Info on the (potential) new forums

Day 2,353, 11:34 • Published in Australia Canada • by Claire Louise


Note: Long article, important bits are in bold for those who want to skim read.

So with the potential opening of the new eAus forums looming, I figured now would be a good time to get a full article out. I say potential opening, because it’s pretty much fact that if Hugh isn’t elected then the current dead, overbearing, red tape covered and poorly moderated forums will continue, catering only to those who adhere to a bunch of ridiculous made up rules that overrule in game decisions and elected officials, and that is mainly run by somebody who is only interested when they are getting something out of it or reaping some kind of glory. Oops, mini rant. I’d apologise, but...no. Not really.


So, first things first. A little recap:

These forums are completely free. No fee’s whatsoever. They also aren’t riddled with advertisements, there is only one that appears on the top of the forums and it’s actually not that much of a pain in the backside. Ads can be removed (for a fee, of course), but I don’t think it’s necessary at this point. Infact, I don’t think it’s necessary at all to pay to remove something that isn’t really a hindrance. And actually, I assume a good amount of people use ad blockers these days, so really...the ads can stay. The only other time fee’s will be an issue is if we decide we want to claim the domain name, rather than having it as blahblah.blahblah.com. Depending on how the forums go, I may buy the domain, but it’s not something I’m going to immediately jump at. Besides, is it really that important? Probably not!

They’re open to everyone. Everyone.

Yup, that’s a recap! Right…



The issue of Mods/Admins.

Moderators will be elected by the community. Yes, that’s you. This is how it’ll work:
People will put their names forward for moderator during perhaps a 48 hour period, after which a vote will go up for the entire community to vote on who they want to moderate their forums. We’re currently looking for between 4 and 6 mods, and there are two groups of boards that need moderating; the “general” bit, and the “political and military unit” boards. Moderators are the people who make sure topics are staying on track, they can edit and delete posts and move threads/topics if they end up in the wrong forum. They are also able to issue warnings if they see fit, and they will have to give a valid reason as to why someone has been given a warning. I don’t think we’ll see too many of those though. They will need to use their own heads if threads become too… “catty”. Whilst we aren’t aiming for something heavily moderated (‘cos that’s poo), we don’t want people throwing things like racism/homophobia about.

Moderators will be re-elected every 3 months. That’s not to say, though, that if you are already a mod, you can’t be in the following 3 months. If person A is doing a great job and the community are happy, person A is more than welcome to put their names down for mod again to be voted on.

Administrators;
These are the people who essentially keep the place running. There won’t be too much visible stuff for admins to do really. Basically, it will be a case of changing permissions come election times, reviewing/keeping track of warnings and dealing with any issues players are having on the forums. Admins also have the ability to ban/unban people and IP addresses, but I don’t think this is something that we’ll ever need to do. Admins can also issue notifications.

Administrators are picked a little differently than moderators. Because they have access to potentially sensitive forum workings, we need to know that they can be trusted. Make no mistake, they will not be people we consider “friends”, but people who we believe have a decent head on their shoulders. The plan is to gather a group of people who are interested, and then again hand the reigns over to the community for a vote. There is one rule with being an administrator, and that is that CP’s aren’t allowed that position to prevent any abuse of power. Yes, this means that even the glorious Dr Hugh, should he become CP, won’t be an admin (despite putting many many hours into designing the forums). However, if you are already an admin and decide to run for CP, you’ll be given back your admin rights when your term ends. The CP will, however, be a moderator of the cabinet boards. They are also free to select someone to be a mod alongside them in these boards, but obviously they must either be a vCP or cabinet member. Once again, administrators will be re-elected by the community every 3 months, and those who have held the position before are more than welcome to re-apply.

Both mod and admin elections will kick in a week or so after the forum (hopefully) opens, to give us time to settle in and make sure everything is running right first.



If a mod is seen to be abusing their powers they themselves will be given a warning by an admin. By abuse of power, I mean perhaps deleting or editing a handful of posts within a short time frame, or handing out warnings when they aren’t really worth it. If they repeat their behaviour, they will be demoted to regular member and a “runner up” mod will be given a chance. The same rule goes for admins. Whilst they will be given opportunity to rectify their behaviour, if they continue to be a bit of an arse, they’ll be demoted. Same rules in regards to abuse will apply to CP’s and their cabinet boards too. Not that I expect any of this behaviour to happen, I’m just covering all bases.



Party/Military Unit Forums

Any party or military unit is welcome to their own section - all they need to do is ask! The moderator of those sections will be whoever is PP or Commander for that month. As soon as elections are finished, permissions will be automatically swapped over. You can request that your section be public or private.



General forum rules

Pretty much the same as every other forum you’ve probably visited, or indeed pretty much the same as in game rules. No spam, porn (including links), racism, homophobia etc etc. Any of these things will give mods/admins a reason to slap a warning on you. Warnings will follow in this order:

1st offence: Warning
2nd offence: Warning
3rd offence: 24 hour ban
4th offence: 1 week ban
5th offence : 1 month ban
6th offence: perma-ban.

See… you have to screw up 6 times before you’ll be permanently banned. Again, I don’t expect anyone to get past the first two warnings and I sure as hell don’t want to see anyone get banned, but I’m just covering all bases. More detailed rules are on the forums.


Now, because of all these “bases” I’m trying to cover, it’s making it all sound a bit poo… I promise, it’s definitely not, but should something like the above ever occur, at least it’s there in black and white as opposed to trying to come up with solutions later on down the line.

If anyone ever has an issue with anyone else on the forums - please contact the admins (when they’re set) or myself directly to try and figure it out.

Of course, these forums may not even go ahead, and we may have wasted a heck of a lot of time with this, so if you believe Aus needs new forums (and to my knowledge, the “current” ones are still closing), then you should vote for Dr Hugh on the 5th. Screw it, just vote Dr Hugh anyway actually...



Wow. Long article. I'm done.

*Apologies for the random paragraph breakers, the only others I seem to have come across are ADP ones, and I didn't want to slap the party name on this*