TeamSpeak 3 Code of Conduct

1. Scope of the Teamspeak 3 Code of Conduct

This document is to serve as a complete compendium to the rules of the Teamspeak 3 server. If it is not listed in this document it does not exist and is not enforceable. Each rule will have specific definitions of the rule as well as elaborating the specified intent of the rule along with examples to help clarify the rules true intent. By the end of this document, no questions should be remaining as to what the rule meant and how it applies to the player.

2. Teamspeak 3 - Code of Conduct Outline

Section 3 of the Teamspeak 3 Code of conduct will cover the following bases.

1. Presence in TeamSpeak.
2. Absence and inactivity.
3. Manners.
4. Push-To-Talk vs. Voice Activation.
5. B3 / RCon usage orders confirmation.
6. Politics and religion as topics of discussion on TeamSpeak.
7. Personnel identification on TeamSpeak.
8. Inviting potential recruits into Teamspeak.
9. Military courtesies.

3. Public versus Private Channels Definition

The following are considered public channels:

• All chat lobbys.
• All recruiting offices.
• All game channels.
• All squad channels.
• All operations channels.
• All administration offices except (Knock) offices.

The following are considered private channels:

• Platoon staff offices.
• Company private offices.
• Company staff offices.
• Battalion private offices.
• Battalion staff offices.
• All General Staff offices.
• Administration (Knock) offices.

4. Specific definitions of the Teamspeak 3 Code of Conduct

1. Presence in TeamSpeak.

• All 7th Cavalry personnel are required to be present in the TeamSpeak server during game-play on any and all official 7th Cavalry public and private game servers.

Spirit of the Rule: This is to facilitate accountability of action, communication and enable the Admin staff to immediately recognize outsiders posing as 7th Cavalry personnel.

2. Absence and inactivity.

• Troopers are required to avoid longer periods of online inactivity or absence when logged into the TeamSpeak server. If stepping away for more than 5 minutes, mark yourself away. If planning to be away for an extended period, move yourself to the Away channel.

Spirit of the Rule: This is to ensure that people who are away are clearly identified as such to prevent people looking for help from approaching them and wasting time trying to contact them.

3. Behavior and Language in Public Channels.

• No rude behavior, rude comments or vulgar language will be tolerated. Apologize if a swear word slips out during combat, as accidents do happen. However patterns of abusive behavior and language will not be tolerated.
• No discussion of politics, religion or other potentially volatile subjects, those discussions belong in private channels.
• No direct personal attacks of any kind on other members or guests.
• Treat each other with respect no matter their rank, position, or anything else.

3. Manners.

• No rude behavior, rude comments or vulgar language will be tolerated. Apologize if a swear word slips out during combat, as accidents do happen. However patterns of abusive behavior and language will not be tolerated.

Spirit of the Rule: 7th Cavalry Personnel conduct themselves in a professional and mature fashion. Such behavior is simply uncalled for, would damage the reputation of the Unit among guests and lower the morale of troops witnessing such outbursts. In addition, some of our members are minors and should not be exposed to behavior of this kind. This influences those young people badly, sets a wrong example and should also be a point of consideration in this case.

4. Push-To-Talk vs. Voice Activation.

• All Regimental personnel under the rank of First Sergeant are required to use their comms with a Push-To-Talk button. Only senior Non-Commissioned Officers and Commissioned Officers are allowed to utilize the Voice Activation method of communication.

Spirit of the Rule: This is to ensure that only responsible and experienced members of the Unit are utilizing comms that report the whole of the noise in their surroundings. Also, this lessens the constant traffic and unnecessary chatter, as most of the personnel has to key up before speaking.

5. B3 / RCon usage orders confirmation.

• Should a person with access to B3 / RCon be ordered by a senior ranking Officer to ban or kick a player from the server, this order has to be issued directly within the TeamSpeak. If the order is delivered in text or outside of TeamSpeak, it will not be followed. This goes only for orders regarding administrative actions with the use of the B3 / RCon tools.

Spirit of the Rule: This rule requires personal identification of the Officer issuing a major order such as temporary or permanent removal of a player from one of our servers. This ensures that no imposter's will pose as Senior Staff and issue ban or kick orders via other means of communications, without being recognized.

6. Politics and religion as topics of discussion on TeamSpeak.

• Politics, religion and other potentially volatile topics are not to be discussed in open, public channels (server channels, section channels, so on). These topics, with the permission of the office holder, may only be discussed in specific office channels.

Spirit of the Rule: Such topics have brought up issues between troops of different religions, nationalities, political views and such, when brought up in private. This is to ensure that such topics will not offend and when conducted in private, everyone has a chance to bow out of discussion before the topic at hand becomes an issue for him.

7. Personnel identification on TeamSpeak.

• All 7th Cavalry members are required to use at all times the specific TeamSpeak identity that was assigned with Member Access, Rank Privilege and potentially Admin Status. Such an identity is to be exported to a flash drive / mailed to self for storage and to be used on any and all the machines said personnel communicates from. Identities are not to be doubled and “spare” identities will not be given copies of access, unless previous identity copy was destroyed.
• All personnel are required to set up their phonetic nicknames with “fully spelled out rank nickname” at all times.

Spirit of the Rule: We have to be able to tell our own from the non-members. Our troops have to have the ability to move freely around the TS channels and utilize their Admin privileges. OPSEC demands that identities are not doubled and tripled for each troop and each of his machines. Lack of a phonetic nickname spams the channels with "EQUALSIGNSEVEN-C-A-V-EQUALSIGN-P-F-C-Newbie has entered the channel".

8. Inviting potential recruits into Teamspeak.

• The data for connecting to the TeamSpeak server will be provided to potential recruits only via private means of communication (PM, e-mail, Steam message, XFire message). It will not be transmitted on public comms, such as a post in our Forum's publicly viewable areas (those where non-members will ask for them, most likely). The only exception from this is open chats on the game servers.
• Public players shall maintain Teamspeak access (to the public game server channels) until such time it is determined that they are not interested in joining the 7th Cavalry Regiment.

Spirit of the Rule: This is another OPSEC requirement. Public sending of our TS3 data raises the risk of provoking attacks on our servers.

9. Military courtesies.

• Military courtesy shows respect and reflects self-discipline. Consistent and proper military courtesy is an indicator of unit discipline, as well. Soldiers demonstrate courtesy in the way we address officers or NCOs of superior rank. First of all, you have to learn to discern three kinds of settings a TeamSpeak conversation can take place in. Those are:

Official Setting

• During any official proceedings everyone's proper Rank should be observed, whether you are talking to them or about them (e.g. quoting that person, "Sergeant Yahoo has just informed me that..."). You do it by saying either the full rank or an abbreviation if there's an accepted one. For all of the commissioned officers, 2nd Lieutenant and above, you need to add "Sir". You can also address the COs (but not the Generals!) as just "Sir".
• Even if you are buddy-buddy with CPL. Danny who's your SL, you will use his rank to address him, for example during section practice. Therefore, it's "Corporal, I'd like a short bio break if I may?" or "Corporal Danny, what load-out do you need us to choose again, please?" In turn, your Corporal will also address you by rank, so it will be "OK, PFC James, you got 5 minutes" and "The default assault kit, Private". Here's a list of all the Ranks in the Cavalry, how they are abbreviated in the tags and how they should be properly addressed:

What is defined as an official Setting:

• Regimental meetings;
• Platoon meetings;
• Officers room on official business;
• On boot-camp grounds;
• Section training;
• Platoon training;

Battlefield Setting

• Attention does not need to be called in combat rooms;
• Ranks do not need to be observed in order to preserve time;
• You might be instructed by some of the officers and NCOs to drop their Rank in non-official settings (e.g. on the battlefield, or in private). Some people just don't want to be called "Sir!" all day long, some consider you their friend and allow you to be more casual around them. However, the permission goes ONLY for the person that gave it to you. A permission to call First Lieutenant Jack just "Jack" does not allow you to call SGT. Ralph per "Ralph";

What is defined as a Battlefield Setting:

• Casual game-play;
• In specific game-server channels, public or otherwise;
• Battalion operations;

Private Setting

• This is a variant on the "Instructed otherwise" above. In a private casual conversation between buddies, if all agree, ranks may be dropped. A conversation is considered private on mutual agreement of all involved. If a new person joins, the conversation is no longer Private and all should observe proper ranks, unless this person also agrees for the setting to be private. By default, assume this person does not and follow all proper courtesies.

What is defined as a Private Setting:

• Alone in a non public channel having casual conversation;

Spirit of the Rule: We follow the US Army traditions of military courtesies to respect the rank, effort, devotion and time sacrificed to the unit and as such you must offer this courtesy.

Notes

1. What to do when a room is being called to “Attention!” or “At ease”?

   Whenever an Officer or NCO comes into your Teamspeak channel, the first person to notice him should turn the attention to his entrance. He does that by announcing "Attention!" for an officer, or "At ease!" for an NCO. That officer or NCO can reply with "Carry on!", "As you were", "At ease" or "Attention!", depending on the situation and what just got announced.
   
   Consider the situation in the room a three-stage switch. "At attention" everyone stops what they are doing, stops talking and listen closely to what the officer has to say. People have to go out of games, stop browsing web-page's and concentrate on what's being said (this is the default state during a Regimental or Platoon Meeting). "At ease", everyone is supposed to be quiet and listen, but they can continue what they were doing - playing games, browsing pages. "Carry on" or "As you were" means everyone can get back to talking, playing, whatever they did just a second ago.
   
   This means that when something happens and an NCO enters, the room will be brought to "At ease!". The NCO can keep it this way and just talk to the guys, he can escalate the situation to "Attention!" and relay an important message or just allow people to "Carry on!" with what they were doing. When an officer comes in and the room is brought to "Attention!", he can talk right away and demand full attention, bring it down to "At ease!" and still talk about something and everyone should listen in, or he can just allow people to be "As you were".
   
   If there happens to be an officer / NCO in the room already, who is higher in Rank than the one entering, nothing has to be said. The entering officer can, however, get the room's attention as necessary.

2. What to do if I want to enter an Officer's room or a Department office?

   Should you need to enter a room of an Officer or of a Department, or a room when an Officer or NCO is having a conversation with others, please send the highest ranking person in that office (or the owner of the office) a Private Message with a simple "knock knock?" and wait for a reply. That person will either allow you to come in, or will tell you to standby.

3. How do I know what to call each person?

   When you are unsure of what to call people, you can make reference to these following tables to know how to address them:

Militairy Courtesty