A ruleset for minecraft servers
This document is in progress!!
Almost all rules in this document are put in place to protect players. Most rules can be overwritten if the right player grants permission.
Throughout this document moderators, owners, and overseers will be referred to as admins.
In general if a piece of land seems modified in any meaningful way, it's probably someone's hard work and may be considered their property. Players are advised to attempt to be aware of others' property boundaries.
A player with ownership powers over a section of the world has absolute say about it second to the server admins. There are several states they can put their land into that will affect how other players may interact with it. In general one may define their own policy, but here some common examples:
-Public - Players may travel through and modify the land without permission.
-View only - Same as the above but the owner need not be present.
-View only while present - Players may freely travel onto this land only when the owner is present to supervise. Guests still must not modify in any way (including opening chests - must be enforced) the land without explicit permission.
-No Trespassing - No player may physically travel onto this land or remotely affect this land in any way without explicit permission. In order to enforce this in any way the owner would likely have to make it very clear where their boundaries are and what the policy is.
Since boundary finding can be a fluid process, if you wish to have a stricter policy it may be wise to create a border that illustrates clearly the edge of the land and have clear markings/signs that convey what guests may do. This may or may not be required at the discretion of the admins.
Some of these rules may be bendable depending on the situation and the admins. For instance, if a player wanted to enforce a no trespassing policy on their land but didn’t put up well-defined borders, it may be that the infringing player may not know they have done anything wrong and the admins may determine a simple warning.
Property damage, or griefing, may be as much as adding or removing a few blocks. Just remember that this is someones safe space that they've worked hard to maintain.
In general, violations of property damage may incur a sentence requiring the offender to reverse all damages to their original state and a fine. this may change based on the situation.
Trespassing may incur a fee.
If a player continues to show disrespect to the community, a ban may be necessary.
Server spawn area is generally a special kind of territory set aside for all players to pass through.
In general if something seems modified from its original state it may belong to someone. Items on a player's property have special protections. Items elsewhere that obviously belong to someone (ie a shulker box sitting somewhere or a diamond sword in a chest near a nether portal) also are generally under protection.
--can use more--
Punching someone with a fist, or even sometimes with a sword, can be on accident at times. That being said, nobody likes getting killed without their asking and this can be a serious crime. If however a player is being attacked illegally and has explicitly stated they do not want to be attacked, they may attack back to defend themselves.
--can use more-- Nations or Groups are a collection of people that agree to operate in consensus and often will pool/share resources. A nation as a whole or by it's leader may decide to reissue land or change group policy which may be contrary to a single individual depending on the nation's policy. examples of nations policies are like the land owned by the individual or by the collective.
"War contracts" or just policy contracts in general should be an essential part of an active server. To keep the server active, some players enjoy conflict or "a little trolling" from time to time. For the purposes of war between players or official/established groups/nations, a set of guidelines may be set between nations or individuals, overriding previously set regulations, including but not limited to griefing, stealing, and trespassing. If both parties were to agree, effectively all rules could be abandoned within established war zones, which changes in rules and policy for the purposes of the war would be limited to. effectively allowing nations to collectively determine "war crimes".
This ruleset is put into place to protect players who would like to opt out of such interactions. If a player would like to opt-in, they may accept/use various contracts/agreements to disable certain restrictions. There are many combinations for these but a common example would be a player who wants to live in anarchy might enact a policy that says "Any player may do anything to them and their property as long as they also have this agreement" thereby saying if another player agrees, they may both play with "all bets are off" anarchy style ruling.
This rule is at the discretion of the admins; by default, hacked clients that give major or medium assists are prohibited. Small QOL modifications like WAILA are fine, but for anything that would give you a leg up on other players (like a minimap) you should consult the admins. If hacking persists after being warned, kicks/bans may ensue.
These are all general guidelines as the exact setup of the server is in the end, at the discretion of the admins.
It is necessary to have at least one operator on a server if only for moderation enforcement purposes. But in general operators should be very held back in the use of their privileges. For example, while it may be convenient and timely to TP people to each other at casual times, it may not be in line with the server spirit and may undermine the capabilities of players without operator permissions. to continue
kicking is a powerful tool that can be used in a timely moderation situation