Not enough information about reporting to Staff on the Forums

I would like to add an example of a situation that is problematic.

Just for fun someone used dirt and torches, to construct an obscene word in the Wild/Waste.
I take a screenshot of it, with the coords. I want to turn it in to staff. No one is online. It is not an immediate thing, but I don't know the player's name - can't get it from dirt or torches.
There is not currently a system in place for me to report it, so I have to hold onto it until I see staff online.

This isn't an emergency situation, but it should be dealt with, as we don't want that type of thing drawing attention. Can't post it publicly, that would not be proper.

This has actually happened to me. Poor Jaqque was a brand-new mod that week and I dragged him around 2 places to get rid of stuff and report it, because I didn't know what player had put stuff up.

I am sure that there are other events/situations that fall into this 'non-emergency but needs reported now' category.

An extremely simple quick and easy solution would be a "Reports" tab in discord. This would require no code and the implementation would take seconds. This new tab would require a basic explanation such as "Do not use usernames in this channel," use /report in game instead," or something similar.

Report Examples:

"Someone wrote obscene words in torches - smp5 - wild north - coords x,y,z"
"There is a wither stuck in the waste west spawn smp9"
"There is sand on the road on smp3 - coords x.y.z"

The issue with that is we still don't want to publicly declare something has happened- a public discord channel does not give a direct line of communication with staff, just creates yet another area to be monitored.

I have to agree with Katy here. It would be nice if this information were included in /staff. Anyone who is familiar with the forums should be able to figure out how to get help, but I remember when I started playing, I almost never used the forums and had a hard time navigating through them to get where I needed when I did need help.

I can see how this would be a problem. Your (the staff's) current system just messages all of you with everyone's problems all at once, and you get updates whether or not you're even involved in a particular issue.

I'm guessing that in most cases where someone contacts you, only one of you needs to answer. Have you thought of implementing a ticket system instead? Then you could still each have access to all of the tickets, but when one of you chooses to answer a ticket, you could take ownership of that particular ticket and then everyone else doesn't need to be spammed with updates on that ticket. This would also allow you to mark cases as open or closed, which would probably reduce the incidence of open cases getting drowned out in the spam and forgotten about.


Just a thought.

I posted that before I saw you mention that there is already a ticket system. TBH this is my first time seeing the 'Contact Us" button. I had never noticed it before you said something.

I don't see an issue with publicly declaring something - lots of minecraft servers have a reports discord channel - and it literally gives a direct line of communication.

Do you mean to explain that the method of contacting staff while noone is seen online or seen in the forums, is supposed to be that we email you via the 'contact us' link???
This seems counter-intuitive, because you would be flooded with emails ... and that would not help direct the requests for help. But if this is the way that you want those issues handled, then YES, please have it added to the in-game text.

Surprised that noone who has responded on here so far, has known that this is how to take care of those occurances. But it supports my observation that there is just a little bit more information that players need to know how to find.

I agree that we shouldn't give out some information that would create undo attention to something that some player was doing just to get attention - so saying that someone spelled out xxxxx and the location that it can be seen at will cause some unnecessary drama.

But literally pinging a Report Bot and saying "there is a snowman on the stairs of Waste S spawn that we need help with" is a great use of the Discord channel.

I briefly read through this but from what I gather out of this, the in game /report is one-sided and misinformed.

When you run the /report command in game it does not explain how to use the report system. It simply says that if you have a problem with a player to report them otherwise go to the forums. As I know there are other projects taking up much more of the dev teams time, I thought of a simple solution that should appease both parties.

When you type /staff with no staff on, it should inform you to use /report for chat offenses, otherwise to go to "report.emc.gs".

If you are using in game reporting it should briefly tell you how to format it properly, such as "/report player offense". An example could be "/report FadedMartian posting links to dank memes in chat" or "/report theafkguy swearing and spamming".

As far as griefing and other offenses, report.emc.gs should be changed drastically. Many players don't even know if the current page, but it should include the following:
1) What is considered reportable
2) Which level if staff can handle this situation
IE: SS handle major griefing, Mods handle minor griefing and hacking, etc.
3) A link to open a PM with the appropriate staff.

The other issue we have here is the one-sided reporting. When you report someone in game or on the forums, that's generally it. You have no idea if the issue has been resolved, what has happened to the person reported, etc. This needs to change. A simple reply from staff in the original PM saying "This report has been handled, PlayerX has been given 3day ban." I think you can easily see where this is going. I feel like there have been many times where I have not reported players simply because I have no way of knowing if the report actually gets looked at. Yes you can say it all you want that every report is looked at which I am sure is true. However without a response to the reporter we cant just take your word for it.


In the end I love iSmooch's ticket system idea, but I believe this idea could serve as a placeholder until there is ample time for the ticket system.

I am bumping this, as the in-game syntax has not yet been updated for how to contact staff when there is 'no staff in-game right now' and I am still looking forward to having that information easier to find and point new players to.
This is still an issue.

So in the last year has a solution been found? Because I feel all of the below could be done and still should be.

I think the command for report as for greif, hacking or stealing should still warrant a /report

I mean you still can report but not put down a username for example /report na (reason)
"na for not avaliable"

If there is a player with a name of na then I will say that's a lucky name, but would address the issue reporting without a username.

I agree with CC, I do not think that the command is meant for a full-fledged report, rather an example:

"<player> is <reason of report> - <short blurb of report>"

I think that reporting a player on the forums is the best way for complex reporting. The Minecraft chat likes to limit the number of characters, which just shows that the "/report" ingame is meant for a quick report on a blatant cheater, rather than reporting on a more complex issue than, say a hacker. For that I say contact someone on the forums, it's much easier than using the ingame chat. (I know how much easier it is that way.)

These issues have been resolved. Please read the entire conversation.

I did and I still stand on what I said

I don't know if I'm helping but...
The /report feature doesn't seem so formal as the forums.
example 1.
bob (example name) Reports his friend Bobby for stealing. The report feature doesn't tell Bob what to say in that report. all that bob would say is "bobby stole from me"

What staff need to handle this report :
what Bobby stole?
were did bobby steal it from?
are you sure Bobby stole from you?

and How can staff ask those questions. Well

-discord- Cant handle anything on Discord
In Game - Bobby and Bob play on a Different Time zone - We have staff too who play on Different time zones - Most likely best option

Forums - Bobby and Bob arent on the forums yet, Cant contact them.

/report Is the best For non-complex reports
as
griefing
stealing
abuse
Inappropriate Language.

all Matter that cant be handled by a command.

I don't know if I said anything that matters. This is just my Saying.

yet At night there could be a player griefing and a simple Player cant do anything to stop them.

This thread was written a year ago. It has come up just recently as another thread has brought up some of the exact same issues.
https://empireminecraft.com/threads...mit-on-reporting-yourself.83005/#post-1564670

There was some progress made, in that there was some dialog with Kryssy about how these things are supposed to be handled - but that information is not conveyed to the players in a manner that was easy to find or easy to convey. There is no list that says :
For griefing issues - pmss.emc.gs
For lighting issues - pmss.emc.gs
For xyz problems - pmcm.emc.gs
Although there is such a comment if you read the pinned msg in the "report a bug" section of the help/support in the forums. It explains why to contact the devs and what to include for bug info.

This information should be an entire page of it's own on the "contact us" section and should have clickable links with descriptions.

The ingame syntax change was supposed to help with this, but there were apparently issues with the "contact us" button that needed fixed first. And then of course it probably went to the backburner with the 1.15update and it's bugs.

As I stated long ago in this thread = How does a player know who is on the forums and able to answer problems and which of staff might have gone to bed and left their website open. If you sent a blanket message to everyone, that covers your bases, but Kryssy said that gums up their works and may contribute to not getting an answer.
So how does any new player know which staff on the forums to pm with a request for help ? Because it is not obvious to newer players.

My original point was that there was a lack of information on how to handle issues that can't be resolved with /report playername
The usual reasons for this is :

• unprotected blocks were used -thus no playername is known
• it is during a time when there are no staff visibly online.
• there is a Blizz attacking players on the stairs of a Waste Spawn.
• there is a sign with cussing or threats left somewhere/ drawn with blocks in the Waste near a spawn (you can't get playernames from dirt or torches in the Waste) that should not be left there in public but can get investigated fully later.

It has been discussed that it is impossible to report yourself. So, your suggestion of using a pseudo playername in the report section is viable. A better use would be: /Report Aikar for these situations is very interesting. I wonder if that would be an easy way to implement a bandaid fix. I mean, we know who has that name, right? Obviously they might want to use a different name instead of Aikar, like "EmpirePlayer" but it would still be fun to use.

If I remember correctly, you cannot even report moderators. That is, in my opinion, ridiculous, because there are definitely times at which reporting a moderator is called for.

EDIT: see next page; you still can't report moderators but are now told to PM on the forums (this was not the case in the past).