderators may, depending on severity of the breach, do either or a combination of:' (both of these examples are very much open to interpretation), and remove stuff like '***** characters by holding the SHIFT key and pressing the number 8 key' (doing that gives !!!!! on my keyboard ). Other than that this revised CoC is okay, and on its own I have no problem with the rules themselves.
As I have said before, the implementation of the CoC fails on some fields, and will continue to fail. One very simple fact is the cause of this:
- Moderators are both policemen, advocates and executioners.
..... a) they notice rule breaches, or may be informed about them - but they will never know about all rule breaches
..... b) they judge on the severity of the breach using their experience - their background and personal understanding of the CoC, while being subjectively influenced by their personal relationship with the offender
..... c) they execute the punishment - but often don't inform the offender in a descent way about the decision making process and the why's as to the severity of the punisment (ranging from warning to ban)
Some ideas for improval:
a)
- a function available to members, which allows them to alert a certain post to the moderators. This way public posts can never be completely 'missed' by the moderators, and would perhaps make their task somewhat easier too.
b)
- formalize the penalty severity for certain specific CoC breaches and integrate these in the CoC for everyone to read (for instance use of racism in a post results in -QP, end of discussion). This will reduce the number of areas which require careful judgement.
- establish a CoC for moderators. Now before you start rejecting this immediately, let me tell you the main reason (next to time contraints) why I had to step down as moderator. I could not longer agree with the subjective judgement of some of my fellow moderators. I find the situation has even deteriorated further since then, and I'm kind of amused to read part 6 of the new CoC about NO provocation. I can atleast name one case of a member who received enough penalties to result in a ban because of moderator provocation! Anyway, a standard set of rules to follow for moderators would increase the cohesion and understanding of actions inside of the mod-team, and in my opinion the mod-squad would come across more as a solid whole than as a group of individuals each with their specific style of moderating.
- building upon the idea of a mod-CoC, why shouldn't moderators be evaluated at given times? That way a moderator who would receive a couple of negative evaluations in a row could be forced to change or leave the mod-squad. Applying judgement to moderator actions (or non-actions) will ensure HC has a healthy and good functioning mod-team in which the members have confidence and are content of.
c)
- require moderators to fill in a short line of comment at the time of giving a penalty (again ranging from warning to ban). At least this leads to a more open way of communicating about rule breaches.
I hope this doesn't sound too negative, it certainly wasn't meant to be negative. Most things about HC are good, or heading the right way, but there's always room for improval 
Edit: before I forget, a Merry Christmas to everyone!
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted December 29, 2005 01:03 PM |
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The new CoC version has some good improvements in my eyes. I like the implementation mentioned in No. 5.)
Give them newbies some space to breathe..
Nidhgrins suggestions have been interesting to read.
Sure he is right about the "hold Shift key and...", coz this seems to work only for US keyboards. (Shift and 8 gives "(" on german keyboards for example)
Quote:
- a function available to members, which allows them to alert a certain post to the moderators. This way public posts can never be completely 'missed' by the moderators, and would perhaps make their task somewhat easier too.
This function i know from other forums and its used quite often by the members. Would be a great improvement.
Quote:
- formalize the penalty severity for certain specific CoC breaches and integrate these in the CoC for everyone to read (for instance use of racism in a post results in -QP, end of discussion). This will reduce the number of areas which require careful judgement.
This won´t work very well i think. Look at common laws, there is always a range of "punishments" which could be judged for a law break. Every "case" should be judged by itself and the circumstances in my eyes.
Quote:
- establish a CoC for moderators. Now before you start rejecting this immediately, let me tell you the main reason (next to time contraints) why I had to step down as moderator. I could not longer agree with the subjective judgement of some of my fellow moderators. I find the situation has even deteriorated further since then, and I'm kind of amused to read part 6 of the new CoC about NO provocation. I can atleast name one case of a member who received enough penalties to result in a ban because of moderator provocation! Anyway, a standard set of rules to follow for moderators would increase the cohesion and understanding of actions inside of the mod-team, and in my opinion the mod-squad would come across more as a solid whole than as a group of individuals each with their specific style of moderating.
Very true. And i have to point the finger towards myself aswell in that case. But there does exist some kind of CoC for the Mods already (listed in the squad), and the normal CoC for sure counts for the Mods as well! So i think nothing else needed.
Quote:
- building upon the idea of a mod-CoC, why shouldn't moderators be evaluated at given times? That way a moderator who would receive a couple of negative evaluations in a row could be forced to change or leave the mod-squad. Applying judgement to moderator actions (or non-actions) will ensure HC has a healthy and good functioning mod-team in which the members have confidence and are content of.
Nice idea, but that won´t work in reality. You know any company, club or organization, where this is common practice? You can be sure, u would have new "leaders" every few weeks. The players of a basketball team won´t decide if the coach is good or not and keep his job or not. Neither will the coach decide if the manager makes a good job and keep it or not....it always goes from top to bottom, not vice versa.
Quote:
- require moderators to fill in a short line of comment at the time of giving a penalty (again ranging from warning to ban). At least this leads to a more open way of communicating about rule breaches.
Important!
I would even go a step further. Every action of a moderator should result in a small line of explanation in the current post. Be it a warning, an edit, a +qp...doesn´t matter. The mods should always drop a line what and why they did that.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted December 29, 2005 04:48 PM |
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Edited by Russ on 29 Dec 2005
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Quote:
2) NO bad language, profanity, vulgarity or swearing.
Censored vulgar words may be implied, but only for non-insulting purposes. To do this, the vulgar word must be replaced entirely with ***** characters by holding the SHIFT key and pressing the number 8 key. For example: f*** is not allowed, while **** is allowed, given that the statement is not an insult.
Hey, Valeriy, do you think it could be possible to replace all those words with **** automatically? I know that it already does that when you view the page, however angelito informed that the problem with those words is that they remain unchanged when you quote the post. Would it be possible to just rename all of them to *** at the point where you submit your post so that even if you quote it, you onlt see ****? It could be possible to miss a few words and then have Conan show you his great mod powers and give you a -qp when you say something like "I took ****" in anything BUT the insulting way.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted December 29, 2005 05:00 PM |
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Quote:
...and then have Conan show you his great mod powers and give you a -qp when you say something like "I took ****" in anything BUT the insulting way.
This is exactly the point mentioned under No. 6)
Try to avoid it....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted December 29, 2005 06:13 PM |
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Edited by Russ on 29 Dec 2005
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Quote:
This is exactly the point mentioned under No. 6)
Try to avoid it....
I am not allowed to question a mod when I think his decision was unfair? And a slight bit of sarcasm is considered a provocation? How about giving -qp for nothing? Is that a provocation?
But anyways, that definitely wasn't the main point of my post.
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Lich_King
Honorable
Supreme Hero
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posted December 29, 2005 07:55 PM |
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Quote:
I am not allowed to question a mod when I think his decision was unfair? And a slight bit of sarcasm is considered a provocation? How about giving -qp for nothing? Is that a provocation?
But anyways, that definitely wasn't the main point of my post.
You are allowed and can question moderator's decisions, however if you do that with sarcasm, or in disrespectful manner you are likely to recieve negative reaction from moderator as well.
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Valeriy
Mage of the Land
Naughty, Naughty Valeriy
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posted December 30, 2005 07:39 AM |
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COC Revision Responses
Replying in the order of this thread.
First of all, your keyboard is weird
The "could" and "may" words are fine in my opinion because some of the rules are subject to moderator's judgement of severity - the moderator can simply choose to warn the member.
Yes, moderators are people, and that is also what makes them helpful and considerate instead of simply issuing punishment B for offense A. Today I've had an experience with a moderator at ubi forum who reset my signature and talked to me using the words such as "...secondly, I dont wanna see any HTML at all in your signature..." Excuse me, but people who complain about Conan deserve a direct insult I think our treatment of members is up to a very high standard.
Moderators are not here to please people however. Some people want to break the rules as it pleases them and will therefore never be happy with the moderators. Rules will not be bent to the wishes of majority. Majority will be selected according to their acceptance of the rules. This is not a democratic country where people live and elect the government to represent them. This is a private establishment that seeks a particular kind of frequent guests.
Having said all that, we welcome feedback and will consider it if it is reasonable, given the kind of respectful atmosphere we want to create.
There won't be a breach - outcome formula. This is where human element comes in. A moderator has guidelines of appropriate consequences for different breaches, but their primary goal is to enable the member to become a better person on the boards (yes, according to our understanding of what that means.) The aim is not to demonstrate power as some people like to say. We don't want to give any warnings or penalties at all. Our aim is that people just respect each other and the boards, that's what rules are for, not for us getting a kick out of giving a penalty.
I have planned the moderator notification function on paper a day before starting this thread. Perhaps 1-2 fulltime days worth of work. Eventually I'd like to implement it. It will also enable members to suggest posts for +QPs more easily, and to advise us of old posts that can be deleted.
Mod-COC - no. We are a team. Mod COC implies that I have to monitor moderators because they might deliberately be breaching some rules I wouldn't want them to breach. We have guidelines and discussions instead.
Mod evaluation. Once again, we are not here to please people or represent them in senate. Constructive feedback will always be welcome. People getting off via mod-complaining will not be. If a member has a good case about mistreatment/provocation from a moderator, they are welcome to contact me about it, it's something I definitely want to know about.
Comments upon penalties - good idea that has been brought up several times. I'll think about how to implement it.
Automatic and permanent censoring - yes good idea. I was thinking even of post not going through until bad language is removed from it by the poster. That would solve the automatic/non-automatic censoring confusion. It wouldn't solve the partial censoring however.
Thanks for the comments, anyone is welcome to make more.
Made some modifications (blue above).
Thanks to Khaelo for good feedback via HCM.
And well said LK That's what people don't seem to understand when discussing their disagreements with what a moderator did.
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You can wait for others to do it, but if they don't know how, you'll wait forever.
Be an example of what you want to see on HC and in the world.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted December 30, 2005 03:23 PM |
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Edited by Consis on 30 Dec 2005
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*chuckles* . . .
Yes Yes Yes . . .
This is all very nice, but what about the modsquad headquarters? Are there no new rules or implementations that allow curious little members (such as myself) to get a tiny peek at what's inside? I mean seriously, what does the doughnut stand look like inside? Is it really as intricate, ingenious, spectacular, and cleverly designed as I've heard or is that all a big myth put out to lure unsuspecting members into modship? I need a visual! I don't have to tell you that this information may likely be the deciding factor on whether I run for Heroes Community public office.
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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
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Lich_King
Honorable
Supreme Hero
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posted December 30, 2005 04:19 PM |
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No. And your keyboard is weird too
Happy New year...
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Conan
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted January 05, 2006 04:29 PM |
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Edited by Conan on 5 Jan 2006
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sorry if I didn't reply earlier
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but I was gone for xmas vacations!
Anyways, from what I see, I like the COC the way it has been updated.
Why? The main reason I like it better now is because it follows the same logic I am taking when it comes to posting in Other Side. If some of you want to read more about how I feel, please refer to the Other Side Feedback thread.
Needless to say I very much appreciate rules 5) and 6). I actually found that rule #6 was created after Stiven.
Anyways, a few critism has caught my attention here.
1) How it is true that feedback for mods is a great idea, I don't see why it has to be formal. When I want to know what members think of me, I ask. I open up the debate and I have gotten great responses by Peacemaker in particular. Members can tell any mod how they feel and this doesnt need to be formal.
Secondly, the only person that can discuss if a mod's behavior is good or not is Val and he manages it quite well. He "polices" the mods quite well indeed. I think he has his own set of rules when it comes to his mod crew and to this day, I find it works well. Remember, if critism is to be made against a mod for reason x, then members won't see the critism since Val will either contact them via HCM or in modsquad. So members need to realize that because they don't see critism given to mods it doesn't mean there is none that is going on. I can say I received lots of it and it did help me. I also asked for some so I could better my mod skills.
2) the CoC says "may" give penalties, "may" receive ... but in response to Nidhgrin's post, the reason for these "may" is because mods will usually give warnings before penalties. In some severe instances penalties will be given without warnings in such a case that a member used profanity on too large of a scale. Then again, it happens that the member does not receive the warning and only reacts to the -QP (please refer to the above post by Russ). Hence, the "may" attribute must remain.
Let's look at it from another point of view. If there was a direct link between bad posts and -QPs you could have a robot give out -QPs. As soon as foul language is discovered, a QP could be applied just like the automatic censor. But that is not the case. The Admin here decided that judgment should be the call on -QPs. Hence the reason why mods give them out and they are not automated and hence the need for the "may" attribute in the CoC.
In conclusion, I find the feedback in this thread was great and did help to make a better CoC since it did get changed after the constructive feedback was received. I like the new version of the CoC very much but I know that we will soon find it's flaws and that we will have to update it again in the future. It's called adapting to a changing reality. No CoC can or will be perfect, it can only strive to be a good guideline. Again, I like the present CoC as it reflects my thoughts (especially #5)
Good job!
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Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service.... us. - Star Trek TNG
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MysticEyes
Adventuring Hero
Take care: you'll be blind!
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posted January 11, 2006 04:45 PM |
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This is a little suggestion, not very important here I think.
In some forums I see that multiple posts is forbidden.
One of them regards manga (very different genre comparing with this one...) and mods merge double posts, adding a penalty to the user!!
Looking in topics, I see rare double posts here (I suppose the reason is the absence of worthy gains in having a lot of posts: here it's more important the quality (red stars).
I said this comment because there's an EDIT option: its main scope is to avoid double posts I think.
An extra question: what's the green ball displayed on the right corner of my AVATAR???
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Knowledge is nothing without wisdom!
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Valeriy
Mage of the Land
Naughty, Naughty Valeriy
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posted March 09, 2006 09:57 AM |
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I've updated the entire FAQ/Rules section. The new Code of Conduct is now finalised, and is in force. Several other sections have also been updated, such as the HC Messenger section and the revelation of the elusive colour codes You can see what's been updated in the contents.
____________
You can wait for others to do it, but if they don't know how, you'll wait forever.
Be an example of what you want to see on HC and in the world.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com
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Mistrelle
Tavern Dweller
The mythical being
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posted March 25, 2006 06:08 AM |
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green ball
i'v been told its to signify that you are on line in hc
but i'v not seen anything about the colour codes yet where can i find that, please.
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Valeriy
Mage of the Land
Naughty, Naughty Valeriy
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posted March 25, 2006 08:34 AM |
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It's in the "BB Codes" section of the FAQ, next to the bold, italic and underline codes.
____________
You can wait for others to do it, but if they don't know how, you'll wait forever.
Be an example of what you want to see on HC and in the world.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com
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Valeriy
Mage of the Land
Naughty, Naughty Valeriy
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posted December 07, 2006 09:42 AM |
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Edited by Valeriy at 22:55, 25 Jan 2007.
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COC and FAQ Update
Point 2 of the Code of Conduct has been updated with a note about using non-English languages in posts and public profile fields. Generally we have nothing against other languages, but if we can't tell whether the phrase or post contains a breach of the COC or not, we may delete it, as some people have been using other languages in order to break the COC rules without being punished - this will not be tolerated. If you need to use another language for a good purpose, just send a note to the forum moderator to make sure your post won't get deleted.
Also instead of donations there is now a new way to support AOH and HC server costs - through the affiliate programme with Amazon.com. A small percentage of your order can go towards the server costs. I think this is a great way because many people use Amazon already (I do myself), and because it won't cost you anything extra. In order for this to work, you must find the items that you are buying through the search box on the HC FAQ page and add them to your cart from there. They even sell all the HOMM games, from H5 and H5 addon to the hard to find H1 - H4
EDIT: Update on 26th January 2007
One Username Only - see COC pt. 4, and updated section about usernames.
Post and Thread Restrictions - new section added.
Little Green Dot - new section added
____________
You can wait for others to do it, but if they don't know how, you'll wait forever.
Be an example of what you want to see on HC and in the world.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com
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Valeriy
Mage of the Land
Naughty, Naughty Valeriy
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posted September 09, 2008 02:36 AM |
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COC Update - 9 September 2008
- Added definitions of racism and sexism under rule 1.
- Updated definition of thread killing under rule 4.
- Added prohibition of abusing HC glitches and making eyesore / significant lag posts (copied from VW rules) under rule 4.
- Boldened keywords in rules 1 and 4 for easy reference, added few handy links throughout the COC.
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You can wait for others to do it, but if they don't know how, you'll wait forever.
Be an example of what you want to see on HC and in the world.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com
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Asheera
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
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posted September 09, 2008 02:28 PM |
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Hello Val,
I see the BB codes section of the FAQ doesn't list all codes. For example, there is no [del] tag or changing the fonts tags there.
Also, I wrote a guide for BB codes in here (scroll down a bit) with some special tricks as well.
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pandora
Honorable
Legendary Hero
The Chosen One
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posted September 09, 2008 04:19 PM |
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Excellent update
As most posters in the Otherside know, we've been trying to douse some of the flames that have been burning over there - the revised rules will certainly make it easier to clarify what we're talking about with support from the CoC.
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"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
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