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F&H Internet Guidelines v2.1

Changes since version 2.0 are shown in blue

Purpose
The existence of branch, guild and church web pages and the bulletin boards has contributed to communication within the society and recruitment of new players. As such F&H encourages and intends to support their existence and creation. However there are excesses in online activity which are proving detrimental to some players and some aspects of the game. The intention of this document is to clarify the use of email, bulletin boards and the position of the Fools and Heroes Society on web pages and mailing lists. In particular we intend to provide some general "common sense" guidelines which we hope will contribute to everyone's long-term enjoyment of the game.
Please note that these are guidelines only and, except in the case of excessive abuse, no official action will be taken if they are broken apart from those cases where it is explicitly stated otherwise. The intention is to improve the "signal to noise" ratio and prevent players feeling hassled or misrepresented by online events. There will clearly be occasions where the spirit of these guidelines is better maintained by breaking them than by adhering to them. However in most cases we urge a little thought before they are broken since experience (both within F&H and the Internet/Usenet community as a whole) has shown that these are situation which often cause problems and stress.

Content of Web Pages
F&H encourages all branches and in character organisations to have web sites.
Web pages are all visible to members of the general public and so should contain no abusive or profane material that might bring the society into a bad light.
A person's email address should not be put on web sites without the knowledge and consent of that person.

We advise that other contact details such as phone numbers and physical addresses should not be made available online at all. However all web pages should provide contact details for the "owner" of that site. In the case of branch web pages we also advise that a contact is provided for the LO or other person prepared to handle inquiries about the branch - if different from the web page maintainer.

No portion of the Players' Hand Book or Refs' guide should appear on the Web except in designated secure areas if appropriate. Electronic versions of some sections may be made available to facilitate printing/reprinting, but there are copyright issues and this should not be done without consulting central.
The Society does not accept any responsibility for material placed upon any Fools and Heroes Web Site unless it has been approved by the Exec, or a majority of the Executive Officers

The society requests that all web site owners keep the webcoordinators informed of who is responsible for the sites. Central frequently receives requests for amendments to these sites, e.g. changes of email address or offers of assistance in their maintenance and it is frustrating if we don't know who to contact about the matter.
Web pages should link to the central website.

The security of web based knowledge relies entirely upon the webmaster's programming skill/knowledge and them having the resources to get a site with full CGI access and not at all on their character's ability to keep stuff safe. Similarly someone's ability to get to that web based knowledge relies upon their programming/hacking knowledge and not at all on their character's ability to pick locks/get into and out of somewhere unseen, etc. Consequently any information obtained by hacking a web site is not IC, and any member deliberately acquiring information in this manner is subject to the same disciplinary proceedings as any other cheating.

Fools and Heroes recommends that at all times there are two people capable of editing or moderating a web page particularly in the case of web pages relevant to guilds and churches. This is intended to ease the handover of administration as players change character.

Content of Bulletin Boards (for Owners/Moderators)
Bulletin boards are all visible to members of the general public and so should contain no abusive or profane material that might bring the society into a bad light.
All bulletin boards should provide contact details for the "owner" of that board.

The society requests that board moderators keep the webcoordinators informed of who is responsible for them. Central frequently receives requests for amendments to these boards, e.g. changes of email address or offers of assistance in their maintenance and it is frustrating if we don't know who to contact about the matter.

All bulletin boards should include a link to the F&H Internet guidelines.

Fools and Heroes recommends that at all times there are two people capable of editing or moderating a noticeboard particularly in the case of noticeboards relevant to guilds and churches. This is intended to ease the handover of administration as players change character.
The webcoordinators must be provided with moderation access to all noticeboards that are linked from the central website. The status of noticeboards not linked from the central website is unclear but the webcoordinators will not consider complaints nor arbitrate in disputes arising from messages posted to such boards.

Bulletin Board Post Content
Most bulletin boards generally represent a physical noticeboard together, sometimes, with a physical location. Messages may be sent to the noticeboards by pigeon and clearly there is some way of learning (probably also by pigeon) what else has been posted to the noticeboard. Where there is a physical location conversation and other interactions (such as consuming drinks, hitting and healing people) may occur and it is presumed that it is rumours of these events that reach other characters by an ePigeon gossip who observes events. Most, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are a public forum and can be eavesdropped on by good and bad alike (E.g. a market place or tavern).

Mostly it is possible to regard all posts to noticeboards as letters and these can be sent at any time from anywhere in the country. Sometimes this clearly does not make sense (e.g. when someone offers to buy a round or when nothing is actually said, only an action is stated). Several players find it spoils their suspension of disbelief to witness instantaneous travel between places. As much as possible therefore, players are asked not to interact in a fashion which would require the physical presence of their character on more than one board at a time. There is clearly a convention in the society that a character can get very quickly from one town to another, but apart from anything else if engaged in physical interactions on two boards there is a risk that the players will get confused over the sequence of events.

Please read the introduction to a bulletin board before posting and interact in an appropriate way. On many noticeboards in character censorship is exercised by the heads of guilds and churches, F&H considers this completely acceptable within the game. Similarly F&H has no problem with board moderators removing inappropriate posts from boards. Only if a player feels they are being consistently and unfairly censored across a number of boards will the executive consider complaints about moderation policy.

Posting information to a noticeboard is not the same thing as making it widely known. If you want something distributed to an entire guild or church or even the entire society then it should be sent to the secretary for inclusion in the next LO pack. Noticeboards are a useful addition to and back up for the official channels but they should not be regarded as a replacement for them. No one should be penalized for not knowing something posted only to a noticeboard. No one should be expected to have read all the noticeboards even if they regularly post to some noticeboard. Similarly no one should presume someone has read all the messages on a board even if they have posted to that board. When discussing something happening on a noticeboard with anyone not immediately involved in that discussion please make sure you make it clear where the discussion happened and what the context is. People should not expect immediate responses from specific characters for noticeboard messages, or even any response at all, if that player does not look at the boards

Players are asked to consider whether their character is likely to be having a discussion in a particular location and try to keep roleplaying consistent with the world. e.g. Necromancers should not be discussing dead bodies in the Vleyborian Chapel.

A person's email address should not be posted to noticeboards without the knowledge and consent of that person. We advise that other contact details such as phone numbers and physical addresses should not be made available online at all.

No rituals, spell castings or other rules' based actions which normally require a referee's presence should be performed on noticeboards.
No one can be put in sin, excommunicated, killed or otherwise disadvantaged as a result of noticeboard posts because of the authentication problem. If the player can be firmly identified and is happy to roleplay the consequences then this guideline may be set aside.

All noticeboard postings should be signed by the player's real name (first name or initial and surname) and/or membership number. Nicknames are not acceptable. In threads the full name need only be posted once after which unambiguous abbreviations (e.g. initials, first name only, etc.) will be acceptable. Moderators are encouraged to remove unsigned email. Deliberate fraud, i.e. signing someone else's name, where the perpetrator can be discovered will be considered cause for disciplinary action.
Public noticeboards are not an appropriate forum for the discussion of particular decisions taken by Fools and Heroes referees and moderators are encouraged to remove such postings if they are deemed likely to cause offense even if that was not the poster's intention.
All posts to bulletin boards should observe the society netiquette (set out below)

Email
Email in game terms is considered to be a fast form of pigeon based communication "the ePigeon", presumably with some magical component. It costs nothing in character. The contents of email messages should considered private and confidential amongst all participants and should not be made widely available without the consent of the sender and anyone whose own email is quoted within them.

The society encourages good communication between LOs, Guild Heads, Church Heads, the central officers and other members. However, the only way to guarantee a response is to send a physical letter enclosing an SAE. Email is clearly much more convenient for many people and we encourage the holders of both in character and out of character offices to provide an up-to-date email contact and to respond to communications sent by those means . However, no one should expect a response to email (even one marked urgent) in under a week and should be aware that communication may take much longer than that. People have intermittent email access - despite the illusion, this is not an instant medium. Care should be taken when sending email to a work address. If an alternative has been provided then a member is entitled to ignore any message sent to their work address.

All emails sent as part of the conduct of the society should observe the society netiquette (set out below)

Mailing Lists
The F&H Electronic Mailing List is the property of the Fools and Heroes Society and will not be sold or passed on to any other organisation for their use.
By default, all other mailing lists associated with the society will not be sold or passed on to any other organisation for their use unless this is explicitly stated in the mailing list description. Any member found passing on a list to another organisation without approval from the Exec will be subject to disciplinary action. There are Data Protection Issues here.

The society requests that mailing list owners keep the webcoordinators informed of who is responsible for them.

All emails sent to society mailing lists should observe the society netiquette (set out below)

Fools and Heroes recommends that at all times there are two people capable of editing or moderating a mailing list particularly in the case of mailing lists relevant to guilds and churches. This is intended to ease the handover of administration as players change character. The webcoordinators are prepared to hold passwords to mailing lists and act in the role of secondary moderator if required.


Society Netiquette
It is well known that the sort of interaction where people can not see each others faces or hear their voices represented by email and noticeboards is peculiarly inclined to become confrontational. Furthermore it is very hard to authenticate the identity of anyone posting to a noticeboard. As such F&H strongly advises that quarrels started online should be backed up by face-to-face communication before they get out of hand. Guild and Church heads and LOs should not be held responsible for the online behaviour of their members. Many do not have the time to police it. It is perfectly legitimate to complain to them but please be clear when and where the offense took place and do not expect them to be aware of the problem.

Be careful when dragging people into local plot. While it makes sense for players from Guildford to interact with London plot, it does not make sense for players from Edinburgh to interact with Portsmouth plot. There is nothing wrong with this if both the players and refs are happy with the situation but players should not be able to dictate the behaviour of NPCs in branches at which they will never realistically adventure if the refs do not wish it. In general people should remember we are a live-roleplaying system not a play by email system and reasonable attempts should be made to leave plot to players who are actually likely to participate in adventures involving that plot. This will also help to prevent all plot decisions filtering up to the dozen or so players with positions and allows more lowly characters to feel they have an influence on events.

General netiquette applies to all F&H bulletin boards and mailing lists. This includes:

• Attempt to be polite and courteous at all times. Make it clear if you are joking by the use of "smileys" (the symbol :-) ). Try not to post when angry.
• Do not post to a noticeboard or mailing list until you have read several of the existing posts and are confident of the nature of the noticeboard and the appropriate forms of interaction.
• Do not flame, by which is meant posting messages containing personal abuse or heated criticism. Care should be taken when abuse is directed at a character since such abuse can tread a very thin line between being in and being out of character. Whatever the situation, PCs should consider this flaming, even if players do not.
• Do not troll, by which is meant posting messages that are intended only to provoke controversy, cause offense or provoke flames.
• If humanly possible do not respond to flames or trolls unless it is to request the board moderator remove the offending message.
• Do not spam, by which is meant posting the same message to every, or even most, noticeboards or email every email address you can find. F&H considers the National Adventurers Notices to be the appropriate place for all in character messages and the OOC Noticeboard to be the appropriate place for all out of character messages. All players are encouraged to check the National Adventurers Notices and OOC Noticeboard alongside any other noticeboards they consider relevant to their character.
• Do not crosspost, by which is meant posting messages from one public board or mailing list to another. If a discussion on one noticeboard or mailing list is of interest to people on another simply draw their attention to the fact. Be especially careful when posting the contents of a post or email made by someone else, they may feel it is being taken out of context and technically it is their copyright.
• If a conversation has developed to a point where it only involves two or three people and is no longer of general interest please take it to private email (e.g. negotiations for the sale of goods).

Note that these netiquette rules (especially those applying to flaming and privacy) can be considerably relaxed among participants who know each other well. "Evil" NPCs can, as a matter of course, be expected to flame and troll but should be treated in character with the contempt they deserve.