Inkypaws sez,

Play nice!

AUP

BEHAVIOR

HARASSMENT GENERAL

FluffMUCK Acceptable Use Policy

FluffMUCK ("the Muck") is a privately owned and administrated virtual community. All users of FluffMUCK are bound by the following Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP"). Connecting to FluffMUCK and operating a character thereon constitutes acceptance of the following terms.

Access to FluffMUCK, and the computing resources required to operate it, is granted solely at the discretion of the Administrators, and may be revoked at any time.

The Administrators assume no responsibility for the nature or content of communications originating from other users of FluffMUCK. You are hereby informed that such content may be offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable. While the Administrators will make good faith efforts to discourage, prevent and curtail transmission of unlawful communications in violation of this AUP, no legal responsibility is assumed nor guaranty offered. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless FluffMUCK, its Administrators, the owners/operators of its computing resources, and all other parties connected with the administration of FluffMUCK from all claims which may arise as a result of your usage, without limitation. Notwithstanding the above, you agree that should the Administrators be found liable in a court of law for any action or lack of action related to your use of FluffMUCK, our liability is limited to $0.00.

You accept legal responsibility for the nature and content of all communications transmitted to FluffMUCK from your character or connection.

Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) Notice: The Administrators reserve the right to monitor any and all communications through or with FluffMUCK computing facilities. You are hereby informed that FluffMUCK is NOT to be considered a secure communications medium for the purposes of the ECPA, and that no expectation of privacy is afforded.

Your access to FluffMUCK may not be used for any purposes which violate United States Federal Law, Florida state law, state or local laws of the area in which you reside, or the terms of this AUP. Specifically prohibited are transmission or solicitation for reception of material which violates said laws, including, but not limited to, material that is threatening, legally obscene, libelous, or infringes trade-secret, patent, or copyright protections. Further prohibited are the following actions: transmission of real life threats of harm to another user; harassment of another user; attempting to crash or corrupt the database or computing resources of the Muck; misrepresentation of factual information to the administration of the Muck.

Violation of any of the terms and conditions of this AUP may result in any or all of the following:


Harassment

Fluff has been, since its inception, a remarkably easygoing and hassle-free place. Individual fluffs have been able to resolve their personal differences without resorting to administrative intervention.

Harassment of another player is a violation of the Fluff AUP. Fluff has established the following guidelines to allow players to enjoy their online time without unwanted harassing behavior from others.

Any player who transmits, via the MUCK, a threat of real life harm against another player, whether or not the threat was intended seriously, and whether or not the threatening player is actually aware of the real life identity of the victim, is in violation of United States Federal law and the Fluff AUP. This action is grounds for loss of MUCK access.

Harassment is defined as continued contact with a player who has expressed the clear wish that the contact be stopped. "Contact" includes poses or speech directed at the victim while in the same room, "following" the player when they attempt to move to a different location to get away from you, whispers, pages, page #mail, thrown or handed objects, or public-shouts.

The following steps should be followed if you feel you are the victim of harassment by another player.

First, ask the player in clear and certain language to stop the contact. Do not use ambiguous terms which may be misinterpreted, such as "I really wish you wouldn't talk to me anymore..." Instead say something like, "Leave me alone. I do not want you talking to me, posing to me, whispering or paging to me, or leaving me mail. I mean it." If the player persists in the behavior, keep repeating this same message. Do not send conflicting signals that lead the harasser to think that if he keeps it up, you'll give in and talk to him.

If the behavior is not stopped, take the following steps to block the harasser's contact with you.

If the above efforts do not solve the problem, or if the harasser attempts any of the following behaviors to get around them, notify a Fluff wizard.

Prohibited behaviors to get around page #ignore:

  1. Using public-shout to shout a message to the player who is ignoring you. Public-shout is intended for announcements to the muck at large. Shouts clearly directed at a particular player in a harassing, flaming, or offensive manner, will be considered an abuse of the shout program, and you may be banned from shout.
  2. Using alternate characters to page a player who has clearly expressed the wish not to be contacted by you.
  3. "Following" a player from place to place when they attempt to move to a different location to get away from you. Players will not be prohibited from entering any public areas they wish, but tagging behind another player with the clear intent to be annoying will be considered harassment under these guidelines.

When called upon to intervene in a case of alleged harassment, Fluff wizards may take the following actions:

  1. Interviewing the victim and the alleged harasser.
  2. Reviewing the muck commands log in the event of conflicting versions of events.
  3. Suggesting ways for the parties to resolve their dispute.
  4. If harassment is determined to have occurred, taking disciplinary action against the harasser, up to and including loss of MUCK access.


Behavior

Fluff is intended as a place for *friendly social interaction* which all participants can enjoy. This applies whether you are 'IC' or 'OOC,' roleplaying or just chatting. If you are involved in roleplay or a TinyPlot that requires your character to behave in a way that is, by reasonable standards, offensive to others in the area, take your roleplay out of the Park. Offensive behaviors include, but are not limited to:

  1. Profanity or blatantly vulgar language of any kind; public sexual behavior of any kind. All public areas, including the park, streets, lake, oceanside, nightclubs and restaurants (unless specifically designated otherwise by their owners) are PG. This applies to speech, poses, spoofs, and character descs. Along these lines, *repeated* sexual come-ons, whether spoken aloud or whispered, are not appropriate. If someone tells you they're not interested, *knock it off*. Immediately.
  2. Spamming. Fluff is a fun and frequently silly place, and you will often find toys and actions in public areas that produce spammy messages when triggered. Use of these kinds of objects is permitted, with reasonable restraint. However, large volumes of text generated by a character with the intent to annoy bystanders is prohibited. Do not quote huge files from your system or ascii drawings of cans of Spam. Save it for your own home.
  3. Harassment. Harassment of one player by another is a violation of the Fluff AUP and is grounds for disciplinary action by the administration, up to and including losing your character. Type 'info harassment' to read the Fluff harassment policy. The policy explains what 'harassment' is and what to do if it happens to you. If you report an incident of harassment to the wizards, you will be expected to have read this policy and have taken the steps outlined in the policy in response to the harassment.


General

Building

There is a building quota in place, but it is high enough to not affect 99% of furries. They are in place to prevent abuse where players create thousands of objects, and to discourage excessive frivolous building. You can read them by typing "info quota" online. If you would like to link your area to the public landscape of the muck, ask the owner of the room you want to attach to. Areas in close proximity to the center of fluff (the park) need wiz-approval before they can be linked in, regardless of owner. Approval will be given in almost all cases unless the building is really shoddy and full of typos.

If a person wants to build an extensive 'world' or area with a particular theme, they should talk to Zorin about a link at the Convergence of Worlds. This is an area located below Fluff Park, a kind of portal where all kinds of different worlds may be entered.

'Adult'-themed PUBLIC areas are not allowed.

Please be considerate with your building. Space is not unlimited. Those with large amounts of useless objects contribute to longer saves and memory use. Put BUTTONs in your desc, as well as jewelery and other items that you tend to create spontaneously.

Characters

Multiple characters are allowed within reason. (No more than four per person.)

In order to keep Fluff's database streamlined, characters are automatically recycled (destroyed) after 12 weeks of inactivity. If you know you will be away from Fluff for 12 weeks or longer, you may have your character protected by contacting a wizard and requesting that you not be recycled. You will be asked the approximate time you expect to return.

Toading protection will not commonly be granted for idle periods of longer than six months.

Muckers

Fluffs wishing "mucker" bits, at levels M1, M2, or M3, must speak to Zorin. Experience with muf is required.

Wizard status

Becoming a wizard on Fluff is not something that can be achieved by petition or by porting things to the muck. The administration is made up of people who were instrumental in Fluff's initial creation and setup, who provide the computer resources that enable it to exist, and who have working RL relationships with each other. Decisions to add to the wizcore are decided upon by the wizcorp as a whole and 100% agreement is generally required to add new staff.


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NOTICE: This may be slightly out of date. The info files on FluffMUCK are always the authorative source.