I didn't understand the direction / relevance of your post. Either way, I'm pretty sure this is minecraft.. and not an actual country. You also have to remember, the server started with Justin, Jeremy, and their friends. People did not choose to play EMC because they were some god-kings, because they were just friends. I personally view them as friends, and yet again I feel like I don't even understand the context of your post. Maybe I should just let some other staff member reply, because I can't make heads or tails of this.
I'm surprised anybody can make sense of his posts tbh Although, I am frankly amazed that he went through that without the use of the e word.
Every day we are faced with a multitude of decisions, most we just make with no or with little thought, some we struggle with. Why!! well every decision we make has a consequence. For instance the consequence of dressing bad is you look sill how ever the consequence of banning or not banning a person for breaking rules has much wider implications. So lets say person "A" see's an opportunity to get rich quick with rupees buy using a glitch to produce a rare item that is needed by or wanted by a lot of other players, and those players will do what they can to get the rupees to buy the item or items. Then there is player "B" Legit to the core sticks by the rules works hard for many hours to get those same items by mining for them or searching for them in the wild/nether etc. After spending weeks doing this, player B feels they have enough of this and now want to go back to town to sell their items. Before they left player B looked at the price of the items which where very high in value due to there rarity. Now however since player A has been using the glitch to make loads of these items and is happy to sell them cheap player B is forced to sell there items cheap also. Player B has lost out big time because of this and feels like quitting EMC because although they can't prove it they believe that person A is cheating and taking advantage to get rich quick at any ex pence. Player A does not care about player B or the fact they may leave the server or the other damage that they have caused the server by their actions. So the server admin/mod says, for you lack of care to other players and consideration of the server we feel it is necessary to remove you from the server and you will no longer be able to player on here any more. So ask yourself is it wrong that the server be protected from ppl that would look to do harm to it by taking advantage of other players with no regard to the consequences. Should they be punished for taking advantage of the glitch that any player with the same information could also do. Should that punishment be permanent or temp = perm ban or temp ban. Is the damage they did perm or temp to the server and other players. If they where allowed back after a certain time period of temp ban and did the same or similar thing again how should they be dealt with, after all is the damage permanent or temp. Also consider this if you had your own server with the number of players like EMC how would you do things differently to reduce the number of player ban's.
There should not be voting for mods, i have seen that on other servers, people play suck up and pretend to be everyones friends until they get admin status......and then you log on the next day and everything has been world-edited into sponge -_-
Very simple the only reason ppl would want to chose the moderators is so they would have some control or power on how the server is run. As at present all power/control is held by the owners atm, and I can't see this changing. However my analogy is a realistic setting on what can and does happen in game at time's. I set the scenario of player A and B, and asked how would you do it differently as a moderator/admin. I asked this because of some of the other points that where posted on this thread. I also have another point to make, but would like to see what ppl have to say in regards to this first.
I see now my posting above is confusing. Ok ... I'll try to add few "clues." People are looking for guidance and leadership and - within EMC - many find that in the image of the EMC owners, admins and staff. They (staff), more in the past than recently, had a rather authoritarian style of communication and dealing with things, which influenced their image. Let's see ... If you look through the forum, you will find many similar statements. What is the image of the staff here? Without fault, without sin, all-knowing, all-controlling, wise, just, immune to corruption. Noble class. What is the image of the community? Incompetent, incapable, corrupted, erratic, chaotic. Filthy commoners. This is what I'm criticizing. On one occasion, there was even a (joke) image of a nun ready to discipline some kids with a ruler. In each joke, there is a bit of truth, so there you go - a connection with God A very tiny bit , but when you think why and how people look for authoritative guidance and leadership, you can't avoid God. In the past, absolute authoritarian power could be only derived from God, so it was "required" that a Pope crowns the king. The connection with our discussion here is in the human mentality. Well, it is an actual, real on-line community made of real people And it is like few thousands strong. That's not only a little something, even if it is a rather loose group. That's what I'm saying, the people have chosen out of free will to play on EMC because Justin, Jeremy and friends did it well, and they and the servers got popular. There is nothing wrong in being popular and being chosen / elected because people like you and your ideas and your program. I don't understand why most of the people here expect that a democratic process would result in chaos and/or corruption. Is that how they perceive their RL realities? Could be...
ok as things seem a little slow with regards to what you might do differently if you had your own server I will make my other point to this. Recently someone started to sell off ender pearls, by the chest full first 1 then another 1 then they got greedy thinking if they sold 5 together they would make so much more then it was 10 and the last one i seen was 30. By flooding the market and I must say this is legit no glitching, but the have in my opinion damaged the market for ender pearls. This is in relation to person A in my post above. Person B is the person or persons who bought the first chest or chests. Point being here is person B, has no choice but to sell at a loss and the same for everyone who paid high prices for these in the past and still have them. I was told that these DC's of ender pearls where being sold from Utopia for 10r each. This is no different to insider trading in the stock market!! So although no glitching took place should person A here be treated the same or differently as person A in the scenario above. The damage is the same the consequences are the same Let me know your thoughts, As an admin or moderator if you where voted in by the community as one what would do, or as an owner of a server.
This is minecraft, we have our process of choosing mods, you have to EARN it. Earning modship works here because this isnt REAL LIFE, a democracy would, as i have seen said so many times, involve things like bribery and corruption, and bad stuff in general. i am in no way saying that democracy is a bad thing, it just isnt meant for this server. Tell me this. Have you EVER seen a server as clean, user friendly and well run as this one? Most likely not! this is due to the fact our mods KNOW what they are doing when they do their jobs. If we tried to take a democratic approach to choosing our mods it WILL end badly, forget all the other arguements and all. having a democracy on here is a bad idea. We have gotten this far, Why should we endanger what an AMAZING server we have by changing how we decide who gets the power to ban players and the like?
This is a very interesting topic worth a separate thread. And things are not simple. As an owner of a for-profit server like EMC, you probably want to maximize the number of paying supporters. As non-owner, non-shareholder, you probably want a good and fun experience, be it within or around the game. Being an elected mod, you most probably like the community and like to support the community directly. Perhaps one can argue, that the owners interest might bring more stability, but it might reduce the fun with the owner restricting and/or changing the game and the community according to his goal and maybe as prevention of anything that might drive supporters away. Elected mod could be expected to be more true to the community and more directed towards fun with the game and the development of the community. For both positions, the question how to deal with persons A and B is everything but simple. Elected mod: keep rules of the virtual world and the game. Punish the cheater, otherwise do nothing, it's the game. Owner / staff: keep the rules, because it is important to keep image of the stability and protection, so ban the cheater. As the ender pearl market "crash" does not really affect majority of the players, do nothing. Think about a perk that would bring advantage to paying customers, so they would rather be on the A side of the story. Perhaps make Utopia have only day and no night. But this might be a double-edged sword, because the supporters will be bored and stop playing if the game is too easy...
I'm fairly certain this has been said maybe 2-3 times total, and only by you. None of the staff or members sees the community like this and I'm sorry that you do.
How do you think they KNOW? Where from? Hmm, I sense misunderstandings and fears about democracy. Democracy is NOT electing a king in a popularity contest, who then has absolute and unquestioned power. No, no. Democracy is first discussing and voting about the rules. Then electing people to take care about and enforce those rules. Those people are accountable to the people who elected them and are subject to constant monitoring. If they break the rules, they go. Authoritarian style leads to power without control and "closed community." Democracy supports "open community." Why endanger? It is not about the community choosing Kalland Labs staff. It would be community choosing their own people, building a structure, taking care about itself. There's a big difference. One out of few good reasons: because democracy has far more potential than authoritarian rule. It has better chances in the long run, it is generally safer in the long run.
No one thinks that the staff of EMC are infallible, perfect beings. I think we're more analogous to parents than to nobles or gods. We make decisions based on the best available information. We try to acquire more information if we don't think what we have is sufficient to make a decision. We talk to each other behind the scenes to see if we're making rational and reasonable decisions. And we sometimes disagree, but we try to do most of that behind the scenes, too. Like the best parents, we learn as we go; and we are willing to improve our moderating skills. We weren't chosen for this because we think we're incapable of making mistakes. Quite the opposite, we were chosen because we know that we are human, and we are willing to look for better methods and strive for better results. We are all humbled that we get the opportunity to make EMC a better place, not just by removing the cheaters but also by helping people when we can. We neither help nor ban because we think we're better than anyone, we do it because we want everyone to have the best Minecraft experience on the entire internet. We want all of the players to think of themselves not just as people playing a game, but as people who are part of a community. We have friends here and we all learn and grow with each other. On the extremely rare occasion that a staff member has become destructive of these ends, that staff member has been removed from their duties--usually with no ill will or hard feelings. (And don't assume that any particular former staff member was removed, most have stepped down on their own because they don't have the time or the drive to play that they once had--and they are sorely missed as staff members.)
Sorry, this is a BIG misunderstanding. Very contrary to that, I value the community and I think the people here are trustworthy, capable and conscientious enough, that they do not need paternalism and that they would be able to (s)elect good moderators.
I don't know who did what to you, or what your real complaint is about EMC, but if the decisions of the owners is so abhorrent to you then why exactly do you stick around? The bottom line is that EMC as a part of Kalland Labs is privately owned and operated and no one is forcing you to play here. You'll be hard pressed to find any other organization that so readily takes the ideas of its members (even the non-paying ones) into consideration, and for that matter--actively solicits the opinions of members. We must be doing something right because thousands of players return over and over to play on these servers, have debates on these forums, and make friends.
I have no "Fears" About democracy. i just want to see our server continue to prosper like it is. But what you do not seem to get is that we do not need a democracy! And our mods do not have an Authoritarian rule AT ALL. they do not enforce strict rules for their own personal gain or freedoms, they enforce the rules because they love the server and want to see it prosper. Your describing the mods as "Authoritarians" is rather farfetched in my eyes.
Not at all! There are obviously some misunderstandings, but I don't see where they are coming from. I did criticize some things on EMC, mostly around economy, but, as you say, nobody and nothing is perfect. What i do criticize in this thread is talking of EMC community as incapable of (s)electing good moderators or of another democratic process. I don't see how this opinion of mine would be a complaint about EMC? I do criticize when people assume things and do not think themselves and/or do not care about themselves. I criticize "EMC staff will care about us as good parents do." This does not say that EMC staff is bad in any way! Or does it? I think you have quality of a very good parent.
