Issuing Punishments

Often there will be times where you see potential rule breakers and will need to respond accordingly. This guide aims to help you understand how to deal with a wide variety of situations that call for Staff intervention.

Principles

• Proportionate – A decision is proportionate when the response appropriately matches the seriousness, impact, and intent of the behaviour. The consequence should be neither excessive nor inadequate, but balanced and reasonable in relation to the circumstances.

• Equitable – A decision is equitable when it recognises that individuals may have different backgrounds, experiences, or circumstances, and adjusts the response accordingly to achieve a fair outcome. Equity focuses on fairness of result, not just uniformity of treatment.

• Measured – A decision is measured when it is thoughtful, calm, and evidence-based, rather than reactive or emotional. A measured approach considers all relevant facts, context, and potential consequences before action is taken.

Considerations

• Severity – How serious is the behaviour?
• Intent – Was it accidental, reckless, or malicious?
• Impact – Who was affected and how badly?
• History – Is this repeated behaviour?

Actioning Punishments

• Only punish via /punish <username> <type> <duration> <reason>
  • Each field is tab completable, however for warnings skip the duration by entering a space. This is because warnings do not take durations, and by specifying one you risk it getting included in the warning reason.
  • Use a pre-set punishment reason (tab completable) when you can.
  • Each punishment issued via this command is anonymous and comes from the server, 'Richard.'

Punishment Matrix

A guide for punishments is provided below:

Rule	Verbal Warning	Warning	Kick	Mute	Temp Deportation	Perm Deportation	Ban
	Minor / First Time Behaviour	Moderate Behaviour	Immediate Corrective Action	Repeated Disruptive Behaviour	Serious or Continued Behaviour	Persistent or Severe Behaviour	Critical or Non-Remediable Behaviour
Respect	Low-impact, first-time misconduct	Clear disrespect without severe harm	—	Repeated disrespect or trolling	Continued breaches; inappropriate skin	Sustained or severe misconduct	Inappropriate username; sexual content
Chat	Minor disruption or excessive chat	Noticeable disruption (commands/logins)	AFK spam	Continued or rapid disruption	—	—	—
Advertising	Incidental or casual advertising	Repeated or intentional advertising	—	Disruptive advertising spam	Deliberate recruitment for other servers	Sustained or large-scale recruitment	—
Lag Prevention	Minor lag-causing activity	Significant lag-causing activity	—	—	Continued creation after removal	Ongoing refusal to comply	—
Fair Play	Low-impact exploitation or misuse	—	Behaviour requiring immediate reset	Repeated or technical exploitation	Use of unauthorised client modifications	Game-breaking or persistent exploitation	Alt or compromised accounts

Before issuing punishments remember to check their notes channel AND their /history!

Respect

Verbal Warning/Warnings

• Typically given for player’s first offence.
• Inappropriate messages written in books, signs, renamed items.
  • Remember to /trash or destroy the above.
• Inappropriate builds.
  • Remember to destroy the above.
• Attempting to lie or intentionally mislead staff.
• Impersonating another player.

Mutes

• Given if player continues breaking rule. Typically, 1 hour is enough.
• Extend mute when necessary. 12hr, 24hr, and 3d are some examples.
• Low-effort trolls. Typically a 1hr mute is enough to dissuade them right off the bat.

Temporary Deportations

• Continued rule breaking despite previous warnings/mutes.
• Player has inappropriate skin (keep deport until skin is changed).

Permanent Deportations

• Continued rule breaking despite previous warnings/mutes.
• Player has inappropriate skin (keep deport until skin is changed).

Permanent Ban

• Player has inappropriate username.

Chat

Verbal Warning/Warnings

• Player spamming in shorter bursts/variations of the same message.
• Recording voice channels without obtaining explicit consent from all parties.
• Player spammed, but no staff were online when it occurred.
• Player speaking excessively in public channels when under the effects of drinks in-game.
  • Advise the player to put ** around their texts or use /l
  • In this case forcing the player into local via /staff-force-local is fine.

Kicks

• Player spamming commands, such as /afk.
• Player spamming logins/logouts.

Mutes

• Player keeps breaking rule despite previous warning (whether verbal or not).
• Spamming is too quick for warn to be noticed or effective.
• Extend to a permanent mute if absolutely necessary. Otherwise, you can also extend the mute.

Advertising

If the content of the spam falls into the Respect category, use punishment reasons from there instead.

Verbal Warning

• Mentioning server names.
• Misusing /ad.
• Advertising non-DC related servers on any platform

Warnings

• Issued when there is continued rule breaking of the above.

Mutes

• Similar to warn, used if player is spamming advertisements instead.

Temporary/Permanent Deportations

• When a player is knowingly using DemocracyCraft platforms to recruit for other servers, typically happens when players start competing servers.
• Escalates to permanent depending on severity (i.e. multiple players advertised to).

Lag Prevention

Verbal Warning/Warnings

Remember to destroy all instances of these once you find them.

• Creation of Redstone clocks.
• Automatic farms.
• Excessive item frames displaying vanilla items.

Temporary/Permanent Deportations

• Continued rule breaking of the above occurs, and prior punishments have been ineffective.

Fair Play

Verbal Warnings/Warnings

• Player misusing government job commands. Can also be punished by the player’s respective department.
• Any form of exploitation using bugs, /cosmetics, etc.

Mutes

• Any form of chat exploitation.
  • These are rare, but include...
    • Using Discord channels to use coloured chat.
    • Special non-English characters etc.

Kicks

• Player AFK avoiding.

Temporary/Permanent Deportations

• Continued rule breaking.
• Player using unauthorized client modifications (freecam, flying, teleport, etc.)
• Escalating to permanent deportations usually happens when:
  • Exploit is game breaking and affects the server as a whole.
  • Still continued rule breaking.

Bans

• Only for alternative accounts, or compromised accounts.

Hope that helps!

This guide can be contributed to by any Staff member, just let your mentor or an Administrator know beforehand.

• Contributions can include examples of punishments; more detail to the guide or rephrasing.

There is no definite right and wrong, if you think it is useful or needs correction, feel free to contribute!