Mendiboi - Very nicely written. But what if staff are not supposed to be considered the moral standard? What if staff actions are more like moderation -- to keep things from getting too far out of hand as derived by the rules, not set outright precedence -- to mend and defend...

xxdawsonisepicxx - I am not entirely clear on the events that have been transpiring, but I gather things have been kind of rough for you lately. But I would ask you to lay down your anger and consider the impact of what you are asking. If grief in the wild is punishable, is rollback-able, then what becomes the purpose of owning towns? There are a number of logistics problems that can arise.

Assume for a moment that there are no towns, everything is wild, then you could make a castle, and I could make my own house in the courtyard. You can't remove it because that is considered grief, and you have no power to say 'this land is your land'. If there is no directive that allows you to unequivocally claim territory as 'yours' (so long as you are active on the server), then what do you do?

Ok, so say people can then claim whatever land they want without cost or bound (lets ignore for now how that works)? You've got to announce your claim somehow... so then I officially claim all the land outside the Spawn Auction towns in Rising and everyone else is a griefer!

Assume that grief in the wild is punishable, so builders, and what not, can build whatever they want in the wild without fear of destruction... Then they no longer need (with reference to griefability) to buy resident, and then buy mayor, and more towns... They have no need to attain a higher rank, no basic ECC inherent need to make money (not considering economic trade). If they no longer need to seek towns for some respite from all out fear of belligerent grief, that would wipe out the economic aspect of owning a town to sell plots.

Lets say there is no need to live in a town (ignore town features like portals). If people are no longer encouraged to live in towns, they stop communicating. If they stop communicating they are not making friends, they are not trading, they are not exchanging ideas...

In fact, lets simplify this all and eliminate the red tape that moderation presents. Enable PVP world wide and thus you need to actually fight in game to protect what is yours, 24/7, 7 days a week... Isn't that fair?

Why do I love ecocitycraft? First and foremost it is a social environment that I believe is only worth playing because it inherently requires you to socialize, on some level, to be successful -- otherwise you might as well play in single player mode.

You are here because you seek camaraderie, you are seeking social interaction.

 

Well said

 

Grief in the wild... Alright. So as usual, this post may be long. I thoroughly intend to address these issues to the best of my ability about this.

First issue: Why should the wild not be considered protected from grief?

I'm shocked no one else addressed this as far as I could see. The wild being griefable gives towns a point. If there is no reason to buy a plot/town then why would anyone? At that point a giant chunk of the economy, real estate, is dead. Why should I spend 85k to buy Mayor and sell plots when the Builders and Residents of ECC can easily make their buildings outside of a town for free. At that point, I don't see a reason in getting Mayor. Thus, this kills our economy.

Next issue:

What makes the resets of the mining world any different from getting griefed in the wild? This was addressed by Kmaxwell as well, I believe. Yet, I'm going to propose a point from a philosophical point of view, Thank you Mendiboi for giving me an excuse to use my college classes that I thought were pointless.
Facts:

• Losing items/property is intrinsically bad.
• Intrinsically bad refers to something that is bad on its own.
• It is bad because it is depriving you of something good.
• If losing property is intrinsically bad, then any event that causes you to lose property is intrinsically bad.
• Therefore, mining resets are bad and grief is bad.

Yet, those things being said, life doesn't work on a specific simple set of morals. Essentially we cannot run ECC by "What will make the entire player base happy." Why? Life isn't black and white. Lets say we try to appease EVERYONE. We make grief in the wild, the main world, the nether, towns, and the aether illegal. World wide ban on grief. Effects? Exp prices plummet. Realestate markets plummet. Then we have people filing grief reports for the wild areas being mined and claiming that, that was their mining area. Oh, but we didn't consider this did we?
Yes that is correct, trying to patrol the wild is an astronomical improbability. Why? Things made in the mining world and the wild don't have any notable way to tell who owns it. So what does that mean? "Oh ____ doesn't like you. What did he do? He noticed you are remodeling your wild house. He decides to file a grief report claiming you are griefing HIS wild house." Unless you built it within the last seven days, we can't tell who actually built the building. That being said, your remodeling would now be on the log block.


Finally:

Mendiboi... First of all, morals are not black and white. Second of all, the staff team is not encouraging, we are simply not discouraging, which may seem to be the same, but it isn't. I have never, nor have our policies ever said "We encourage griefing." That being said, before anyone brings it up, Andrewkm has stated numerous times that he encourages spawner destruction. Now for my next few points.

All governments must consider the needs of the many above the needs of the few. We are a society of approximately 600+ return players daily. We cannot bend to the desires of the few when those desires will harm the server. This is the same reason why we are not raising the price of pumpkins to $1+ per pumpkin despite the fact that there are people who want it. Just because they want it doesn't mean its good.

Finally, Mendiboi my last point on this issue. Judges, arbitrators and other 'neutral' parties in situations should never ever take morals into consideration. Moderators are a 'neutral' party. We are not here to impose our morals. Just because I feel like something is wrong, doesn't mean I should stop it. My job is not to impose my personal beliefs on the server. My job is to enforce the rules of the server equally. My job is to keep the peace. Morals is such a terribly subjective concept that if every moderator was enforcing based on morals we would have different rules depending on the moderator on duty. Thats just stupid and unpredictable. Therefore, morality is irrelevant.

Revanrose6

TL: DR - I don't like the idea.

 

Kuke is still a cake loving cactus

 

Deal with it

 

Tdogg120 catman797 Lets try to have a productive conversation. There's no reason to post videos like that or make non related comments.

 

Mendiboi & revanrose6 -- I previously voiced what Revan said in her last post bc I didn't see it said before, now that it has been said, I will play the other side for the purpose of interesting discussion.

Does not the pedestal of moderator create an aire of influence, surrounding the public position, that inherently affects other players through your actions taken/not taken? I fully believe in the neutrality of "moderation" - that is what the term means... but is there a point that complete and booky neutrality allows for the rise of certain injustices that leave the public with growing sentiments of vigilantism?

Eh who am I kidding. I don't believe the converse is a strong argument as I can't really take it beyond the above..

I think Kmax, Kuke, and Revan have beyond valid points concerning logistics and spiritual drive that show it is not useful to adjust things to this suggestion.

However, I do under stand what you are concerned about xxdawsonisepicxx . I feel frustrated when my mining world spawners was destroyed after I spent several hours setting them up and tweaking them. But it is just like in real life -- if you want to change the world, it may not do to change the world through enforcement of your prejudices. I admit I am an idealist -- If your intentions are noble, just, and true, I believe worthy hearts shall rally to your cause, and it can prove out. Lead by example.

 

I have yet to see, in a year, people having a rallying voice of vigilantism over grief lol. I also hope I don't see it :/.

 

no no, i meant rally to the sentiment of non-grief. not vigilantism

 

Ah, well I already stated my points on that. So I'm going to not explain it any further. I must say I agree that I do not feel that there is a compelling enough argument for the opposition.

 

I did not argue that staff should be considered a moral standard, I argued on the contrary by declaring that if they were the moral standard, by their own right, then meaningful praise of their goodness would be impossible. This is always true because if something is the precedent, then declaring that something as good is synonymous with declaring that something equal to itself, thus cleverly dodging the ethical question entirely.

You constructed a Ignoratio elechi, also known as an irrelevant conclusion, by ignoring the nature of refutation and by addressing something irrelevant to the issue at hand. You were required to prove a specific conclusion about whether staff can be considered a good institution in light of their promotion of immorality, and you chose to prove, not that, but something else easily mistaken for it. This is not an argument of whether the staff ought to be good, but whether they could even be considered qualified for the status.

OnSceneReporter

 

I proved that it shouldn't matter if we are 'qualified'. Yet, if you want to go to that particular argument. I would say yes and no. We are not meant to be 'good' or 'evil'. That is like asking the color grey to be black or white. It simply cannot. We can be good people and we are, but in order to truly do our jobs properly, we need to be neutral. I need to be willing and able to interact with scammers at the same level as non scammers. I need to be willing to take both sides into consideration.

I am a good person, but I need to address my job on ECC from the point of view of a neutral person. I feel the question presented is an attempt to oversimplify a significantly more complex concept.

 

Give me a few minutes to tackle Revan's post.

 

Anything in the wild is fair game for anyone since none of the areas in the wild are privately owned. I suggest you just dont build out there. Become a member of someones town or become a mayor.

 

Mendi I have been mulling over your intial post for some time. I really like it, and maybe im missing something. but from what I gather, you've defined the rules as the rules, and not connected it to morality...

 

The first inaccuracy which you construct is your assertion that something can be between goodness and badness, when in reality something must be either good or bad, a priori. The nature of goodness and badness is where the dispute exists.

In the case of disputes between opposing parties where there is a need for an arbitrator, the existence of the arbitrator can be considered good for both the parties. The arbitrator is not morally neutral, but rather not inclined to favor either party. This argumentative neutrality should not be confused with this proposed state of moral neutrality.

Additionally, ethics should dictate the outcome of every ruling. Ethics is not a subjective philosophy, because, unlike personal preferences, by proposing an ethical argument you are challenging the position of your detractors as incorrect. If I was to say that I do not like the Walking Dead, then I am not saying that you do not like it. However, if I was to say that goodness should be defined by what does the greatest good for the greatest number, then I am also saying that anyone who disagrees with me is incorrect. Either I am incorrect and/or my opponents are incorrect, we both cannot be correct! Therefore, ethics is not subjective. Also, ethics has absolutely nothing to do with personal beliefs. Personal beliefs are not subject to logical criticism, as where ethical convictions must always be justified logically making them distinguishable from preferences. If I was to say that all murder was wrong, then you must ask me to prove it, however if I was to say that I believe murder is always wrong, then you can dismiss my proposition as personal conjecture.

revanrose6

 

My initial post showed that by defining the rules as good simply because the staff created them defeated the point of calling them good. OnSceneReporter

 

This was the Aether in the hours after it reset. It was terrible, people building boxes to protect "their" land that they had yet to build anything on. This prompted a rule change in the aether.

So I'm agreeing with you; Unconditionally grief-free doesn't even work perfectly in a world meant to be that way, much less worlds meant to be griefed (with mines in mining and splodey things in the nether) in the first place.

 

Just to be clear, I have not declared the staff bad or evil, I am simply asking whether a good institution can support this policy. I am not meaning to disrespect the staff, I know that they work very hard to preform their job, and I appreciate their dedication, but I recognize that even an institution that strives to do good by good will, may actually be doing something that is bad. As a community member, I feel I am obligated to defend the staff by addressing possible actions that could harm their status, including actions of their own making.