For a Healthy Community

How to help?

A very convenient feature is the report button.
The report button sends a notification to the staff and tells us where to locate the issue on the forum. It is possible to include a small personal message that will be visible to the staff. When reporting something, the reported person is not notified and no names are shared outside of the staff team, so everything is dealt with privately.
The reason why we prefer reports is because it is visible to the entire staff instead of just one single person, and it can be dealt with a lot faster as it supports division of work, so not a single staff member receives all the messages.


What to report?
Instead of solving the issues by yourself,
we would prefer you to contact us about the following issues:

    - Artwork that you think is stolen;
    (if possible, because you know the original artist for example, include the name of the artist and the direct link to the original image)

    - Advertisements;
    It is not advertising if the person is sharing a funny game that could be played with other PmC members, but it is advertising when: a) people earn     money with it, b) it serves no other purposes than to advertise something.

    - Rudeness;
    It is considered rude to badmouth, harass, or offend other people intentionally. Please report such things, rather than sorting it out on your own, as     people who are personally involved in such matters tend to over-react due to the subjectivity of the topic. Don’t be ashamed of doing so, sometimes a     third person is needed to mediate, in this case it would be one of the staff members.

    - Links that lead to gory, unsuitable, or illegal sites, such as pirated movies, etc.

    - Threads in the wrong category

In case it is not written in a post on the forums, but in fast moving chats such as the Shoutbox, take a screenshot. If we have no proof or evidence, we can’t do anything, as it’s not desirable to act upon mere accusations from other people.


On another note regarding conflicts between members:
The staff is not here to solve every little disagreement you are having with another person. People have different opinions and sometimes misunderstandings happen, hence we encourage you to politely speak up for yourself to clear it up, but by still respecting the other person. Not every discussion needs to have a winner. Furthermore, your own opinion is just an opinion like everyone else’s, so please respect each and everyone, no matter how deeply you disagree with their statement, you can still remain polite and friendly when debating it.

It is generally important to speak your mind and express how you feel once you encounter a problem, as silence does not help anyone. Miscommunication happens a lot due to one person staying silent and not stating their opinion, even though they have been deeply hurt by the other. Often enough is the person responsible for the offense unaware of hurting the other, thus remaining unable to reflect upon their own behavior (and let’s be honest here, we all have dropped a brick at least once without knowing). So, in order to not leave the other person in the dark, try to tell them in a polite manner that you felt uncomfortable with their comment, and help them understand why. It is important in such situations to communicate properly and talk about what’s bugging you with the other person. Otherwise discrepancies deepen and you all hold grudges against each other, for no apparent reason other than not having talked about it.

Consider these points when writing your message, to get your statement across in a friendly way:

1. Watch your tone. It often happens in the heat of a discussion or an argument that people are not careful about their word-choice or tone in their message. It is very tempting to just 'blurt it out’ to make your point, but please reconsider if you really wish to offend someone just because you wanted to make a point.

2. State first what you don’t agree with, then end your message with something you kind of liked.
e.g. "I think the history of your character was a little too common and imprecise, but I really like the way you described their personality.“

3. No strong words or expressions of negative feelings. Whatever follows them does not matter, as you already made a negative impression.
e.g. "I’m not really fond of the way this RP turned out, because of …“ vs "I hate the way this RP turned out, because of..“

4. Don’t write a text where you feel the need to put a "No offense, but..“
Never has anything good followed these words and generally speaking from experience, the statement does not become less offensive. „No offense“ is not a statement that makes the offensive part of your message magically disappear.
e.g. "No offense, but you suck“
Would this still offend you? Of course it would.
Suggestions for better phrasing:
e.g. "You make me feel a little uncomfortable with this statement“
"I have to say that I’m not really fond of what you said, because...“
" I think you could improve this by…“

Last but not least, the issue with mini-modding.
"Don’t mini-mod“ - sounds easy at first, but it tends to happen really easily.
Mini-modding, also known as mini-moderating, happens when members compete with their knowledge about rules or our game here in general. Subconsciously, they tend to brag with their own knowledge about the game or rules by constantly correcting other people for not knowing them as well as they do, or for making other mistakes. Every little mistake evolves into a huge crime investigation and people create entire paragraphs to pinpoint the misbehavior of the other member. Thus, a competitive environment is created, where everyone is looking for an opportunity to detect mistakes to prove themselves to be cleverer than others, instead of being supportive of each other. It is great to see people help each other, but there is this fine line between going around suggesting improvements and acting like a staff member reinforcing rules, or questioning every little thing other members do, and even scolding people.
This kind of mini-modding can happen in every possible section. Forum games, Roleplay, general forum posting.
We value our community for being relaxed and easy-going and we would like to keep it that way, so steer clear of mini-modding, it is poisonous.

e.g. "That's against the rules, remove this post instantly" vs "that's pretty cool, however, I'm not sure if this belongs here <: I think it might break a rule"

You can refer to the rules, this is acceptable.
It's the difference in attitude that makes a normal member a mini-mod.


- the staff