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Una Salus Lillius said:
Godeskian said:
Godeskian said:
Caitriona said:
A Karas said:
Caitriona said:You know this accusation has been leveled a lot over the years, and I've come to a conclusion about it.
It's pure BS.
As I was telling my good friend Shal today as we were chatting about moderator ethics, the fact that a person talks one way on EI and a different way on TK, is more because EI has a damn "Be nice to each other" policy. WE HAVE to adjust our language there. We have to be nice or we are warned and suspended and banned. that's not being a hypocrite, that's following their damn rules.
We don't have those restrictions here, and so we can say what we would say there if they allowed it. That's also not hypocrisy that's adhering to community standards. something they should be thanking us for instead of accusing us of being hypocrites.
If you all on EI want people to be honest, don't muzzle them with "be nice all the time". If you want consistent behavior, don't dictate behavior so narrowly. But please stop trying to intimidate us with the "You're a hypocrite if you speak your mind on TK, because it is BS and it is outright intimidation to shut people up on a Free Speech forum.
Now are there some people who are outrageously nice on EI and come back here to just carry on and laugh? Sure. But there are just as many people waiting ot go into a thread on EI and laugh at another person's ban. Thy hypocrisy runs bot ways in the extreme cases.
For the most part, I can't even imagine how my good friend Shal could accuse me of being nice on EI and slamming people on TK. According to popular opinion I'm mean on EI too.
See. I'm consistent.
Anyway Kam, I know what you are talking about, but that's the party EI line making us squirm so we are afraid to speak out. It's not hypocrisy if we can't say it or be heard on EI. That's why TK exists. Not to laugh at others, [well ok we laugh too], but to say things that can't be said on a board because of their crazy rules.
We get called hypocrites for following their rules. Makes me laugh every time I think about it. Course my good friend Shal, hasn't responded to my realization yet. I wonder what she'll think?
(Except I'm surprised at how the 'Texas law' thing has gotten so much attention... I suppose that's what people are familiar with.)
Anakam said:I'd like it to be a politeness thing, rather than something we have to (have others) come out and say.
It really IS a courtesy... a fairly important one.
A Karas--don't give up yet? There is still that little bit of hope...
edit: I did NOT come for the porn, dammit!
(What? I hadn't said anything even remotely funny yet.)
1. Introduction
The EFCL was created and still is a unique, democratic bulletin board. The Constitution serves as the rules and regulations governing conduct and behaviour for everyone who posts here. It is not a legal document, and certainly not enforceable by law. It is a set of guidelines, designed to keep things running smoothly and try to keep everyone happy whilst at the EFCL. If you want your experiences here to be positive, please take some time to read through it. In order for the board to work and be successful, we must all attempt to follow its rules as closely as possible.
2. Membership
(1) The Senate grants membership at the EFCL to potential members.
(2) Any active Senators may begin proposing invitations 2 months after their own activation. For example, if a Senator were activated on February 3rd, he/she would not be entitled to invite new members until the following April 3rd.
(3) Senators who fulfil the above requirements can propose the name of someone they would like to invite to the board by starting a thread in the Membership forum. In this they must state:
(a)Any related boards to which the applicant already belongs, and his/her usernames on those boards (i.e. Terran, STV, TK et al.), or in the absence of this, the relationship to the proposing Senator (IRC, chat, or personal friend/acquaintance would suffice)
(b) In no less than 50 words, a clearly labelled explanation of what the Senator believes the invitee would contribute to the EFCL.
The inviting Senator may also include any personal exhortations or other pertinent information about the invitee.
(4) The proposal thread should also include a poll, with the poll question asking the Senate if they would like to invite the poster in question, and the options "Yes", "No" and "Abstain" being the three options available in the poll. The poll should not be set to expire (i.e. set to -- days), as the administrators will close it when appropriate.
(5) Each Senator may propose or second 1 invitation per calendar month; however only 10 new members may be approved per calendar month.
(6) Every proposal must be ÂgsecondedÂh by two other active Senators to be considered for approval. Each Senator must clearly post in the thread that they ÂgsecondÂh the proposal, to avoid confusion with others who may post their approval with their vote.
(7) Invitation polls shall run for no less than 72 hours. 18% of the Senate must have voted before the poll is closed. When the poll has had 18% or more of the Senate vote and has been open for 72 hours or longer, an administrator will close it.
(8) If the majority approve, an invitation is sent from the administrators on behalf of the Senate to the invitee. If the invitee accepts, they can reply and an administrator will set a user account up for them. They can accept the invitation whenever they choose, up to a period of three months (i.e. an invitee invited on February 3rd can accept until May 3rd. In the case of disapproval, the invitation is rejected.
(9) Rejected invitees may be re-proposed 30 days after a rejection. An invitation cannot be proposed more than twice by a Senator for the same invitee. After an inviteeÂfs invitation has been rejected three times, any further invitations must be brought to the board administrators for approval before a new thread is created in the Membership Forum.
(10) Logging onto EFCL with an approved username constitutes an agreement between the Senator and the Administration to abide by all rules and policies as set forth in the EFCL Constitution and by the Administration in the Senate.
3. User Accounts
(1) Each Senator must use no more than one user account on the EFCL, specifically the user account originally approved by the Senate. To enforce this, administrators may use any means necessary, including, but not limited to, IP tracking.
(2) Senators may not share user accounts with other senators and/or non-members by any means, including but not limited to the sharing of passwords. There is only one exception to this:
(a) Administrators may ask a Senator to allow them access to his/her user account temporarily... for the purpose of performing administrative functions (i.e., the direct/indirect maintenance of the board and user accounts), however Senators are not obliged to comply, and may refuse to share their user account with an Administrator if they choose.
(3)All user accounts have one of the following designations assigned to them:
(a)Active: The Senator has full access to their user account.
(b)Inactive: The Senator has full access to their user account but may not:
-Vote in the Senate Chamber or Senate Invites
-Propose or second any Senate invitations
(a)Locked: The Senator cannot log in with their user account, and as a result may not participate in any board activities which require logging in.
Banned: The Senator is prevented from accessing the board for the duration of a ban being served under the terms of the "Warnings" and "Bans" sections.
(4)Any Senator may lock their account at any time. The Senator need only contact an Administrator via board PM and formally request it. The "locked" account may similarly be unlocked by emailing an Administrator.
(a)Administrators may take the precautionary step of locking an account if there is cause to investigate an instance of account theft, sharing, or abuse. During this time the account cannot be unlocked at the request of the poster; it can be unlocked only when the admins are satisfied that the account will not be used for further violations. If this step is taken for any of the above reasons, an announcement will be made, and the results of the investigation will be posted in the Senate upon conclusion.
(5) A Senator is automatically classed as ÂgactiveÂh if they have made at least 10 posts within the preceding 30 days. Senators who have not are automatically classed as ÂginactiveÂh
(a)"Inactive" Senators become active as soon as they have posted 10 times within the preceding 30 days. However, voting rights will only be restored for polls that have not yet started.
(6) If a Senator does not visit the EFCL within 8 weeks, their account is locked by the administrators, who will also send the Senator an e-mail explaining that it has been locked due to the 8-week absence, and that it can be unlocked by requesting it via e-mail to an admin.
(7) If a Senator wishes to change their username, he/she must clearly post a request in the Questions and Feedback forum. Only Administrators are authorized to make username changes, and will grant or deny the request in the same request thread.
(a)The administrators may veto the registration of any name, or any name change, if they deem the new name to be either offensive or intentionally misleading, or otherwise inappropriate (with an explanation given in the request thread). At least 2 administrators must post in agreement in the request thread in order to veto a request.
(b)Senators may change their names up to 3 times per calendar year, but must keep a changed name for at least 30 days before requesting another change.
4. Code of Conduct
(1) The EFCL is a board of friends who agree to mutually own the community. As such, it is the duty of every Senator to strive to keep a good relationship with every other Senator on the board. Senators should therefore respect each other and the opinions of other Senators. They should treat each other equally and without bias.
(2) The following actions are not permitted at the EFCL and are defined as follows:
(a) Flaming- this is insulting a person or people in a deliberate attempt to offend or degrade them. At the EFCL, flaming is not permitted against Senators, or members of any other boards at which Senators post.
(i)Flames are allowed in The Duckblind as long as they are in the flame thread. The DB moderator will monitor the thread. For more details, please read the guidelines in the actual thread.
(b) Trolling- this is posting with the deliberate intent to anger another Senator, provoke them into flaming, or encourage ill feeling between Senators.
(c) Tag-teaming- this is where two or more Senators jointly troll or flame another Senator or Senators.
(d) Harassment- this is the utilisation of board software to harass other members by posting or sending messages with the explicit purpose of intimidating a Senator.
(e) Issuing Threats- this is threatening a Senator with behaviour prohibited by this section of the Constitution, or with any action prohibited by law in the country of either the Senator issuing the threat or the Senator receiving it.
(f) Violating Ownership- this is defined as posting or altering copyrighted materials that break intellectual property rules without express consent of the copyright owner or original author/artist. This applies to original materials created by EFCL members that are identified as such in the posts in which they appear.
(g) Posting Adult Material- this is posting anything that is considered pornographic or graphically violent. Nudity, and moderate violence may be permitted at the discretion of the forum moderator(s)/webmaster, however they reserve the right to enforce the use of warnings in thread titles, and the use of links to such material as opposed to the posting of it directly on the board. Threads of an overtly adult nature should be kept within the relevant forum (designated in the "Forums" section).
(h) Privacy Violation- this is posting real life details of Senators without their consent.
(i) Flooding- this is defined as posting multiple posts back-to-back in the same thread, or the bulk posting of off-topic / non-relevant material in multiple threads in the same forum or across the board. For the EFCL's purposes, it is regarded differently from spamming (see below).
(j) Spamming- At the EFCL, spamming is only forbidden in the "Operations" and "Proposals, Policies and Politics" sections. These forums are largely for the purpose of administrative functions and the mature and serious discussion of EFCL business. At the EFCL, any posts in the "Operations" or "Proposals, Policies, Politics" forums which are vastly off topic, or any conversations within these forums which deviate greatly from the business at hand can be treated as spamming. Often, this is at the discretion of the forum moderator, so all Senators should bear this in mind when posting.
(k) Leaking- Some forums on the board are hidden from view to non-members, for the mutual benefit and protection of the entire Senate. All forums in the Âgproposals, Policies and PoliticsÂh and ÂgDepartmentsÂh sections, amongst others, are hidden. EFCL takes the privacy of the Senate seriously. It is therefore forbidden to discuss events in these forums and to repost any material from these forums outside of their respective section (e.g. material from the Senate Chamber cannot be posted or discussed outside of the forums in the ÂgProposals, Policies and PoliticsÂh section). The exception to this is the discussion of such issues between Senators on board PM, e-mail, or other private communication. This excludes chatrooms if non-Senators are present or non-Senators are logging the discussion.
(l) ToS Violation- this is any action that violates the Terms of Service Agreement put forth by our host provider. It is important that every member read and be familiar with the Terms of Service as posted in the Help section.
(m) Unsolicited Reproduction- this is the posting on board of any correspondence that has not occurred in internet BBS forums, and has not been approved by a minimum of 75% of the participants of the correspondence. This includes, but is not restricted to: Instant Messaging conversations, Private Messages, e-mails, audio conversations and chatroom conversations/chat logs. Reproduction of such correspondence can only occur if at least 75% of the alleged participants agree to it. This can be done via contacting the forum moderator, an administrator, or posting consent publicly- however authorization must be given prior to the posting of the correspondence.
5. Warnings and Bans
(1) Warnings are given for serious violations of the Code of Conduct. Friendly advice is always preferable. Moderators should e-mail or PM the board user who has received the warning after they record it in the official topic (see below).
(2) Warnings expire individually every 6 calendar months (e.g. if you are warned on February 3rd, the warning will expire August 3rd)
(3) To facilitate ease of administration, warnings must be entered into a special thread in QSF. The thread will be 'pinned' at the top of the forum.
(4) The banning system relies on the total number of warnings a user has been issued. The thresholds for various lengths of bans are given below:
(a) 3 warnings = 1 day ban
(b) 5 warnings = 1 week ban
(c) warnings = 1 month ban
(d) 9 warnings = Senate vote to determine length of ban from the following choices:
(i) 3 month ban
(ii) 6 month ban
(iii) Permaban with 1 revote after 1 month away; if the vote is "No", ban is irrevocable.
(5) In serious cases involving an attack on the board from a user or a group of users, the Administrators may immediately ban the user(s) pending the appropriate number of warnings being issued. The appropriate ban length is then completed as normal.
(6) If a user is banned indefinitely, they may re-apply for membership one month or more after the ban began. They must contact an administrator, who will create a poll in the Senate Chamber. Other users will vote in the poll in full knowledge of the user's identity. The Administrators may veto the result of this poll.
(7) If the user's application is successful, they are readmitted to the board, but forfeit any post count, private message records, moderator privileges or access to private forums they had before ÂEhowever ÂEthey may take up their original username if they desire. The original user account should be deleted.
(8) If the reapplication is unsuccessful, the user is excluded from the board and will be given no further chances to return.
6. Appeals Process
(1) If any Senator feels they have been unjustly warned, they may appeal. They must PM the Appeals Judge within 48 hours after receiving the warning to set up your appeal.
(2) The Appeals Judge will pick five Senators at random (a utility in the Membership list has been provided for this) who will form The Appeal Council, as well as 2 additional Senators to act as Alternates if one of the original 5 cannot fulfill their duties. The Council and the 2 parties involved in the warning will be given access to the Appeals forum for the duration of the process. The Appeals Judge will open a topic in the Appeals forum where both the moderator and user each have 48 hours to make their cases.
(3) The defendant will make his case defending the warning first, and then the moderator will make his counter arguments. Failure of the moderator to state their case results in the warning being revoked; failure of the user to state their case results in the warning standing. Each party is allowed one rebuttal before the jurors render their decisions.
(4) If you wish to submit a PM as evidence, contact an Administrator to confirm that a PM is valid. Once it has been confirmed, you may submit it as evidence. The PM needs to be kept in your inbox in order to verify its authenticity. The Administrator in question will post a confirmation in the thread. For privacy reasons, any appeal that requires the submission of a PM will be held in a forum viewable only to those in the appeals group.
(5) After this, the 5 members of the Council must vote by posting either "Revoke" or "Remain." This will be done within a 48-hour period, but may be extended to the Judge's discretion. Any members of the Council who have not voted within this time shall forfeit their right to vote and may be replaced in the account of a deadlock (2-2 vote).
(6) The warning will then either remain on the user's permanent record or be revoked and erased. Completed appeals are moved to the Appeals Archive forum, which is locked but viewable to the entire membership. The Appeals Judge or Administrator may remove personal information and graphic content. Please note that due to time constraints, your appeal may be delayed until after an appeal already underway is completed.
(7) Only one appeal shall be active at any time when there is sensitive material present and no more than three appeals shall be held at any time.
7. Moderators and Assignments
(1) The primary task of a moderator is to ensure the smooth running of his/her forum. This includes:
(a) Moving topics to appropriate forums and splitting off posts into separate topics when required, managing sticky topics and announcements, and where appropriate (such as the Senate) locking topics or polls that have expired.
(b) Micromanagement of their forum, e.g. setting posting guidelines on forum-specific issues, e.g. the rules of RPGs or notices about spoilers. Editing or deleting posts when the author requests it and/or is unable. Editing posts that break the rules on behaviour so seriously the material is unacceptable, e.g. pornography.
(c) Moderators are also the first point of contact for posters on the board. Moderators may receive e-mail, instant messages, or private messages concerning various forum issues they will be required to deal with. Moderators shall refer any issues to the board Administrators if and when they feel this is necessary.
(d) The moderators and administrators have the use of a private forum. This forum shall only be open to them for viewing and posting. All moderators and administrators have the right to view and post in this forum.
(e) Temporary moderators will be appointed from the current moderators by the administrators in cases of Leaves of Absence (vacation, family issues, etc.). See the Elections & Reviews section for more information.
(2) Moderation of the EFCL by Forum:
(a) Announcements: Run by the Administrators.
(b) The News Room: Run by the News Director, under the auspices of the administrators.
(c) The Lounge: Two moderators.
(d) The Smoko Room & The Night Club: One moderator, over 21 years of age.
(e) The Duckblind: One moderator.
(f) Multimedia, Cyberlife and Fan Art/Fiction: One moderator handles all three forums.
(g) Science Fiction, Star Trek: One moderator handles both forums.
(h) Departments: One moderator per department, elected internally by the department members.
(i) Questions & Feedback: Run by the Administrators.
(j) Chatroom Q&F: Moderated by the Chat Administrator.
(k) The Senate Chamber: Run by the Administrators. Assisted by the Senate Speaker. The Speaker keeps track of all Senate business, setting up and maintaining a docket if necessary, setting up polls, keeping discussions on track, and seeing to the timely archiving of closed business.
(i) The Speaker is currently an inactive position, until such time as the Senate deems the position is once again needed.
(l) The Archive: Run by the Administrators.
(m) Bulletin Board Politics: One moderator. This should be the only forum they moderate, and this person should not be an Administrator.
Appeals Forum: Run by the Appeals Judge. The Judge is responsible for prioritizing, setting up, and running appeals.
8. Administrators
(1) Administrators must implement the results of Constitutional amendments or successful requests in the Senate, within a reasonable time.
(2) Administrators are responsible for implementing the requests of forum moderators (for example, prevent sticky topics from being posted, change the forum description, etc). Admins are responsible for overseeing the registration process and keeping the peace in Senate Invites. Admins additionally double as moderators in Announcements and QF.
(3) Admins also act as peacekeepers on the board. They can and will moderate any forum. They are expected to answer questions in QF and Announcements, and help to resolve disputes that spill over onto the board, as a backup for the moderators themselves.
(4) Admins are responsible for keeping the environment friendly, helpful, and inviting. Admins are responsible for organising elections (when the Senate Speaker is unavailable) and enacting bans if and when required.
(5) Administrators can also read private messages. This will only be done to confirm reported instances harassment, flaming, or other breaches of the Code of Conduct. Administrators can issue warnings for the content of a private message as per the rules set in the Code of Conduct, but, in general, will respect the privacy of your personal communications. Anything you do not want anyone to see should be done via e-mail or some other means not connected with the board.
(6) Only current moderators can be elected to the position of Administrator, and must have held their moderator position for a minimum of 30 days.
(7) No greater than 3 Administrators will serve at any given time unless a proposal to increase or decrease this number is presented and enacted within the Senate. If need be, Temporary administrators will be appointed from the current moderators by the elected administrators in cases of Leaves of Absence (vacation, family issues, etc.). See the Elections & Reviews section for more information.
9. Leaves of Absence
(1) The EFCL recognizes real life must take priority over board life, therefore up to one month of staff absence without checking in is allowed, so long as the staff member has notified the Senate prior to departing.
(a) Unplanned Leaves of up to 2 weeks are acceptable.
Leaves of absence that exceed 2 weeks should be announced to the Senate.
(b) If a staff member needs to leave for over 1 month, a new election will be held for that position.
(c) If a staff member vacates their position for over 14 days (excluding Leaves of Absence), they will be replaced by election.
(2) If a Leave is due to last longer than planned, the staff member should make an effort to contact the EFCL. This includes, but is not restricted to, e-mailing someone to ask them to request an extension on their behalf, stating any reasons they feel compelled to give, or posting themselves to request an extension.
(3) A maximum extension of 2 weeks may be granted. After this, the normal rule of "2 weeks absence and you're out" applies. A poll will be taken in the Senate as to whether any extension will be granted (i.e., if the Senate feels the extension to be necessary). This should not be a regular scenario, since most Leaves will not be longer than 1 month.
10. Elections and Reviews
(1) Eligibility & Limitations
(a) A poster is eligible to be a mod if they have been at the board for at least two months and have not earned a warning in the past month. If a candidate wishes to make speeches or campaign, they may open a separate thread in the Senate; they should not do so in either the Nominating or voting threads. Campaigning via PM is not allowed, and grounds for disqualification, and should be reported to the Admins.
(b) Senators may win and hold no more than 2 EFCL staff positions simultaneously. If a Senator is elected a third full-term position, a choice must be made immediately which 2 position the Senator intends to keep. A staff member who is asked to temporarily take a vacated position is exempt from the rule, provided they hold the position for no more than 14 days without an election. After 14 days, an election must be held or another staff member should be appointed to fill in. This applies to all staff: administrators, moderators, and/or any other elected/appointed position that includes the use of the Mod CP in its duties.
(2) Nominations & Voting
(a) Modships for each area would have a separate election. Members should nominate themselves, not others. All candidates receiving a "seconded" vote from another member in the Nominations thread will be considered for voting. In the Voting thread, members would vote for the one candidate they feel should be Mod.
(b) If a mod or admin steps down within 30 days of taking up his post, the person that came 2nd in the election is automatically given the post, without the need for a new election. This only applies in Alternative Vote elections.
(c) When there are only two nominees, a simple majority poll is held. The nominee with the most votes gets the position.
(3) Staff Reviews
(a) Every 3 months, all administrators and moderators will be subject to a review. On set dates (January 10th, April 10th, July 10th, October 10th) of each year, the reviews will take place.
(b) A review forum will be created in the PPP section that is hidden all year to all but the moderators/administrators except for the 10th to the 15th of January, April, July and October of each year. On the 10th of these months, a poll will be opened for each admin/mod position and occupant on the board. For example, if a mod were assigned to two fora as one duty then theyÂfd have one poll; if they were an admin also, or held two fora as two separate positions then there would be two polls.
(c) Posters vote for one of 3 options for 3 days under the poll question "Are you satisfied with the job (name of moderator/administrator) is doing?Âh These options are "Yes", "No", and "Abstain". Posters may also post constructive criticism and comments in these threads. At the end of 3 days (some time on the 13th), the polls are closed and the results are tabulated and posted in the Announcements forum.
(d) If a moderator's approval rating is 60% or over "Yes", they retain their position. If it is less than 60% "Yes", the original moderator must step down, and an election is held to determine a successor in that position.
(e) Moderators can serve up to 3 consecutive terms with a review at the end of each one. Upon the fourth, they have a review but their position must go up for election whatever the outcome. They can still enter and win this election; if they do, it is counted as their first term and they may serve another two consecutive terms before mandatory re-election.
(f) Staff members must have held office for at least a month before being reviewed.
(4) Terms
(a) Terms for Mods should run until their next staff review. For all Modships, a vote of "No Confidence" in the Senate would prompt removal from the position, followed by a new election. The removed Mod would be eligible to run again in any election following the one necessitated by his/her removal.
11. Politics and the Senate
(1) Discussion of Politics
(a) Threads discussing bulletin board politics must remain in the forums of the Proposals, Policies and Politics (PPP) section. A staff member will move any political threads not started in the PPP section to the appropriate political forum. All discussions in the PPP section are private, and are not to be quoted or discussed on the non-political EFCL forums or on any other board. Any member who leaks material posted in the PPP by another member will receive a warning.
(i) The only exception to the above restrictions will be announcements regarding elections. Administrators may alert members that elections are taking place or post election results using the global announcement function. Since these are not threads for discussion of elections, administrators should lock them immediately.
(2) Voting and Polls
(a) All official polls ratifying an idea, motion or amendment should contain three options - 'Yes/Agree', 'No/Disagree' and 'Abstain'. Polls where several policies are competing should have one option for each candidate or policy, plus an additional 'Abstain' option.
(b) All polls except the special polls outlined below use simple majority voting. If Yes votes outweigh No votes, then the motion is carried, otherwise rejected. Additionally, if zero votes are cast, or the No votes and Yes votes are tied, the poll will be presented again to allow Senators to change their votes. No vote will be changed in a currently running poll. An Administrator should post polls in the Senate Chamber forum after a discussion topic in the Senate outlining ideas and opinions.
(c) The discussion should last a minimum of 72 hours and will be extended in 24-hour increments as long as necessary for the Senators to understand the proposal. The Speaker will state the proposal and poll options in the discussion thread prior to starting the poll and will give the Senators 24 hours for further questions.
(d) The poll will be started on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday GMT and will last 72 hours. The Speaker may extend the poll by 24 hours if it's started on a Thursday and Senators make it known in the discussion thread that it's a holiday/long weekend where they live.
(e) The Administrators may declare a recess of up to one month no more than two times a year, and up to one week no more than 4 times a year.
(f) All members are encouraged to participate in public discussion about poll options. Members may also discuss polls in chat, emails, private messages and private forums, but only so long as they are discussing topics, arguments, facts and accusations that have already been made public. If members discuss any material, make any argument or allege any fact touching on a current poll that has not been previously posted in the PPP section, they are required to post that private communication in the relevant discussion or poll thread. An inability to prove that a particular private discussion of a poll was within the above rules will be considered a breach of this provision. Members are encouraged to keep logs of all discussions regarding polls as a means of proving that they were legitimate.
(g) Any use of private communication, whether it be email, private message, chat or a private forum, to subvert the lawful democratic functioning of a current poll will not be tolerated. Any member who bribes, threatens, knowingly misleads or otherwise manipulates or plots to manipulate members in order to achieve a certain poll result will receive a warning and be removed from any official EFCL post. Any polls tainted by such behaviour will be nullified.
(h) Polls not in the Senate Chamber, Senate Invites forum, or the Staff Review System are unofficial, and, as such, can have any options, can last any length, and can be started for any reason.
(i) Members holding dormant accounts on the EFCL, which have less than 20 posts, recorded in the last 30 days will be automatically denied the right to vote in Polls in any forum in Operations or Proposals, Policies and Politics. Voting rights shall be automatically restored to the member once they have made the required number of posts.
(j) If any of the above procedures or rules is not followed for a particular poll, that poll will be declared invalid and an administrator will start a second poll.
(3) Board Changes
(a) Changes to the board and its forums are addressed democratically at the EFCL.
(b) If a user would like to change one of the aspects of the board, they must post a discussion thread in The Senate Chamber, outlining their proposal. Discussion length and voting follows the outline above in Voting & Polls.
12. Usergroups
(1) EFCL utilizes Usergroups to separate its membership into different roles in the operation of the board. The two types of groups available are Staff Usergroups and Department Usergroups.
(a) Staff Usergroups
(i) The Staff Usergroups are groups are made up of members who carry out specialized board functions. The available Staff Usergroups on EFCL currently are: Administrators, Appeals Group, Chatroom Staff, Moderators, and News Team.
(ii) Administrators / Moderators - This is a closed usergroup. Only elected or temporary board Administrators and Moderators will be in this group.
(iii) Appeals Group - This is a closed usergroup made up of all those involved in a current appeal, including both parties in the warning, the judge, the arbiters, and the reserve arbiters. Arbiters and reserve arbiters are chosen at random from the member list by the appeals judge. All members are only members for the duration of the applicable appeal, excluding the appeals judge, who moderates the group in addition to overseeing all appeals.
(iv) Chatroom Staff - These serve as Operators in the non-affiliated #efcl chatroom located on irc.terransystem.com server. Only the main Chat Administrator of the group will serve as forum moderator for the Chat Questions & Feedback Forum. This is a closed usergroup.
(v) News Team - These serve as reporters on the EFCL News Team. While this is a closed usergroup, members may apply with the group moderator to join the News Team. Only members of this group will have access rights to post a thread in the News Forum, however any unrestricted member may read and post replies in the News Forum.
(b)Department Usergroups
(i) The Department Usergroups are themed groups serving the function of lounges.
(ii) The available Department Usergroups on EFCL currently are: Engineering/Operations, Medical/Science, and Security/Tactical
(iii) Newly registered users may request to join any preferred department by posting in the Department Transfer thread, which is located in the Questions and Feedback Forum. If a member wishes to switch to a new department, they should do so by making a formal request in the Department Transfer thread. It will be the task of the Department Moderators to add and remove members of their respective departments.
(iv) Once a request is made in the Department Transfer thread, either the proper department moderators will remove/add the user, or an Administrator will do so. Moderators should PM each other to notify the other that they have successfully removed or added the user. All changes should be well documented in the Department Transfer thread. Only Administrators and Forum Moderators will have the ability to moderate (i.e. add/remove group members) the members of that group.
(v) As per anywhere else on the board, non-relevant posts can and will be deleted by the Administrators discretion from the Q&F Department transfer thread.
(c) The Moderators of The News Room, Chatroom Q&F, and the Departments will also be the Group Moderator for those respective groups.
