Effective 27 November, 2018

This document Replaces and Supersedes all Prior Such Documents

NCI's main purpose is to support new residents of Second Life. “We help, we serve, we provide, we protect.”

NCI is a warm and welcoming place for new citizens and seasoned users alike. It is a place to learn, teach, and have fun. We welcome all residents as long as their behavior conforms to these Standards. If that’s not something you can agree to, we respectfully request that you visit other areas of Second Life instead.

We’d much prefer that you stay, so please adhere to these Standards while you’re with us. Thanks!

NCI is first and foremost a help area. You are welcome here in support of that focus. If your mood is off one day, perhaps doing something elsewhere will help change it.

Remember that you are our guest. However, time spent here does not give you special rights or privileges. If you cannot follow and respect our rules, please find somewhere else to go.

Enjoy NCI!! Be cool to each other…

In these standards, and in person, we try to be clear, yet polite. We’ll use the word “please” as a matter of courtesy. These are the standards of behavior in NCI and not just suggestions to be followed or not at you will.

You are responsible for understanding these standards, and for behaving within the boundaries at all times. If you have questions or concerns, ask a Land Officer, or on the NCI Help Group.

If you have concerns or questions, feel you have been treated unfairly, take it up privately with the NCI Region Coordinator or a Senior Land Officer.

You can find a list of the NCI Staff here: http://wiki.nci-sl.info/doku.php?id=personnel:personnel

Failure in following these rules may get you removed from our sim and banned.

NCI's purpose is to help the citizens of Second Life, both old and new. Our guidelines request that all people who come to our locations be treated with respect and kindness, no matter how much they get on our nerves. Please allow the staff to take care of the big problems and as our regulars try to help the people causing problems to find a different way to do things. We know it is hard, but if you are not feeling up to the task at the moment, call an LO or just give yourself a little time elsewhere to change your perspective.

Janet posted this great article in the forum. We are adding it here as most of us LO's have found it very helpful. Please give it a read as it talks about language and how it is used and perceived. Let's make sure that none of this is happening in NCI. The link is below

https://tinyurl.com/y6vlloh3

To reiterate, please don't do anything that will interfere with someone enjoying their time here, or getting the help they need.

Abuse, arguing, drama, and unpleasantness of any kind do not belong here. So never abuse or make fun of anyone in chat or IM.

We are here to help people even if they are different from ourselves.

We want to be a place where people are fundamentally kind, and use good judgment in support of our mission, to help with this understanding, we do have some specific rules:

Failure in following these rules may get you removed from our sim and banned.

You may wear weapons as part of an outfit, but you may not use offensive or defensive weapons of any kind on NCI land. This includes waving them around in a threatening manner.

You may not have a gun attached to your hand, even invisible.

While it is okay to build guns here, you must test them elsewhere.

Please do not use pushers, spell-casters, active shields, cagers, combat HUDs, or anything of the kind on NCI land.

Failure in following these rules may get you removed from our sim and banned.

Maturity ratings designate the type of content and behavior allowed in a region and affect search results.

There are three maturity ratings in Second Life: General, Moderate, and Adult.

To access Adult search results and regions, you must be at least 18 years old. For more information on how to access adult content, see Accessing Adult land and content.

A region designated General is not allowed to advertise or make available content or activity that is sexually explicit, violent, or depicts nudity. Sexually-oriented objects such as “sex beds” or poseballs may not be located or sold in General regions.

General regions are areas where you should feel free to say and do things that you would be comfortable saying and doing in front of your grandmother or a grade school class. Institutions such as universities, conference organizers, and real world businesses may wish to designate their regions as General. Likewise their users (and others) may wish to employ Second Life's General search setting to focus and filter search results appropriately.

Some landowners and Residents desire a Second Life experience distinct from the activity that occurs in Moderate and Adult regions. Region owners who wish to host this sort of Second Life experience can (but need not) designate their regions as General.

If you are a region owner and you feel there is some ambiguity as to whether your content and activities are allowed in General regions, it's probably best to designate your region as Moderate.

Second Life's Moderate designation accommodates most of the non-adult activities common in Second Life. Dance clubs, bars, stores and malls, galleries, music venues, beaches, parks, and other spaces for socializing, creating, and learning all support a Moderate designation so long as they do not host publicly promoted adult activities or content and do not use adult search tags. Groups, events and classifieds that relate to this broad range of activities and themes generally should also be designated as Moderate.

Residents in these spaces should therefore expect to see a variety of themes and content. Stores that sell a range of content that includes some “sexy” clothing or objects can generally reside in Moderate rather than Adult regions. Dance clubs that feature “burlesque” acts can also generally reside in Moderate regions as long as they don't promote sexual conduct, for instance through pose balls (whether in “backrooms” or more visible spaces). However if any of these businesses uses adult-oriented search tags, the region may be categorized as Adult and blocked from appearing in non-Adult search.

The Adult designation applies to Second Life regions that host, conduct, or display content that is sexually explicit, intensely violent, or depicts illicit drug use. A region must be designated Adult if it hosts, advertises, or publicly promotes:

  Representations of intensely violent acts, for example depicting death, torture, dismemberment or other severe bodily harm, whether or not photo-realistic (meaning that images either are or cannot be distinguished from a photograph).
  Photo-realistic nudity.
  Expressly sexually themed content, spaces or activities, whether or not photo-realistic. We broadly define what is "sexually themed" to include any sexually oriented activities and conduct.

Groups, event listings and classified ads that reference these themes or content must also be designated Adult. Linden Lab will enforce these rules but cannot monitor all ephemeral content and conduct within Second Life. Therefore:

  Regions, groups, and event or classified ad listings that employ search tags plainly suggestive of adult behavior or content require the Adult designation, and will be viewable only by Residents that are at least 18 years old.
  Linden Lab will conduct proactive monitoring and rely on abuse reports that identify adult content or conduct that is promoted or advertised publicly. Where adult content or conduct on a region is publicly advertised or promoted, that region must be designated as Adult (or such content must be removed). We will re-designate such regions if adult content is not removed.
  Linden Lab may take into account whether apparent or reported adult content or conduct in a particular region serves only an extremely limited or passive function, or an important educational or cultural function, and therefore would be appropriate for all Second Life audiences.
  As with all reported activity in violation of our policies, Linden Labs will actively review all reports of adult conduct and provide Residents with a channel for rebuttal.

Parcels that host adult activities or contain adult content must be on:

  The adult mainland continent, Zindra.
  A private region that has been designated by its owner as Adult.

Region owners are responsible for designating a region's maturity level. Occupants of regions will be expected to locate in a region suitable to each occupant's content and conduct.

Linden Labs defines G rated as follows, A region designated General is not allowed to advertise or make available content or activity that is sexually explicit, violent, or depicts nudity.

See above for the guide to Linden Labs Maturity Levels

Sexy is OK, but dress in a G-rated fashion always, in any NCI area. Your outfit must cover all private parts of your avatar(the naughty bits). If your avatar depicts nudity by wearing sheer clothing, nipple tape, pasties, long hair with no top, thongs or G-strings then wear something else.

Remove your adult items, including any invisible part of your genitalia. If you have a question about your outfit, consider being a bit more modest in your choice or ask the LO for their thoughts.

Failure in following these rules may get you removed from our sim and banned.

NCI is about learning and teaching. Disrupting events will not be tolerated. Officers and instructors will take whatever steps they feel are necessary to keep events orderly and productive.

We require kind, polite behavior and language at all times. Please avoid any drama, arguing, or conversation that might make people uncomfortable. Our mission is to keep people comfortable, not to toughen them up. Flirting is cute. Bad words or sexual innuendo, not good.

Failure in following these rules may get you removed from our sim and banned.

You may not set out items for sale, nor offer them in chat or instant messages. The same goes for the following: • gambling machines or any other commercial items. • do not advertise for any club or venue. • do not send out “Bite Requests” or the equivalent for any role-playing games.

Don’t ask people to give you money or loan you money. If you’re low on cash, check out our extensive Freebies area.

You may rent advertisements on our AdNode system. Funds from that support NCI activities, so it’s a good way to get some benefit and give back as well. Click a vacant board for information.

Failure in following these rules may get you removed from our sim and banned.

NCI is an all-inclusive, welcoming community. There is no room for profanity, intolerance, crude and/or unwelcome sexual advances, repetitive playing of annoying sound clips, and rezzing junk prims all over the place.

Keep open conversation G-rated, very clean and pleasant. Generally stay away from difficult topics like religion, sex, or politics. If a conversation is getting inflammatory, please drop it.

If asked by an officer to drop a subject, please drop it. We're not trying to suppress freedom of speech. However, in our experience, certain topics are so If you are wondering if some word is OK, we’d prefer you not use it.

Failure in following these rules may get you removed from our sim and banned.

Escalating Disciplinary Actions
Unless it is an emergency situation, please warn before ejecting, and eject before banning. We want to reserve bans for people who are genuine griefers/assholes, and avoid hitting people who just don't understand the rules or have a language issue.

Warnings
Avoid stating in your warnings, the potential consequence of being banned. Simply explain the rules, ask the person to comply with the rules, then if non-compliance continues take action as necessary. Requests of the form of “Stop that or I will ban you!” are often seen as patronizing, and can actually escalate the situation. They can also be construed as threatening, resulting in bogus ARs, as well.

Use of Security system
Use the NCI security system rather than parcel bans if at all possible. We understand that sometimes there are problems with the system. (If there are, please contact Kreechur). If, for whatever reason you need to use a parcel ban, make sure a ban is also entered into the security with the explanation, or have another land officer do so on your behalf. Parcel Bans that are not recorded in the security system may be freely removed by the Security Coordinator or senior staff where appropriate.

Reasons for Bans
Always enter a reason for a ban in the security system. Bans entered without a corresponding reason may not work.

Removing Bans
Normally, only the authorizing party can undo or authorize the undoing of a ban, without a decision from the Senior Land Officers. If you are entering a ban or unban on behalf of someone else, please cite their name, as they are the authorizing party.

Bans for Actions Outside of NCI. Never ban someone for something they have done outside NCI land or chat channels. We are not the Grid Police.

Freeze
Freeze is not a toy. Use it when you have to stop someone taking action against others, so that you have a few moments to change parcel settings or use the security system. It isn't for jokes or kidding around. It makes us look capricious.

Abusive People
If someone is abusive or insulting when challenged on a matter of rules, go ahead and ban them. Life is too short to argue with unreasonable people.

Banning Land Officers
Never, ever ban or eject another member of NCI Staff or Land Holdings for any reason. If a staff member is acting in a way that would justify a ban, contact the Senior Land Officer for the campus that they are misbehaving on. If an Instructor or Event host is acting in a way that would justify a ban, contact the Education Coordinator or the Events Coordinator as appropriate. If the first line contact is not online, contact another Senior Land Officer

Senior Land Officers, the Education Coordinator, and the Events Coordinator are empowered to issue a temporary ban of no more than forty-eight hours to staff members that act in a manner warranting a ban for behavior happening in their respective areas. Such bans shall be reviewed by the Senior Land officers during that time.