Staff Policies

Management Philosophy

The staff team at New Era firmly believes in minimizing the impact of our actions on your character's day-to-day life. Our goal is to operate entirely behind the scenes, so you'll never feel our influence on your roleplay. Immersion is a big deal for us, and we hope it is for you, too!

Player issues are handled entirely through our Discord. Our city policy strictly prohibits any interference with ongoing roleplay, so we will never ban or kick a player engaged in an active scene UNLESS they are being a terrorist on the server. We also won't use in-city communication to make announcements or communicate changes to the server with you - that will all be handled through Discord.

Any player who assumes a staff member role is discouraged from holding any powerful positions in the city (i.e. LSPD High Command, gang leader, Mayor) unless their role in that position is absolutely necessary. This is to help with the optics often associated with positions of power and perceived favoritism.

We want to be transparent with you in hopes that you'll trust us to do what's right for our community and our server. Please check out the sections below to learn more about each staff role we have in New Era, including their responsibilities and powers.

For our policies regarding player reports and our expectations of you as a player when communicating with staff in tickets, please see our Server Policies.

Support Staff

Responsibilities:

Monitors the Discord to ensure the Community Guidelines are being followed in all channels
Answers questions in Help Chat
Answers general support tickets submitted by players
Represents the server well by being an example of good roleplay in the city and demonstrate sound judgement when communicating with others

Support staff are the first point of contact for players who submit a general support ticket through our Discord. They are active and trusted members of our community who have voluntarily applied to be in their role. Support staff are expected to assist with tickets, help maintain Discord channels, and report issues they see while in the city to the Administration team. They are held to a higher standard of behavior and roleplay than most and are expected to lead by example both in and out of city.

Support staff DO NOT have moderator privileges, God powers, or the ability to kick or ban players from the server or the Discord. They cannot and will not handle issues while in active roleplay and should not be approached as staff members while in character.

Support staff do not have access to tickets submitted as confidential, but they do have access to other tickets. Support staff are expected to treat tickets with confidentiality. If a support staff member is found to have used information learned in a ticket to influence their roleplay, they will face disciplinary action.

Moderators

Responsibilities:

Inherits all the responsibilities of Support Staff
Assists the administration team by monitoring in-city activity, investigating and managing player reports, and assisting with certain adminstrative tasks

Moderators are extremely trusted, veteran members of our community who have demonstrated excellent problem-solving skills, level-headed decision making, and who uphold our community values and our server. Moderators are held to an extremely high standard of behavior and roleplay and are expected to lead by example both in and out of city.

Moderators have certain administrative powers in the server and the ability to kick players from the server or the Discord. They cannot use these administrative privileges without approval, and they are prohibited from using commands that give them advantages over others in roleplay. They cannot and will not handle issues while in active roleplay and should not be approached as staff members while in character.

Moderators do not have access to tickets submitted as confidential, but may be asked to assist with the investigation of those tickets if they have no ties to the issue, after prior screening from the administration team.

Administrators

Responsibilities:

Inherits all the responsibilities of Support Staff & Moderators
Oversees the direction of the city, including server features and projects
Manages the New Era Discord
Maintains New Era social media, website, marketing materials, etc.
Holds the staff and fellow administrators accountable for unacceptable behavior in the server

Administrators operate as community managers for New Era and project managers for the development team. They ensure that the overall vision of the server is maintained, projects stay on track, and they make all final decisions on disciplinary rulings. This position carries significant responsibility, requires dedication to the server, and is not to be taken lightly. Administrators must follow all rules of the server and are held accountable for their actions, just like any other player in the community.

Administrators have full administrative privileges while in the city, including God mode, and have the ability to kick or ban players from the server or the Discord at any time. They use their privileges only when monitoring active player issues in the server, or when it is necessary for them to utilize commands to assist players. Administrators use separate characters that are detached from the community while actively performing their administrative duties in the server. They cannot and will not handle issues while in active roleplay and should not be approached as staff members while in character.

Administrators have access to all channels in the Discord server, including tickets.

Developers

Responsibilities:

Develops new features and systems for New Era
Performs QA testing on all new features
Squashes bugs in New Era

The New Era Development team are professional software engineers and architects as their full-time careers and use their real-world experience to build New Era. Their focus is on the server from a technical perspective, and they work to implement the vision for New Era that the Administrators have designed. Because developers build and configure every system in New Era, they stay removed from frequent roleplay and do not hold any impactful or significant positions in city.

In order to troubleshoot technical issues in the live server, Developers have full administrative privileges. Developers use separate characters that are detached from the community while actively performing their development duties in the server. They cannot and will not handle issues while in active roleplay and should not be approached as staff members while in character.

Developers do not participate in any player disciplinary actions, and only have access to tickets from players regarding bugs and technical issues.