| STA HI Information |
General Information
Requirements
What We Expect Of You
What You Can Expect Of Us
How STA-HI Works
Reporting Match Results and Disputes
Clans, Servers, and Pings
Entering STA-HI
Contacting Us
Staff
Becoming A Staff Member
Miscellany
General Information
Welcome to Stronger Than All’s Hostile Intent league. We are a North American league that prides itself on accepting any clan that displays good sportsmanship and fair play.
Requirements
- IRC contact information (channel/network)
- Clan contact e-mail address
- At least 6 members
What We Expect Of You
STA-HI is invitational only. We have standards which all clans are expected to live up to. If you can't live up to our standards, then we won't let you stay, because you will be wasting STA's time and other clans' time.
First, we expect your clan to act professionally and maturely both inside and outside of games. Examples of not acting professionally:
- Insulting other players, clans, or STA admins
- Whining about a loss or a dispute (there is a difference between whining and being logical and civil)
- Disregarding sportsmanship
- Publicly making rash statements
We expect you to use your judgment, because this is hardly a complete list of unacceptable behaviour. Note also that we typically hold entire clans responsible for the behavior of their members, so clan leaders make sure you keep your members in line.
If your clan ends up in a dispute, then you need to tell us your case in a timely fashion or we will believe that you don't care to defend yourself. Bringing up a dispute a day after the match in question won't help you at all. Be prompt!
Additionally, we expect your clan (that means all members!) to know the rules and to follow the rules. Yeah, the rules are long. We wrote them, we know! Don't complain if you get slammed for something you "didn't know about." There is no excuse for not reading and knowing the rules prior to entering this league. We want professionals. Professionals know the rules.
We expect that your clan checks this site frequently for updates! If a news post is made that is relevant for your clan and you neglect to check the site, then you will be responsible for whatever problems your mistake causes.
Finally, we expect that all players in this league do not cheat. Period. If your clan is found to be cheating, then you will be removed from STA-HI - no questions asked - and we will do what we can to make sure your clan never plays in organized competition again. Cheating is an extremely serious offense.
What You Can Expect Of Us
Though we are providing a service for you, we have setup standards for ourselves as well. Here is what you can (and should!) expect of us:
- We will act civil and professional at all times, regardless of whether or not we agree with you.
- We will be unbiased in all disputes.
- We will follow the rules to the letter, and we will enforce them.
- If we change the rules after a dispute, those changes will not affect the dispute.
- We will deal with problems promptly.
- We will be open to suggestions at all times.
- If we must make a ruling that the rules do not cover, then we will rule in the interest of fairness.
If you think there is a problem with a division coordinator in this regard, contact the STA-HI League Administrator or a head STA Administrator (see the Staff Contacts page for info).
How STA-HI Works
As you probably guessed by now, STA-HI is a league, not a ladder. Clans are only ranked based on matches scheduled by STA admins.
Depending on the number of active clans at any given time, clans may or may not be divided up by region (east/west). Clans are inducted to STA-HI from the Charlie Division to the Alpha Division if they are found to be STA-HI league material (that is to say, willing to play in a fair and sportsmanlike manner). All new clans have four match weeks in Charlie before they are moved up to Alpha. Each division has at least one coordinator that is responsible for their division's matches. Coordinators set up schedules based on clans' recent records, winning streaks, experience, and rankings. They are also responsible for any disputes that may arise, such as those caused by server problems or a clan that is ignoring the rules.
Disputes
Although we expect disputes to be much less frequent than in other leagues, we know they will happen. Disputes arise when one or both clans in a scheduled match make an error and the clans cannot come up with a mutually acceptable solution to the problem themselves. You are strongly encouraged to work this out with an admin!
When this happens, the appropriate STA admins have to observe both clans' cases and often have to receive evidence that supports each clan's claims as well. Then, the cases and evidence are evaluated according to the rules, and STA makes a ruling on the dispute. Any clan that does not accept a match ruling will automatically forfeit and may be forced to leave STA. Rulings are final, and any amount of arguing will just make your clan look bad. STA seeks to maintain a good reputation. If you look bad, you are likely on your way out.
Reporting Match Results and Disputes
You should be prompt with regard to match results and disputes. We will not go out of our way to hunt down your match results or figure out what you're up to. If you want to claim you played a match, you have to give us your match scores, or we will have to assume you didn't play, and that might mean your clan gets the boot from STA-HI.
As far as disputes go... if you have a problem, talk to us immediately! If you wait until after a match is complete to tell us about a problem you had, then we will disregard your claim and move on. For all we know, you could have made up the dispute after the match because you couldn't swallow your loss - this has happened before and we won't let it happen again, so you must tell us what's wrong as soon as you can.
Clans, Servers, and Pings
Understand that this is a competitive league, and as such, your performance may depend on your latency to game servers. If all of your clan members use, say, 56k modems, then you will likely be more challenged than other clans. However, the rules apply the same to all players, regardless of ping. Also, understand that there is no rule restricting the proximity of clans' players; if all clan members are on a university LAN connected to a high bandwidth connection, then that is their choice and is perfectly acceptable. Don't come to us complaining about the other clan all having low pings (unless the ping rule is violated, of course!), because we will probably just point you to the rules.
If your clan doesn't have access to a server, you will be similarly disadvantaged. STA-HI, while it will endeavor to find server options for clans, cannot guarantee use of a server on match night. We understand that things happen, and your server might be offline for the night. This might mean you have to play both rounds on an opponent's server, or if neither clan has a server, then your match may be nulled.
Note that your clan should have a member that is a proficient server admin, i.e. he knows how to exec .cfg files, lock server, etc.
Entering STA-HI
STA-HI is invitational only, but not in the common sense. More accurately, clans may apply to be invited. The true invitational process - complete with thorough interviews and recommendations - was used to form STA-CSX (from which the rules and information documents for this league have been adapted), but is not currently in use in STA-HI.
We currently conduct ourselves in a fashion similar to the STA-CSX league. Clans apply via the website and are potentially admitted, depending on the information they enter. The Charlie Division is the avenue through which new clans join the league, but applications will not necessarily be accepted year-round, and the Charlie Division may be suspended if the league has reached an appropriate size.
Specific entrance requirements can be found in the rules.
Contacting Us
If you need to get a hold of us for whatever reason, there are three ways you can contact us.
E-mail: The slowest of the three, but we're guaranteed to see it and we should reply within a day. E-mail info is listed on the staff contacts page.
IRC: By far the best way to contact us. If we're around, you can talk to us on the spot; if not, you can leave messages (in a sense), talk to other people familiar with STA, or you can always revert to e-mail. We believe that IRC is an essential tool for communication and as such we highly recommend that you become familiar with it. Without a doubt, if you have a dispute, IRC is the best way to handle it. We can be found on the GameSurge network, channel #sta-hi.
IRC Information
IRC, as already mentioned, is the best way to contact us. For those of you unfamiliar with IRC, it is a real-time chat medium that allows users to join "channels" (essentially groups of users) and chat/type/talk. For Windows, the most common IRC client is mIRC. Go to mIRC.com to download mIRC; the included help files should be enough to guide you to getting to STA's channel. The GameSurge network address is irc.gamesurge.net, and we can be found in #sta-hi.
Staff
The STA-HI Council consists of, at the very least, a league administrator, and a coordinator for each division. Contact information for all STA-HI staff is listed on the staff contacts page.
Division coordinators are responsible for everything pertaining to their associated division; they create schedules, handle disputes, verify match results, and so on. If a division coordinator is in a clan that plays in STA-HI, then the coordinator cannot rule on matters pertaining to their clan. This way, we avoid conflicts of interest. If you have a problem with STA-HI, you should always take it to your Division Coordinator(s) first; if they are unable to help you, then you should talk to the STA-HI League Administrator. The league admin is the head of the STA-HI Council, responsible for updating most portions of the site (including the rules section) and coordinating the efforts of all other members of the Council. The league admin may also be a division coordinator, or may periodically help coordinators with their jobs, providing there is no conflict of interest. In addition, we may have a position for clan liaison/disputes handling.
Above the STA-HI Council are the STA Admins, the central coordinators for all of STA. STA Admins should only be contacted for issues that lie beyond STA-HI (i.e. if you contact one of them about an STA-HI problem, you will probably be directed to an STA-HI Admin).
Becoming A Staff Member
If you want to become a staff member, basically two conditions must be filled. First, we have to be looking for new staff, and second, you should meet these criteria:
- You act professional at all times.
- You frequent the STA-HI IRC channel.
- You help out clans during match night, e.g. by directing them to the proper admins or giving advice for disputes.
- You are committed to the ideals of fair and fun play.
- You give constructive input to STA-HI admins on a regular basis.
- You are familiar with STA-HI rules to the point where you could handle most disputes.
- You agree to uphold STA-HI rules at all times, even if you feel they are wrong. If there is a problem with the rules and they need to be changed, then the resulting changes will not affect prior rulings.
Some of these may be relaxed at times, depending on what open positions we have. Current STA staff will evaluate you, and if their general consensus is that you are suitable for the position in question, then you will get in, pending final approval by head STA admins.
STA runs leagues for other games as well. See www.sta-league.org.
Miscellany
Predictions
As a matter of policy set by STA Admins, STA no longer writes predictions for their matches, due to voiced concerns about bias. We will, however, do our best to periodically provide links to outside sites that write predictions for STA-HI.
Issues With Other Leagues
If we find out that your clan has major problems in another league, due to, for example, poor conduct or cheating, then we will take action here. Leagues do communicate with one another to keep the low quality clans out of circulation! As an STA-HI member, you represent all of us. We want only professionals associated with this league. If you act in an unprofessional manner, you will be ejected.
| Last Updated on November 21, 2007 |
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