I would If I felt that there would be action. If I could see some proof of accountability on both sides. Community and Staff, I would glady and openly disscuss such ideas. However from the few incidences I saw it seemed clear that it was unwanted. Ps. Is that supposed to be warriors? (your pic)
This is something that can be at least partially shown as true (to some degree) or false (to some degree). Where are those threads where staff actions were negatively criticized and where the staff has accepted the criticism and has answered it without administrative violence? On the other side, a part is missing due to hiding of whole threads. Additionally to that, since I think less than a year ago, the EMC Forum blocks external archiving, so you won't find the threads on archives.org. It is good to look into that threads and see what happens, but even without that, just by knowing human nature, by knowing what you can usually expect and with some experience here on EMC we can - IMO - quite easily understand the social / community context and situation. Nevertheless, let's see the examples and perhaps go from more theoretical to more practical discussion. I can provide some examples for both "sides". But I'd step on the ball for a moment here. As I've suggested above, let's just ask Aikar what is his vision and intention regarding community life and community rights as a whole and its members as persons. I'd expect some correlation between rule breakers and siding with negative staff criticism, because it's all natural for a part of rule breakers to blame someone else for their misfortune. "It's not (only) my own fault that I've broken the rules, it's also EMC." But that does not make original, general (social) criticism bad in any way. People are people. But the idea to better have less guidelines / rules because some will push them to an extent does not make sense to me. Your comment is like saying "we are unable to make good vision, guidelines and rules, we are unable to express what we really want." But that has a catch 22 here - if someone is not able to express their idea (for whatever reason), than it is safe to assume that they aree also very probably not able to carry it out and make something good out of it. So I don't think that's really an option. How would having less written guidelines and rules make that any better? I didn't express myself clearly... the question os where is the staff, where is Aikar. Can you provide one or two examples to discuss it? One or two statements that would likely be in that "social contract" or "community contract" and how it would cause more trouble than good? It's absolutely not about breaking rules here. It's about - openly criticizing EMC staff actions in a negative way. Like saying "you could do that much better" or "you did that wrong" or "you could handled that in a much better way" or "this rule is not good" ... - a vision for the community on EMC, a sound frame for its life and development - protecting the community and the members from unwanted administrative force (or in that case violence) - giving the community and members explicit commitment statement
I do not agree with this idea at all. Most has already been said by Kephras, all but one thing: my main concern with this idea is that it has 'abuse' written all over it in my opinion. No, hear me out.... I'm not saying that you (SSRC) would abuse this, I know you much better than that. What I'm saying is that there will be players who are going to try. I also don't agree with some of the reasoning: just because you've been here 4 years means you deserve a say in things? Time doesn't mean anything here. I know people who have been here for over 1200 days while they've only been actively playing for not much more than 200 days. How would you handle that, considering that you feel that time gives people a right for all this? Within that context I'd strongly object to the whole thing myself because I've been here for 500 days or so, but I've been active the whole time. So why would someone who has been here longer than me, but was much less active, suddenly have a more important opinion than mine? That's, in my opinion, just silly. Cool, but if you look closely you'll also notice that all those rules and laws evolve about consumer protection; their main goal is to prevent that consumers get swindled. Are you now saying that applies here? (that is an unfair comment on my part, I'm playing the devils advocate here and I'm literally twisting your words around). But on that subject I do think you're confusing a lot of things here. Because you already have the option to be heard if you got comments, complaints or anything else about EMC. Whether it's the rules, the way the mods treat you or to complain (or praise) the way the system works then just PM Krysyy. I think your main concern is to be heard in public. But that's a completely different subject alltogether. Empire Minecraft is a Minecraft server, its community evolves about Minecraft. Meaning that it is a platform first and foremost to talk about Minecraft, NOT a platform to push your own ideals and opinions forward perse. They may allow as much, but they're most certainly not obligated to do so.
Apologies up front if this post offends anyone, that's not my intention but I will use this post as an example why I think this isn't the best of ideas. I've gone over Keph's posts 3 times now and I can't find anything in there which is offensive or mean. In fact: at one point Keph even clearly mentioned that he had no intention to offend anyone but merely spoke his mind. What you're basically saying here is that you feel that you should have the right to speak up about things, but as soon as someone else (Keph in this example) speaks their mind, which happens to oppose your opinion, then all of a sudden you feel attacked and consider them mean. You're even saying that it would have been better if they kept quiet about it. And this is exactly why I think this idea won't work. You can't have it both ways my friend. Either we all have a right to speak up or none of us has. But most of all this is exactly why staff prefers that you speak up in a private message. It's not to conceal the truth, it's not to keep things secretive, but it's only to prevent drama. If you discuss these topics in public then you will run into situations shown here time and time again. Where one person feels attacked while the other didn't even have that intention at all, and in no time will you see the topic move away from the initial subject at hand. And it is that part which confuses me as well: why do you think you don't have an option to speak up? Last time I protested against a staff ruling (staff member closed an auction, not even mine) it got remedied within a few hours. Of course this all here is my opinion
Can you please explain this on some examples - as I can't see that at all. Same question as above to Gawadrolt - can you give one or few statements that would be in such a "community contract" and show how it more invites abuse than does any good? I've been here since spring 2012 and I was active most of the time. I was even expressing social criticism on several occasions and on several topics - and I can confirm that staff actions could have been much better on many occasions - that there is room for improvement. I think that corresponding commitment and guidelines would certainly help. When you have a visible paper with a sound vision, it helps. It does not need to have any rules. It does not need any punishments. I don't see how having no written vision regarding the community could be better than having one. Never give in, never, never, never, - expect to convictions of honor and good sense.
well minecraft as a whole is not growing. last year around this time mojang was selling twice as many copies as it is now. This is one of the only stats that is easily accessible regarding player activity as a whole in minecraft. I would love to see other sources if they are available. I play on a daily basis with people that have been on emc for over a year, over two years, over three years and yes, even over 4 years. This isn't very telling of people leaving and getting bored or not having anything to do. in fact, 1.9 brought many people back and offered SOOO much for us to do at the end game level. I can get to my base in half the time because I spent 8 hours building a ice boat path. spent over 40 hours tromping around the end killing end dragons and chasing elytra. This is content that was just released on EMC and because of its release I made a fortune and saw many old players finally putting together those gold farms they could never rationalize a reason for making. As far as the community not having any say so in the development of the game... I know you are talking about a different server. There is a suggestions forum on EMC. Aikar comments on MOST of the suggestions made, especially if they receive multiple replies. Aikar and kryssy also have asked the community on several occasions how we feel with moving forward with certain things, from events to coding priorities to features in general. There are sooooo many threads complaining about how staff have handled an issue. There are still tons of them that aren't locked even. Usually they only get locked when people start bickering or the issue has run its course and people are just saying the same things over and over again but including insults because they just want the opposition to admit they are right without acknowledging there is another point of view on the topic. We have a low retention rate of new players based on what? There really isn't any data you can site on that besides personal experience. You can speculate loosely based on some of the data provided by the site but nailing down a trend with the data we have as players isn't possible currently. Those 1-4 year old players I play with, they aren't the majority. most of the players i play with are less than a year old, and I play at a time when its night shift people from the US and australians and new zealanders, at a low traffic time. In the morning too once some americans start waking up. I stay primarily on one smp but not 100%. Some days its slow (not much since 1.9), others its impossible to follow town chat. IF ANYTHING this thread is proof in and of itself that we have all the freedom in the world to debate the direction of the server. Not once has a staff been on here to tell you to drop this idea, no matter what they think of it. You keep stressing that there is censorship and the staff don't listen. Where? when? Masterminer- You keep asking for answers and examples, why don't we have an example you have provided to analyze? Is a mission statement a bill of rights? no it is not. Aikar is very interactive with this community, to not see that is out of pure will. Aikar also has posted many of his plans for the server. Kryssy has posted so many mission statements that I'm currently trying to wade my way to this thread just to reply. It's always, we are a family, a community and we need to respect one another and embrace one another and play nice. Come on man, you guys are really trying hard to ignore the things right in front of you. Edit- never did I say we need less guidelines or that I feel like this idea would provide more guidelines, I don't. I think staff already have plenty of guidelines and are kept on, mostly, a short leash. In fact its something I even praised about EMC just recently and do quite often: https://empireminecraft.com/threads/minecon-attendees-details-on-designing-your-own-referral-cards.65583/#post-1190426 Second edit: oh good shell is here and can type pages of stuff I can just make jokes now
Are most of the stats that you list official from Aikar or are you just pulling them out of your "experience"? Sure, you're an older player but I know some of your time was spent away or inactive on EMC and that you weren't always around. This isn't a personal attack or anything, but when you say you can't openly discuss your ideas I feel like you are an old enough player to know what is okay to be discussed on the forums/in-game. Let me remind you that this is considered a PG-13 (at most) MINECRAFT SERVER. I'm all for talking about the future of EMC and suggestions for the server, here is a whole forum on the site for suggestions, but when you bring up certain topics that go too far, bash emc, or just straight up unrealistic don't expect people to tell you they are awesome when they are just voicing their personal opinion. When I was staff I have never censored anyone here for being political or voicing their opinion, until they took it too far and I had to stop the discussion before problems aroused. When you are talking with a server mostly populated with children and whose main goal is to play the game of Minecraft you have to be careful what you talk about because we have a very specific and well outlined rules and TOS. (Krysyy also just fixed it up!!) If you have a problem with a specific staff member or person who you feel like is wrongly censoring you or putting people's opinions down intentionally please reach out to Krysyy as she is the person who solves the problems around here, she solved mine at least. So to wrap up my two cents as I'm not a very strong writer at all, I am just very passionate for this server that gave me a home for the past 4 years. Before you go ranting on the forums at 2 am about how you have no rights and censored wrongly please instead talk to someone who can actually solve your problems instead of what it looks like, venting to the community. Again, this is not at all a personal attack of any sorts, I've seen this topic brought up before and I feel like if you are actually being wronged bringing this up with the administration personally instead of publicly bashing people would be your best bet.
I'd wait for that mission statement regarding community and rights, because that is the pivot point in the whole story. No, but it is a prerequisite. Let's see the mission statement and general guidelines first, and see if we can ask questions and get answers about it. "A family" would already be too much IMO, I'd be careful there. As simple as possible - what kind of concession (what kind of rights) does a community need to be able to call itself a community - in difference to a much "lower life form" of an "user group of a service." There are few bits missing. I'm trying to see them, find them, but I can't see them yet. You're right that it's just few (if not very few) bits.
They/He are/is the king of burgers! I think we have pretty good rights for this being a minecraft server. =P
big shiny post on the front page, second post, very FIRST bullet of her post xD edit: I will even save you two clicks https://empireminecraft.com/wiki/rules/#our-staff-and-our-mission second edit: screw it -
Yes that one. Community where or nowhere? Community rights / player rights nowhere to be seen yet. You see what is stated as EMC (Staff?) mission? Staff wants to have fun with us. Well then they can I guess ...
yeah I edited it into my post before you replied, probably after you clicked the link xD yeah wiki said but that's obviously kryssy lol. I do see player and community rights, its outside of the circle... I have the right to log in, if I haven't been banned. If I don't like playing I have the right to log out. I have the right to follow the rules and not get banned and apparently I have the right to have fun, so long a I am not breaking the rules that follow the mission statement... on the same page even, how convenient is that Edit: if you weren't so DANG polite!!! My frustration would have turned to apathy and I wouldn't even be talking about this right now with you. Damn those manners!
https://empireminecraft.com/threads/emc-staff.59550 Just an example of a thread I made that wasn't and still isn't closed (please don't bump, it's old). I've done my fair share of complaining and voicing my opinions on EMC and never once have I been censored. If you go about it in a mature and respectful manner, in my experience, you get decent results. I don't see the need for TOS or EMC rights. I feel like that's covered in the rules as others have said. I don't know what happened in your situation SSRC and I'm sorry it brought you to have to create this thread, but maybe there is a more peaceful solution rather than trying to make Aikar sign a "contract".
Thank you, a good example. I don't feel like pulling out examples myself at the moment, because I don't think we're there yet - if a discussion of what was good and what was less good is relevant when we don't have that "community mission statement". Is there a community? How can you tell? What kind ("level") of community shall this be? What does a "Community Manager" manage? That are some very fine rights. Just not what this thread is about. Some will say "You must not ask for so much." And others will cry "Hey, why not ask for more?"
I skimmed the posts here and I am with Shel. This will only lead to new and more ridiculous problems within our community. Yes, free speech and all is nice in real life, but you seem to forget that this is a server dedicated to a game....not the overtaking of the British... Sorry mate. Big ol Nope from me.
Sorry, I didn't have the motivation to read the entire thread... I think this is an exaggeration. I understand why you'd like an official-looking document, but it would scare me away.
That's interesting. What could be inside such a document? What could be scary? What do you think about there?
