The Crew

Staff/Admin are not required to attend every instance we run, but there are certain minimum expectations.

Trainee Staff

Trainees are expected to assist with at least one instance each week in addition to assisting around the Discord Server.

The Training period consists of 40 total hours of logged instance time. Once this is done, you’ll be assessed by the Admin/IA team for full promotion.

Don’t feel pressured on time for this period. If it takes you one week or five to reach 40 hours, it’s entirely at whatever you deem to be a reasonable pace for yourself.

Staff

Staff are expected to assist with at least two instances each week in addition to any other unofficial instance or off VR events they run.

Admin

Admin are expected to assist with at least three instances each week in addition to any other unofficial instance or off VR events they run.

In order to be considered for Admin, Staff must have a persistent record of attendance and a good record with their moderator actions. Build trust within the team!

Internal Affairs

Internal Affairs are more back end moderators and a part of the senior team. IA is expected to show initiative and want to take charge of making our community great! Their job is to assist with the logistics of running a group and to help effectively moderate the moderators.

Admin can apply to be IA if they have significant time and experience with the group, good relationships, and a good track record.

Instance Tracking

We use a bot called Calliope developed here for the Cryptids BY the Cryptids! This bot can track moderator attendance and alerts us when an instance is up without a moderator present.

It has two modes of operating:

A manual clock in/out mode where you can report present in an instance by a discord command or on the website ( Calliope.Cryptids.dev )

an Automatic mode where you opt into it with either a discord command or with the UI on the website, the bot’s VRC Account will friend you and you’ll be required to be Blue or Green while in a group instance for it to work.

Which mode we’ll use is TBD at this time.

“Assist with” an instance is defined as present and attentive for moderation for at least two hours of the instance

You are not required to be at all instances all the time, just don’t leave an instance unmoderated.

Always represent the Staff or Admin Group while moderating any Cryptids Carnival Instance

All Moderators should have at least one of the Group official stickers: the group tag, the group public rules, or the group private rules. (NOTE: VRC+ Is not required to be a member of staff or of the admin team. It helps and if you DO have it, please take copies of these stickers, but it is not required.)

Throw that sticker down someplace visible near the spawn. Preferably there would be multiple Admin in an instance, if so someone should throw down the group tag sticker and another person should throw down the version of the rules appropriate for the instance.

For any instance or event we run, an announcement should be made in the discord server (in #events) and in VRChat (sent to Public) naming the event, the world, and the instance type at a minimum.

NOTE: Our bot “Calliope” handles announcements automatically, these rules should apply, however, in the event that the bot doesn’t automatically announce the instance.

In the case of discord announcements, be sure to @ whichever roles seem appropriate.

If more than one member of the admin/staff teams are present, please help each other out, let one admin work on opening the instance while another or others make the announcements.

After any event, an announcement should be made to the group in VRChat thanking participants for coming, welcoming new members, and reminding people to join our Discord.

If you are the only moderator in an instance, please refrain from sleeping, prolonged AFK periods, or sequestering yourself away in a private or restricted access room. If you feel the need to do so and no one else is available to assist in instance moderation, we would rather you close the instance than risk TOS/rules violations getting us in trouble as a group.

For new/trainee staff members, any event that they pilot or initiate should have a more experienced staff member or admin attend the event or instance for at least the first couple of hours to ensure things are running smoothly, assist, and train as necessary.

Slurs and bigotry are not tolerated. If someone is found to be using racial or LGBT slurs or bigoted language or dog whistles, they should be banned from the group.

Intentionally malicious actors such as obnoxious behavior, spammy avatars, or massive avatars should be warned, and then kicked if the behavior persists.

Anyone found to be harassing other players or violating the rules should be warned, and then kicked if the player persists.

Regular, non-moderation staff should escalate reports of rule-breaking and malicious behavior to moderators as quickly as possible. Non-Moderator staff does have the authority to warn people, though, just not kick/ban.

For personal issues between instance attendees where no rules are being violated, we recommend that the complainants simply block each other.

For most situations that may result in a kick, at least two admin should be involved in the decision to kick an individual unless the rule breaking or behavior is immediate and egregious.

For all situations where a ban is being considered, that should go through senior staff prior to enforcement.

If any attendee of an event blocks the staff or admin, they should be kicked. Similarly, if you feel the need to block someone, consider them for kicking instead. If their behavior is bad enough to block, why keep them around? We cannot moderate people we cannot interact with.

We use FCH Toolkit to assist in moderation. Once you warn, kick, or ban someone, you’ll need to give it a minute to register, then go to the FCH Toolkit section of the Discord server and use the embed generated from your moderator action to apply tags and a text description of the reason for the kick/warn/ban. You can also reply to the thread with evidence of the action, if you have any. This can be screenshots or recordings or whatever you may have.

Be kind and empathetic with everyone you encounter. You are representing the group and are people’s first impression of us.

We want to foster a welcoming, chill atmosphere.

Whenever you’re running an event or instance, make sure to send group invites to new people who join, and explain a little about our group to anyone interested.

Make sure you make the rounds around an instance, meet people, talk to them. Don’t let large parts of the world go un-visited for too long.

Please do not complain about an instance, other members of staff, event, or world we’re in while running an event as this can alienate people from the group. After all “Man if the people running this thing don’t even want to be here, why should I?”

Once out of the trainee phase, you’re free (and heavily encouraged) to open instances wherever and whenever you desire.

Try to get pictures to post to the discord and include in the website’s gallery.

If any event attendees want to help out without being a member of staff, ie. serving as a bartender in a club instance, they must rep the Cryptids Carnival group banner while doing so.

Periodically, such as every hour or every half hour, make sure to share the group in the instance. You accomplish this by selecting Groups in the launchpad menu, then Cryptids Carnival, then Share Group, Send to Users, Checkmark “all”

you should also send group invites to people as you talk to and engage with them.

All Moderators are encouraged to open group instances wherever and whenever they like.

Please keep in mind that you will be representing the group when you do so and behave accordingly.

If an “unofficial” instance seems to be a hit, we’ll reconvene about adding it to the official schedule.