The problems of EMC: The great unrest (closed)

There are quite a lot of the same responses, to all of which I feel like I should respond. I decited to do them all in one:

I would like to summarise this type of response like this: I shouldn’t care as much as I do, and not bother to try to help improve anything. I should just take a break and step back. Additionally, I write too much, and should keep my thoughts more simple. Lastly, the posts I wrote are just long, convoluted ways to bring up old drama, that has already been thoughtfully and thoroughfully discussed and which everyone is tired of talking about and my ideas are all just a silly mess no one cares about.
For most of these responses I see where they are coming from, jet not in the way the posters might hope. What I see when I’m reading these posts are people who see a large body of text from my side, assume they already know what I’m talking about and why I am writing it, and respond to that assumption, instead of the actual thing. That is the only context in which these responses make sense to me, as many of the points made just don’t make sense. I’ll go through them one by one.

Critique 0: People not understanding what I wrote

First of all: This is a thread I made in February, after having deliberately not been involved with any EMC related issues for a few months. I wrote this thread over the course of a week, because I felt that, though it was currently calm, drama would rise again, this time over another petty thing than previous time. I felt like I understood the actual underlying problems of those petty arguments, and decided to make a thread about that. As I stated:

Indeed, I did care enough to write six and a half thousand words or thirty-two thousand characters about a Minecraft server. Jet, it did not come from a place of anger, it came from a place of compassion. I wrote this post because I saw some problems, and I decided to explain and explore them thoroughfully because I care about the future of the server. If you think that that is inherently a bad thing, then you would have to explain that to me, because I don’t see it as that.
I would like to add that writing long essays overanalysing problems is basically a hobby of mine. I also did it here, about the parallels Minecraft has with colonialism and here, about a niece video game from 2006. (Both are EMC forum threads) I wrote these two with basically the same reason as I wrote this thread: it was something I found interesting and therefore decided to write about. The main difference is the subject matter: the other ones don’t have any further implications, and this one does, which is also why I care about people reading this one more than the other two.
In short: I wrote this thread out of interest and out of compassion, not out of hate or spite, as all of these comments seems to assume.

Critique 1: You wrote too much

Yeah, I know: I tend to write large walls of text. I am not native English, it is my third langue. Additionally, I am not that good of a writer in Dutch either. I am oftentimes critiqued for needing too many words to explain myself. Please know that I am trying to be as concise as possible.
However, I do not think that even the most skilled writer would be able to shorten this thread in to something that would fit in a single post. There is a reason it is this long: I touched on a lot of different subjects, and I go quite deeply into them. Part 1.3 contains a summary of relevant parts of Wittgensteinian theory of langue, something that usually takes an entire semester at university. I personally was quite proud of how short I had managed to get it, without losing any of the nuance and depth I felt were necessary.
As stated before: I wrote this because I felt like I understood the issues. To explain them, I just needed to go in deep into the problems of langue as a medium, for example, as that is where I saw the problem. These details aren’t a by-product of a larger point: they are, themselves, the point of what I wrote.
My question is: what are you critiquing: Is it my writing style that can, indeed, sometimes be shortened, or is it the fact that I go into detail and try to paint a picture that is something else than black and white. For the first, I apologize, for the second, I do not.

Critique 2: You brought up old drama

I did not. Read it. Here you have someone else saying it:

The entire first part of the thread entirely consists of parts that, to my knowledge, have not jet bene discussed on EMC at all. In a large part of the second part, I basically state that everyone in drama needs to step back and see the flaws on both sides, and I sort of try to help to explain to the staff team that, though they might be right, their actions might be the cause of it becoming drama.
The only “bringing up drama” that I did write about was the story of my own demotion, however 1: I deliberately made it completely redundant, and said it was. It is only there for illustration of the issues and as proof that I was not talking about nothing. And, more importantly 2: In that part I admit I was partially wrong, which is why I originally put it in.

Critique 3: Your ideas are silly.

They might be, please argue why they are.

I know I am just an over-educated teen with severe trauma over basically everything and little expertise with living a normal life because of that. However, I do not think that that makes my points invalid. I honestly tried my best to write what I think is the cause of a lot of the unrest on the server in a way that is as concise and understandable as I was able to. Yes, I did bring up Marxist class analysis and Wittgensteinian langue analysis to do that, but only because I thought and think that those analysis’s are essential to understanding the problems of this server, or the ones I think to see.

Best we let it go then, yeah?

This has already been discussed in the past on an entirely different thread.

Hi, I am a player on this server for 3 years now, not once have i encountered a problem with staff , or felt that this server had a problem when it comes with devision or any of so. Its a server.. old already, so yes it took time to get to 1.15. Did you know this was a problem at many servers.
wo you cannot espect everybody to get along . and its a server with many posibilies when it comes to how you want to play. I dont know many players, as many players dont know me., but in the meantime i build the biggest and most detailed base. I never saw a problem. I feel also that a problem is being made ,cuz of a grudge. I feel this sort of treats are out of place. sorry but this is my opinion.

Goodluck

Excuse me?? The part you quoted directly continues with the supposition that the people who believe this see the large body of text and assume they know what it's about without actually reading it. And it honestly seems like you did the exact same thing just now, to Egeau's post explaining this. If this is indeed the case, I consider it quite disrespectful that you wrote this response anyway. I might be mistaken, though, I do hope I am.

Come again?
I think even if you tried, you could not have agreed anymore with Egeau and confirmed his hypothesis.

i started playing again because i have a ridiculous amount of time on my hands thanks to corona. which is also why i read through all your posts lol. and it is also why i'll humor you with a nice long response because again, i unfortunately dont have a lot going on.

coming back after like a year or two, i was surprised about everyone here complaining. at the risk of sounding harsh you sound really whiny and despite your arguing otherwise a lot of this seems to stem from a build team conflict you had with krysyy, and again, at the risk of sounding harsh, her actions seem justified. you seem to be concerned with a lack of player activity here. then stop writing posts like this because that accomplishes absolutely nothing. go start an event or just enjoy the game lol.

your first point mentions a rule that basically says don't bend the rules. then you say the epic hardcore edgy gamer gang of EMC thrives on trying to bend the rules. i'm genuinely curious because i might be missing something here as sort of an outsider. what rule exactly are you trying to bend? are you trying to see how close you can get to swearing without getting banned? the only restrictions i've seen staff put in place on things you can actually do in the game are in town. with big farms and stuff, i might be wrong, but i think the only thing they've done is decrease entity activation areas. if that's what you're complaining about, what would you rather have happen, the server be on a tps of one million?

in regards to your complaint about your issues with keepin' it pg, you first say that the standards aren't the same, which is true because culture in europe is a lot more liberal. then you go off on a good old classic european america-hatin' rampage lmao. someone's salty haha (this is a joke if you don't get it, europe is pretty cool). but the divide is not over an american culture of superiority like you try to imply it is. parents are genuinely concerned about the level of exposure their kids have when they're online and i don't see why you think that should change. i also don't see why you would need to discuss birth control or sex-related topics with a child?? let their parents do that maybe?

the rules here are very proactive over reactive, hence why they seem to have added so many; meaning that they want to prevent things from happening, rather than de-escalating them after the fact. this is why you often see staff reacting the way they do. and that's why the pg rules might seem unfair to you; "light sex talk" and marijuana talk as you put it, if allowed, could escalate into "not-so-light sex talk and full on stoner discussions". and don't get me wrong, i love me some good kush, but i respect parents wishes for their children not to be exposed to that kind of thing at an early age.

next you talk about server inactivity which you admit is outdated, but you need to understand another thing as well. it is true that people grow out of minecraft. furthermore, microsoft seems to have shifted focus onto mobile/console/win10 versions. that decreases exposure to these java servers, and thats why you dont see as many influxes of new players.

i'll admit i can't really say much about the staff, because of my inactivity i guess. but i find it funny how negative people are about them considering how easy it is not to interact with them when you play.

again, if you want to solve a lot of problems, just be a better member of the community instead of complaining all the time. also, i understand when you constantly say that this is not against krysyy, but you really do come off as being salty about getting kicked out. you seem to lack perspective too. good read though, thank you for giving me something to do for an hour : )

It's a Minecraft server. I don't see why people want to cause drama over a simple game server...

I agree! I also wonder why people make posts like these:

(What is that "yeah" even good for?)

Some people need to be reminded.

This is a fair critique though. Doesn't mean what you think is wrong but most people aren't going to sit there and read thousands of words. A good writer can also summorize their thoughts in shorter paragraphs. It seems you like to write and appear to do well at it considering English is not your 1st language. Your idea's here don't sound rushed or without backup. People tend to skip over that stuff though when it's sandwiched between personal drama.

You do though. That other thread you brought it up again. We can only see what you write in public. So that being said, it appears that you still have some unresolved resentment or anger (maybe) towards Krysyy or the staff in general. This all seems to have come once removed from build team. You were not like that before. This is the stuff that should be hashed out in PM. You have a problem with someone, work it out. If you cannot, then ignore each other as much as you can.

This you just completely added new words to what I said. I said: Especially since you whine about alot of things that are just silly or in your own head. The ranting about staff/Krysyy is the silly stuff. It just keeps getting dragged up over and over. Which ties to #2 above.

I don't know all the issues with BT but from what was posted publiclly is was issues working with others and creative differences. Maybe this made you think your idea's were no good or bad. Knowing some of the BT members I don't think that was the intention. To be part of a team you have to consider everyone's skills and attributes. Sometimes you have to take the orders and sometimes you get to give them. That's just how a good team functions. Maybe there were other issues mentioned provately, IDK. This is just what was public.

But especially if this is really your concern, I do not understand your, one might say disrespectfully, answers to Egeau causing more drama.
Further, I think it is best to read his post first and comment second if you want to contribute something. Disrupting a discussing by stating wrong or not applicable arguments is indeed causing more drama and frustration, which we should try to avoid.
Imagine you wrote a post about people not reading your posts and assuming your content and the first comment is from someone, who did not read anything you just wrote...

Can't say I agree with too much in this thread.

Although there were some good points to be found in this thread, and some that missed the mark, it's pretty unfair to be laying down more slack at the moment. Obviously there was *that* thread near the end of last year which brought to light some issues (and a lot more drama) however I think most of the stuff discussed has definitely been taken on board by Krysyy and co. Maybe people will still be slightly unsatisfied by things at the moment since everything is obviously not perfect, but I've seen many positive changes recently and especially with 1.15 just out we should be having fun ingame rather than quarrelling over minor details.

Also a minor side note on people posting about how the thread should be locked, if these threads are here for discussion then I think it's much better to actually discuss the topic at hand (even if it's negative/drama). Staff can/will lock it if it goes too far and I think it's better to leave that responsibility to them rather than breaking the flow of discussion by posting about it.

It is great that you don’t have aby problems with the staff, and, honestly, neither do I with any individually. I see you’re not that active on the forums, which means that you indeed did not see the main reason why I made this thread.
As it turns out, a lot of people, especially ex-staff and really active members, have a problem with certain aspects of this server, jet they choose to stay because this still is the best server around. Instead, they just bottle up their anger and annoyance. Every now and then, this leaches out and creates a big drama thread, where long, rambling posts are made discussing things of little importance. I decided to make this thread in a calm period, to discuss the issues that might actually be causing those often irrational angers.
When I posted it, I was aware that it might cause drama, and inevitably would cause some minor tumult. However, I hoped that, because my post is not made out of anger, but out of compassion, and because my post is long and detailed, there would be a chance of a more peaceful discussion, that could lead to some sort of a positive resolution.
When I posted it, and I found most people responding hadn’t read it, but instead chose to respond to the post they assumed I had written, a rambling rage thread, which, honestly, isn’t a completely unfair assumption. Because of this, I decided to stop responding to it, as I thought people not reading the post and assuming it was something, would have the exact same effect as it being that exact same thing, which could only cause more drama, drama that I would be responsible for by keeping the thread alive.

Thank you for your response. I, of course, have something to say, as I feel you are actually missing something, but I really appreciate you reading my post and then commenting on it, as intended I’ll write you another good long post

I really understand where you’re coming from. I know it is gone by drama with a lot of different sides, most of which I will probably never fully understand, and that is exactly why I mention it. What I mean when I say “This is not about that” more is something like “I didn’t write this with the intent of talking about it. It is over and well and not really worthy of further discussion. However, I know my views are influenced by it, so I disclaim it happened, and I am going to use it as an example because it is the only example that I am familiar enough with to talk about. However, I really don’t want anyone to see this as an attempt at bringing it up again.”
(I also want to correct you by saying it is not just my demotion, it is the entire experience of being a part of a Krysyy-lead build team and many other interactions with Krysyy that were a negative experience for me, it is just the demotion that I use as an example, as it was the major story)

I know I do, that is why I am posting this open for discussion. If I would be completely sure of my case, I would not have ended on such a clear “please correct me where I’m wrong.” Or “I am open to correct and change parts informed by people with different experiences than mine.”

(I assume this is about 1.2 and not 1.3?)
What I am talking about is more a general hostility towards a certain playing style which you too seem to have never encountered before, which is totally fine. I am not talking about ‘living on the edge” or anything like that, I mean something else when I say “the edge of the game.”
Take a potion brewer I have been working on for an example: I found a way to break the old record of fastest single shulker potion brewer by 1/10th of a second. You might say: who cares. I might say: If I’d cared I would just have every potion in stock and passively brew them when I need some. The reason this brewer exists isn’t really because of practicalities, it is because I enjoy making these kinds of edge-of-the-game systems, that seemingly bend the rules of Minecraft itself, and many other people do too, which is why I know what the record is. It is this optimisation for the sake of optimisation what I am talking about when I am saying “taking it to the edge;” am not talking about any “epic hard-core edgy gamer gang,” which implies something completely different.
Then still My point is not “This should be allowed more” my point is “most of the rules do not seem to be made understanding these people, and, because of that, are often hostile where they don’t have to be.” My problem lies more with the attitude towards the rules, than with the rules themselves. I don’t really know how to explain that further without ust restating things I already said in 1.2

(That amarica-hatin’rampage kind of was a joke too: it was meant to be a little bit of comedic relief)
My problem lies not at all with the fact that EMC tries to keep everything pg, I completely agree with that. My problem lies with the fact that most staff, especially Krysyy, enforces the rules as if those standards aren’t different in different places. The example I give in the thread is someone who did something that was not at all a problem in Europe, which the staff then shut down and deleted, which is totally fine, and which I agree with. The problem is the response that person got when they said “Sorry, I didn’t know” namely “Not reading the rules is not an excuse to not follow them.”
I am completely fine with the intentions of the rules. I just wanted to explain that the rules as they are can sometimes be violated by someone who both knows them completely and is trying to follow them completely, something most of the staff seems to be ignorant about, which creates unrest. I am basically calling the staff to know the limits of their rules.

Most of this is forum-related issues. Additionally: most of the critique I raised I first heard claimed by ex and current staff, which is logical as most of the issues only arise when you’re trying to have an in-depth conversation with a staff member. This naturally aren’t the people who are normally avoidant of staff, though most of them are now.
Your and more people’s points about my part on staff seems to be “It isn’t that bad, you could also just avoid them” Which is something I am nor persuaded by. I guess it works, and I have been doing it for the past year. However, I still care about the server, and I still want to participate in a way that is more than doing stuff. Thinking about and critiquing stuff, positively and negatively, is, I guess, my default way of helping. Most of these issues are issues of people who are trying to actively and directly help, like staff or community team members, or “regular” highly active members, which I think aren’t issues that should be ignored.

Indeed, if your critique is "a good writer would be able to summarise this better" it is completely fair, I say as much.

1: this post was originally made in February, when that “other thread” was still somewhat recent and definitely still in the public conscience.
2: That is the introduction An introduction is meant to explain why the post exists. I site that post as “this drama has happened, among others” the rest of the thread then is an attempt at understanding how we can prevent drama like that from happening again. If that technically counts as bringing it up again, I do not know. I do know however that that is something else than what most people mean when they say “don’t bring up old drama,” as they often say it in the context where someone starts explaining why they thing they were right in that drama again, which is something I don’t do. I only state that it happened and I ask Why it happened but I never talk about what happened, which I think is what “bringing up old drama” means when someone says it.
3: I know I still have some unresolved anger, however, I only bring it up to say “this is influencing me, now let’s try to not talk about it until the very end and at least try to be objective.”

I tried my absolute best to not make this be about any old drama, whilst still talking about why it happens and what we can do moving forwards.

By this response it really really seems like you’ve only skimmed the thread, and not picked up on the larger point of why it exists and the ideas I try to explore. You anyway completely misunderstood the goals I had whilst writing this. I’ll state this the that-manyth time: I originally wrote this thread because of compassion towards the server, and because of genuine care for it, moving forward. Not out of spite or anger, not consciously anyway, neither looking back now, more than three months later. The fact that people who didn’t read this made this thread be about something else is something I am currently really frustrated about, though, in case you’re wondering.

Please note that this thread is written in February. The goal of it is not to bring up any of the issues of that old thread, rather, it is an attempt and understanding why these things keep happening, and why there is so much unrest (though not publically, most of it in more private spaces, especially at the time)
I have also seen quite some positive changes in attitude. Again, this is written in February, however, when I wrote this, I felt a lot of the core issues had not yet been resolved, and I (retrospectively ignorantly) thought that wring a more thought-out OP would lead to a more thought-out discussion. When this didn’t happen I chose to abandon the thread.
When some of the issues raised in this thread were raised elsewhere, I decited to link this thread and basically say “I have been talking about this before, and here is my best attempt at explaining this issue, which comes from this thread,” not really realising (or thinking about) the fact that that would cause the exact same problem as it did previously: people not reading the actual thing or completely missing the mark, and still insisting in discussing it.

Skare couldn't have said it better in my opinion, this deserves more recognition. If you ever feel like talking or something @OP, feel free to PM me for Discord or something as I am not very active anymore due to me seeing the change of EMC in recent years.

I can tell you then that your assumptions are incorrect. I did read it. Any of my posts were not refering to most of it, mostly just the continued drudging up of old news. The saying goes, nothing changes, if nothing changes. The choice is yours if you want to resolve any personal issues you may have with anyone or do nothing and continue to talk about it. These are the only things you can control. How the server is run, the rules, etc. these are not decisions up to us. All we can do is give our suggestions, discuss it and live the the decisions. I didn't respond to the other stuff because I'm not sure I have a response.

This is the drama though. Posting about it public is not going to accomplish anything. I can't tell you why it happened so why post the question to me? (By me I mean in general) That question can only be answered by those involved in said happening.

Valid criticism over how a server you think is on life support is run and wanting a discussion on it ≠ drama.

In case you want a update on the personal stuff: no. It doesn't matter. Better: I don't want it to matter. Yes, there have been some issues, and, no, they have not been talked though. However, I don't really feel the need to do so. The short story is that Krysyy accidently hurt me when I was in a really bad place. I don't see her as wrong for that, but I know it influenced me, which is why I kept bringing it up.
"The other stuff" is what this thread is about. or, rather, it is what I intended this thread to be about. what I still want it to be about.

The first part is a meaningless argument about semantics, which I am not going to care about. The second: I felt like I had the answer, or a part of it, which is why I wrote down that answer here. (Retrospectively ignorantly) hoping it could be resolved that way

Thank you.

You brought the quotes here from elsewhere so I replied to them. No worries though, I will not comment anymore. Hopefully you find your happiness.