UPDATE: This work has been completed. Thank you everyone for your feedback and input. Some changes were made to the Community Guidelines. The Community Guidelines can be found
here.
Here is a post explaining the changes from the original presentation. Thanks!
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Soon we will be revising our DDO Community Guidelines to largely match a recent update to the Community Guidelines implemented by our friends at Lord of the Rings Online. As some folks may know, both games have shared our Community Guidelines for years, and we plan to bring this update to DDO within the next week or so.
In general, you will find that the rules have not changed. In a few cases we have added specificity to the Community Guidelines to clarify what kinds of violations can lead to which kind of infraction. We found over on LOTRO that players largely preferred these new guidelines due to their increased clarity and readability, but please give us your feedback as well.
One relatively minor change (but something people who have run into this will appreciate) is that when you receive an infraction or warning under the revised rules, we will more clearly explain what the violation is, and there should no longer be instances where text is cut off.
Without further ado, here is the text:
Community Guidelines
The Turbine Community Team strives to foster the community by bringing you up to date information, engaging in discussions, and providing a welcoming environment where players can share their opinions, offer suggestions, and promote their guild, server, and in-game events to each other.
We have created the following guidelines for players to use while participating on the official DDO Community Sites. They are by no means all inclusive.
We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines.
Violations of the community guidelines can lead to disciplinary action against your forum account, including but not limited to the permanent removal of your forum privileges and/or game account (Banning). Because every situation is different, all enforcement and application of the community guidelines are at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team. These rules are subject to change without notice; please review them regularly.
1. One person, One Account.
You are permitted one Community account for posting on the Community Sites. Players who are found posting from more than one account will be asked to choose an account for use while posting, and posting privileges will be removed from all other accounts. Additional or secondary accounts created or used for the purpose of trolling, circumventing a ban, or otherwise violating these Community Guidelines may result in the permanent ban of any and all associated Community and Game accounts, at the Turbine Community Team's discretion.
2. Harassing, Insulting and Abusive posts.
We do not tolerate any comments that are abusive or insulting, involve name calling, or attempt to disparage, harass, defraud, threaten or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players, guilds, Fansites, groups, the developers, community team, Turbine/WB employees, or other companies. Doing so is considered a serious offense and will not be tolerated.
3. Grammar Police.
Any post or comment made with the intention of embarrassing another player based on spelling, typos, or grammatical errors is not permitted. Not everyone speaks the same language. Keep in mind that the person you are addressing may not be a native speaker.
4. Calling out other players.
Calling out other players for their actions in game, or attempting to shame them for actions you deem unacceptable, will not be tolerated. If you feel someone has acted in a way that is inappropriate or violates our terms of use, please use the ‘report this post’ option or contact a GM in game to report in-game behaviors.
5. Profanity.
The use of profanity is not permitted on our forums. The forums will filter out specific words, but you are responsible for all words you use whether they are filtered or not. Please do not attempt to circumvent this filter with creative spellings, use of special characters or other means.
6. Derailing/disruption of official discussion threads.
Official threads are created by the Community, Development, and other teams to gather feedback and create a focused discussion around a given topic. Attempting to derail these threads by posting unrelated comments or bringing other issues into the discussion is not permitted.
7. Fabricated and misleading information.
Deliberately posting fabricated or misleading information about another member of the community, other companies, or Turbine/WB or its employees will not be tolerated. We consider this a very serious offense.
8. Provoking, Trolling, and “baiting.”
Threads or posts that are intended to create a strong negative or emotional reaction, provoke conflict, or are made simply for ‘shock value’ are considered trolling. Debating a topic on the merits or holding a strong opinion are acceptable, however making posts to provoke conflict or incite, bait, or mock others who disagree with you are not.
9. “Self Defense” posts.
Please do not respond to attempts to provoke, troll or bait you. Posts you feel violate the community guidelines should be reported using the ‘Report this post’ button. Responding in kind usually results in both parties having actions taken against their accounts.
10. Spam.
Advertisements for any good, service, or site that are not directly related to Dungeons & Dragons Online™ is not permitted and will be removed. Posts promoting sites, goods, and services deemed inappropriate will also be removed as spam. In addition, “Cross posting” without permission, “Bumping” and “Necro posting” are considered forms of spamming and are not permitted.
11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.
12. Reposting and Quoting.
Do not re-post or quote any materials which violate the Community Guidelines; replies that include quotes of violating material posted by another player may be removed, even if the reply itself contained no offensive content. This includes re-posting a thread or topic which has been previously closed or removed by the Turbine Community Team.
13. Discussion of Disciplinary or Moderations Actions.
We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.
14. Impersonation.
Impersonating another community member, guild, famous person, or any Turbine employee is forbidden. This is considered a very serious offense and “it was a joke” is not a valid defense. Impersonation includes, but is not limited to, using images or signatures to suggest you are an employee or any person other than yourself. Making statements claiming you are someone other than yourself, forging, editing, or otherwise modifying posts of a moderator, Turbine employee, or forum member (i.e., “fixed that for you” style edits in quoted texts that change the wording or meaning of a post in an attempt to embarrass or misrepresent the original posters comments) is not permitted.
15. Non-Disclosure Agreements.
You may not post, repost, or link to any information covered under a Non-disclosure agreement (from any source), including but not limited to spoilers, screenshots, and videos.
16. TOS, COC, EULA.
Users must not violate, or promote the violation of, Turbine’s terms of service, codes of conduct or end user license agreements. This includes, but is not limited to, the posting of materials or comments that call out possible exploits or encourage others to participate in exploiting game miscues and errors.
17. Copyrights.
You may not upload or transmit copyrighted material without the express consent of the copyright holder.
18. Illegal activity.
You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws, or regulations.
19. Personal information and Private conversations.
You may not post the personally identifiable information of another user, including but not limited to their real name, address, phone number, email address, or links to personal websites without the express consent of that user. You may not re-post Private Messages, emails, or other private or personal communications of others on the Community Sites without the express consent of the sender.
20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.
21. Inappropriate content.
You may not use, distribute, or spotlight, or post links to sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially, nationally, ethnically offensive content or language, or other content deemed inappropriate at the discretion of the Turbine Community Team.
22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.
23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.
24. Inactivity.
The DDO forums and web sites are aimed at providing a valuable service to players of Dungeons & Dragons Online, and as such are meant to be used by active players of the game. Moderators may remove forum access to inactive players at their discretion, if it is deemed necessary to promote the overall goals of the web site. (One example would be if a player is no longer playing the game and using their community account to violate the community guidelines.)
Understanding Warnings, Infractions, and Bans.
Infractions are individual actions taken against your account.
Infractions do not expire.
Each infraction has a point value known as infraction points.
All of the above rules may have one or more severity levels that may result in more or less infraction points being awarded per infraction. A minor violation of a rule may only result in one infraction point being issued while a major violation could result in a 20 point infraction and immediate ban. Infractions typically carry, 1, 2, 3, 5, or 20 infraction points based on severity of the violation.
Some infraction points may expire 30, 60, 90 days or more after being issued. Severe violations can result in points that do not expire, and chronically violating the same rule can extend point expiration time.
Please note: Warnings are not counted against your maximum infraction limit.
Infractions never expire and lead to permanent bans as follows:
• Free to Play accounts: 2 infractions.
• VIP and Premium Accounts: 10 Infractions.
Infraction points may lead to temporary suspensions or permanent bans as follows:
• 5 Active Points: 1 Day
• 10 Active points: 3 day suspension
• 15 Active points: 7 day suspension
• 17 Active points: 3 Month Suspension
• 18 Active Points: 6 Month Suspension
• 20 points (active or otherwise): Permanent
The Community Team reserves the right to assign temporary and permanent bans at will based upon the severity of an infraction.
* Automatic bans based on the number of infractions take all infractions into account, regardless of their Active or Expired status. If an account was above the limit when this change was implemented (August 2010) it will be banned if any further infractions are issued against it.
All visitors to the Community Sites are logged by IP address. We may occasionally ban a user by their IP address. Further abuse by users who have been IP banned may result in an abuse report to the user's internet service provider.
Appealing a Ban:
If your Community account has been banned and you feel this ban is in error or unjustified, ban appeals may be sent through our
support page. (Choose DDO as the game, DDO Community/Forum Support as the support team, and then choose the appropriate option.) Please include your Community account name in all correspondence.
Originally Posted by Cordovan
Thanks, good feedback!
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