News Files - Harassment
Our anti-harassment policy expresses our commitment to maintain a game that is free of harassment, so our guests, players, and staffers feel safe and happy. We will not tolerate anyone intimidating, humiliating, or sabotaging others on the game. We also prohibit willful discrimination based on age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, religion, or disability.
What is our definition of harassment?
Harassment includes bullying, intimidation, direct insults, malicious gossip, and victimisation. We cannot create an exhaustive list, but here are some instances that we consider harassment:
- Sabotaging someone's work on purpose, such as derailing or taking over scenes. Accidentally is one. Doing so repeatedly to the same player can be viewed as harassment.
- Engaging in frequent or unwanted advances of any nature.
- Commenting derogatorily on a person's ethnic heritage or religious beliefs.
- Starting or spreading rumours about a person. This can include spreading rumours about their style of play that you may disagree with, or lying about someone.
- Ridiculing someone in front of others.
- Contacting someone playing a character you are interested in taking over.
- Anonymously approaching a character that you disagreed with while previously connected as one of your alternate characters.
Sexual harassment is illegal and we will seriously investigate relevant reports.
How to address harassment
If you are being harassed, you can address this in a couple of ways. You can speak to the person that is doing the harassment and ask them to cease the behaviour. The original incidents leading to the conversation, and the log of the conversation itself, should be provided to staff so that we have a record of the situation. If you are uncomfortable speaking to the player, you can ask staff to intervene. We will need to see logs of the offensive behaviour to support your case, and then we can make the decision on the disciplinary action that may be necessary.
Disciplinary Consequences
Punishment for harassment depends on the severity of the offence and may include being spoken to be staff or strikes issued to the offending player. If the player gets three strikes, they will be removed from the game as per our rules. Sexual harassment or contacting a player to try to urge them to give up a character will be considered a first strike offense, at the least. Some types of harassment will negate the need for three strikes and result in immediate expulsion and banning from the game, though this would be only in the most extreme of circumstances.