(Note: currently, this is not an official page, and is a work in progress)
TODO: Expand if needed, get agreement on making this official
Staff Conduct
All staff members of TASVideos, including administrators, seniors, ambassadors, judges, publishers, and moderators, serve as representatives for the site. Therefore, all staff members must adhere to conduct in order to represent the site in a positive way, and not to bring TASVideos or its staff into disrepute for any reason.
Any staff member must agree to follow the Staff Conduct in order to fulfill any staff role or action.
Handling users
Any staff member communication with users should follow the site rules in all aspects. Demeaning or insulting any user in any communication venue related to TASVideos is not acceptable. Nach: We want to discourage this, but I'm not certain this is feasible. I doubt we'd take action unless this was a frequent occurrence and the insults were beyond mild. adelikat: I think the sentence is correct as is. It isn't saying that you are immediately demoted for this behavior. It is certainly feasible to make it clear that this is unacceptable and enforce it based on repeated violations. Nach: I'd say it was unacceptable if your intention was to demean and insult the person in question. I wouldn't want to confuse it with venting your frustration, which I see happens often, and shouldn't be as severe as someone intentionally insulting someone to make them look foolish to other readers.
Chat or forum moderation must act in a consistent matter towards supporting good conduct in the chat or forum, and must not be influenced by bias towards or against any specific user on the part of the moderator or staff member.
Handling submissions and publications
All submissions and publications must be handled with an equal standard for quality.
- Judges evaluating a submission must act according to the judge guidelines and movie rules, and not be influenced by any external factors. All submissions must be evaluated on their own merits, and not be prejudiced against or in favor of because of bias towards the submission author(s), or bias towards the game itself. Nach: The game itself may inherently cause bias due to a judge's lack of familiarity with the game.
- Publishers must publish all movies following the quality standards according to the publisher guidelines and encoder guidelines. All publications must have equal treatment with regard of description, video quality, encoder logo, etc. Publications that do not follow publishing standards set by general publication quality, or that demean the movie or author(s) by description or any other way, are absolutely not accepted. Nach: The game itself may inherently cause bias due to a publisher's lack of familiarity with the game causing a poorer description.
- All publications deserve fair treatment in exposure in any area of publication (input file, video encode, YouTube streaming video, etc.). Blocking or reducing exposure in any way in any publication venue is not acceptable. Because of this, it is important that after a movie is published, it gets time for itself during which no other publications or other encode postings are done. Nach: If this is something we want to enforce, we should do so at a technical level, somehow. We've in the past had back to back publications, and I'm not certain it's something we want to disallow. It's more of an issue when a dozen things are published than 2 or 3.
If, for any personal reason, a judge or publisher cannot be expected to handle a submission or publication without bias with regard to the movie or its author(s), that judge or publisher should not be involved with any staff-related activity (judging, encoding, publishing) for that movie. This should be done voluntarily on the staff member's part, but may also be enforced by a senior or administrator if they deem it necessary.
Violation of staff conduct
Staff members who deliberately or purposefully act contrary to the staff conduct in any way (effective starting when the Staff Conduct is formally and officially introduced), may be suspended from any and all of their staff roles and activities, by an administrator's discretion. Nach: No one should be banned for a single offense unless it was absolutely vile beyond human decency. We should also show compassion and realize staff members may occasionally have a bad day too.
Nach: I have to question why some of these once approved should be on a page like this instead of rules specific to a particular role.
adelikat: We should define which roles qualify as "staff". What about encoders? or editors? What about future roles that may be created?