SoL System

First topic message reminder :

This topic will be an explanation of SoL as a political system and community. This is for every member, who needs to discover or recall how the things are going in this clan. And it’s for every recruit, who is led here by the questionnaire.
This is mean to be introducing but detailed. It shall also solve problems of denominations, like: what is a commoner? what is an administrative? But as this is a really huge topic, it will be enough to read the first chapter called "General" only, if you want a basic overview. It will be enough then to talk to older members and read the explanations for the different places of the clan.
The Topic will also provide several perspectives on the system and supported by different schematic illustrations. And because of it's length it will have summaries at different places, that have a different color. After reading the "General" chaper, you can start reading the summaries and the spoilers. And if you still don't have enough, you can take the time and read the whole text. Step by step.

General

Sunrise of Liberty is a democratic republic. That means, that the policy of the clan is focused on the wishes and needs of the members. The democracy is expressed by elections: Everyone in this clan, who is given power to, or who is taking any decisions, is voted by the community. It also means that SoL has no leader. No-one is deciding alone about the rules, organization or anything regarding the clan. The body performing those kinds of work is the Council of SoL, which contains 7 members of the Clan, who all are elected as being the most caring and best contributing members of SoL, in elections taking place every 6 months.

The life of SoL is primarily taking place on the Server and on the Forum. There is also a quite vivid network on MSN and Xfire, but those remain only for private usage. As this is a Clan of a game, the Server is probably the most important place to meet: it’s what this whole thing is about. Additionally this clan is mostly based on our own server: SoL represents a dying way of playing this game, and our server is one of the last places to find that, which is probably the reason, why the clan's life is mainly happening on our own server.
To maintain the server we need our server administrators, server admins. They are handed out powers to keep the server working, to keep the atmosphere of the server as friendly and positive as possible, to arrange variety, thrill and fun.
The forum is the place for information, organization and further communication. To keep it working we need administrators and moderators. To provide a working democracy you need a lot of available information and lot of bureaucracy, which is ensured by the forum and their administration and moderation. And that the communication stays on a friendly and positive level is watched and handled by the moderators mainly.

As this clan is a democracy, we rely heavily on the participation of as most people as possible. Members are asked to keep giving their input, expressing their wishes and needs and offer solutions. The political life of SoL doesn’t end with elections. If you want to participate more, you are welcome to bring yourself in more. But if you don’t want to participate, no-one will force you to. The place for such input is the Synergy forums.

SoL evolved from the clan ATS. The members suffered a dictatorship of an ignorant and unfair leader. Within the development the changes that have been made are reasoned to avoid such a situation again and provide a atmosphere for the members, where they can speak out what they think, want and need; where they can participate as they wish; where they are considered as valuable personalities; and where they can enjoy the game as they wish to do that, as long as they follow a basic guideline of behaviour.

Hierarchy and Powers

The existence of recruits, who aren’t members yet, admins with powers, and council members with right to decide things, creates a hierarchy: A ranking of which positions in this clan are more important, which have more say, more power and more duties. This makes it seem as if in this clan not everyone is equal: but on the other hand, in the election for those positions, everybody, old member or newcomer, has only one vote, and everyone has the same chance to achieve such a position like anybody else.
But the needs for such an allocation and division of power are obvious: Not everyone wants or is able to perform such duties. and not everyone is suitable to be an admin, as it requires conditions like activity, high sincerity, calmness and patience etc. And one simple reason remains: We don’t need 40 admins at a time.

The least responsible people in this clan are the recruits: they are no members yet, so they aren’t allowed to vote, which is the most important instrument of power in SoL. And they are not allowed to be voted. The only exception is in Council Elections, where they are allowed to vote alongside the normal members. On the other hand the recruits enjoy the most benefits, which the members enjoy, as they can access nearly every forum, as they are allowed to wear the tag and as they take part at entertainment events. Recruits are considered as part of the clan.
Because of that it is a quite long way to become a member: You need to apply, answering questions to show, if you fit into the clan, then you get a poll after you got to know some more of the members. Through the poll the members decide if you can be a recruit, or not. If not, you still have other chances. If you make it, it's at least one month before you can get another poll, which decides if you are accepted as a member.
Such a poll is made by the older members, who have enough knowledge about the rules to make a valid poll.

The next stage is being a member. They have the possibility to strive for any higher stage, and they decide who reach such stages. The responsibility may not be so obvious, but in the end, it’s the highest of all, because every power of the clan has its origins in the group of members. They also make the recruit and member polls. Therefore they have to keep in mind the waiting times, the recruit tournaments and the chances for the (possible) recruit. There is no need to set up a poll that is going to fail, unless thats the aim of the poll.

The most executive power is in the hands of the admins and moderators, but even they only follow and secure the rules set by the council, those two are going to be explained further.

The Combination of all that’s already explained leads to following rough illustration of the SoL Hierarchy. It is really rough, and requires the reading of the explanation text in the following spoiler, to avoid misunderstandings:

Spoiler:

Before i begin then to explain the duties of the SoL officials - which means the members that went successfully through any kind of election and perform any "office", in other words: server and forum admins and the moderators and the council - i provide a topic with a slender overview on those officials, including procedures on special occasions regarding those:
SoL Officials.

The Administratives

An Administrative is a person in the clan, who has any executive duty, which means that he has power to perform commands in order to enforce the rules and the aims of the clan. such as keep peace on the server or provide some entertainment there. or to maintain the forum or organize elections there. etc.
So administratives are the server administrators, the forum administrators and the forum moderators.
Every administrative is elected by the members and because of that chosen as the best to perform that powers. And they are required to be very active on the forum and on the server.

There are three different kinds of server admins. HC admins, DC admins and SA admins. The SA admins are replaced by a member chat, and don’t exist anymore as such. The only commands left to the SA admin space are the SA chat and the command to see who else of the clan is online. So every member is able to see the actual password for the SA admins on a topic of the "Special Information" forum and can access to the member chat then.

The DC admins are mostly there to police the server. Unfortunately there are coming people to our server, who disrespect the rules. DC admins try to keep the environment on the server friendly and nice. And if they are forced to take any other steps on certain people, they are equipped with commands, which they can handle lamers and laggers and others. There have been and still are big discussions about the work of the administrators regarding this issues, especially about "laming". Thats why further closeup on such acts of hassle as a guide for admins was made. However, DC admins also are there to provide variety and entertainment on the server, and they organize flame tournaments.

The HC admins have even more duties than the DC admins. Additionally to those they need to maintain the server, which means to keep it working, if anything doesn’t work anymore. They are the only ones who can add new maps to the server. They are also there to watch the work of the DC admins and control their rights and commands.

On the forum the moderators work as the police. They ensure the friendly climate on the forums. They also perform lots of small works and updates on several things on the forum, for example updating the rank on the profile (not the saber though).
Similar to the HC admins on the server the forum admins maintain the forum. They make the setup and organize the categories and forums and update the html pages. Providing the information is mainly the work of the forum admins. But they also watch the work of the moderators and manage their rights.

The amount of administratives is set by the Council. After the Elections took place, there is the possibility to add further admins, if they are needed. When admin leave the clan, or begin to be inactive, they will be replaced in new Elections.

The elections take place as follows: Every kind of administrative has its own election, starting with HC admins, then DC admins and then forum admins and at last the forum moderators. There is a nomination phase before a poll is started. During the nominations any member can name those people he thinks are suitable for the job. Then all people that were named, will be put in the poll, and the members start voting. Every member has the amount of votes, as administratives are needed. If we need 3 admins, the member have each 3 voices to give. In the end the candidates with the most voices win. There will be seperate polls for tie breaks, if a tie happens. As there are 4 nomination and 4 election phases, the total duration for the elections are quite long.

SoL officials is the short memory hook for Administration Elections.

The administratives are the part of the clan, that keeps the infrastructure working. And they make the time spent on the forum and on the server more enjoyable. But the power they have, is only enough to execute their duties. They have no say about the clan itself, they have to obey the rules and listen to the council. The political say of the administratives is the same like for the rest of the members. But in the everyday life, they are the ones elected to guide and help the other members.

The Council

As the Council is the head of the clan and the most important governing body it also represents the clan. and as such, the council consists of 7 representatives. A representative is someone that is sent by a certain group of the clan to stand up for that certain group. The groups represented in the council are: the server admins (with 3 representatives), the forum admins/moderators (with 2 representatives) and the normal members, without any administrative position (with 2 representatives). The user group for the normal members, who have no administration power, plus recruits is called Commoners. So a commoner is every recruit, and every member who is no admin or moderator. Every representative is voted by that special user group only.

That means 5 members of the council are also administratives. And the other 2 are the only SoL officials who aren't administratives of the clan in any situation.

But the Council only works as a whole. A council member alone, cant decide anything about the clan. To take any decision the whole council (or the majority of it) has to have agreed. A bit confusing then might be, that 5 persons of the council are also administratives. Those do have the right to take decisions on a level. But those areas where an administrative is able to decide about are set by the Council.
It's important to divide these things. A Council member may not warn somebody because of spam. Only if that Council member is a forum moderator as well. On the other hand a HC server admin may not decide that there will be SA admins again. Even if he is in the council he may not decide that alone. Such big decisions can only be taken by the Council as a whole.

Therefore its important to know which are the fields of the Council: They make up the rules and may change them. They decide about ranks and their requirements and tournaments. They decide about the general system of SoL and the recruiting system. They decide about big events and projects. They may decide about dismemberments and arguable bans.
But in some cases the Council decides to discuss certain issues in public, with the participation of all members.
Everything else, which is not so important, or a matter of maintenance etc. is left to the administratives. But it may occur that a certain decision of the administratives, or a way to handle something, gets an issue in the clan. Then the Council may change the rules or guidelines, after the members asked to have a discussion about it, though its normally an issue for the administratives only.

As a result of that the Council heavily relies on the participation, input and help of the rest of the members. Issues need to be reported and brought to the council. The Synergy forums are the place to point out those issues. Alternatively you can pm directly your according representative.

At this point it is important to underline again: The Council remains even then only legislature and judiciary. That means they only make the rules and the laws and also judge about issues and decide what to do. But the administratives are the executive. That means the administratives perform the rules and ensure the laws and also perform the judgements and decisions made by the council. This interaction also requires sometimes a space on the forum, which is again: Synergy.

The Council work consists about discussing mainly. But as it's all about quite important decisions, and as there is a mass of things to do, the Council work requires a lot of bureaucracy as well (e.g. the working steps of the council). About that will be spoken shortly in the next chapter about the communication and community.

Since February 2011 the Council has another task to fulfill. A long-time project about medals and awards to honor outstanding members of the clan was introduced. The Council, as a body of dicsussion and sincerity, was the best choice to decide about nominations for medals and bestowal of awards. Within the explanation of the forum, will be a brief explanation of how that system works. But you can find the full guide and the Hall of Fame also, if you are interested in that matter.

Specifics of Council Elections, which take place right after the administrative elections. SoL Officials as aid to memory.

The Council takes the big decisions of SoL. The most decisions of that importance already have been made. So the Council is now guarding and improving the system of the Clan and remains the judging body of SoL. To keep the Council close to the members needs, it requires the input and participation of the whole clan. Any decision by the Council is executed by the administratives. A Council member by himself, doesnt have the power to do that.


So, all in all, the administratives are the hand of the clan: they clean, feed, dress and guard the body of SoL. But they only perform those things that they are meant to perform. The head of the clan, which thinks, decides and delegates the work, is the Council. This division of powers and duties ensures that the power isn't gathered into a single group of persons, which could then maintain that power forever and could lead to another dictatorship. That scenario is to be avoided. But of course the fun and joy is the biggest aim of the Council and the Administratives.

This was it so far, about the powers and the hierarchies within SoL. If you didn’t read the first spoiler yet, you should do it now. It contains a picture that summarizes all that was written in this big chapter and may enlighten some generalities, though it needs a little explanation text as well, as its a rough scheme.

Community and Communication

This chapter now describes all the possibilities and offers that SoL provides to its members (and recruits). Their rights and duties already have been explained. But it only makes one half of the life in SoL. This Clan is mainly about community: doing things with friends together. And its not only simple meeting on the server. SoL provides the possibilities to participate at as many things of the clan as you wish. server administration, forum administration, general politics etc.

This creates an interesting system of relationships between the groups of the clan, because once joined one of the groups, you have responsibilities towards those people of the clan, who are not in that group. Now powers don’t need to be explained, but the offers and retroactive relations are left.

The Server alone doesn't provide a big variety of offers. You can play and fight there. Events are only possible through forum organization. So the offers of the clan will all be shown by working through the forums of SoL, even those, like rank tournaments and total tournament will be mentioned then.

After this is said: Here follows another illustration of the SoL system. This time its focused on the relationships between the certain groups of the clan, which is why its helpful to compare it to the first illustration and to read the explanation text there, and the explanation text here:

Spoiler:

The Forum

Starting with the forums of SoL from above there are several forums not every user of this website can see: The very first forum is a called the non-public area. It can only be accessed by administratives and the council. There is not much input for those topics over all, SoL is a democracy and relies on a flow of information, and not on keeping back those. But such a forum is needed for sensitive topics. There is a topic for the ban list of our server, which provides banned IP's and it organizes them: should someone kept banned, when can someone be unbanned. That forum also contains topics which themes are potentially explosive. Some topics there would lead to a big and unhealthy argue and insults if it would be accessible to the public. such topics were serious issues about the fight between SoL and Outcast's new ATS, some of them are now available in the history section. And now remains a topic about scripting issues in SoL. Such things always create harsh feelings and big misunderstandings, that’s why those things are kept there. But as soon as something affects the members so directly, it wont be kept secret anymore and is moved somewhere, where the according people can access it.

Another forum, only available for council and the administratives, is a forum for history, where those projects are collected which aren’t completed yet. But as soon as they are, they will be moved to the public history section.

The next category of the forum is the council section. Every recruit and member can see it, but they can only post in certain forums there. The Council election forums are divided to the several user groups to perform the council elections. The last, but most important, forum of that section is the council discussion. Members and recruits are allowed to read everything, but they may not post. the discussions there are already so big, and there is a big mass of input to the most topics and over that there is a mass of bureaucracy. that's why the council is majorly left, to post alone there. If there is something, that has really to be looked upon by the council, there still remains the possibility for the members to pm the council members or to post in the synergy forums.

Since February 2011 there is a new sub-forum attached to the Council Discussion for the nomination of Medals and the bestowal of Awards. Those are meant to honor people from the clan for outstanding works or for examplary behaviour and desirable character-traits. The Council itself was chosen to nominate people for Medals and give out the Awards, because the Council is designed to discuss and to take wise decisions. After the Council agreed on nominations for Medals there will be a poll in the member section, where all members of SoL shall vote for the one, who is worth to carry that medal. But there will be more about the member section later on. If you are interested in Medals and Awards you may check the explanation for it, which contains a list of all available Medals as well, and also check the Hall of Fame, which contains everyone who already earned a Medal or an Award.

The Synergy is an own and the first category of the member section. Accessible for the members and the recruits. As already suggested and explained: the Synergy gathers all the problems, requests and reports of the several groups of the members. The Synergy forums are divided by the group that is affected to solve the problems: The Council, server admins, forum admins or forum moderators. So any issue, that the Council shall look on, can be posted by anybody into the Council Synergy forum. Or if there is an issue for the server admins, it will be posted into their forum. This doesn’t count for the normal members only, if they have issues. Also if the Council wants any rule to be enforced by the administrative, they will post the request into the according synergy forum. So, measured by the political communication and not by public activity, the synergy forums are the most important of the whole forum.

The left forums of the member section all exist for a special usage. The forum for Special Information is only accessible by the members, and provides topics only meant for the members, like the member chat password for the forum. The Administration Elections forum is only there for electing the administratives: accessible as well for recruits, but they may not vote. That forum also contains a sticky about the server payment. Furthermore there is a forum for the member polls called "Recruit to member", as well, recruits can see that forum and read the polls, but they cant vote. The last forum of the section is the member conversation, open for any topic directing to the members and recruits of SoL, which also contains the SoL Council Gazette, a short, critic, up-to-date and colorful newsletter of the Council works. From February 2011 on this forum also contains polls about Medals and Awards, which have been already explained earlier.

The next section of the forum is the Recruiting Section. It contains a forum for the recruit polls on the one hand and a forum for the applications of those who want to become recruits on the other. The questionnaire forum is of course accessible for everyone, but the forum for the polls only accessible for SoL. Again: Recruits may see that forum, but may not vote.

Now follows the public section called Free Chat, where the space for General Conversation is, for conversation regarding the Clan and topics about games and movies. The Cantina is a place for things, that doesn’t deal with SoL and JK2 at all, or simply space, for things someone doesn’t know where to post. There is also a forum called Role Play. There is a Role Play for SoL members about the GKE - Great Kernow Empire. Phoenix wanted to revive that role play and lead it to a new dimension, and Xasomur tried to expand it to a forum thing, where people can write stories and create their own history of Star Wars. But the participation was very low, especially because Kernow wasn’t amazed by the idea. Later on even Phoenix became inactive and left SoL, which makes it hard to keep his project alive. In the end the roleplay completely died, so that forum was closed and attached to the topic archives.

The Multimedia section provides the important forum about modding, which includes issues about equipping the jk2 games. So there is a forum about the Skins the people of SoL use, the maps for the server and such things. In the same section is also a forum for screenshots and videos of the game.

The next section of the forum is the place for the organization of the probably most entertaining activity of the game and the clan: Competition. Tournaments. There are Rank tournaments, which the members of SoL strive for throughout the time of their membership. They don’t have explicit impact on the politics of the clan, which is why the ranks got no attention so far in this topic. But it has to be mentioned if we talk about the everyday life of the members. Because on the other hand political matters do have an impact on the ranks: the highest ranks can normally only be reached when some political tasks were fulfilled by the member trying to reach a certain rank.
The higher the rank gets, the more conditions are needed, which causes more bureaucracy. Therefore exists a forum for the applications to those ranks. its an offer for those members who strive for those ranks, but aren’t sure if they fulfil all those conditions, or if an exception can be made on those.
There is also a forum for clan vs clan competitions, where those can be announced, organized and reported.

There is a big section within the competition section: The Total Tournament section. The Total Tournament is probably the biggest and most entertaining event of SoL, where all the members and recruits can participate. Though it takes place on the server, it needs much organization and bureaucracy, therefore are several forums in that section fulfilling the different purposes needed. But as that event has no impact on the political life at all, and as it only takes place every six months, it will not be explained here more, but all the info are available about it are available in that section.

The last category of the forum is the History section. Its the only section even people can access that aren’t even registered on the forum. And it is the only section only designed for information. every other forum or section is combining information and explanation with the action and its performance. The history section provides at first a general overview of the SoL history. Additionally it provides a forum for topic archives: A collection of all topics that existed on our forum that had a deep impact on the clan, or were a good example for a development within the clan. There are as well guides and threads about the evolution of SoL from being ATS. All those topics were in another place of the forum of course before they were moved into that section. Furthermore the history section contains a forum with self written biographies of actual or former SoL members. There is also a topic to be released that provides a compendium, aka overview, about the famous or important or interesting players all over jk2, even outside SoL.

The Server

SoL pays for it's own server. If you have read so far, you'll probably understand that its a basic need of this clan, as we represent a special way of playing the game. We have a special attitude that gives SoL a strong feature of a social network, more than a gaming clan. So our own server, with our own administration, is fundamental.
Of course only a few member pay, as the majority of the members are not 18 years of age yet, and not everyone wants to contribute money for such matters. We try to divide the costs of the server on as many shoulders as possible, and only one of them can be the host of the server, who is the official owner of it. However neither paying or owning the server gives you a political or social advantage, except that being the host makes you inevitably a HC admin. Therefore the host should be the most reliable and trustable.

As already explained the SoL members mainly play on their own server, but the SoL server shares the number 1 of the most popular Servers of JK2 together with Ca. As such SoL members are not the only ones to play on the server, which gives the server a unique and varied atmosphere, with different cultures of 'playing the game'.

Most of the time many players visit the SoL server without being in the clan or the events of the clan, like tournaments, which takes priority over the wishes of other players of the server. But that doesn't mean, that the wishes of SoL members automaticly take precedence over wishes of other players as well. In case of problems the administrators have a guideline of rules to enfore and execute.

The aim and ideals for the server are to offer every player a peaceful, friendly, free, open-minded and respectful atmosphere to any player. Therefore the main rule to keep is that every player shall choose on his own, what he wants to do and when he wants to do it, and every action that would destroy the possibility of a player to choose, is not welcome on the server. In the case a player chooses to harass other players, because he thinks its in his free choice of doing what he wants to do, he is wrong, because he is taking the possibility to choose from the players he is harassing. That is what we call laming.

That is a major point, which always causes discussions between "lamers", members of SoL, and SoL server administrators. Many people think, as JK2 seems to be a game designed to fight, that you shall not talk but fight, and that people shall not complain about getting killed, or that they shall respect the more skilled person, or that those people, who are worse, are only newbies and not worth to be respected - This is only a selection of reasons and attitudes, but they are only of minor interest, as all this happens on the SoL server, and in the end it is the ideals of SoL that take precedence, its not the SoL's priority to take into consideration the wants and needs of people outside the clan's philosphy, but we do it as a favour of courtesy and respect for JK2 community and wellbeing.

Finally the server administrators are needed to keep up the ideals and rules of the server, and to avoid abuses, misunderstandings, loopholes and complaints. SoL is always working at defining the rules and guidelines for the server administrators, like "what is laming?" or "how to act, when someone lames?". The server administrators of SoL should use their administration selflessly. They need to follow the rules as well, to apply them, and to care for any visitor of the server with the same attention and sincerity.

A common accuse towards administrators is, that they would be "abusers". That claim often is wrong, because many people like to call any usage of adminisitrator powers "abuse". But the very most of times administrator powers are used, they are used to ensure the rules. And the rules applied on the server are the rules made up by the clan. Which means that any claim of abuse only is right, if an administrator hurts the rules himself. It is no abuse, if an administrator uses his powers to enusre the rules. But it sure is abuse, when those powers were used unnecessarily. So if they are used to solve an issue, that would also could have been solved without admin. Or if they are used to make fun of a player and please the administrator himself. Unfortunately those things did happen in the past, but it is not common. In opposite: it is really rare. But still, SoL is doing its best to avoid such happenings.

In fact there is a quite strict guideline for administrators how to handle rulebreaks on the server. Admins are reinforced to be always use courtesy before command; trying to ensure that the 'Temple' area (in our server map 'Yavin_Temple') is a place of harmony and that FFA fights are kept to the lame zone of the 'Hangar'. Additionally admins are advised to consider 'ganging' as a preferable method of dealing with lamers before restrictive administration. Before they take any punishment, they have to try to solve the issue by talking and intermediate. But sometimes it doesn't help, and the admin is forced to use appropiate actions on him. Someone, who rarely shows himself breaking the rules, will be handled easily. For example: if someone spams push or pull to annoy people, he will get warned once, and if he doesnt stop, his forces will be taken away. But some people are repeatly and constantly obtrusive. For the sake of the atmosphere of the server and the wellbeing of the players those people have to get banned. This happens rarely on people that only lame. But in fact it is possible to get banned for laming. For an acute case on the server the lamer will be warned several times and is asked to stop or be banned. If he still goes on, he will be banned. But it is more common that such cases are discussed on the forum or even by the Council and they decide about a possible ban. On a different note laggers wont get warned. Lagging is considered as unnecessary and stupid and wont be tolerated. In cases where no-one is lagged out, SoL administrators may show clemency. But as soon as people get lagged out, the lagger will be banned. There are strict rules for the length of ban: the first ban will last one week, the second ban for the same person will last one month. If a person gets banned even more often, the bans will get longer as well.

There is even another arrangement for the main map of the server (yavin_temple) for those people with another philosophy in JK2 than SoL has: While the temple is meant for peaceful training only, the hangar is free for laming. So in hangar the ideals of SoL don't count. An exception is the rule of scripting for the members of SoL: Its generally prohibited for SoL members to use any cheat on the server of SoL.
For those who don't like to be lamed its better to stay away from hangar then.

The cheating is another major point of SoL's philosophy. No SoL member is ever allowed to do it on the SoL server. As its a basic point about the thoughts of fair play and respect it should be unthinkable for SoL members to cheat. But it is impossible to keep all the people playing on the SoL server, who aren't in the clan, from cheating. It is highly unlikely to track who is cheating. That is why it is tolerated, if people script on the SoL server, even if its not welcome. No-one has to fight someone he suspects to script. But no admistrative actions can be taken on a scripter about the fact he's scripting. On the other hand other cheats, like aimbotting, are forbidden, and if someone is proved to use an aimbot it is possible for server administrators to take actions about them.

But those things are in fact not the essence of what SoL does to waste it's time and efforts on. SoL cares to make the server a joyful place for all players with intrests in sympathy with SoL's values, especially for those who are new to the game introducing and training them. SoL server strives to provide fun and variety to the SoL members and and other people, and not to forget, making the server a place to meet, talk, relax, chill and fool around, not only fighting.

Of course there is much more to explain about the forum, than about the server, though the time the members spent is probably mainly on the server. But the reasons for this are simple: there is much more to explain about the forum possibilities than about the server possibilities, because politics and bureaucracy can only be performed on the forum, and even server events needs organization on the forum.
If you want a representative overview on the everyday life of SoL, the community activity and communicative side of SoL, which is not biased by the mass of information available, then check the second spoiler of this topic.

The community of SoL takes place on the forum and the server. But for the politics of the clan and the events on the server a lot of organization and space for discussion is needed. The server is not enough as a platform for communication, that's why this forum exists. The most important places then, are the synergy forums, as they combine the flow of information from all areas of the clan. The Council is the head of discussions, deciding about the Clan: its the heart of the politics. Not having read all this topic, you just could take the time to explore the whole forum, the descriptions will help you, there is a place for everyone to find something helpful or interesting.


Now you are well informed about the system of the clan: You know how someone is getting into the clan, and how he can climb the ladder. You know what the work of the several parts of the clan is and which role they play in it. you know how their work is combining to a whole. You know which offers this clan bring and how to use them, or even how to perform them. Now go and try them all. If there is something left, which you still need to know, then maybe you need to read the according part of this topic, or follow the link to the according forums. If all that didnt help, just ask your question here.

Xasomur wrote:

lol, did i get the karma for calling you most reliable and trustable...?

rofl. No, you got it for including the most important arguments in a logical sequence for explaining why laming is not allowed in a system that strives to provide freedom to as many people and to the greatest extent possible, which may seem contradictory to some people, but which makes sense given your explanations.

added 2 paragraphs about medals and awards.
i think i'll be doing more paragraphs about admin abuse and laming and punishments and so on...

I am deleting any responses after Xaso says he has added 2 paragraphs. I am also locking this topic, so no more spam can happen.


~Mereel
Moderator Team

added paragraphs for "abuse" and punishments

yes.
this is new, no need to search XP :

"A common accuse towards administrators is, that they would be "abusers". That claim often is wrong, because many people like to call any usage of adminisitrator powers "abuse". But the very most of times administrator powers are used, they are used to ensure the rules. And the rules applied on the server are the rules made up by the clan. Which means that any claim of abuse only is right, if an administrator hurts the rules himself. It is no abuse, if an administrator uses his powers to enusre the rules. But it sure is abuse, when those powers were used unnecessarily. So if they are used to solve an issue, that would also could have been solved without admin. Or if they are used to make fun of a player and please the administrator himself. Unfortunately those things did happen in the past, but it is not common. In opposite: it is really rare. But still, SoL is doing its best to avoid such happenings.
In fact there is a quite strict guideline for administrators how to handle rulebreaks on the server. Before they take any punishment, they have to try to solve the issue by talking and intermediate. But sometimes it doesn't help, and the admin is forced to use appropiate actions on him. Someone, who rarely shows himself breaking the rules, will be handled easily. For example: if someone spams push or pull to annoy people, he will get warned once, and if he doesnt stop, his forces will be taken away. But some people are repeatly and constantly obtrusive. For the sake of the atmosphere of the server and the wellbeing of the players those people have to get banned. This happens rarely on people that only lame. But in fact it is possible to get banned for laming. For an acute case on the server the lamer will be warned several times and is asked to stop or be banned. If he still goes on, he will be banned. But it is more common that such cases are discussed on the forum or even by the Council and they decide about a possible ban. On a different note laggers wont get warned. Lagging is considered as unnecessary and stupid and wont be tolerated. In cases where no-one is lagged out, SoL administrators may show clemency. But as soon as people get lagged out, the lagger will be banned. There are strict rules for the length of ban: the first ban will last one week, the second ban for the same person will last one month. If a person gets banned even more often, the bans will get longer as well."