The Uphill Battle - Minor Rule Violations

Discussion in 'Community Discussion' started by Hasorko, Feb 2, 2013.

  1. I'm kinda torn inbetween my personal opinion, the rules of EMC should be strictly enforced (as I get annoyed fast, when people dont take it serious, when they do a minor rule break) and another voice telling me "hey dont freak out right away".

    I remember when I joined, there was a kick for each rule violation after a warning.

    Example:

    "GIVE ME BACK!"
    "Hey no all caps please"
    "GIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
    "Player was kicked"
    "Oh I'm sorry wont do it again"

    That normally worked. I guess this is also how it is handled on some servers. But there are other servers. That are those without a single mod having his home at. (In my case SMP 3, but I guess there are others)

    For those who are not aware how it works on those servers, a simple example of something what just happened 5 minutes ago, and what repeats about 20 times a day:

    "Auctioning Fireworks"
    <Some talk about what it is, when the auction starts"
    "5k"
    "7k" < Some trash talk inbetween
    "12k"
    "15k"
    "20k"
    Me: "No Auctioning in Town Chat please. Use /ch l"
    "60k"
    "Lol JK"
    "Last Warning"
    "Player x wins 60k"
    "no I say JK"
    "then 20k"
    "no i dont want it"
    "15?"
    "5!"
    "12"
    "7"
    "okay"
    Me: "Okay reported"
    "No me stop"
    Me: "Its reported Im done with it"
    "Y u no admin"
    Somebody else: "He can still report you"
    "Its not against the rules"

    Want me to keep on going? Yes that does happen 20 times a day. And I'm there 20 times a day and I'm willing to keep on doing the warning/ reporting and so on, no problem.

    But now this is where I see my work is in vain. We do have that great report tool. And I really like it. But it has one flaw. Nobody gets to know if this Rule Violation was punished or not, besides the one who gets punished.

    This means obviously I dont know if I reacted in a good manner, but whats even worse, since everybody feels like nothing is happening if I report somebody nobody cares for warnings. (Besides those who gets punished). Instead of warning everybody like in the example above, only 1 person is warned, the one who gets punished. Noone else gets to know it. So I have to report every single small-time criminell, until everybody got the message. Feels like an uphill battle to me.

    My idea of a better solution is to try to take care of reports as fast as possible (what Im sure of is getting done) and do it more public. So the mod actually logs into the server (If the person is still online). Gives a brief explanation of what happened. That it is a rule violation and that there will be the punishment xy. This way everybody sees wow good I'm not the one who did this, I better take care! I'm sure mods work as good as possible, but would that be possible maybe? Or may there be a better solution?

    What do you think? What can be done? Or should I just accept that fate and turn out chat?

    Greetz Hasorko
  2. Yes, yes, one hundred million thousand times YES!

    EDIT: First
    Equinox_Boss likes this.
  3. Just do want you do, report, and mods should be on their way. Nothing much else to do.
    M4nic_M1ner likes this.
  4. Haha, no
    ;)
  5. Sounds like a great idea to me. :)
    Equinox_Boss likes this.
  6. Haha my home is on smp3 too and i think i know who you're talking about ;) Now back to topic...

    I think this is not against the rules, it just comes down to how well the person wants to "show" himself to the public. Sure he can be a nuisance to the chat now, but then in the future all the annoyed people may not treat him with the respect he/she deserves. But yes just report him/her. Maybe after getting temp. ban a couple of days or being muted a few times, they will learn their lesson :p
    henpenben likes this.
  7. Well moderators are busy, they aren't programmed machines. They are people like you and I , but if you report someone they will get around to some sort of warning/punishment to that player of the rule breaking. Mods shouldn't have to come on to kick, they can kick from while being hidden.
    Kadboy likes this.
  8. First of all, you want mods to react faster to /reports but you also want them to come online, spend their time explaining specific things, ect. - that is contradictory in its-self.

    It is the moderators job to ban/kick players, I don't think that they should also be put under the pressure of having to log into a server if not already on, report their findings, how the players has been banned plus more when they could be helping and cleaning up the servers. They are EXTREMELY busy, and it's just not an efficient or worthy procedure that moderators should have to go through after each ban. Do you know how much time they spend researching for a ban/kick? A LOT.

    Mods were chosen because they are appropriately suited for the job, players don't need to have a discussion after a ban with players... what would that do for EMC as a whole except, once again, waste the staff team's time?

    I've just been talking to Krysyyjane on Mumble - she spent over 5 minutes working on a /kick because they/she has to put so much effort into researching exactly what happened and she couldn't talk, because she didn't need players like myself making her job so much harder when she's working on something. :p

    The "reason:" after a ban is good enough.

    If you're really interested, make a note or something so that you can /p them.

    If you're doing something wrong when /reporting, a moderator will tell you so that you can be ready for the future but if you're doing something wrong. All you need to do is make detailed reports. :)

    It is punishable if you're auctioning in town chat instead of Local or Residence, but I think that he's using this case as an example.
    southpark347 likes this.
  9. Yes, our mod is not connected for 60 days! Is that a real mod?
    He has a very nice shop thought.
  10. Thank you Alex for that detailed post :) I do indeed have a very good idea of what a mod has to do, how time consuming it is. It was a first attempt to give a solution myself to the problem. I'm aware its not a very good one. Thats why I did not open a suggestin but a discussion thread.

    Even though all of you havent said anything wrong in my opinion, the actual problem remains. We send the message (EMC rules are enforced) only to those who break them, but not to those who are about to do so. There is no prevention ( I think this fits it really good).

    It is good indeed. So good that I'd love more people get to see it. Working on prevention might also help the mods, as there will be (if done right) less rule violations in the first place.

    So its not about the actual situation I'm talking about or what a mod should do or not (I wouldnt do that anyways -> rather giving suggestions but this isnt any this is a discussion), its about sending out the message.
  11. Mods do not need to be online to be able to punish people, they can use Square which is essentially a staff tool that sees everything and lets staff /ban, ect.
  12. Well he is not even on the site. I dont think he uses square
  13. I meant that the "spam in chat and all the trash talk" is not against the rules. I know that auctioning on the server (using /chat t) is against the rules :)
  14. Is allowed to auction in town
  15. I was "with" the moderator that was handling the situation, he/she was sorting the issue out in Square before seeing that the player stopped, so they didn't take action. You say nothing was done but how do you know that she didn't leave a note on their profile in case it happens again? Then they will be punished.

    I'm sorry, but we, as players, don't really know what they have to do. The system we have now is SO much better than that on other servers, changing to to waste the time of our staff is pointless and will produce a negative, not positive effect.

    Now, that doesn't mean we can't warn baddies, but we can't tell staff how to do their job.

    That may be the case, if so ICC can de-rank and promote new mods as our snr. staff team see fit and necessary. Right now, they've obviously decided not to, so D1 is around, just not as "active" as you would like :)

    But I'd like to make it clear that no server has a specific moderator - all of the our staff look after as many servers as they can at any given time. There was something like this where a few mods could look after one specific server but once again, I'm a player and I have no idea how it is now, nor is it my business. They do have servers that they're based off and play on, but that's different.

    Depends, if it's rude it can be anything from a kick to tempban. Spam is definitely not allowed
  16. Alex chance new mod!
    Pab10S likes this.
  17. Wowowo I never said that. Also I dont think nothing is done! You still dont quite get my point. This might be due to the fact that you seem to play often on very vivid server, where there are mods online as well. So again the problem I face is the fact that bad people are taken care of doesnt help me at all.
    Because there are tons of others doing same thing again, even laughing at me if I warn them that they get reported, because they believe nothing is going to happen.

    Why do they believe nothing is going to happen? Because it happens behind the scenes. Only the one beeing punished gets aware that he gets punished. Everybody else just laughs at me. This comes specially unhandy when you warn people 20 times a day.

    What do you think what happens, if a guy is giving out warnings about every rule breaking and also sais he has done a report if nobody ever figures wow those guys really got banned. Exactly people will not take you full. So the rule violating keeps on going. Even worse then before, maybe to troll me/ others who warn people or just because they dont care.

    I believe this phenomen does not appear on very vivid servers since the rule violating party is smaller compared to normal players. In this case you probably havent heard any of these sentences said in town chat to you ever before. "LOL SHUT UP NOBODY CARES FOR YOUR REPORTS" "LOL KIDDY GO WHINE SOMEWHERE ELSE"
    Maybe insert 10 typos per example. Now this is what I am confronted with several times a month.

    So now even if you do ban those, there will be new ones thinking they are untouchable, because no mods sees them. People might suggest using the ignore feature, but this is also not working, as the group of bad guys is constantly changing, keep up the ignore list at this pace is pretty much impossible.

    Why does that not happen on vivid server with a high mod up rate? That easy to figure. First of the statement / warning of a mod has lots more value then the one of normal members. Why? Because they can ban. And as described above the connection between getting banned and getting reported is not easy to make obviously. So having a mod doing the warning/banning live on the server has lots more weight then cross server banning without any notification. Especially to those who witness all of this.

    Before you answer try to see it from this perspection of mine. Dont thin kto much about the mods maybe, there might be different solutions. And then come up with what you would suggest to do.

    :)
  18. Alright, so all in all your point is that "players that try to help have no power," correct? But what you're typically suggesting is that nothing was done. Anyway;

    I've never (recently) had to see someone being disrespectful to anyone, including myself, that were trying to warn rule breakers. Are you exaggerating any of this? Do you warn them in a manner that's not friendly but is instead rude or something? This is where a moderator should probably answer your problem, not me.

    In regards to the "vivid server" - I'm from SMP2, and you're correct, we have a mod on fairy regularly because that is where they're based, however; we've not always had a staff member there (in fact, I remember when all the staff hung out on SMP3, your server). My point is that it doesn't matter, at all, if a mod is online or not.

    Their job is to punish rule breakers and maintain peace, which is what they do when it's needed. They do not need to waste their time on sharing every last detail with the public.

    I can see that you're trying to help, but this is just not ideal for staff who already spend so much time moderating. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Perhaps you could address your concerns with ICC? He might be able to help you out. :)
  19. I think instead of the mods coming in game they should be able to make some message like /say that goes over the server and says what the person did wrong. etc.
  20. SMP7 I see this and I will ask them or remind them that all that stuff needs to go on in Local chat. If it continues I report. I've seen cases of bonzd kicking for it, it may be a few minutes later but he's done it and the person goes to local. They then again later on use Town again though.

    There are times that things happen that lead to arguments or whatnot that I end up sending a message to a mod on the forum because I don't know what to do. There are also things that happen that I send a message to a mod and ask them and then tell them the commandment I feel it falls under to back up my reasoning. I do my best to try to solve it so that the Mods don't have to step in because as it says in the guide:

    Conflict Resolution
    Resolve any conflicts quickly and with compassion for others. If a moderator has to step in to resolve a conflict, all parties involved may find themselves having a 24-hour break from the Empire Minecraft server. If someone is violating one of the commandments, privately tell one of the moderators. False claims of commandment violation will result in the claimant being banned.

    There are also downsides that apparently come with people trying to help the mods/reminding people of the rules. I've not been as active as I would love to be because I feel I'm labeled a Narc and I get flack for trying to help. I've had one kid attack me in town chat when I stepped in to settle an argument whether he was scamming or not, I wasn't on either side, I wasn't insulting him, he seemed to have something against me and lashed out to the point I had to leave before I said something to get myself banned, and message a Mod. He has came back on 4 alts, each time he said something, I reported and he stopped though he continues to tell people that I got him banned and I'm a horrible person. Another time someone was banned for posting a link to a Pirating site and I got flack for that too when there was no mention that I had reported them.
    AlexChance likes this.