An Open Letter to the Community

Gah, the purple! Get it off, get it off! Paint thinner! Somone get some paint thinner!

New Senior Staff service, see your account with an admin title! Only 1,000,000 rupees!

How this was worded reminded me of something you'd find in a dark souls game...
On a more serious note, agreed. Even before I left, I saw very crude posts, comments, remarks, and so on. The thing is, there are two types of people who play here on Emc: Players and haters.

Players just want to play Minecraft and enjoy it for what its worth. These also includes admins, mods, wiki teams editors, everyone who wants to see Emc grow

Haters just want to tear everyone down. They don't care if their banned. If they get someone to lash out at them or someone else, they feel as if they have done their duty.

If we can ignore the haters and respond to them calmly, I firmly believe Emc's hate posts and comments will go down.

I refute the notion that people can be lumped into any category so easily. I understand what you're saying, but dismissing someone's criticisms and labeling them a "hater" does a disservice to any valid points they might make. "Judge not lest ye be judged" is a phrase I believe you're familiar with?
I put my faith in all of us, current and former members, the content and alienated alike, that we can move beyond this. And yes, I will admit there are some rare few who would rather just see EMC burn to the ground, but their flames will find no fuel unless we give it to them.

Nor have I. Maybe it's because I'm new here and just haven't gotten around enough. Maybe it's because live comments on individual servers are compartmentalized. Maybe it's because I just don't play as frequently as some others.

In any case, I've found Empire Minecraft to be a very welcoming environment compared to some others I have encountered. I would also suggest that people remember that this is just a game, particularly those who are not part of the site staff and moderator structure. Things which may seem important to you now will not matter once you reach my age, so take a step back and think before you say anything you might later regret.

that's what i'm talking about

You can pull up all the pictures of scared cats and screaming tiger squirrels that you want, but your butt will always say yes. I think smooch uncovered your true nature :3

I choose not to see any of it.
I come onto EMC to have fun.
Fun, for me is playing with EMC friends, mining, building, collecting, and meeting new players and helping noobs get established!

Realize that nothing remains the same forever. You must become more fluid, and change with the times, but the most important, is to be HAPPY. The empire is a different place compared to when I joined 270 some days ago. Many of the players I knew back then are either no longer around, or play much less often. Such is life. I am still here. More are joining.

Remember that that the community of EMC is much like real life. It will constantly change on you. If you get comfortable, and believe something will be the exact same forever, you only fool yourself. However this is a community... and unlike school, or work... each of us chooses to be here. Nobody forces us to play here.

Now I do understand that things happen that we do not like. It is in the nature of any community that there will be some conflict. One thing that I do not do, is put everything I think or feel in the public domain. Once you choose this path, there is no going back.
Remember even if something bad happens, your reaction is just that... your own actions that you control. It is what makes you, you...and what many would judge you on.

Before you act, you should always ask yourself, why am I doing this? What benefit will come from this?
Who will this help, and who will this hurt?

Kephras hit it right on the head that it is better for to let things go, than to let conflict consume you. Be the best you can possibly be, first in LIFE, then EMC.

See 'yall in the mines.

This is strong. You have written a very powerful and deep post here. Hopefully it will change certain people. It has shown that we can all re-unite and we will bring Empire Minecraft back to it's old strong, friendly community. Thumbs up for you Kephras. I have large respect to you for writing this post.

I don't really know what is going on, either because I wasn't there or because my memory is (almost literally) Two days long, but it is always better just to not be bothered by what other people do. You should only ever be concerned by what you do. Its really hard just managing yourself. Aside from that it is better not to manage others. Nine times out of ten nobody wants to listen. If you wana change people's minds you should try to be an example. Try to encourage people when they are struggling. Getting mad about whatever it is, well that is the last thing that will help. I know, because I have huge anger and anxiety issues.

Very well said indeed! It seems like some people are stuck in the past and can't move on, hopefully this will change them, or make them at least consider. All I know is that there is probably some very confused mainly game players who only browse the forums occasionally.

Hey EMC

This is actually awesome to see a player created thread about this, but I would like to say that Aikar and I personally talked for around an hour last night trying to see what needed to be done to raise the flags. We are ALL done with it. I'm personally tired.

We have made a post similar. Even links back to EMC.

I hope we can all move forward here. Moving on is going to be the course of action instead of intensifying what people think is there.

As always, thanks Kephras for your insightful words to the community.

EDIT::

I have removed my own link. IF you guys wish to see that we too have called an end to the silliness.. you know how to find it.

If nothing here has impacted their ability to enjoy the game, I am all the happier for it. That's the way it ought to be.

I sure liked that link......I really enjoyed the ehow page on how to craft bananas...

Not sure if intentional or.....
(I have no idea why I am using Yahoo, it's so ugly)

Hahaha... thats what filters do ... Our site has been happily converted to bananas. It's all good.. if you truly want to visit it, you can type it in.

If it's okay, I'll post my reasoning behind why sometimes I decide to say something on the forums and why sometimes I don't. Similarly to what you've done.

You're right that EMC is about fun and that the community resembles real life like a microcosm. I always consider before posting whether it will *help* the community rather than make things worse. However, I don't believe that in all cases keeping quiet or only saying nice things and pretending everything is fine is the best way to help the community.

From a *new player's perspective*, the constant adding, deleting and editing of posts on last night's Wallpaper contest thread would have been very, very confusing. If I joined a week ago and I saw that some guy's post got deleted simply for asking "Will my submission be viewed?", I'd start getting pretty scared of who's in charge of this server. It is for that reason that I said that the censoring (that is deleting of posts), wasn't helping EMC, but rather giving off a bad image.
I understand that everyone wants to move on and have fun But you also have to consider that new players who see posts getting deleted, and threads getting locked for, to them, no visible and logical reason it can be rather intimidating them. It could make them think "I'd rather not play on server where the staff seems to rather just delete posts than respond to them." And we don't want to give them that impression! We want them to stay and have fun after all. If you don't respond at all and just let the posts be there that would even be better. The problem with *deleting* posts is that people can't see what was in the post and whether the staff member's reason to delete it in the first place was even valid at all. So the staff member has no proof for the deletion and anyone else can not debate with the staff member because there was no proof (the same goes for hiding threads). And this all just doesn't create a healthy atmosphere.

Anyways, enough talking >.< I hope that explained some of my thoughts. I respect everyone here and I love the EMC community a lot Like everyone said, no hard feelings and let's move on.

As the boy lay down to sleep that night, his hand throbbing, he dreamed of the days events. What did his father mean?

"I know you did it only out of fun my son. However, though the cookies were tempting, you know better than to take from the cookie jar. I do not bare any hate for you my son. The wrap on your knuckles will remind you of what you have done. No amount of whining or blaming others undoes what you have done. You are better than that my son. Accept this punishment, learn from it, awake tomorrow wiser. Tomorrow is a new day, with new possibilities."

I get out of the loop in my final year and some bad stuff happens around here.. can someone explain what exactly this is in response to or what has happened?

There's no need. The whole point is to put it all in the past and let it die, not rehash specifics here. If you've been unaffected by the goings-on, it's best to simply keep it that way.