- 'Professional' behavior; this can include language, tone, spelling, etc. Is it better for staff to be aloof or to be chat with their players?
Spelling and grammar: yes, I'd like to see everyone put some effort in, but some people are simply bad this. I'm not keen on holding 'genuinely not great at this' as an ethical failure of any kind. I will side-eye a little at someone who can craft a brilliant, literate pose and is seven shades of 'lolololololol whut u say?????' OOC and on channels from their staff bit, though; not able is one thing, 'gives none fucks' is another.
Language... I swear. I always swear. I more or less always have. I would probably swear in church if I went, and I have apparently driven nuns to swear in church, so there's that. This is because I don't automatically believe profanity == abusive or rude or uncivil. That said, it should never be directed at people if being civil and friendly. "That's fucking awesome!" == OK; "You're a fucking jackass!" =! OK. That said, "You are a stupid idiot!" =! OK in the kind of environment I consider civil, so it's not about which words are being used, aside from actual slur language, which is never OK.
Tone should be positive as much as possible. In those moments in which someone has to either let off steam or has a valid frustration to express, that is always best done privately to other staff only. If someone can't keep their positive<-->negative balance skewed positive, they're probably not a good fit for staff, because they're clearly not happy with what they're doing.
Aloof? No. Approachable? Yes. Everybody's bestie? Also no. And that's a hard line to draw. I know that whenever I'm staffing, I generally do not have the time or attention span to spend in lengthy individual daily chats about somebody's art projects (and I'm including my own here) or their day or their kids or their favorite music, etc., and there are some folks that feel that unless a staffer engages in this kind of random social fu, or isn't open to this at all times, they're 'aloof'. If that's somebody's definition of aloof, well, I'm gonna be aloof and not feel especially bad about it, honestly. Channel chatter with players and OOC room chat with a group that doesn't delve into anything too personal? All well and good, and probably a net positive for approachability in most cases.
There's a positive side to 'aloof' I think staff should embrace, and that's generally the 'avoid being a petty gossip or busybody about things that aren't necessarily anybody's business IC or OOC'. Players definitely do this, or joke around about it even publicly (teasing, claiming, etc.), but when staff does this, it starts looking like bias or favoritism even when it isn't.
- Activity levels. Is a staff member doing what they are supposed to do? What are they supposed to do and how well/frequently? What's a good standard?
This depends on what job they have on the game. A coder might not be needed all the time, for instance. Same with someone who grooms a wiki once every X amount of time. Barring vacations or time away for a special purpose, I'm personally keen on 'show up at least twice a week for an hour or two to get your stuff done' as a general minimum.
That said, I'm not as interested in minimums or maximums or hourlies as I am in someone's work ethic. As in, if you're going to log in, log in ready to get stuff done, do not just log your staff bit in to socialize; use your player bit for that, dammit. I have seen too many staffers just log in and chat away merrily for hours while simple jobs that no one else can handle due to CoI or similar concerns are completely ignored, and that is just not OK. If they were on 'man the newbie channel' duty or similar, it would be one thing, but typically this is not the case. Fuck that behavior.
- Communication, following up on promises. How much transparency is a good thing? In discipline cases how much should be revealed about what happened (or the reasons nothing did)?
I am a fan of transparency, but I'm also a fan of privacy. Balancing the two is not easy. For instance, I don't believe a staffer should be required to publicly reveal their alts unless everyone on the game is asked to do so, and I'm not a fan of demanding that anyone do so publicly. That said, I'm not completely against a generic 'staff alt' label on staff's PCs that doesn't disclose which staffer they are, but I'm still not completely sold on it, either.
Similarly, in discipline issues, some targets of abuse are not going to want their names going out there due to realistic concerns about retaliation. I would say in most cases, this is undesirable. "Joe was stalking Jenny, so he got the boot." =! OK; "Joe got the boot for stalking a fellow player." == OK. I think @Sonder pretty much nails this one at FC; the basics of the negative behavior are mentioned, who did it is mentioned, and what was done about it (temp ban, full ban) is disclosed. I don't remember if she adds 'if you have any questions, direct them to headstaff' or not, but I could see this being viable and useful for two reasons: 1. all the gossipy assholes who just want dirt on somebody will reveal themselves and you get to know who they are to keep an eye on that nightmare, and 2. anyone who has a similar complaint about <name> is more likely to bring it to your attention at that time.
With the setup I was looking at, and have been pondering for some time, there's more transparency in general than is typical. Sheets are public. Spends are public, along when when they were made and who processed them, since it's all on the wiki and these things appear automatically in history.
As big as 'transparency' in staff decision-making, in my view, is the kind of transparency that reduces the disparity of information power between players and staff by default.
- Playing their own game; staff not playing alts or revealing their names, or not permitting those PCs to attain important positions.
Mostly covered above. Standard CoI rules apply. If, for some reason, a staffer has to work on something that would impact one of their own characters in some way, whether it's adding a power they plan to take, a house rule change that would apply to them, etc. I am keen on having that job published to public view, in full, while it's being discussed or once it's complete. (Whichever is more relevant. An XP spend or processing XP for a log has all public data that everyone can see no matter who is doing it for who, so if something is fishy, this can be called out by anyone at any time about anybody else, so this is more 'when complete', as opposed to 'hey, we're thinking of adding this new piece of equipment, what do y'all think?' which is more viable to open to public discussion and input anyway.)
Re: leadership roles, the setup I prefer keeps leadership roles in public factions in NPC control, and (most) NPCs can be used freely, as needed, by players or staff alike, rather than held in staff control alone.
In player-created factions and groups, whoever created it makes the rules. They can make a 'no staff alts allowed!' rule for the whole group if they want, so far as I'm concerned. Someone on staff can create a group like this as well, but must do so under the same rules and limitations as any player would. If they end up in a leadership position by whatever mechanism the group adopts to decide who gets to lead, so be it, but they aren't owed one any more or less than anyone else. (Considering how often 'has demonstrated excellent people-management and creative and story-making skills as the leader of a group' gets someone considered for a staff role in the first place, being needlessly restrictive about this is destined to hobble a group or prevent someone who would be a great benefit to the game from joining staff, and that's all downside.)
- Protecting 'appearances' by not ruling on issues close to them (friends are involved, etc); what happens in small games, or if the staff is small and everyone is involved with everyone else? What are the limits?
The small games problem is more and less hard because of what you're describing. On a small game, appearances end up being less a concern when everyone actually does know you, what you're about, and what standards you hold yourself to -- which is actually good, because, yeah, these concerns are all the more likely to come up with a small game with a small staff. They're almost inevitable, even if you have measures in place to avoid them as much as possible. The best you can really do is be as transparent as you can in these cases, and let people 'see your work', like ye olde math class in elementary school. It's essentially a trade-off that balances out, at least somewhat.
I mean, that's not even a good attitude to have in an actual workplace.
