Frequently Asked Questions - Community Guidelines

The moderator for Roleplayer's Haven is currently Aurelius, though we will be adding more Moderators to the site in the near future.

Moderators are responsible for general maintenance of the site, the chat channel and the general welfare of the community as a whole.

Though we very much prefer people resolve their differences between themselves, there comes a point sometimes where a person is so disruptive to the community that a Moderator needs to step in to resolve the situation. Usually, a brief whisper or private mail is more than enough and is the first step moderators are encourage to take. If a forum topic or discussion is in danger of becoming destructive to the community, a moderator may lock the topic or ask that the discussion be shelved. Locked topics will be discussed by the Moderator group and either reopened or remain locked, with the reasons for our decision posted as the last response. If a specific player proves to be a problem on a recurring basis and no other avenues have resolved the issue, we do reserve the right to lock a person from the site and ask them to leave the chat channel (or kick them from the channel, if necessary). None of the moderators want to exercise this ability, but we will do so in extreme circumstances if we feel it best for the community as a whole.

We are a civil community doing our best to nurture and support each other. Constructive comments are welcome. We do recognize that discussions will sometimes get heated, but we do not welcome flaming. Unless the author requests it, it is generally considered bad form to provide literary criticism in a comment on a blog entry (we are a community of RPers, not writers... we each have different tastes and preferences). Respect is the key word here. Respect your fellow members, respect the community as a whole. Feel free to offer your opinion and discuss any relevant topic under the sun, but do so with care and consideration for the other members of your community.

Unfortunately, this topic, in its various forms, has been a divisive topic in many an online RP community.

It is our objective to make this place a positive, constructive community for roleplayers. A "Haven," if you will. As such, we try to encourage as much diversity as possible among our membership. Each of us plays a different way, puts more importance on this aspect or another aspect of game play, etc. And that's the way it should be. But when we try to convince others, or worse, force them, to play a certain way, we're bound to run into problems.

The Moderators of the Haven do not make any determination of a member's roleplaying, their storyline or how they spend their time on AoC. The unifying factor here is that we all roleplay, to varying degrees and with varying goals.

We ask that you try to avoid imposing your own style of roleplay on others, even as a polite suggestion. That doesn't mean the subject of how to roleplay shouldn't be discussed (we very much hope it is!) just keep it civil and respect the choices of your fellow members.

The key to membership is respecting one another... not how well you spell, your grammatical skills, your knowledge of the Lore, what classes you enjoy or your storycrafting. If you're willing to respect the diversity of your fellow roleplayers, then this is the place for you!

The Moderators do not make an effort to censor any material posted to the site, as long as it is at least vaguely relevant to roleplaying on Shadow Council and/or this community. However, please keep in mind that people are often reading the site at work, school or other place where they might not be entirely alone. To prevent anything unfortunate from happening we've come up with two ways to alert the readers. We are asking the users to do the following things when posting explicit content:

1. Put a warning in the body of the content, at the top. Feel free to use ooc indicators such as double parentheses. Please add or move the preview separator so the explicit content doesn't show in the preview.

2. Set the rating to Explicit on the submission page. It's a drop-down menu near the top with the option of <none> or Explicit.

Mentions of mature content in the tags are also helpful. Use your own judgement; just imagine if your post or links contained within were opened at a public workplace where others could see. If you forget to add the warning, the moderation staff will add them for you if your work is deemed mature/explicit/not safe for work.

What constitutes an explicit post? Think along the lines of nudity, graphic depictions of sex, explicit and overly-gorey violence, excessive profanity, etc. While Haven is open to all forms of expression, we would appreciate these types of posts including an obvious warning at very least in the title, and also whereever else the author deems fit. For the most part, just use your own judgement. It's not a big deal if the Moderators need to add the tag to your title.

The moderators have the last word on what content requires a warning, and warnings added by the moderating staff should not be removed by the poster under any circumstances.

This isn't an anti-non-RPer site.  This is a pro-RP site.

To be clear, this site promotes respect for your fellow players.  This includes respectful non-RPers.  Obviously, there are sometimes issues with rude folks running around ganking people because they RP, but there also exists the converse problem of Militant RPers running about OOCly killing anyone they find who doesn't RP.  This isn't the site to promote such activities.  We do not have blacklists nor will we encourge rampant griefing of other players, regardless of the reason.  It is the opinion of the Moderators that this sort of activity, if it must take place, should be the purview of individual guild leadership, not of a site focused on supporting the RP community as a whole.

Just keep it positive and focus on the RP!

Seriously, you're in the wrong place.  Go to the FunCom forums if you really want a discussion like that.

Our objective here is to promote roleplaying and enjoyment on our servers in a positive, pro-active way.  If you really feel the need to call people out, just go to the FunCom forums.  This isn't the place for it.