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Disciplinary ProcedureActions Leading to Compulsory Unsubbing 2. Pending investigation ANY people will be placed on Moderated on the list that appears to be causing the problem. In severe cases this will be extended to all lists. 3. The BoD will discuss this and at least THREE of them will have to agree that a formal warning will be sent. A person will be nominated to write but it will be sent from the BoD as a whole. 4. A First Warning letter will tell the people involved what the complaint was an how they should rectify it (or advice to this point). It will also contain the advisorary that if there is a probationary period of one month and if they receive another complaint in that time they will receive a Second Warning, and then if THAT is seen to be ignored they will be unsubbed without further warning. 5. If the person remains "clean" for a month they drop back down to First Warning level. 6. A Second Warning follows the same procedure. They will be warned that if they are unsubbed that the BoD will have emergency rights to their characters to write them out of the threads should it come to an unsubbing, but that they would be written out or put up as Non-adoptable NPCs until such time as they could be written out. 7. A compulsory unsubbing requires a consensus decision of at least 5 of the BoD or an equivalent proportion if someone is AWOL. They will have received their warning in the second and final warning and will be unsubbed immediately from all lists. Grounds for a complaint. 2.. Persistent offensive on-list behavior. This means that despite clear indications, that the person is behaving in a situation that distresses others they still do it. 3. Contravention of established rules. Flagrant power playing of other characters. Blatant introduction of PC non-approved characters. Conscious disregard for established boundaries without discussing it with the BoD first. 4.. Manipulation of the BoD. Attempts to force a decision from the BoD and sway them in a particular way using any form of manipulation on or off list will result in a first warning. Posting RequirementsThese rules will be operated on a policy of three strikes This means you will have THREE MONTHS all told to comply should you unexpectedly have to go away. If you KNOW you are going to be offline for a large period in advance then please, either send your character off somewhere else ("Oh no! My Auntie Doris is ill - I must go stay at Fort for a while!" or ask someone to borrow them for a while (the BoD are generally happy to fill this duty) Note:- Only those ranks listed here will be affected by this. There are many who still will not have a minimum posting rate. Check to see if you rank here, you may have nothing to think about If you know already that you will not be able to fulfill the requirements for ALL your characters then PLEASE contact us at arolosweyr-owner@egroups.com and we can then put the ones you wish us to up for adoption or transfer them. In the case of one character fulfilling two requirements (Eg Goldrider AND Weyrwoman) - then then larger posting rate ONLY is applicable. Also please note, these numbers may LOOK like a lot but realistically 20 posts only amounts to 1 thread and we don't think asking a character to participate in 1 or 2 threads a month is really extreme. We WILL be excercising discretion in these too - we won't jump down your throat if you had 24 posts rather than 25. The idea of this is to get people to develop characters especially if they are "desirable" positions. Too often we have had to turn down excellent persona's because we have had our quota of those characters filled, and yet the characters filling those positions were practically NPC. This is our way of trying to be fair to the members of the list rather than putting them under pressure! If you have questions then please send them to Help! and we will answer there - chances are if you are wondering then so is everyone else. 35 posts per month HADs 30 posts per month Weyrleader/Weyrwoman Lord/Lady Holders 25 posts per month WeyrlingMaster Wingleaders ANY MASTER CRAFTER Headwoman Junior Goldriders 20 posts per Month WingSeconds Healers Harpers Assistant WeyrlingMasters and CandidateMasters Bronzeriders Please note at this time we only allow five bronzeriders per writer. Should an exception to that rule be made it will be at BoD discretion. Bronze dragons are given out to those who have been active and playing at Arolos Weyr for six months to a year. You may use adoptable bronzeridrers as part of your allowed five, create them over time, or impress them, however we will not generally approve more than one bronzerider per year towards those five allowed. Also note, you may come across people who have more than five bronzeriders most of whom received them before we implemented this rule October 2007. 15 posts Ranking positions at major Holds (captain of the
guard, stable manager etc) Minor Holders Journeyman Crafters 10 posts per month Gold/bronze flits or whers 5 posts per month Any other flit or wher
Plagiarism ConsequencesPlagiarism is something we take _very_ seriously - partly because we thought it was pretty obvious that intellectual theft would be thought of badly. This is a stance that you will find all over Pern Fandom, and in fact in most weyrs and clubs anyone even suspected of plagiarizing will be automatically banned from playing. People work very hard to create their own unique characters, and it's not fair to them to have their characters passed off as someone else's. We realize that people have different abilities in creating characters, but if that's the case we will be glad to help someone create a new character or they can use the legitimate source of adoptable characters that are available. How we define plagiarism: -Directly taking sentences or more off a sheet approved for someone else, including for characters from another Weyr. -Borrowing heavily but changing words around to make it seem like a new sheet ( enough so it is is still obviously recognizable as the same character) -Blatantly using the same character concept as another sheet, or something from the Pern books. We realize that sometimes characters can honestly have similar histories, but we can tell if they are minor similarities or sheets that are plagiarized and we can certainly recognized Lessa and Jaxom clones! Now, let us make it clear. We work from a position of trust towards everyone in the group. We assume, and will continue to assume that everyone is being honest in their submissions, that everything is their own work and we are sure that in 99% of cases our trust is well founded. However, we _will_ eventually find out if someone has been plagiarizing even if a character sheet is initially approved. We have literally thousands of persona sheets and if it makes it through and is approved, this does not necessarily mean that it is exempt from the plagiarism rules. We get notifications from Arolos members, we get notifications from members outside of the weyr if they are concerned. We talk with BoD members from other games and keep an eye on the sheets that come through ourselves. We research thoroughly when we have a contact , especially from other games, and establish with hard evidence whose character was made first, if there were adoption trails etc. Before we apply sanctions we have to have proof that plagiarism is definite because it is serious. Now, we're going to be very clear about the consequences as applies in Arolos - most other games will not give any chances at all. 1 - Severe Warning - told to change anything that was plagiarized and never ever do it again or they face more severe consequences. We will be checking the sheet within a few days to make sure the character has been changed. We will also ask that an apology to the person whose character has been plagiarized - an apology that has to be approved by the BoD. If it has not we will automatically go to level 2. 2 - Second offense, or not changing characters we've flagged within a few days. The plagiarized charrie(s) are taken away entirely, up to a month suspension from writing, six months no new charries, absolutely no charries brought in that have been made long ago at Weyr's far, far away, apology letter sent to one plagiarized from, one week to wrap up any current threads to prepare for suspension and to write out any charries being taken away. 3 - Banned from Arolos permanently. No appeal, no justifications. The odds are that if a person has ignored the two other steps they are going to keep "stealing" from members. That is not a person we want in the game for the sake of everyone. In case you think that it's an over reaction to something that is minor, we would like to point out if someone thinks that plagiarism is a minor offence, they are never likely to get a place/ keep a place at a college or university (automatic expulsions in many places) or a job (often a major disciplinary, or a dismissal there as well) let alone the personal reactions. Best not to get into the habit of thinking that it is something trivial.! It is our opinion that people writing at Arolos are more than capable of writing their own decent sheets without needing to lift sections of other people's to "enhance" them. We would recommend going in, taking a look at your sheets, making sure that they reflect the uniqueness of your characters. Though it is flattering that someone might think it is worthy enough to steal, it can be more than a little annoying. For example, one of the BoD's characters, J'shar with Bronze Heyoshath has the unofficial title among Pern BoD of "Most Plagiarized Character in Fandom." which can become more than a little tedious to sort out. What you CAN do is to take details of your own characters and use them in other weyrs (if they approve them) as long as they are *all* your own work. If you think...lord, the tedium of making a character, then USE the adoptables. When people leave, and donate characters as adoptables, they give up all rights to them BUT to use them, you need to adopt them. You cannot take chunks of an adoptable identity, because at some point someone might adopt the original character and at that point it becomes plagiarized materials. The safest thing to do is to make your own! They are characters that will live in your head - you don't need them to have elements in them that did not come from you! If you have any further questions direct them to the Ask the BoD link. Arolos BoD All references to worlds and characters based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction are copyright© Anne McCaffrey 1967,2005, all rights reserved, and used by permission of the author. The Dragonriders of Pern® is registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, by Anne McCaffrey, used here with permission. Use or reproduction without a license is strictly prohibited. |