Tue Jun 14, 2011 6:37 pm
The TKC Server Admin Handbook
I thought it was a good idea to allow anyone who was interested to see the TKC server admin handbook that is posted in our server admin forums. This way you know what is a rule and what isn't a rule. You can also be made aware of what behavior is acceptable and what isn't. Be sure to read the profanity section for sure because we've changed the rule.
Welcome to TKC Admin Guide (For All Games).
This is a guide that applies to ALL games that we support. You need to read this guide in order to be given administration rights on our server. Knowing this guide inside and out will help you to maintain your status as a server admin, and will also help you to apply TKC server rules correctly, and fairly.
1. TKC Philosophy
We want the gaming public to know TKC servers, but beyond that, we want them to know that TKC servers are well run. A place where you can play a game and have a good time. In order to accomplish this, we must have good server admins. A good server admin is someone who understands the underlying philosophy, and applies it with great care. We don't want heavy handed server admins who seem inflexible. Sure, we want you to apply the law, but we don't want to be known as a clan who runs servers where good players are instantly labelled as 'cheaters', mic/text spammers aren't given a chance to correct their behavior, or players who use unorthodox styles of play are punished. Gamers will always complain, no matter the rules or how you apply them, but consistency will be respected by any gamer who isn't out to cause problems. Understand our rules, but more importantly, understand how to apply them to the betterment of the clan and it's reputation. Server admins, in many ways, are the face of this clan and if you aren't up to the task, we will take away your authority. Please remember you are representing, at this writing, nearly 120 members of The Killing Committee, behave accordingly.
2. Rules
Profanity Many of the games we play have very bad language, some don't, that should make a difference in how we enforce our rules. For that reason we are going to implement a new rule, which will seem strange at first, but there is reason behind it. Bad language will only be tolerated on Teamspeak channels for games where there is bad language in the game. In other words, since there is bad language in Bad Company 2, bad language will be acceptable in the Bad Company 2 Teamspeak channel and on the Bad Company 2 servers. On our Half-Life 2 DM Teamspeak channel and game server, bad language will not be allowed. Future games will also be handled in this manner. The reason, we do not want to exclude members with different beliefs. If I buy a game and one of the selling points for me was the fact that it did not have bad language, that should be respected. I do not want a father or grandfather having to explain bad language to their children or grandchildren because they heard profanity on a TKC Teamspeak channel they thought was free of such things.
How to deal with with Mic/Text spammers. No one wants to listen to a lot of unrelated chatter either on the game server, or Teamspeak. No one wants to see a lot of text spamming either. It's distracting to some, and in the case of Bad Company 2, causes lag problems when the text log gets too long. If someone is talking or typing too much, respectfully ask them to stop. If they continue, you may have to mute or kick them, and if they continue after that, a ban might be in order. When on Teamspeak, a certain amount of "visiting" is fine, but the gamers who want to communicate tactical information to others playing shouldn't have to constantly interrupt talk about the latest CPU, or talk of what's going on at school. If someone is talking too much and you don't feel like you want to address it, PM a clan leader and we can handle the situation.
Team Switching In some games this is a big no-no and if you are admin for one of those games, ask the player to go back, if they don't and you have the ability, move them back manually. If you continue to have problems, kick/ban them. In other games, like Bad Company 2, team switching usually isn't as big a deal. Sometimes friends or clan members might want to play together, in that case, try to facilitate them and swap some people around. This will show you to be respectful of community and they will probably be very appreciative of your efforts. If there is a mass exodus of people from a bad team to a good team, you can mention in-game that people need to stop. If someone is ignoring you and continues to unbalance the teams, just kick them off the server. For a game like Half-Life 2, teams change after each round, so trying to put clan members together is just a waste of time, that is why team switching is considered bad.
Hacking/Cheating This is the most overused excuse for kicking someone off of a server. Players are unjustly booted off servers all the time simply because they were too good. That is not fair. Do not base a decision on cheating on a single round, if it isn't really ridiculous score-wise, sometimes people just have great rounds. But if they continue to have an unbelievable K/D ratio, then you might need to ban them. Sometimes it might be necessary to ban someone just because they are killing the server. For me, this is the thing I hate to do the most. That person might be doing nothing wrong, other than being really good at a game. Try to put yourself in their shoes and only ban guys who are really obvious. I don't want to see anyone being banned for an aimbot because they went 29-0. I and many others have had a better score than that, it DOES happen. You have to consider how the person is playing the game. Are they playing as recon? Are they in the heli with a really good pilot? Sometimes, if you are unsure, it might be best to ask the opinion of a clan leader. Remember, visitors to our servers have the ability and a forum to complain about unjust behavior from our server admins. If someone complains about you, you want to know that you did everything by the book.
Names We will not allow names that are offensive to anyone. I think we can all use our best judgement here, but if you are unsure, ask another admin what they think of the name and come to a consensus before taking action. Players using racist names should be perm banned immediately. It does no good talking to someone like that because they're only goal is to cause trouble.
Banter and Trash Talking Now its okay to joke around, but if several players are going at it constantly on the mic or in chat just nicely ask them to stop. If it continues warn them again that if they don't stop they will be kicked, if for no other reason that mic/text spamming. If they ignore this warning then go ahead and kick them. A certain amount of this is fine as long as it's good natured, however sometimes this can lead to hard feelings so you have to use your best judgement of when something is going too far or things are starting to get out of hand.
Racist/intolerant behavior This is a subject that we will show no mercy on. If someone is being a racist, and that means they are hating on blacks, whites, browns, yellows, whatever the case may be, they get perm banned. No warnings, no kicks, just ban them. We don't need that kind of intolerant behavior on our servers. I don't care if the person is joking, I don't care what his real intent was, if he's spewing hate speech, he's gone. This also applies to someone who is spewing hate speech against a group of people, like Muslims, Christians, agnostics, atheists whoever. We are a gaming clan. This is our hobby and it's supposed to be fun. Everyone who comes to a TKC server should be respected and able to play the game hassle free. Not everyone believes the same, and if someone can't get over it and comes to our server with an agenda that includes racist or intolerant speech, I expect you guys to bring the hammer down swiftly.
3. What you are as admin. When you are an admin you are the face of TKC and anything you do reflects on the clan. Your responsibility is to help keep our servers friendly and fun. When you ask someone to do something say it nicely and always say please and thank you. Also, please act in a professional manner, you don't have to be all business but when you are doing something admin related, remember that the server is sort of like a store and all the players are customers and if we give them a bad impression they might not come back. The one bad thing you do might be the only thing that one person sees so just keep that in mind. Also, think if you were the player how would you like the admin to talk to you.
4. Stay out of Drama. Try to stay out of the Drama. You are not God, you are an admin and besides helping enforce the rules you are just like anyone else. If you are having problems with someone do not abuse your admin powers. The clan leaders or for that matter, other admins are there to help. When you deal with highly hormonal teenage boy's, or for that matter some grown men, there IS going to be drama. Be above it and act professionally. If you feel your emotions are slipping and you are about to crack and be a part of the problem instead of the solution, its best to get another admin involved and remove yourself from that particular situation. This is the PROPER way to handle it if you are being swept up. It is NOT a failing to realize you are about to behave in a manner that does not represent the clan well and decide to remove yourself, its a strength and will be looked upon as such by the clan leaders.
5. Don't look for trouble. Don't go around looking for trouble, just play like you usually do. If something comes up that requires you as an admin, take care of it. If you go around looking for trouble, you will find it and eventually you will develop a bad reputation as an admin and it will make your game playing experience worse and you will be subject to having your admin powers removed. We don't need admins who are sitting on telephone wires looking for their next meal. That means, don't be overzealous looking for rule breakers or cheats. If someone is misbehaving you will find out about it soon enough.
After reading this you might be feeling overwhelmed thinking it's too much to remember or might be too slow to act for fear of making a mistake. There is no reason to feel like this. If you follow the rules laid out in this handbook and something goes wrong, the clan leaders are going to have your back. It's as simple as that. Just remember, do not do anything you wouldn't be willing to do if the clan leaders were on the server with you.
Always remember that there are other admins and clan leaders that are willing to help. If you have a problem don't be afraid to ask for help. We are all human and nobody expects you to be perfect. Just don't be afraid to ask for help. One of your responsibilities as an admin is to stay current and informed on admin issues within the clan. This is done by visiting the admin forum page at least once every couple days. This is where the clan leaders and other admins post information that you will need to know. If we are having problems with a certain person, new rules and pretty much anything that needs to be communicated to the admins.
Thanks to Josh and Kingloser who authored the original handbook which this is based on. This rewrite was written by T3
Welcome to TKC Admin Guide (For All Games).
This is a guide that applies to ALL games that we support. You need to read this guide in order to be given administration rights on our server. Knowing this guide inside and out will help you to maintain your status as a server admin, and will also help you to apply TKC server rules correctly, and fairly.
1. TKC Philosophy
We want the gaming public to know TKC servers, but beyond that, we want them to know that TKC servers are well run. A place where you can play a game and have a good time. In order to accomplish this, we must have good server admins. A good server admin is someone who understands the underlying philosophy, and applies it with great care. We don't want heavy handed server admins who seem inflexible. Sure, we want you to apply the law, but we don't want to be known as a clan who runs servers where good players are instantly labelled as 'cheaters', mic/text spammers aren't given a chance to correct their behavior, or players who use unorthodox styles of play are punished. Gamers will always complain, no matter the rules or how you apply them, but consistency will be respected by any gamer who isn't out to cause problems. Understand our rules, but more importantly, understand how to apply them to the betterment of the clan and it's reputation. Server admins, in many ways, are the face of this clan and if you aren't up to the task, we will take away your authority. Please remember you are representing, at this writing, nearly 120 members of The Killing Committee, behave accordingly.
2. Rules
Profanity Many of the games we play have very bad language, some don't, that should make a difference in how we enforce our rules. For that reason we are going to implement a new rule, which will seem strange at first, but there is reason behind it. Bad language will only be tolerated on Teamspeak channels for games where there is bad language in the game. In other words, since there is bad language in Bad Company 2, bad language will be acceptable in the Bad Company 2 Teamspeak channel and on the Bad Company 2 servers. On our Half-Life 2 DM Teamspeak channel and game server, bad language will not be allowed. Future games will also be handled in this manner. The reason, we do not want to exclude members with different beliefs. If I buy a game and one of the selling points for me was the fact that it did not have bad language, that should be respected. I do not want a father or grandfather having to explain bad language to their children or grandchildren because they heard profanity on a TKC Teamspeak channel they thought was free of such things.
How to deal with with Mic/Text spammers. No one wants to listen to a lot of unrelated chatter either on the game server, or Teamspeak. No one wants to see a lot of text spamming either. It's distracting to some, and in the case of Bad Company 2, causes lag problems when the text log gets too long. If someone is talking or typing too much, respectfully ask them to stop. If they continue, you may have to mute or kick them, and if they continue after that, a ban might be in order. When on Teamspeak, a certain amount of "visiting" is fine, but the gamers who want to communicate tactical information to others playing shouldn't have to constantly interrupt talk about the latest CPU, or talk of what's going on at school. If someone is talking too much and you don't feel like you want to address it, PM a clan leader and we can handle the situation.
Team Switching In some games this is a big no-no and if you are admin for one of those games, ask the player to go back, if they don't and you have the ability, move them back manually. If you continue to have problems, kick/ban them. In other games, like Bad Company 2, team switching usually isn't as big a deal. Sometimes friends or clan members might want to play together, in that case, try to facilitate them and swap some people around. This will show you to be respectful of community and they will probably be very appreciative of your efforts. If there is a mass exodus of people from a bad team to a good team, you can mention in-game that people need to stop. If someone is ignoring you and continues to unbalance the teams, just kick them off the server. For a game like Half-Life 2, teams change after each round, so trying to put clan members together is just a waste of time, that is why team switching is considered bad.
Hacking/Cheating This is the most overused excuse for kicking someone off of a server. Players are unjustly booted off servers all the time simply because they were too good. That is not fair. Do not base a decision on cheating on a single round, if it isn't really ridiculous score-wise, sometimes people just have great rounds. But if they continue to have an unbelievable K/D ratio, then you might need to ban them. Sometimes it might be necessary to ban someone just because they are killing the server. For me, this is the thing I hate to do the most. That person might be doing nothing wrong, other than being really good at a game. Try to put yourself in their shoes and only ban guys who are really obvious. I don't want to see anyone being banned for an aimbot because they went 29-0. I and many others have had a better score than that, it DOES happen. You have to consider how the person is playing the game. Are they playing as recon? Are they in the heli with a really good pilot? Sometimes, if you are unsure, it might be best to ask the opinion of a clan leader. Remember, visitors to our servers have the ability and a forum to complain about unjust behavior from our server admins. If someone complains about you, you want to know that you did everything by the book.
Names We will not allow names that are offensive to anyone. I think we can all use our best judgement here, but if you are unsure, ask another admin what they think of the name and come to a consensus before taking action. Players using racist names should be perm banned immediately. It does no good talking to someone like that because they're only goal is to cause trouble.
Banter and Trash Talking Now its okay to joke around, but if several players are going at it constantly on the mic or in chat just nicely ask them to stop. If it continues warn them again that if they don't stop they will be kicked, if for no other reason that mic/text spamming. If they ignore this warning then go ahead and kick them. A certain amount of this is fine as long as it's good natured, however sometimes this can lead to hard feelings so you have to use your best judgement of when something is going too far or things are starting to get out of hand.
Racist/intolerant behavior This is a subject that we will show no mercy on. If someone is being a racist, and that means they are hating on blacks, whites, browns, yellows, whatever the case may be, they get perm banned. No warnings, no kicks, just ban them. We don't need that kind of intolerant behavior on our servers. I don't care if the person is joking, I don't care what his real intent was, if he's spewing hate speech, he's gone. This also applies to someone who is spewing hate speech against a group of people, like Muslims, Christians, agnostics, atheists whoever. We are a gaming clan. This is our hobby and it's supposed to be fun. Everyone who comes to a TKC server should be respected and able to play the game hassle free. Not everyone believes the same, and if someone can't get over it and comes to our server with an agenda that includes racist or intolerant speech, I expect you guys to bring the hammer down swiftly.
3. What you are as admin. When you are an admin you are the face of TKC and anything you do reflects on the clan. Your responsibility is to help keep our servers friendly and fun. When you ask someone to do something say it nicely and always say please and thank you. Also, please act in a professional manner, you don't have to be all business but when you are doing something admin related, remember that the server is sort of like a store and all the players are customers and if we give them a bad impression they might not come back. The one bad thing you do might be the only thing that one person sees so just keep that in mind. Also, think if you were the player how would you like the admin to talk to you.
4. Stay out of Drama. Try to stay out of the Drama. You are not God, you are an admin and besides helping enforce the rules you are just like anyone else. If you are having problems with someone do not abuse your admin powers. The clan leaders or for that matter, other admins are there to help. When you deal with highly hormonal teenage boy's, or for that matter some grown men, there IS going to be drama. Be above it and act professionally. If you feel your emotions are slipping and you are about to crack and be a part of the problem instead of the solution, its best to get another admin involved and remove yourself from that particular situation. This is the PROPER way to handle it if you are being swept up. It is NOT a failing to realize you are about to behave in a manner that does not represent the clan well and decide to remove yourself, its a strength and will be looked upon as such by the clan leaders.
5. Don't look for trouble. Don't go around looking for trouble, just play like you usually do. If something comes up that requires you as an admin, take care of it. If you go around looking for trouble, you will find it and eventually you will develop a bad reputation as an admin and it will make your game playing experience worse and you will be subject to having your admin powers removed. We don't need admins who are sitting on telephone wires looking for their next meal. That means, don't be overzealous looking for rule breakers or cheats. If someone is misbehaving you will find out about it soon enough.
After reading this you might be feeling overwhelmed thinking it's too much to remember or might be too slow to act for fear of making a mistake. There is no reason to feel like this. If you follow the rules laid out in this handbook and something goes wrong, the clan leaders are going to have your back. It's as simple as that. Just remember, do not do anything you wouldn't be willing to do if the clan leaders were on the server with you.
Always remember that there are other admins and clan leaders that are willing to help. If you have a problem don't be afraid to ask for help. We are all human and nobody expects you to be perfect. Just don't be afraid to ask for help. One of your responsibilities as an admin is to stay current and informed on admin issues within the clan. This is done by visiting the admin forum page at least once every couple days. This is where the clan leaders and other admins post information that you will need to know. If we are having problems with a certain person, new rules and pretty much anything that needs to be communicated to the admins.
Thanks to Josh and Kingloser who authored the original handbook which this is based on. This rewrite was written by T3
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