We need more (good) mods

I believe we shall make the rules stricter, and impose pointless laws upon the hapless public. Then watch them squirm as the mods roam the streets administer justice. Then the rest can sit there laughing to themselves. Well until laughing becomes forbidden. Maybe.

I understand both of your points, but I really don't think we should be telling anyone to go find a different server.

I can also understand Herbrin3's frustration which is one of the reasons I originally became a mod. What I hope Herbrin understands is that we take this very seriously and I would like him and other community members to continue to feel comfortable making suggestions. As great as we are (and I believe we are miles ahead of almost any other moderated community) there is always room for improvement. Every staff member who has responded has (sort of) pointed out that we know this.

One thing a lot of the community might not know is that the staff communicate with each other both in a private forum and in game. We are constantly talking about ways that we can tweak things and make things better. At this point, though, Justin does most of the actual tweaking and as ICC pointed out Justin is very busy preparing for smooth future transitions when Mojang releases changes.

Anyway, there have been some great suggestions presented here and I personally appreciate that so many people care so much about making this the absolute best experience on the Internet.

Sorry mate, crossed wires here. I don't mean that a Supporters report isn't doubted, I mean that in a queue full of Reports, most of which are incorrect use of Reporting or a bit garbled or nonsensical, that a Supporters Report is flagged differently as the (You'd like to think) chance is that it's a genuine use of the Report system, perhaps more urgent or important.

There would still be the doubt as to whether or not it's genuine, but in a queue of 100 Reports going "How DO Ai get ReS?" then the Supporter Reports would stand out amongst them.

I agree with what you said. I would like to point out that I was simply hoping the player realised that while he was willing to compare us to other communities, that he chose this one, and instead of leaving, chose to suggest to us how to correct it. Text is a horrible medium for the inflection to come across, I have come to realise.

I know that's what both you and Margaritte meant. Just use more smilies next time.

And I was hoping that it could be clarified in case Herbrin took it the wrong way. Which you have done well.

The way the report system is set up, we do not know who has made the report at first glance. We have to view the players card first. Now, due to interaction, or the amount of legitimate reports I come across with a specific person, I am more willing to believe what they are saying is true over others. However, its hard for a staff member to put their guard down anymore, throughout my time here, there have been many "friends" that have tried to use a friendship/supporter status to their advantage. So these days, everything is on a pretty even slate for me

noted.. My use of smilies is sub par.. I will correct this in future iSmooch versions.

I understand that. I just believe that for the system to assume that a Supporters report needs to get pushed to the top is not the best approach. For the reasons I stated earlier in the thread, all players should have the same chance for their words to be heard. Just because someone pays money should not mean that the problems they encounter are not as important. While I know no one is saying that (before I get beheaded for that statement) its what it will seem like. Imagine playing and someone causing trouble and you use /report, however, it sits at the bottom of the list just because you did not donate for what ever reason. I understand the validity of the request, I do, I just do not it is "fair" in the sense that it needs to be.

Okay, I see where I've not made myself clear on what I was meaning, and I apologise for that.

I don't mean a Supporters Reports get pushed to the top for their own problems.

This would ideally work with:

/chatreport

Which would allow you to report for someone misbehaving specifically in Chat. A Supporter flag to highlight when a Supporter makes this kind of report in a busy queue would help denote a potentially serious issue in chat or a matter that requires urgent attetion, such as someone screaming racial abuse, or generally being a tit.

Not to solve that Supporters personal issues.

All the Reports I make are to do with other people breaking EMC rules in chat, that's what I had in mind. Sorry!

I knew what you were getting at, My main idea just was not showing through my words.. Its late xD.. sorry for the multiple post confusion.

The Post that you are now editing tho, I do like, the separating. It would be nice for each "report" to be flagged and organised. I personally do not know if Justin has plans for square to apply things like this, but I do know his dreams for Square are far and away beyond what I can conjour of what it needs. For all I know It will have an update tomorrow with all of those things you suggested.. so I try to stay away from recommending to much for it unless asked.

We could hook up the mods in super suits so they wouldn't need sleep or to take breaks from being mods. We might scare off some of the players with it, and the mods may have some lowered morals from the lack of sleep.I think it is a great plan for the short run though.

No need to be sorry. As Edmund has already pointed out to me here I have not made my actual tone very clear. I enjoy these talks, I really like your idea. I do not want you to leave this thinking "ISMOOCH is totally upset and against that idea." I am enjoying reading this, and I can already see your idea listed nearly 2 pages ago forming and being more organised. I am a Devil's advocate of sorts, present the pessimistic scenario. But Now that you have explained it a little bit better I am a little more lightened to the idea if applied how you have said.

Why not take it a step further, eliminate the supporter variable and have the system pick up on hot words? Like "racist" "scam" or things like that? Have a tiny database that recognises these and associates a value of importance? That way ANY player could have the ability to have a "Important" report pushed to the top.

Yes.. not perfect, easy to abuse, but what isnt

LARGE STRING OF SMILIES FOLLOWS

: )

The problem I had was that I've never had personal problems on EMC to resolve, so I forget it's not just about reporting idiots in chat and that a Supporter might use their flag preference to get attention brought on their own personal issue.

Your idea of a Critical Rating based on associated keywords is the final product of this idea and I like it, a lot.

/report playerdouchebag Using racist language and advertising links to another server.

Would rank pretty high up the list because of the uses of trigger words such as 'racist' and 'advertising'. The more Reports a player gets against their name with more keywords the higher it goes.

I like.

This was a great "wondertwins acitvate" kind of moment

What I generally do when people spam chat is "/tell" them with a friendly (although the friendliness is often quite forced) reminder that they're not supposed to be spamming chat. This seems to work very well, I'd say that in about 70% of cases the spamming stops.
My theory is that these chat spammers are new to the server, and therefore get scared when the mysterious purple private text shows up, and stop...

This means that it's possible to cut down the "/report" space wasted in unneeded reports.

..and to fit in with a theme of this thread, yes, the private messages do usually have a smiley in them.

Nope, I was being completely snarky, and a little rude, and I'm a tiny bit sorry for that.
It just irritates me when people claim to compare EMC to other servers and find us lacking.

boom.. honesty... xD

...and let's not forget the all powerful:

/ignore.

/report and /ignore will again 100% REMOVE the annoying problem to you in just a few seconds. It's flawless and indestructible. If we were to take away all moderators for a week, I bet everyone would learn to love those features and realize how little of a problem this whole thread actually is.

Although of course, whilst I'm a strong advocate of using that wonderful function, if someone is being offensive or inappropriate in chat then an EMC members first response should always be to /report before /ignoring.