Referring to (
https://limelightgaming.net/derma/rules.html)
Rule 1.4 states: Do not insult players or staff in Out-Of-Character chats.
What is considered "insulting"? Does it actually have to offend the person the insult is aimed at, or is it at the judgement of an administrator?
Why do the punishments range from a couple hours OOC ban to a week long ban for an almost equal offence?
If the insult is said in an IC chat, pm for example, is it ever breaking a rule?
This rule should be expanded imo. What I consider an insult other may not or vice versa.
Just don't insult people in Out-Of-Character chats? How hard can that be. If you however want to insult someone, just call them something equivalent. Like, someone is being an idiot? Call them a carrot. Done deal.
Keep the insults In-Character, you can literally pull out a thesaurus and then just go from page one to whatever. It won't be punishable.
TL;DR Don't insult people.
Hello,
I'll try to cover each of your points as best I can.
What is considered "insulting"? Does it actually have to offend the person the insult is aimed at, or is it at the judgement of an administrator?
Insults are messages intended to offend. It's generally fairly clear to see when someone is genuinely insulting or when it's simply 'banter' between friends.
E.G.
"WTF you dumbass cop learn to drive you stupid shit i hope u die of a festering wound caused by an angry sloth"
This is quite clearly insulting, however in the same situation -
"omg safira blacklist yourself from cars pl0x XD"
The 'XD' or another indicator that a person is joking shows that no harm is intended in their message.
As I mentioned, it's fairly clear to see if someone gets offended by another player's message, as they will either retaliate or make an @ call, and that's when we intervene.
Why do the punishments range from a couple hours OOC ban to a week long ban for an almost equal offence?
Punishments are up to an admin's discretion. A player who has multiple offences in the past and continues to break the same rule is punished more severely to a first-time offender; players with high hours or a good reputation are should be rolemodels and are made an example of.
If the insult is said in an IC chat, pm for example, is it ever breaking a rule?
IC Chat insults will never be an offence of Rule 1.4, as they are in-character and are not aimed at the player but rather their character. PM is a bit of a grey area as it is used both in-character and out-of-character.
The distinguishing factor is usually based on context. If we use the example above, there would be two ways to go about getting your message across but one of them would class as an OOC message:
"*You have 1 New Text* Yo bitch. Think you can crash into den damage my car? Keep watch, asshole. -X"
The voluntary RP background of receiving a text defines the message as an IC situation. What they talk about is confined only to events which happen IC, again referring to nothing which would make it an OOC message.
"Safira you made my car lose 60HP you wrinkled old fuck-twat shit ill ddos ur fat mom's nokia"
The first indicator is using my username rather than my character's name. Vehicle HP is an OOC criteria ("you damaged my car" would be the IC equivalent), and DDoS is a threat most likely to be Out-Of-Character.
Everything relies on context; at the end of it though it's usually very clear to see when someone is insulting another player or not.