Admin Policy
This is the Harmony Admin Policy as of 10/09/2026

General Policy
Administrators are responsible for their actions. 

 Administrators are not unaccountable and should be held to higher standards than the playerbase. All administrators are expected to have a solid reason behind their actions. If you have a problem with another admin’s behavior, open a ticket in Staff Complaints. 

 Be professional, polite and welcoming. 

 Professionalism is important, and in general will help reduce the number of issues you run into as staff. We expect you to deescalate, rather than escalate situations. As staff, you’re often the first person that a player with an issue will talk to. No matter your opinion on the player, do your best to be respectful towards them. Ahelps should not be handled in anger. If you are upset with or feel that you are biased against the player, it is better to ask another admin to handle the situation. The primary focuses of an ahelp should be to stop problematic behavior and ensure that the player understands the rules going forward. Questions like “What made you think that was allowed?” or the infamous “What the fuck are you doing?” should be avoided in favor of ones like “Are you familiar with [rule]?” 

 Do not admin while your judgement is impaired. 

 Since admins are expected to be professional and handle themselves appropriately when interacting with the community (16+) in an admin capacity, you should not actively admin rounds while heavily intoxicated or otherwise severely impaired. If you are adminning while heavily intoxicated, make sure there is at least one other admin online who is not, and do not run any events. Use your best judgement to determine if you’re able to admin effectively, and don’t be afraid to take breaks! 

 Respond to ahelps. 

 Each ahelp that comes in should be responded to within the ahelp chat window, both to make sure that the player feels heard, and so that other admins know that the situation was handled. Try to inform people when they're “free to go,” so that they don’t accidentally leave in the middle of an ahelp without knowing. If an ahelp is resolved outside of the ahelp chat window (a vend spawned in, grid moved, etc.), you can use the admin-only chat to let the relay and other admins online know that the situation was handled. 

 Do not process a case you are/were a part of, or which occurred during a round that you played in. 

 Even if you’ve readminned after dying, do not process a case you were involved in. If you have concerns about another player’s actions, you must ahelp about it yourself and get the other staff to handle it. Do not use admin chat as a substitute for an ahelp. This is necessary to remain impartial to cases, and to separate the "admin" from the "player", as well as to make sure that all relevant information is logged in channels like the ahelp relay for future reference.

Event Policy
Admins VS Game Masters 

 Some servers call their admins “game masters,” particularly on higher-RP forks. There, admins are responsible for adding to the flow of events, and creating experiences for the playerbase. Here on Harmony, admins are **not** game masters. We are able to do events, but they should not be overwhelming, frequent, or alter the round substantially without prior planning and help. 

 This doesn’t mean events are illegal! It’s still possible and even encouraged to run events here and there, because they can be fun for both players and admins alike. 

 What is an Event? 

 

 An “event” here is generally meant to be any admin intervention in the round that affects more than a handful of people: spawning a cookie for a prayer, no, spawning a sentient monkey that runs around and messes with people, yes. As a general rule of thumb, any event that involves spawning in an entity that can be controlled, move, communicate, or interact with its environment should be considered an event. 

 Heavily round-altering admin events (e.g. powerful wizard invasion, Nukies vs. Death Squad) should be voted for by the playerbase with customvote in lobby and generally done on **Greenshift** (that means forcing the preset before the round starts!). Very large-scale events, such as custom game modes (e.g. Rimworld, 1984, Teach & Learn), are best scheduled ahead of time (even if only privately), planned alongside other admins in our admin event planning channel, and should ALWAYS be announced to the players before the round begins. 

 

 Major Event 

 Major events like these should generally be run in conjunction with at least one other admin. This allows for more input on events, and more hands on deck in case something goes wrong. An admin running a round-altering event should be able to commit to the entire round in order to avoid leaving your “helper” admins holding the bag. 

 

 When should I run an event? 

 Admin events should be done in moderation, and heavily round-altering events should be done with full transparency. 

 Events overall should not occur every round or with high frequency. Log what events you’ve done in <#1265099634955649129>  (just when & what), even if it seems minor. Any admin action that is additive rather than corrective should be logged. 

 If you've decided to run a medium- or large-sized midround event, run a customvote to ask the players what severity of event they would like. An "Event? Yes/No" vote should be avoided, since a majority always votes Yes, and players who voted no will feel ignored. Running a severity vote helps gauge what size event should be run, and ensures that more player opinions are taken into account. 

 Recommended is: 

 customvote "Midround event severity?" "1 - low" 2 3 4 "5 - high 

 But you can adjust that however you want 

 "1 - was that the wind?" "5 - FUCK US UP" 

 What to keep in mind: 

 Try not to overwhelm players. Events should keep in mind things like security presence, individual departmental workload (e.g. don’t run an event that breaks things when there are only two engineers), and gamemode (e.g. don’t spawn in extra entities during zeds).  

 Events should be done for players, not for admins, and should not operate off systems of bias.  An admin should not be running an event because they are bored, to provoke a reaction, or purely because they think it would be funny. Additionally, admin events should not revolve solely around an admin’s friends, or in ways that by design elevate specific, individual players to “main character” status. Notably, this does NOT mean that admins cannot exercise discretion when granting potentially complicated or “risky” roles, it just means that decisions should be made based on objective track record rather than subjective opinion. 

 Communicate! If you’re adminning with other people, let them know what you’re up to, or ask them for their opinion on it. It’s good to keep people in-the-loop and informed. 

 TLDR: 

 Events should be done in moderation and with communication/feedback from other admins online. If you’re running a round-altering event, such as spawning in a unique ghostrole etc., you should make sure you can commit to seeing the event through. Don’t overwhelm players, and keep in mind what departments your event may impact. We are not game masters, but we can still have fun!

Banning And Punishment Policy
Definitions 

 Warning/Low-Severity Note : Informal warning given to a player for any reason, usually when a minor rule has been broken or was almost broken.  

 Strike/Medium-Severity Note : Permanent, formal warning given to a player when a rule has been broken. Strikes should always be clearly communicated to their recipient. When receiving their third strike (or more), they should instead receive a ban. Admins may use their own discretion to ban a player before three strikes are reached if their actions are deemed as bad faith, malicious, or in violation of a zero-tolerance policy. A third strike should **always** result in a ban. 

 Ban : Temporary exclusion of a player from an aspect of the game, reserved as punishment for failing to follow server rules. This includes game bans and role bans, which may be either timed/temporary or permanent/appeal-only.     Game Ban: Ban from all game functions, including connection to the game lobby.     Role Ban : Ban from being able to join the game as selected roles.     Temporary Ban : A timed ban, usually in the range of a few hours (“take a break”), 24-72 hours, 1-2 weeks, or a month. Generally, if a ban in excess of a month is being considered, it should be appeal-only instead.     Appeal-only Ban : Permanent ban which can only be removed through an appeal through the ticket system in the discord.  

 Handling rule breaks 

 When dealing with potential rule breaks, admins are expected to take the necessary steps to get an overview of the situation. This includes asking for context from other admins who may have witnessed what happened, reading game logs, or ahelping involved players. 

 Players found to have broken a rule should be contacted via an ahelp and questioned on the situation. After doing so, the ruling admin may choose how to proceed. They may issue a warning, strike, or ban. 

 All admin intervention, including benign warnings, should be permanently and publicly noted once concluded, unless special circumstances arise. Secret notes should be used sparingly, as they are very hard to act upon later in a way that affords players a complete understanding of why admin action was taken. 

 Using Notes 

 All admin actions should be followed by a note. There is no format saying what to put in the note, but it is encouraged to be as detailed as possible. Information on what kind of warning was issued, what was told to them and what their reaction was is very useful. 

 Low severity notes refer to rule breaks which are not considered strikes. The ruling admin may choose to administer those instead of a medium severity note if they do not believe that the infraction is considered significant enough to administer a strike over. Medium severity notes  are strikes. On the third strike, the ruling admin is heavily encouraged to ban the player instead. High severity notes are reserved for bans. Message notes are severity-agnostic and by default expire after a week. Message notes do not replace regular notes, but may accompany a note if the player could not be contacted regularly due to having disconnected. Watchlists are severity-agnostic *secret* notes used for inter-administrator communication, usually to inform others of potential problem players. If an administrator notices fishy behavior or suspects that a rule may have been consistently broken, they may decide to administer a watchlist. When a player joins the server, the contents of the watchlist note will appear alongside the join notice adminside. 

 Note Format 

 As an example, a note can typically follow this format: 

 (Round Number) (Rules broken/Ahelp topic)

As a (non-antagonist/antagonist) (relevant role), thing they did that broke a rule. 

This is what they were spoken to about in the ahelp, what was suggested, and if they were receptive/how they responded. 

 It's absolutely up to your discretion if you want to use this format or a different one, so long as enough information is provided for future reference. As a minimum, try and include the round number, the rule, the issue, and the resolution. 

 Administering Strikes 

 If a player breaks a server rule, the ruling admin may decide to issue a strike. If this would be their third strike (or more), a ban should be administered instead. 

 When assigning a strike, the ruling admin must inform the player that they have been officially warned. Contacting the player should be done through the game, either via ahelps or through a message note if they have disconnected from the server. When informing a player that they have received a warning, the ruling admin should also provide which rule has been broken and ask the player to re-read our rules. If the player has received their third strike or more and has not been banned, they should be made aware of that fact. 

 Infractions might not be recorded as strikes if the ruling admin does not believe that the broken rule is of significance, or if it would be unfair to do so, such as if the infraction would not reasonably have been noticed without the person ahelping themselves. If this is the case, a low-severity note should still be created. 

 Infractions may lead directly to a ban if the ruling admin has strong reason to believe that the rule was broken out of malice, or if a zero-tolerance rule/the golden rule was broken. 

 Administering Bans 

 If a player breaks a server rule and has either already been banned prior or has received at least 2 strikes, the ruling admin may decide to issue a ban. 

 When assigning a ban, the ruling admin must include the ban reason and the rules broken in the ban message. If this is an appeal-only ban, where to appeal should be included as well. This may be omitted if banning the player is urgent.  

 All bans should have their reason and the rules broken communicated to the offending player. Contacting the player should be done through the game, either via ahelps or through a message note if they have disconnected from the server. 

 Ban Times 

 There is no ban time attributed to any given infraction - instead, when a rule is broken, the ruling admin makes a decision on the type and length of the ban based on their impression of the offending player. If a person’s rulebreaks are all related to a specific job or set of jobs, it is recommended to administer a role ban.  

 For small infractions which did not affect or barely impacted the enjoyment of other players, and where the player is understanding, minor 2-8 hour bans may be given. Those bans are designed to force the player to take some time off, which would allow them to read the rules. For infractions which negatively impacted a good part of the server, longer bans should be applied. These times are highly variable and can range from 12-48 hours for low severity actions, 2-7 days for medium severity actions, and anywhere from a week to a month for high severity actions. Bans lasting over a month should generally be appeal-only. If a player’s actions are malicious beyond reasonable doubt, or if they broke a zero-tolerance rule, administering an appeal-only ban is recommended. 

 Each subsequent ban a player receives should be longer than the previous ones, eventually leading to an appeal-only ban with enough infractions. 

 TLDR 

 In a nutshell, a strike is just an official warning. When someone breaks a rule, if you think that it was bad enough that they should face consequences, that is strike worthy. Otherwise, a simple warning should be issued. 

 - Player has broken a rule, but you do not believe they should get punished for it - Warning, Low severity note. - Player has broken a rule, and you believe they should get punished for it - Strike, Medium severity note. Player is told they were warned and to read the rules. - Player has broken a rule, should be punished, and already has 2 or more strikes (Medium severity notes) or a ban (High severity note) - Game or Role ban, High severity note.

Appeal Policy and Procedure
1. Confirm that the appeal uses our appeal template, and is being made in good faith. 

 Extremely low-effort appeals may be denied without undergoing the full appeal process if attempts have been made to direct the player to proper formatting and they have not reformatted the appeal. Denials must always be checked over by another admin. Examples of low effort appeals are as follows:  - The appeal is clearly the output of an LLM such as ChatGPT.  - The appellant is clearly not expecting their appeal to be accepted, and made it simply to troll.  - The appeal is incomprehensible or written in a language other than English.  - The appeal has so little effort put into it that no other outcome can be derived from it but to close it. - An attempt has been made to guide the appellant to proper formatting but was unsuccessful or met with hostility. 

 2. Collect Information and present it in the ban appeal forum, following the provided format. 

 A new channel should be made in the ban appeal forum for each new appeal. The title should include the  player’s name , the duration of their ban , and a short description of why they were banned (self-antagging/Rule 3B/metafriending). Link the ban appeal ticket sent in by the appellant, and name the banning admin. Begin by linking the ahelp related to the ban, if applicable, followed by other relevant information. 

 There are a few steps to take when collecting relevant information:    1. Check the player’s history of appeals.    2. Make a reasonable attempt to verify any claims made in the appeal by the player, or    accept them to be true.    3. Check the player’s note and ban history.    4. Read the ahelp that led to the ban, if it exists.    5. Contact the banning admin for any additional context or relevant information.    6. Ask the player questions that are important for the processing of the appeal.    7. Attempt to allow the player to respond to information which will be considered in the appeal that it would be unfair to not allow them the opportunity to address.   8. Ensure that relevant information is made available to other admins in the ban appeal thread. 

 3. Run a vote in the ban appeal forum. 

 - Votes should include options to accept the appeal (✅) , lower the ban duration (⏰), or to deny the appeal, allowing another in a month (❌). Decisions to deny further appeals are a case-by-case basis and should be used sparingly, if possible. - Votes must run at least 24 hours, and appeals should be resolved within 5-7 days of the appeal, excluding off-days and barring extreme complexity.  - Votes must not be closed if there is ongoing discussion unless a majority is hit. - Votes should present as much relevant information as possible. 

 4. Post a response to the appeal and summarize the following: 

 - The outcome of the appeal. - The facts referenced to make the decision. - An explanation detailing why the admin team has decided upon the outcome, based on the cited facts. 

 5. Finish the appeal. 

 - The player’s ban appeal thread should be marked as "closed" and "accepted” or “rejected" after the outcome is summarized and sent in their appeal ticket. - Proceed with the agreed-upon outcome. - After you confirm that the player has seen the outcome, you are free to close the ticket or prompt them to close it themselves.