Offetstine:Mod Handbook

Official policy

This article covers an official policy of the Offetstine Wiki. It describes a guideline that editors should generally heed. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact an admin or staff member.

Shortcodes available

This page can be reached with the following shortcodes: OW:MHB.

The Moderator's Handbook, alternatively the Mod Handbook, is a document defining how members of the Offetstine staff should moderate the community, including guidelines for chat moderation, profile review and roleplay moderation. The document is public by design, for the sake of transparency, and so governance decisions made in Offetstine are clearer.

The document is currently incomplete. Any questions and concerns may be raised with staff, especially Eunakria, on Discord.

Upon its completion, all staff are expected to read the handbook and demonstrate their understanding. The handbook is subject to updates to reflect changing guidelines and consensus, and to incorporate precedent. Staff members are encouraged to track edits to this page and its subpages.

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• Community moderation
• Character creation
• Roleplay moderation
• Worldbuilding

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TODO

Community interests

Offetstine is built on three pillars, known as its community interests. While this document generally enumerates how these guidelines may be upheld in narrow, specific ways in Offetstine, above all else, these guidelines are expected to be upheld. It is equivalent to the constitution of Offetstine, where the rest of this document serves as legislation. The community interests are, moreover, a pledge that all staff members take.

The community interests are enumerated as such:

• We are an inclusive community, striving to be not only a hub for roleplay, but a gathering place where any reasonable person may feel welcome. The staff of Offetstine serve the interests of the community, not only as roleplayers but as people. Just as members pledge to us to treat each other with respect, we pledge to them to accommodate their interests.

• Our world is as welcoming as our community. Just as there are no significant roadblocks in joining the community of Offetstine as a real-world person, there ought not to be any significant roadblocks in joining our roleplay community. Expanding on the world of Offetstine, through the contribution of a character, location, event or concept is accommodated and facilitated by staff.

• Our world inspires awe. Offetstine is a sight to behold as either a spectator or participant. We achieve that sense through both an eye for consistency and artistry. We build the rigor of the world of Offetstine around the stories told in it, and vice versa. We lend an ear to the members of our community through the reification of their storytelling ideas as part of our world.

Referenda

One of the most critical processes in the process of Offetstine is the use of referenda. Before any change is made to the structure of the community, it is proposed before a forum of moderators. The proponent of any suggestion is responsible for the specific framing of any proposal, but generally, must be able to demonstrate majority approval among the current body of moderators to see any change implemented.

The process of proposing a referendum and casting votes on it is, necessarily, a vocal process, which attempts to both quantitatively enumerate the support of protocol from staff members and qualitatively solicit dialogue which allows each staff member to make the most informed vote possible. While any voting procedure may yield a single winner, majority approval (to the extent that such a concept may be calculated by the voting system being used) is required to enact the result of any referendum. Staff members are not only allowed, but expected, to propose any concept that they believe is not accurately represented in the options of a poll.

Common administrative tasks that require referenda include:

• The archival of an existing channel, either OOC or roleplay
• The restructuring of existing channel structure, though not including the creation of home and business channels for roleplayers (cf. Character creation) or channels to cordon off niche but popular topics (cf. Community moderation).
• Any nontrivial announcement, such as a roleplay event or teaser thereto.
• Any procedure change, including a nontrivial amendment to the Mod Handbook (though it should be emphasized that while this document is in its draft stage, all contributions are appreciated, including from non-staff members) or to the community etiquette or other documentation.

Voting methods

No voting method is strictly prescribed, though approval voting and single transferrable vote (STV) are preferable for multiple candidacy, as many possible referenda may contain multiple similar options and motivate moderators to choose. Moderators may, optionally, use Vie to set up approval or STV votes.

In order to use Vie to set up a STV vote, invoke the v.poll command as such: v.poll -type stv "Option 1" "Option 2" .... The bot message will return an ID, such as pl_samp_le00_xkm3_4mpm, and number each option. A duration may be set with the -dur flag, such as -dur 1w, allowing at most one week for votes to be cast. The options of a poll may be edited by editing the original message.

After a poll is proposed, cast or recast votes with the v.vote command. For example: v.vote -id pl_samp_le00_xkm3_4mpm 1 3 2, listing options ordered according to preference. To retract a ballot, pass the -retract option to v.vote. The poll will automatically update with the current vote totals. Due to the internal, small-scale and qualitative nature of the Vie voting module, strategic voting is not an envisioned concern.

These commands are available to non-moderators as well, so please note that electorate body is inferred from the channel the poll is proposed in. Bot users, and users who cannot view the channel the poll was proposed in, cannot cast a vote, though they can retract existing votes. Poll functionality is currently not globally available because the Vie poll code is genuinely some of the worst code I’ve ever written 🫠

Transparency

Staff referenda are, inherently, not transparent to the Offetstine community. However, any conclusion reached by staff members that affects the community, is expected to be communicated to non-staff members. Certain changes are handled automatically, such as any moderatorial action taken, which is usually automatically reflected in #mod-logs. However, staff members are responsible for manually announcing other changes.

Certain referenda are best suited to be made public. The v.poll command may be used in #announcements to facilitate a public referendum. It is not recommended that plurality voting (-type plurality) is used for public votes.