Moderator
Disclaimer: This article is not an official document. It attempts to accurately describe current policy and statements made by the developers, but should not be taken as binding or otherwise limiting. If an authoritative statement is required, it should be requested directly from from staff or the development team. |
Contents
What are Chat Moderators
A CM is a player that has taken on responsibilities in addition to playing the game.
What do CMs do?
CMs fill two important roles.
- They moderate all public chat channels and enforce the chat rules.
- They take /support calls to assist players when GMs are unavailable, and resolve calls that can be fixed without GM intervention. They are able to reach GMs across multiple servers if necessary.
The Chat Rules
All chat rules are listed on the Wurm forum here.
If players do not follow the rules they can find themselves muted, which means that they cannot talk in the public channels until the mute expires or is lifted.
If you receive an unofficial warning in one of the chat channels do not argue! If you strongly disagree, send the CM a private message about it, as starting an argument in kchat is likely to get you muted as well. Receiving an official warning is also something you should take up in private with the CM in question, or if you feel uncomfortable with that, any other CM or GM.
Official warnings are on your account's record, as are mutes, and it's not a good idea to collect these!
Procedure for mutes
- A player has said something that violates the chat rules.
- A CM tells them that is unacceptable, which is an unofficial warning.
- They continue to violate the rules.
- An official mute warning is given. This will appear in that scary orange color in the offender's event window.
- They still continue to violate the rules.
- They are Muted. The length of mute will be determined by moderator, with a minimum of 1 hour, and will not exceed 24 hours.
- The CM will post a log of the incident where it can be reviewed by the GM team, both to determine if proper action was taken, and if any further action is needed.
Note: mutes are limited in time and lifted by the server when the time elapsed or a moderator lifts the mute.
Application process
While there is no formal application process, players can express their interest in the position to GMs, although most are recommended by current team members. Ideally, CMs are experienced players that have no history of chat infractions or game violations.
Players that are being considered go under review by the GMs and, if the consensus is positive, the player may be offered the position if the server they play on could use more support. The Head GM makes the final decision on whether a payer is offered the CM role.
Spotting a fake CM
The entire staff (except CAs) are immune to the /ignore command. As a good practice, if someone contacts you claiming to be a CM, immediately issue a /ignore on their name. Issuing /ignore Oracle in chat results in "You may not ignore Oracle." and thus is a trusted person to talk to. Another way is to attempt to give the person a negative reputation in a settlement, the game will tell you:"please make sure that <staffmember name> is a normal player."
See also Game Masters