[Policy] Community Guidelines — Updated July 28th 2019

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[Policy] Community Guidelines — Updated July 28th 2019

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TL;DR
Write clearly, be nice to others, and be very careful when posting anything related to politics or religion. When asking for help, remember that everyone here is a volunteer. Prefer editing your previous post over double posting. No animated avatars or graphical signatures. Don’t plagiarize other’s work or post inappropriate images, and don’t abuse the ability to upload attachments. Contact the Forum Moderators for forum moderation issues and the Multiplayer Moderators for multiplayer issues. Please report any instances you see of bots, spam, and other users violating the Community Guidelines. And finally, even if many people probably won’t read past this, that doesn’t mean the rest of the rules below won’t be enforced.
Welcome to the Battle for Wesnoth!

This community is intended to be a friendly and productive environment for players to play the game, ask questions, create new content, and get to know each other! Additionally, the development team watches and interacts with the community here in order to continually improve the game based on people’s feedback, ideas, and contributions.

In order to make this a fun and worthwhile experience, both for you and for everybody else, we expect you to take the time to read these Community Guidelines and to follow them when communicating with other members of Wesnoth’s community.

Also, while the below rules in sections 1-4 apply to the entire forums, some forum sections may have additional rules or guidelines that need to be followed as well. For example, Technical Support has additional instructions on how to properly report a bug, so that the development team will have the information they need to be able to locate and fix it.


Table of Contents
  1. General
  2. Art and other creative content
  3. Moderation and administrative issues
  4. Reporting violations, abuse, and spam
  5. Multiplayer Code of Conduct (MP CoC)
  6. Privacy

1. General

a. On language and tone (#)

Write clearly
These forums are intended to be a welcoming environment for people of all ages and nationalities who wish to join the Wesnoth community. Therefore, in order to ensure that we can all understand each other, please try to make sure your posts are in clean English. If English is not your first language, it is acceptable to post in your native language along with an English translation of your post. More importantly, do not use L33t-sp33k, Txtspk, or any other unusual syntax that may make your post difficult or impossible to read, such as roleplaying as an angry Orc.

Be nice
Always make sure to be civil and polite. If you are not sure whether or not your post might be considered offensive, err on the side of caution — it can be very difficult to judge tone over the internet. That said, ABUSING CAPS is considered rude and equivalent to shouting on the Internet.

Be respectful
Trolling, inciting flame wars, or aggressively demanding attention will result in deleted posts, locked topics, and other punitive actions. Whether directed at other members of the Wesnoth community or not, any form of harassment, use of derogatory slurs, discriminatory language or conduct, or hate speech in general, constitute actions that will not be tolerated and will result in an immediate, permanent ban.

Be careful
While these forums are a place where members of the community can discuss their views and opinions on various subjects, please try to avoid delving into emotionally charged and divisive topics such as politics and religion, or if you must, do so thoughtfully and respectfully, not purely to argue. As such, any excessively inflammatory political or ideological posts may be edited without warning, and threads whose sole purpose is the promotion of the above will be locked or deleted.

b. On getting help (#)

Everyone is a volunteer
Whether you’ve run into an issue with the game, are having problems creating your own content, or have any other questions that you would like answered, always ask for help, don’t demand it. Our community is run by volunteers located around the world, from the developers to the site administrators to the forum moderation staff, and each one of them has their own interests and occupations. They may choose not to help you if you make the process unpleasant.

c. On post and thread formatting (#)

Avoid excessive text formatting
When creating a thread, make sure that the title accurately conveys what the thread is about. Thread titles IN ALL CAPS (shouting!) are highly frowned upon, and may be edited or the thread deleted. You can use smilies to convey emotions, but if your post contains only smilies or contains a disproportionate amount of them, the post may be edited or deleted. Avoid colors and exceedingly large or small font sizes in your posts unless they are needed to convey additional information or ease readability.

d. On post and thread contents (#)

Avoid double-posting
Post a single idea, question, or comment in only one forum section or topic — duplicate posts or threads will be deleted. When replying to a topic, make sure you know the context and that you are contributing to the discussion in some way. Avoid double-posting — in most situations, you should edit your last post instead, especially if nobody has had a chance to read it. However, bumping support requests in support sections (Technical Support, WML Workshop, etc) is fine, as is posting announcements in your own content development topics.

Don’t post nonsense
Nonsense posts may be deleted without warning, especially in a working topic. Likewise, threads over a year old that are revived without adding to or continuing the thread’s topic may be locked, and new posts will either be deleted or split into their own thread.

Don’t circumvent locked threads
If a thread you started or were participating in has been locked, you may message the Forum Moderators group with your concerns, but starting a new thread on the forums for the sole purpose of contesting or circumventing the lock (also known as “meta-threading”) is not acceptable.

e. On avatars and signatures (#)

Don’t draw attention to them
Animated avatars and graphical signatures are not allowed. Signatures may not contain text larger than the default font size, use colors, or use certain BBCode tags that may render the signature larger or more visible than the actual post contents by altering its layout ([quote], [code], [c], [spoiler], [section], [center], and [indent]). If you want to include a quote in your signature, you may use quotation marks, italics, bold, and other formatting, or a combination thereof.


2. Art and other creative content

a. On plagiarism (#)

Don’t do it
Even though Wesnoth’s assets in mainline and on the add-ons servers are provided under the terms of either the GNU GPL or a Creative Commons license, this does not in any way void their authorship. Claiming other people’s creative output to be your own is not acceptable, and will get you banned. If you repost art, especially from outside this community, make sure that you are allowed to do so and link to its original source. All content on the Internet is implicitly copyrighted and the sole property of its author(s) unless stated otherwise.

b. On inappropriate content (#)

Avoid posting mature content
Avoid posting images depicting gratuitous violence, sexualized content, or other mature themes. Any content deemed inappropriate may be removed at any time. If you are unsure if something is inappropriate or not, it is highly encouraged that you ask the Forum Moderators via a private message.

c. On forum attachments (#)

Wesnoth.org is not a file-sharing site
Files uploaded with the Upload Attachment option are hosted on Wesnoth’s servers. This functionality is provided as a convenience for our users and contributors, and not with the intent of serving as an imageboard, public file-sharing service, or CDN. It is also not meant to be used for circumventing our Rules for the official add-ons server, or distributing legally dubious content.


3. Moderation and administrative issues

a. On forum moderation (#)

If you wish to clarify or contest a forum moderation action or request, use the private messaging system to message either the forum moderator in question or the Forum Moderators group. Public discussion of forum moderation actions, whether it be on these forums, the multiplayer servers, IRC, or Discord is strictly forbidden.

Additionally, when posting on the forums, do not impersonate moderators or engage in backseat moderation. This not only confuses other people — newcomers in particular — it may also drive them away from the community.

b. On multiplayer server moderation (#)

If you have a complaint or request for a multiplayer moderator, send a private message to either the Multiplayer Moderators group, or a single member directly if you know of any that may be relevant to your case. Threads created on the forums for the purpose of demanding a ban to be lifted or applied will be locked or deleted on sight.


4. Reporting violations, abuse, and spam

a. Forums (#)

Image These forums have a Report Post button next to each post for you to use any time you spot someone violating the Community Guidelines, engaging in abusive behavior, or posting unsolicited content (spam). Do not hesitate to use this function to alert the moderation team to potential issues, so that they can more quickly be made aware of and sort out any problems.

You are also able to report PM abuse, as the same button is available when reading your private messages. Bear in mind that after submitting your report, the offending message will be made available for all forum moderators and administrators to see its complete contents, including any quotes it may contain.

For more general issues which have no specific report button (e.g. signatures, avatars), you should send a private message to the Forum Moderators group instead, making sure to provide any information you feel to be relevant.

Do not reply to spam or violations of these Community Guidelines. Doing so only creates obstructions for any forum moderators who are working to address the issue, and in the process might need to delete or edit other people’s posts to avoid leaving inconsistent threads behind.

b. Multiplayer (#)

On the official multiplayer servers, any user who is violating the rules can be reported with the /report command. A private message can also be sent to the Multiplayer Moderators group with additional information, such as screenshots and-or replays, is especially helpful.


5. Multiplayer Code of Conduct (MP CoC)

a. Behavior (#)
General
  • Be polite, especially with people you don’t know.
  • Don’t spam or write all IN CAPS in chat.
  • Don’t use potentially offensive nicks, map titles, labels, or chat. This includes cursing/swearing, offensive religious references, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and hate speech in general.
  • If the host of a game bans you, don’t attempt to evade the ban.
  • Entering into a tournament or playing a match that involves any form of monetary or otherwise tangible reward is allowed. However, we (the Wesnoth team) do not believe that Wesnoth is secure enough against cheating for this to be advisable. Therefore, anyone who engages in such a game does so entirely at their own risk.
In The Lobby
  • The lobby chat area is used for arranging games, so avoid using it for general or private chat. Instead, move this chat into games, or use private messages with the /m command.
  • Read game titles. They sometimes contain valuable information (e.g. “reserved”, “will take a long time”, etc) and may have an impact on your decision whether to join a game or not.
  • Only join the games you intend to finish.
As a Player
  • Don’t leave a game without prior warning. We know that you sometimes want or need to leave, but please let the other player(s) know in advance.
  • Don’t cheat.
  • If you are the host, don’t kick or ban players from your game simply because they are winning or for similarly juvenile reasons.
As an Observer
  • Respect the players. If you want to talk about the game, use the observer team-chat.
  • Don’t give away information to the players.
Exception to the Above

If you put a password on your game and disable Observers, so that you are sure that only people you know are okay with your behavior will see it, then feel free to behave however you wish while playing the game.
b. Sanctions (#)
General

All players are free to put anyone on their ignore list, ban anyone from their games, or otherwise prevent themselves from having to interact with any other player. That said, ignoring a moderator will not prevent you from being kicked and-or banned, therefore do so at your own peril.

The server moderators keep an eye on the lobby, but usually don’t investigate individual games unless they are convinced the offence goes beyond the scope of a single game.

Getting Unbanned

To get unbanned you must either wait for the ban to expire, contact the moderator who banned you, or send a private message to the Multiplayer Moderators group if you don’t know which moderator banned you, and explain why the ban should be lifted. You will not be unbanned simply by asking for the ban to be lifted, and demanding a ban be lifted will only make it less likely for you to be unbanned. Apologizing, understanding why what you did was unacceptable, and then showing that you won’t repeat your actions are much more likely to work.
c. Getting Help (#)

If you need some guidance on using the multiplayer server, check our multiplayer tutorial.

The #wesnoth-mp channel on irc.libera.chat is also good place to ask for help related to the multiplayer server. For help regarding other topics, try the #wesnoth channel or Wesnoth’s Discord.


6. Privacy

In general, no user information or activity is tracked beyond what is necessary for Wesnoth’s software and website to function and be effectively moderated. Additionally, no user information will ever be sold to a third party for any reason.

More specifically:
  • Your own client will not track your activity, other than via save games, the preferences file, or other files in the userdata directory, nor will it collect any personally identifiable information.
  • Any official Wesnoth server will generally log all transactions in some form and tie them to your IP address.
  • Public comments made in the MP Lobby are publicly available.
  • Public comments made in an MP game are logged in the publicly available replay of that game.
  • Private messages, sent to a single player using /msg, are sent only to the recipient and are not logged.
  • Any game which is created with “observers” checked is considered public, and the full replay is made available.
  • If “observers” is unchecked, then the game is considered private, and no public replay is available. However, private replays are available for the moderation team to review, if necessary.
  • A public log entry is made when a player logs into or leaves any of the Wesnoth servers.
  • Your preferences file (stored on your computer) contains a list of recently used nicknames and recently used servers.
  • All email addresses that have been associated to your forum account are stored.
  • The IP address your account was registered from, as well as the IP addresses individual posts are made from, are stored.
  • See also: Wesnoth’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Changelog:
Last edited by Pentarctagon on February 17th, 2019, 6:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Forum Moderators Team
Battle for Wesnoth
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Re: [Policy] Posting Guidelines — Updated June 6th 2017

Post by Forum Moderators Team »

The Posting Guidelines have been updated.

As mentioned in the changelog above, the updated point is 3b, concerning signature formatting.
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Forum Moderators Team
Battle for Wesnoth
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Re: [Policy] Posting Guidelines — Updated August 16th 2017

Post by Forum Moderators Team »

The Posting Guidelines have been updated.

As mentioned in the changelog above, the updated point is 1f-v, concerning thread necromancy.
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Forum Moderators Team
Battle for Wesnoth
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Re: [Policy] Posting Guidelines — Updated August 16th 2017

Post by Forum Moderators Team »

The Posting Guidelines have been updated.

As mentioned in the changelog above, the Posting Guidelines have undergone a rewrite.
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Forum Moderators Team
Battle for Wesnoth
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Re: [Policy] Community Guidelines — Updated Feb 23rd 2019

Post by Forum Moderators Team »

The Community Guidelines have been updated.

They have been renamed, and the Multiplayer and Privacy sections have been added.
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Forum Moderators Team
Battle for Wesnoth
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Re: [Policy] Community Guidelines — Updated July 28th 2019

Post by Forum Moderators Team »

The Community Guidelines have been updated.

The Multiplayer section has been updated to state our stance on any match or tournament offering rewards.
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