Player Behaviour Infractions

Notice

The Behaviour Panel reserves the right to issue infractions and/or ban to a person based on the offence, including offences committed whilst that person is already serving a ban.

About Player Behaviour Infractions¶

ozfortress polices player behaviour using a system of infraction points. Infractions are split into different tiers, of which each tier carries more severe point totals and expiration times. Each person starts with 0 infraction points.

Bans will be issued at different point thresholds, and carry different ban lengths depending on which threshold is reached. Infractions are active from their issue date (seen on your profile), not from when a report is submitted or reviewed.

Infraction Threshold Bans¶

Bans are issued at different point thresholds, and carry different ban lengths depending on how many points a person has accrued. Infraction Threshold bans and each ban level can be seen below.

An Infraction Threshold ban restricts and/or removes a person from all official ozfortress mediums, including the ozfortress Discord and website. Infraction Threshold bans prevent offenders from participating in any ozfortress competitions for the duration of their ban. Those serving these bans will be muted on ozfortress servers. In the event that a person reoffends during their ban period, they will be subject to a Ban Reset.

Infractions themselves are considered warnings, and as such there are no warnings for offences listed below.

Report Requirements & Evidence Verification¶

Evidence submitted via Reports should be uploaded/hosted on services where the evidence will not expire. If you wish to free up storage wherever it is located, please check with the Behaviour Panel to ensure a copy has been made.
For reports made with evidence where it could be difficult for us to verify a person's voice, the authenticity of an account, or the context around a screenshot of a message - we ask that you include proof to support that evidence, for example:
- If you are submitting evidence such as voice recordings, video evidence, screenshots of messages in in-game chat, or anything else that may need verification, please ensure you provide this verification within your report. For voice recordings, we ask that you screen record and show the account in question, same for video evidence. For screenshots of in-game chat, please provide either logs.tf links or server logs. If your screenshots are from Discord or Steam, we may ask you to provide the context around then, potentially via the Discord/Steam mobile apps as they are harder to manipulate/manufacture.

Making a Report¶

If you want to learn how to make a report, please see our Support & Reporting Hub, linked below.

Please Note

It is the responsibility of the reporter to submit their report via the appropriate avenue, of which can be found in the link below. ozfortress staff are not responsible for passing on your report for you. Administrators have been explicitly told to direct you to this page for a reason.

Reporting Player Behaviour

Evidence Expiry Window¶

We observe a 6-month "statute of limitations" for all evidence submitted via reports. There are a few reasons we observe this reporting window, but chief among them is to allow players to improve upon their behaviour without late intervention. We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to change, and by enforcing this 6-month reporting window, we prevent any form of malicious reporting. In rare circumstances, typically due to the severity of the offence, we may make an exception to this rule. However, these exceptions are exceedingly rare. Simply put, we will very rarely accept reports containing evidence over 6 months in age.

Infraction Threshold Ban Levels¶

20 points:
- 3-Round Match Ban.
40 points:
- 6-Round Match Ban.
60 points:
- 1-Year Infraction Threshold Ban.
- 9-Month Game Server Ban.
  
  Ban ends early to allow players to begin reintegrating into the league.
- 12-Month Game Server Mute.
  
  Prevents talking via voice or text.

Please Note

Every 30 points above the 60 point ban level will result in another year added to the ban.

3-Round & 6-Round Match Bans¶

The 3-Round and 6-Round Match Bans carry across competitions, so if it is received during the offseason or at the end of your season, it will continue at the start of the next regular season or competition you play.

Infraction Point Expiry & Bans¶

Infraction points do not expire after a person's ban ends, Infraction points expire depending on their own expiry. Infraction expiries are listed with the offences below.

Probations¶

Probations are applied after a person's ban expires, and said probation will remain for a 12-month period after their ban. Within this probation period, offences will incur penalties of a higher severity, depending on the tier of the offence.

Tier 1 infractions are multiplied by 2x, and will incur 20 points.
Tier 2 infractions are multiplied by 2x, and will incur 40 points.
Tier 3 infractions are multiplied by 2x, and will instantly incur 60 points.

Ban Resets¶

Infractions accrued whilst serving a ban can result in a person's ban being reset back to its original length. We have set point thresholds to dictate when a ban will be reset, or when a person has too many points for their ban to be reset and a Ban Extension may be considered.

Minimum Ban Reset point threshold:
- 30 points.
Maximum Ban Reset point threshold:
- 60 points.

The Ban Reset thresholds are not subject to the increased penalties of Probations. The Behaviour Panel reserves the right to reset a person's ban for any offence.

Ban Extensions¶

Whilst Ban Extensions have been mostly retired by Ban Resets, the Behaviour Panel will still reserve the right to use Ban Extensions in more severe cases, or where someone breaches the maximum point threshold for a Ban Reset.

Infraction Modifiers¶

Infraction Modifiers act as a 2x modifier for some select infractions. Modifiers were added as a way to increase the penalty of some infractions when perpetrated against a member of our staff team. To be clear, we never want to introduce harmful segregation in our punishment of bad actors within ozfortress, but the goal of Infraction Modifiers is to introduce a more effective way of punishing severe breaches in our Infractions Ruleset/Community Guidelines that are perpetrated against members of our staff.

By doubling the points of certain infractions (#101, #302 & #304) when perpetrated against a staff member, these penalties will instantly incur a 3-Round Match Ban, or 1-Year League Ban, the latter of which we understand is incredibly harsh. We want to reassure everyone that the usage of Infraction Modifiers will be limited only to offences against members of our staff team, and will be limited to cases of more severe abuse, stalking, threats of harm - the bizarre stuff.

Recent Change - 03/10/2024

We will be closely watching the usage of Infraction Modifiers and evaluating if they will remain long term.

Player Behaviour Infractions¶

Specifically player behaviour not related to in-match play or organisation. Please note that something a player says in match communications can be subject to Behavioural Infractions.

Tier 1 Offences - 10 points (6-Month Point Expiry)¶

#101 Excessive trash talk, flaming, or repeated abuse/harassment.

Beyond that which can reasonably be considered banter.
Infraction Modifiers can be applied to this infraction.

Tier 2 Offences - 20 points (1-Year Point Expiry)¶

201 Malicious impersonation of ozfortress players.

Tier 3 Offences - 30 points (2-Year Point Expiry)¶

#301 Malicious impersonation or implied affiliation with ozfortress staff, or malicious attempts to impersonate or imply affiliation with ozfortress staff.
#302 Repeated serious abuse and/or harassment against an individual or group.
#303 Sharing personal, identifiable information without permission/consent from that individual.
- Unauthorized sharing of personal information or media needs to have occured outside of Private/Direct Messages before we will take any action.
  
  Sharing of personal/identifiable information sourced from outside of what is considered our community and/or the Team Fortress space is prohibited. An individual’s personal social media is under assumed privacy and anonymity; and therefore is something we consider outside of our community unless voluntarily shared by the individual.
- Infraction Modifiers can be applied to this infraction.
#304 Threats of violence/harm against an individual or group.
- Infraction Modifiers can be applied to this infraction.
#305 Bigoted, derogatory or discriminatory remarks of any kind.

Some examples are racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia.
#306 Posting of illicit content on ozfortress services or within our community.

League Infractions (now League Penalties)¶

League Infractions have been retired in favour of League Penalties. League Penalties will not contribute to infraction point totals or thresholds like its predecessor, and will also function differently to League Infractions.

Public Behaviour Panel members¶

Not every member of our Behaviour Panel are currently public, however, you can view the public members here. We leave this decision purely up to the individual member.