Moderationpolicy
General Rules
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
In case there is any possible doubt, a player should be considered not guilty.
Conflict of Interest
Moderators must not process reports if they know the involved parties (accuser or accused player). Playing online with the involved parties does not mean to "know" them. "Know" means: knowing them personally or playing with them online very regularly.
Appeal
Players have the right to appeal against the moderation decision by forwarding received moderation email to "contact+appeal@boardgamearena.com".
They MUST explain in the email how the moderator did not follow the BGA Moderation Policy. If the explanation is not convincing, the email will be ignored. If the player is obviously guilty and if the Moderation Policy hasn't been violated, BGA admins will give a more severe penalty than the initial.
Penalty Grid
Moderators should follow the Penalty Grid as much as possible. However, they have the right to adjust the penalty depending on the gravity of the case. The following situation can lead moderators to increase the penalty:
- the player has been reported several times for the same type of case.
- the player's wrong action can be qualified by one or several of the following terms: racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and as a rule of thumb any type of discrimination against a particular category of people.
- in case there is provocation, the penalty may be be reduced a little, and the author of the provocation may receive a warning, BUT as everyone should keep quiet and polite even if they are are provoked, this is up to the individual moderator.
Relapse
In case there is a relapse, the penalty increases exponentially.
It is the moderator's job to determine the correct penalty in this case, considering the fact that the player had been warned by the first penalty.
Moderators should consider it a relapse, only if the new wrong action occurs AFTER the previous penalty has been applied and the associated moderation email has been sent.
Considering that it's a lot of work to analyze reports about players, who do the same action again and again, the "ban forever" penalty can be applied to any case if the player relapses.
Special Urgency Ban Procedure
Whatever the case type, moderators has the right to ban a player from the website (forever) if this player set up a situation that is out of control and must be stopped within hours. This special procedure should only be used if there is an immediate danger for the community (ex: vandalism, flow of insults, massive spam, ...).
Private jokes
If a wrong action happened in a private circle (ex: at a game table, with no spectators), and if none of the present players reported the action, the moderator must consider this was a "private joke" and must not apply any penalty. In the contrary, if the wrong action is public (ex: post/comment on the wall), the moderator may consider this as a wrong action even if there is no report.
Note: In case a moderator discovers that this is obviously not a private joke, and that something must be reported, the moderator is allowed to create a report for the case. However, in this case, this moderator is not allowed to judge the report.
Prescription
For operational reason, a report that is older than 12 weeks may be closed by moderators because it is too old.
As a rule of thumb, every report should be judge in a 4 weeks delay.
Player Profile Influence
The player's profile IS taken into account to determine if the player is guilty or not guilty. Moderators give more credit to players with a good profile than the other.
The player's profile is NOT taken into account when choosing the penalty if the player is found guilty.
Good profile elements are:
- A good thumb up / thumb down ratio.
- Player is registered for a long time / has a lot of games played.
- Players is involved in the website (ex: realized translations).
- Player is supporting BGA (Premium member).
You should also take into account the profile of the reporting player (report author) : a bad reputation and/or an important number of reports already judged as "not guilty" should incite you to be very careful with this player report.
Incomplete Reports
Analyzing reports takes a lot of time, and many reports are received. If any needed information is missing in the report, moderators may (and most of the time, should) close the report.
Penalty Grid
| Category | Case type | Details | Standard penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insults | Insults during a game, on table chat | Must be present in the report: table ID, and the insults terms. If the insult is not in English, or if the insult is not obvious, the report author must specify why this is insulting. | Forbid to chat or publish for 3 days for small insults and insanity, 30 days for real insults. Smaller penalty (ex: 1 day) can be applied if this was obviously a stupid joke. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban. |
| Insults | Insults on general chat | Must be present in the report: the insult terms. If the insult is not in English, or if the insult is not obvious, the report author must specify why this is insulting. | Forbid to chat or publish for 30 days for small insults and insanity, forever for real insults. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban. |
| Insults | Insults on public space (wall, forum, comments...) | Must be present in the report: where to find the insult, the insult terms. If the insult is not in English, or if the insult is not obvious, the report author must specify why this is insulting. | Forbid to chat or publish 3 days for small insults and insanity, 30 days for real insults. Smaller penalty (ex: 1 day) can be applied if this was obviously a stupid joke. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban. |
| Aggressive attitude | Aggressive attitude during a game: can't wait the other player, provocation, ... | As a rule of thumb: as long as there is no insult, this is not an issue: thumb down are the solution. BUT, if the player is really borderline and should be warned, a moderation action is needed. | -1 to -10 reputation penalty. Moderators should explain that this is a small warning, and that a change of attitude is needed. |
| Avatar | Inappropriate avatar: explicit sexual content, extreme violence, advertising... | If needed, report author should explain why this is inappropriate. Avatar is really inappropriate in 3 cases:
1°) It can hurt underage players (explicit sexual content, extreme violence) 2°) This is advertisement / this violate some intellectual property 3°) The avatar contains a reference that discriminate a group of people (ex: nazi cross) Please also read: #Details_on_Avatar_policy |
Avatar immediate removal + Forbid to chat or publish between 3 days and forever depending on the gravity. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban. If the player obviously don't measure the meaning of the avatar, the penalty can be reduced. |
| Avatar | Inappropriate username | If needed, report author should explain why this is inappropriate. Username are inappropriate when this is obviously an insult for many people. Moderators shouldn't moderate a username that is insulting by accident in a language that is not widely used on BGA. | Same as insult + Report author must explain that a username change is mandatory from "Preferences / Account / Account Management / Change my username. If there is another report 48 hours after the first one with no name change (or another insulting username) => ban forever. |
| Table description | Inappropriate table description | If needed, report author should explain why this is inappropriate. Table description is inappropriate when it contains insults, insanity, or tend to discriminate a group of people. | Forbid to chat or publish 3 days for small insults and insanity, 30 days for real insults. Smaller penalty (ex: 1 day) can be applied if this was obviously a stupid joke. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban. |
| Kingmaking | Kingmaking action during a game | As 99% of kingmaking reports are not accurate enough, we are not ignoring Kingmaking report (and now there are closed automatically). Instead, we've add a "Kingmaking / team play" red thumb category, and we must incite players to use this (Red Thumbs) instead of report these players to moderation. | (no penalty) |
| Bug exploit | Exploit a known bug during a game | The bug must have been reported in the forum, and an exact reference to this bug must be in the report, with the table id and the move number. Minor bugs that can be considered as "variants" are NOT concerned (ex: pick 4 cards instead of 3). Bugs that violate the spirit of the game are concerned. | No penalty applies: if there is a bug that has been widely used for a game, a global ELO reset (or an ELO adjustment for players who exploited the bug) will be done. |
| Private information / slow to play / ruin a game | Some player ruins a game by giving some private information, was slow to play or played anyhow | As long a they respect the rules of the game, anything that can happen is subjective and is out of the scope of Terms of Use. Players should use the Red Thumb system to punish their opponents if they think this is needed. | (no penalty) |
| Multiple accounts | A player is using multiple accounts (most of the time: to boost his ELO rank) | The report must contains the usernames of all intimidated accounts, and the reason why the report author think that multiple accounts are used. It is very difficult to find out if different accounts corresponds to different person. For example: BGA accepts that multiple players plays from the same IP address, to allow people from the same family to play at the same table. In addition, some players are using multiple accounts, but these accounts are not playing together (which is acceptable). Strong tools are available for moderators to detect multiple accounts that are used the wrong way.
To detect multiple accounts, you should focus on ELO boosting, which is the reason of the multiple accounts 99% of the time. You should look at player game history, for a given game, and look at frequent opponents with a very good / perfect win rate. |
For secondary accounts: ban forever. For main account: ELO reseted to 1500 / ELO penalty for all games. |
Details on Avatar policy
What is strictly forbidden is basically everything that may hurt a minor child or is forbidden by the laws:
- Sexually explicit content (ex: porn, genitals pictures, ...).
- Extreme violence or shocking images.
- Explicit reference to drugs,
- Offensive/vulgar content,
The following categories are also forbidden, but we may tolerate some of them depending on the context (see below):
- Advertisements:
- As a rule of thumb, advertisement is forbidden.
- However, if it refers to a "cult brand" with no intention to provide a real advertisement (ex: football team), or if the reference to the brand is not obvious or discrete (ex: joke on Apple logo), it may be tolerated.
- Advertisement for board games publishers / board games in general is authorized.
- Advertisement for another online gaming service is strictly forbidden.
- "Sexy" images:
- If the main purpose of the image is "to be sexy" or "erotic", it is forbidden.
- However, if the image is a fictional character that is considered sexy (ex: some heroïc fantasy character, super hero, ...), it may be tolerated.
- Politics / Religion / opinions:
- Images that refers to extreme positions / provocative ideas are of course forbidden (ex: nazi or other racists symbols).
- For the others: as a rule of thumb, players should avoid using their avatar to advertise for politics/religion or any other king of opinion. However, if the image is clearly non-shocking for a vast majority of BGA players, it should probably be tolerated.
- Text on image: our policy about BGA usernames also applied to the text on avatar images.
