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.
