All our players deserve to be a part of our community and play BAR and enjoy the supportive, friendly and welcoming experience.

People disturbing or not respecting this will be reminded where needed. We reserve the right to suspend your account, and/or IP address, for any committed infraction detailed below. At the root of our expectation is for players to be civil and nice to each other; of course there is room for competitiveness and we don't mind friendly banter but in short, be nice to each other.

Code of Conduct

How we'd like everybody to play BAR online

• Be nice to other players, just as you would like to be treated by others.
• Give a helping hand to (new) players when they don't yet master skills/mechanics. Try to explain things or suggest how to improve.
• Have fun playing the game together. Competitive play with high-adrenaline is awesome. Remember that losing can also be (extra) fun for the other team.
• Try to find people that like your play-style - There's lots of ways to play BAR, and no one is 'better' than the other - Most important thing is that people enjoy the time they spend in BAR.
• If you would like BAR to succeed in growing into a game that is played by thousands of people (so you have lots more possible friends, faster matchmaking, more challenge, more tournaments, etc.) then try to behave your very best. A healthy community can do all this, and by simply being friendly you can help BAR to grow!

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What to do when you see this code of conduct not being followed

We have only so many moderators and despite the large amounts of ☕ they consume they cannot be everywhere at once. There are three steps you can take when you see something inappropriate, depending on how severe the issue is depends on which step you can take:
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• Report it: If something is bad enough that it needs to be reported, you can report ingame by right-clicking on player's name, and choosing "report" from the dropdown. Alternatively, you can submit the report using the following link: https://server4.beyondallreason.info/battle/ and finding the relevant match, then clicking the "players" tab and reporting the user from there.
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• In case of having an active griefer in a game, don't retaliate with force. Instead, use some of available the self-moderation tools. Note that retaliating against griefing may result in moderation actions being taken against you. If you believe it is necessary to prevent someone from persisting in their abusive behavior, try:
  - pausing the game (Pause|Break button or /pause command) ‍
  - !kickban <playername> - calls a vote to kick and temporarily ban the player from the lobby‍
  - make sure to explain it in chat so that others know why they should vote them out‍
  - in case of verbal harassment or spamming you can also call a !mute vote
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• ‍Offer support: Stick up for people being bullied. Publicly calling out bad behavior and privately messaging the person in question and giving them support are examples of ways you can stick up for people being bullied.
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• Mute individually - you can mute individual players by right-clicking on their name in lobby and choosing "ignore" from the dropdown menu. To mute ingame, ctrl+left click on their name in the player list. Note that ingame and lobby mutes are different and separate.

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Section A - Be nice to each other

This section contains things which are less specific and often less problematic in small doses; they're also things people may do by mistake. While they are reportable in many cases, communication and education will bring about a better result.

1. We are a community

1. Respect for all other members is mandatory
2. Harassment and baiting of any community member, including developers and contributors, is not acceptable
3. Intentionally making false accusations, for example with the intent to have a player removed from the game/lobby, is abusive. We understand that mistakes happen, and no one knows everything that goes on in each match they play.

2. Harassment or bullying

1. Saying "it was just a joke" does not excuse this either; it's only a joke if all parties find it funny (including 3rd parties if it’s in a public situation).
2. Harassment includes flaming players for using strategies which may seem subjectively suboptimal (high-risk tactics like commander-drops and such) or just low skill plays.

3. Team games

1. Disregarding the teamwork part of team games when done notoriously can result in being ostracized from team games.
2. You don't have to do everything an ally says, but at the same time you are part of the team; being a good team player includes giving teammates an appropriate amount of space to build and respecting their claim to the available resources on the map.

4. Spoiling games

1. Dragging out clearly won games is poor form and undesirable.
2. Players may leave games for a variety of valid reasons. Players who make a habit of leaving ongoing matches long before they end risk being met with moderation action. Matches thought to suffer from external issues such as bugs require a restart and can be stopped by calling a stop vote with !cv stop in chat.
3. Pausing with the intent to disrupt the game is not acceptable.
4. Unless a reasonable amount of time has passed, purposefully unpausing to disrupt a legitimately issued pause, or without attempting to learn the reason for a pause, is unsportsmanlike and to be avoided.
   - Legitimate reasons include, but aren't limited to: discussion/vote to kickban a misbehaving player, players reconnecting, lag or in-game bugs.

5. Boss abuse

1. Boss mode is a tool to facilitate a good experience for everyone. Using boss mode to abuse other players is not acceptable, and may result in removal of boss privileges.
2. Examples of boss abuse include: kickbanning rule-abiding players after a match has begun, stopping matches because a player claimed a particular start position, and stopping matches to manipulate the skill rating system.
   - If you are the boss of a lobby, you can still start a kickban vote on a player using !cv kickban <playername> ("coordinator vote") instead of !kickban <playername>.
3. It is not boss abuse to remove a spectator from an ongoing match, or to remove a player from the pre-game lobby.

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Section B - Rules for us all to have fun

These are much clearer cut rules and reporting is a completely acceptable first response. If a moderator sees one of these take place they will likely use a formal warning as a starting point.

1. Inappropriate topics

1. It is not okay to promote illegal or damaging topics including but not limited to gambling, drug use, self-harm, crypto scams, and the like.
2. Politics, sexually explicit chat, and advertisements are examples of other inappropriate topics.
3. Some of these can be discussed in the appropriate locations, but this is a game and generally not a place for sharing these topics.

2. Discrimination

1. Discriminating against someone for who/what they are is not acceptable. Discrimination can take the form of speech but also actions (e.g. kicking them from games).
2. Abuse especially on the grounds or context of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, religion, ancestry, nationality, and similar is never acceptable.
3. It is completely acceptable to remove players from a game as a response to discriminatory behavior but don't engage in vigilantism or harrassment.

3. Offensive names

1. Nicknames and clan tags must not be offensive, inappropriate or contain politically charged phrases.
2. Impersonation of other players and real-life figures is also forbidden.
3. Player usernames must not contain references to modern political figures, contemporary movements, or historically controversial figures.
4. An account which doesn't abide by this rule will be suspended until it gets renamed.

4. Griefing

1. Griefing or actively working against your team is against the rules.
2. Examples of griefing include teamkilling, purposefully hurting/imprisoning, capturing or reclaiming allied units without consent or consistently throwing games with the intent to deny other team members a potential win.
3. Griefing does not include reclaiming or reviving wreckage/debris on the map, regardless of where it is located or which player owned the original unit/structure.
   - You should, however, avoid reclaiming wrecks of allied commanders self-destructed to boost a tech rush. If on a map with plentiful energy reclaim trees, start your reclaim circle on a tree to only reclaim energy and avoid unfortunate accidents.
4. If you are done with a game then resign; self-destructing units to deny them to your own team is a form of griefing.

5. Unfair Advantages

1. Custom widgets used on public servers must be made publicly available on the offical BAR discord channel #widgets.
2. Purposefully passing on consequential information to a game in progress via things like spectator chat (we understand mistakes happen occasionally) is obviously a form of cheating.
3. Pausing the game for tactical purposes is a form of cheating.
4. Exploiting bugs, hacking or spec cheating (second account to view the game as a spectator) can result in swifter and more stringent responses than the above items.
5. Attempting to exploit the player skill rating system, either by losing on purpose or boosting with an alternative (“smurf”) account falls under this section.
6. Smurf accounts will be banned and warnings or restrictions applied to the originating account.
7. Account sharing is not permitted. This includes both using an account registered by someone else, and providing someone else with access to your account.

6. Communications abuse

1. Use of the ping or draw functions to obscure a teammate’s view is an abuse of those tools.
2. Inappropriate drawings (hate-symbols, sexual or obscene imagery and such) are also communications abuse.
3. This includes flooding/spamming chat or calling repeated (pointless) votes.
4. Repeatedly joining rooms when asked to leave (e.g. by a closed group of friends who want to play together) is also not acceptable.

7. Abuse of the reporting / moderation system

1. False or intentionally erroneous reports can result in loss of your ability to submit reports.
2. Misrepresenting the rules, especially to newer players, is not acceptable.

Section C - Unacceptable behavior

These items are completely unacceptable. They will very rarely result in a warning to start with and in some cases can warrant permanent bans from a first offence. Given the severity of these items please report them and feel free to open a discord ticket for the moderation team to help ensure it’s noticed quickly.

1. Malicious behavior

1. This covers behavior of malicious intent towards both players and the game team.
2. Constructive feedback is always welcome; griping and complaining is understandable.
3. Constant unwarranted negative information and misinformation intended to cast a negative light on the project or contributors is considered malicious.
4. This includes taking credit for things you did not contribute to in the game; people have worked very hard on it for free and trying to take that away is not acceptable.

2. Malicious speech

1. Hate speech, calls for a person to harm themselves, real-life threats, celebration of horrific events are all regarded as unacceptable.
2. Scams, malware, spam, phishing are instantly bannable.‍

3. Hacking

1. Attempting to hack another player's account or the game infrastructure is not acceptable
2. If you wish to perform security testing contact the developers.
3. If you identify a vulnerability by mistake please take care to not exploit it. Instead speak to the developers; we'd be very happy to learn about the vulnerability.

4. Doxxing

1. Revealing personal or identifiable information about another player they've not already revealed themselves is not allowed.‍

5. Circumvention of moderation

1. If you've been banned, don't try to create a new account to get around it.
2. Extra accounts will be banned and repeated offences will escalate the initial punishment.

Appeals of Moderation Action

If you feel that you have been the target of an erroneous or unjust moderation action, then you may submit an appeal via the #open-ticket channel on Discord.

You will be provided with details about why the moderation action was applied and, when you are ready, your appeal will be sent to a wider group for consideration. Complaining about moderation actions publicly or harassing moderators will not help your case.

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We hope you never need to visit/read this page, because that would mean everybody already understands that being nice is simply awesome.

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