EMC New Permanent Ban Stance

Since when? That's exactly what you do to start the portal.

I know but you do not start a forest fire to make a portal.
The point that use of F&S for portals should still be possible is valid.
This still does not mean it is a good idea to allow it everywhere in the wild when it can cause much more damage than TNT.

But I was BEING hacked!

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I guarantee the mods will catch a cheater. Max and AIkar were recently promoted to senior staff for a reason. They will catch you. As a long time player, member, and eventually a supporter.... I assure you, if you cheat you will be caught.

I heard there was a "hack" in Wisconsin.... Very dangerous. Same guys that hit godaddy a little while ago!

Well let me tackle this in sections. Because you have managed to briefly hit most of the major points that were brought up in our own staff discussion.

While I wish what you said was true, most people who cheat/grief/steal/pvp are not just doing so because they are bored. They may simply trying to take advantage of the system, do it for fun, or, the worst of them all, because they can and fear no punishment. Even with many being caught, many continue.

Like it has been mentioned multiple times here, every case, is treated separately. There is no automated system where these names are just added to the list and forgotten. Every appeal will be adhered to and viewed, and judged. Other things come into play here. Whether are not the player has been in trouble or expected involvement and other things. Its not just an automatic /ban then /reset on appeal.

Even in the infancy of this, we have already run into this issue, and handled it. This can be a warning here, the staff can see virtually everything you do, through multiple tools and windows. If we see activity that can be viewed as suspicious, and believe me, we will be watching when the decision is made, then we will act on it and correct it, and punish those who try to help bypass.

If they find a way around it, then go them. But at what cost? How long can you really keep wealth and items secret enough, especially if it were big and important enough to be worth hiding? Even then, if you are willing to dodge a simple rule at that point, when out of the niceness of our kind staff hearts are giving you a nice second chance to be a part of this great community, how long can you go without breaking another rule? then we will be there.

A change was needed. This was not a decision that came without careful explanation and discussion. A change that we feel as staff is in the better mind of EMC. While you view the nice policy as good, others (directed at troublemakers here) view it as "easy". Like that teacher in school who was cool because you could do whatever you want. Well, the classroom has gotten wild, and its time to settle it down. We are still going to give second chances, which is more than most servers give anyways. Even then, we turn over most deserving appeals. So it would seem that there is still an air of nice, just a little less than before.

The major summary that should be received... if a player is not willing to take the sacrifice to take the fresh start, because of materials, resources, or money that they have obtained while doing the wrong thing, then they are not the caliber of player we want here. This is the major point of the whole stance. Your statement of "the chances of them coming back are slim", is important, because if they are not willing to take that sacrifice and enter the community clean of their wrong and literally start fresh, then we do not care if they come back. So they can go start from the bottom at another server that does not have this community. Where it is ok to do the things they obviously want to do.

There are to many people who work hard to do the right thing and still do there projects. With no cheats/hacks or killing others or griefing. Why give others the satisfaction of wallowing in the riches of completion and success of castle built by lies and deceit.

Your words are heard, and understood. But just know that this angle is the best for the community. If a player is willing to take that sacrifice and continue to be a part of the community, then hey, hes a good guy, and I feel he deserves a second chance. But if that sacrifice is too steep for you, then this is the wrong place for you to play. Simply Put.

finaly the people that get baned think it is a joke becase they get back soon this will hit them hard ty icc i think it is great becase it is like a temp ban then nothing happens to them so this is alsome

Well put. It may be a little late for most of "our" players. I think I've been here long enough to say "our," or do you disagree Smooch?

While I can not grant you permission to obtain ownership of anyone here, I can say that we are a community, and a family. It is important that we have people that can only provide healthy relationships within the community. Sure, some may bicker and have healthy debates, disputes, and arguments. But thats just family. But cheating, killing, and destroying, not people I would want at my dinner table.

Thanks for explaining. I did not know FNS was so useful against mobs.
Still I do not see a reason for it to work on wood here in the wild except to stay true to vanilla.
I would be fine with that reason as EMC is a vanilla server. Still I'd like to see some way (apart from the limited ability to claim land in the wild that was announced) to protect wild builds from obvious FNS griefing.
Any idea welcome!

Just trying to think of a way to stay as vanilla as possible, don't cause loads of more work for mods but protect the wild communities / builds. too.

Last but not least thanks esp to Aikar for helping out finding FNS griefers at the LLO and banning them.

it would be nice to see the firespread flag turned off in the wild, but it would turn off grass and mushrooms too i think, if it could be separated from those, then maybe the staff could discuss setting it to -firespread for the wild, that way you could still use FNS but it would only be a fire where it is used, and would do no block damage.

Lots of arguments, debates, points of view getting flung about here, but you know what?

Good decision, well made.

People are too used to their being no consequences on the internet for their actions. It's about time there were some.

I agree with ismooch .... like i said before, i realize me saying the wrong things can hurt people and result in me being banned, and i have to face the consequences ...

p.s. a semi - further note to this ... i made everyone something ... http://empireminecraft.com/threads/condolence-letter-everyone.15470/

Thank you! Great job ICC and Co.

Also - due to the lesser number of players on EMC, has unbanning all previously perma-banned players except those who sign on to grief been considered? Reset everything for them. I think this might be good, although it seems a little cheapish.

This sounds like an incredibly fair system to deal with rule-breakers! The only bad thing I can think of is hackers or hijackers of accounts logging in and PURPOSELY getting a specific player banned. For Example: Let's say IcecreamCow hacks JustinGuy's account and breaks tons of rules and gets JustinGuy banned for it, JustinGuy explains what has happened but it's already too late as ALL his stuff that he has spent such a long time working for is ALL GONE! What a terrible thing to happen!
Look I'm not saying this is a bad idea because rule-breakers deserve to be punished severely for their bad choices but what if a misunderstanding occurs? Anyways awesome idea guys!

The reset of the account only occurs after a successful appeal, not when the ban occurs. So JustinGuy would be able to appeal and explain what Icecreamcow did meaning the account would be able to avoid being reset if adequate proof is provided.

I'm all for this. People having consequences for breaking rules that we all follow, Im on board.

So, is this a possible scenario: "I have a res. A few friends and maybe an alternate account have all perms. I get banned for intentionally greifing/hacking. I know Im going to lose all my rupees, items, and res, so I've been using my alt/friend's account as a rupee bank. I use my alt acount and quick run to my res and take all my items and valuables and transfer them before they get reset so I dont lose them... or I ask my friends to do it for me."? Because if this is a possible scenario, then it seems to me this new policy can be easily circumvented by someone who intends to break rules... they just need a little planning.
All in all I like the new policy and agree people need to be more accountable for their actions, but some of this is news to me. I always thought permabans were for IP (all alt accounts). So you're saying, someone gets banned for griefing, they just switch to another account and they get right back on the server? I think thats totally backwards... how is that fair? "Well, you can get away with cheating kids as long as you have the money to buy multiple copies of MC!" (So if I get kicked out of a bar for being beligernant and starting a fight, I should just go home and change shirts and then I should be able to get right back in as if I'm not ME?) Seems to me that allows someone the time they need to get a little payback and cause more trouble if they feel jaded for having gotten banned.
I dunno, maybe its just me. I'll leave you with a definition:

per.ma.nent (adjective)

1. existing perpetually; everlasting, especially without significant change.
2. intended to exist or function for a long, indefinite period without regard to unforeseeable conditions
3. long-lasting ro nonfading

edit: sorry for repeating a few things for those of you that have been following this entire thread, just spent about an hour carefully reading 216 comments, and I commented while the comment was fresh in my brain before I forgot what I wanted to say.