On Chat Rules, Rule Enforcement, and the Community by @RyanBlocks2 Suggestion Intro:Hello everyone. I have made this thread in order to address some of the current issues that I see in the community namely chat rules, enforcement of rules and the consistency of enforcement, as well as the tension in the community. The thread covers my thoughts on each of these as well as how I believe it should be changed. I would greatly appreciate any feedback, constructive criticism, or things you would like to see done in this thread. I also ask that you keep your postings clear, to the point, and that you don't flame any players in the thread. Thanks, RyanBlocks2 Part One: Chat RulesSummary: Chat is one of the most important aspects of a mine craft server, especially one so based on player - player interaction such as Ecocitycraft. However, currently on ECC no one is happy with the current state of chat. Half of the server thinks that chat rules are overly harsh, that they are getting singled out, and that rules are enforced by the flip of a coin. The other half of the server is upset at the large amount of trolling happening in chat from the other group, and how these trolls are allowed to do this with little to no repercussions to their actions. My chat suggestion is essentially the following (specifics will be below this): Allow for more leniency on chat rules, while at the same time greatly increasing the severity of the punishment for breaking the rules. This I believe, is a compromise the server can agree on. On one hand it allows players the freedom to say and do more. I will elaborate on what more they should be allowed to do below but what I will say is that talking in chat right now feels oppressive to me. I have to go out of my way to avoid saying things that could be considered touchy spam ect. and I think that these strict chat rules alienate a large part of the playerbase. On the other hand, increasing the severity of the punishment actually deals with real trolls in an effective manner. Currently trolls get so many warnings its no wonder they don't stop trolling. Together these two things allows players more freedom in chat while at the same time cracking down on those who think they can get away with saying whatever they want. More Lenient Chat Rules - Spam: The enforcement of the spam rule on ECC is one of the things that bothers me the most on the server. I see a builder come on and say "nooo". I immediately start counting and then around 10 seconds later BAM! 4 lines of chat are suddenly spammed up with messages saying something along the lines of "Please stop spamming playerX", "Please dont spam playerX", "Theres no need for that "PlaxerX" "PlayerX please dont spam" ect. ect. I then sigh. A lot of the time I don't even see the "spam". I only see the stop spamming messages that spam up my chat and then scroll up to try and search for the player that was told to stop spamming. So that leads to my solutions to this problem. Solution 1: Redefine Spam as the following. <This is the defenition of Spam in the rules> - Spam is the repetition of characters or words to an extent that your message either becomes non sensible, or difficult to read. <This is how repeated letters are enforced> Repetition of letters for emphasis is not spam so long as five or less characters are repeated and only one letter is repeated per word. Only One word per 5 in your message can have repeated charachters Examples of this rule in action: "Sttttaaaahhhhhhhpppp" - Considered Spam - Nonsensical Message and Difficult to Read "Nooooo" - Not Spam - Sorry strict mods, 5 letters isn't spam. This has absolutely no impact on my ability to read and comprehend chat. "Noooooo" - Considered spam - Yes I know many people are saying this is the same thing blah blah. I know but we need to draw the line somewhere and I picked 5. I think thats reasonable, none repeats letters over 5. "Whhhhy uuuuuu dooooo thiiiiis" - Considered Spam Solution 2: Now that we are not warning for spam for everything said in chat, there are less messages warning for spam. Now for real spam I propose the following. Builders receive a chat warning, like what currently happens by mods. Residents+ either receive a pmed message or a warn (depending on whether mods conclude that the spam was intentional or just a slip up). This should also stop players from wining in chat that playerX got warned and playerY didnt cause they cant see the chat warning. More Lenient Chat Rules - Touchy Subjects: Purpose of the touchy subject rule: To reduce arguments in global. Not the purpose of the touchy subject rule: To look for words that could possibly have an obscure reference to religion or politics and warn for using the word. This has gotten a lot better since I came back in October. I mean I can say words like Donald Trump without getting warned for politics now at least. However, I think that staff should make sure not to tell people in chat to stop for one or two liners. Instead they should look at the intentions of the players saying the message and determine whether they are trying to start a political discussion or it just comes up in their normal speech. If someone is continually trying to start political discussion then give them a /warn. If the subject happens to get political just try and politely redirect the subject. If someone just says something like "Yeah the traffic was awful today its voting day at the high school you know" and it goes on for a couple messages before moving on there is no need to tell them to stop talking politics. Chat Rules - Trolling: Trolls feed off of people recognizing them. When they post "IS THIS ALL CAPS SPAM" "IS THIS ALL CAPS SPAM" in chat and 4 mods say "don't do that please" they are having the time of their lives. Stop feeding them please... Just /warn them right out and don't say anything in chat. Now at first people will be like spam spam! but then mods can just say "Dealt with" or something along those lines. Soon people will start realizing that these problems are being dealt with and there's no need to tell a mod. Also, people will actually get punished for trolling chat and they wont get the attention they desire. Chat Rules - Cussing "Occasional mild to moderate vulgarities that are not directed at anyone (such as "slip-ups" or saying them in the incorrect chat by accident), self-censorship of a swear word or abbreviations that may imply a swear word (eg. WTF?) are allowed unless it is directed at another user." - Rules Im just posting this here because it's the rule and is what should be enforced. I've seen people told not to use abbreviations and warned. Also "Moderate vulgarities such as "slip-ups" are allowed as long as they are not directed at another user <---- Please take note of that Staff who like to warn for slip ups. Now regarding cussing at other players, just /warn immediately there is no need for a chat warning. Part 2: Enforcement of the rulesSummary: Probably the biggest complain about the staff team is that rules are not enforced equally. Bob spams and gets a ban. Joe spams and gets nothing. I think a couple things can be done about this. Firstly messages in global telling people not to do X or Y need to stop. Secondly, staff needs to get together and really decide what punishments will be given for what. Thirdly a players intentions and rank need to be taken into account when doling out punishment. Keep chat warnings out of global: Chat warnings in global are hyped up as this wonderful thing that allows people to see justice in action. In reality it just allows people to find an accidental outlier and point to it as evidence that the staff team is conspiring against them. In the chat rules part of this suggestion I proposed moving spam warnings to private pm and warning trolls with /warn not in chat. These are the kinds of things I mean by keeping warnings out of global. Make sure enforcement of rules is equal/Staff needs to get together: This needs to be done inside of staff. Some high ranking staff and administration need to get together, write some better guidelines for punishment, some more specific guidelines for when they need to be used and make sure every mod on the server is well aware of these rules and guidelines. Until this happens enforcement will never be equal. There are a lot of good people on staff, but no one thinks and enforces the same way. This needs to change. This should be the number one priority for the server, ahead of skyblock ahead of this new anticheat system, ahead of whatever else is planned. Half the server is unhappy with rule enforcement. Ive made a poll to see how the server views the relationship between staff and the community. It needs to be a addressed. Take into account rank when doling out punishment: What I mean by this is that people who know what they are doing isn't allowed need to be punished more severely than new players. If joe the builder joins and cusses out a player once, maybe he gets a warn. If john the ecolegend cusses out a player he better be ready for a ban because he has been here long enough to know that that isn't tolerated. Number of warnings: Im not sure why people get 5 warnings. 5 warning? Its madness. Why are people allowed to break the rules 5 times before getting banned. Maybe because some of the rules are just silly. So lets get rid of those silly rules and reduce the number of warnings needed to get a ban to 2. You get a warning, you don't listen to it and get another one. Bye see you in a day. Part Three: Adressing the CommunityIve layed out some things I think should be done to improve staff and the community. But in order to make change happen both groups need to be willing to work with one another. I think this server has a lot of good people. We have the stricter people, we have the trolls, we have the people grinding out millions and people building colossal structures without ever talking in chat. But once we break down these groups we have some good people who really get along and are polite with others of their group but just don't mesh well with others. I made this suggestion because I was tired of seeing the community so divided when really there is no need for it. I think we have the capability to be one of the closest groups yet we fight so much its saddening. People disagree all the time. Not everyone is going to agree with peoples views on what spam is or what language can be used in chat. What people can do is grow up and respect and even like the person despite their views. Some of my closest friends IRL are on the completely opposite end of the political spectrum. We disagree. But at the same time we listen to each other's views and both learn from it. The problem with the community now is that everyone hates the other group so much they automatically dislike everyone in it. I hope everyone who reads this suggestion, troll or strict moderator or whomever you may be can rejoin the server with a new attitude. A mindset that, combined with work from both sides to get along and make changes, can move the server back towards the great community we should be. I've made this thread and ive put down some of the things that I think would help people get along and that should be changed. Obviously not everyone will agree. I hope that people can put their own ideas below and that people can work together to make some changes that can put us back on the right path. That pretty much wraps up my suggestion. Some of the writing is sloppy and unclear, sorry about that I was just trying to jot down some thoughts quickly as I had a lot to say.
I'm going to post about part 2 but don't really have much of an opinion to the first part. Staff already talk, and communicate before actually giving out punishments that are more then a warning. Every situation is very different, and they can't predict everything. As for equality, it only doesn't seem consistent because some users violate the same rule I do agree that warnings should be given via pm, due to the activity of staff we constantly have several staff warning them. I don't think warnings should be rank based. I think they should remain based on severity and history with bans/warnings/kicks. John shouldn't get a ban for the first time cussing just because he is an Ecoleader. For the number of warnings, I agree that it should be slimmed to 2 for breaking the same rule, and 5 for breaking rules in general.
ilu. But seriously this really is a great collections of things that would help. Especially the no need for chat warning, just warn unless they are legitimately ignorant builders. Especially because chat warnings just really turn into a troll puppet show where the moderators are shuffling around like trained monkeys on a stage. One thing I would add is that I think a serious problem is actually some of the senior users, the popular, opinionated and actually former staff members actually have a serious issue disrespecting current staff for what they perceive to be failure to adhere to their expectations and such. Having said all that, I actually think in the last week or two the chat situation in global is actually really significantly better than it has been and I think whatever has been in the works whether it is just the fresh blood or if it is updated policy, I really appreciate the improvement.
I'll read the suggestion in the morning (in detail). However I sent a PM to andrew, jamie, clar, oreo and phys. (Basically SA+) about the community and a certain suggestion/proposition. I'm hoping that will be one of the next steps to growing the community and bringing us closer together. I'm not going to say much about this right now, was literally a few replies and they're just very busy. I'll read it later, but yes the communication is "strained" as is. That's what I want to fix, will voice full opinion tomorrow.
Thanks for the feedback. - Regarding the fact that staff already talk, this is true, but some punishments just aren't consistent despite the fact players violate the same rule. Also, its not necessarily the punishment that is inconsistent but when a punishment is given. One moderator may view something as warn worthy while another views it as just normal speech. - What I meant by base punishments on rank wasnt meant to mean punish higher ranks harder but rather, punish all ranks harder except builders. I think a lot of people view breaking the rules as a joke despite knowing it isn't allowed. Therefore, I believe we should be harsher on those people, generally mayor+ ranks however at the same time being more lenient to lower ranks who may not know the rules. Ill edit the suggestion to clarify that I mean those who know the rules well should be punished harsher for breaking them then those who may not know the rules at all. -It would be nice to differentiate between breaking the same rule and breaking 5 rules in general however I think it would be difficult to keep track of and wouldnt really work with the /warn system.
- I agree that some of the senior users disrespect staff. Many of them are just trolls and wont stop however some are simply unhappy with how they see the rules enforced. I think if we can change the rules to be less harsh, we can then increase punishment on those who choose to disrespect for no reason. -I have noticed that global has been better lately. Im not sure if this is merely coincidental or if it is caused by policy change/whatever but I hope it can continue to get better as there is still a ways to go.
I will be editing and clarifying this thread later today. I've got an English paper to do first though unfortunately.
Alright, I'm writing this as I read so here goes. Following up on my post from last night. So chat rules. I don't think the chat rules are much of an issue at all. You say "No one on ECC is happy with the current state of chat", okay perhaps not happy with the state of the chat but I am not annoyed with the rules. If you don't troll, swear, mess around (Where it goes beyond a joke) then really the rules should not affect you because you are doing nothing wrong. I've been warned (verbal not /warn) once in a semi-serious manner for a comment I made and that's it for as long as I can remember. I'm not perfect, but if you're not stupid/trolling in chat then you should not think they are too strict at all. Okay, now you say that you have to go out of your way to avoid touchy subjects because you feel like you are being oppressed? I think that's a tad excessive. Before I get any further please understand I'm discussing with you not arguing Basically, oppression is cruel/unjust treatment, I don't think it's THAT bad. Perhaps sometimes the warnings are not needed and/or slightly biased towards others. Or even some warnings are not given because they are biased. I'll tell you what though, if I post twitter links in global even though I work with @eekelmo on the same projects, he still tells me off. The thing with "more freedom" in chat is that this freedom to speak about a wider range of topics is either abused or escalated. It starts with a discussion about idk... the economy lets say, then gets political then religious and people become very argumentative about their views. I'm right, you're wrong. My view is better, yours is not. It's sometimes better to completely block out some topics rather than allow minor discussions because come on... you and I both know that these discussions WILL escalate. If you want to discuss this stuff, do it via PM, Skype, or party chat. Not ECC global, even local if it's a quiet area. =============================================================== More lenient chat rules (Spam) - I agree with a better definition of spam, however things like double posting is unneeded. Sure it's not ban-able, but people should avoid it. You say that 5 letters or less is okay, "Hellooooo" , that does seem a lil' spammy but I suppose it's bearable. Then you have issues like this: "Hellooooo, how are you all todayyyyy. I reallyyyyy want to play some ECC cos I am boreeeeed" According to your logic that's borderline legal (Roughly 1 per 5 words, 5 letters repeated). It's difficult to perfectly moderate chat with exact character rules. Mods don't want to sit there and count characters. The less vague a rule, the more people will try to bend the rules, because they know what can and cannot be done. I disagree with any changes on the actual spam rules besides a better definition of spam. Currently mods are able to distinguish between what is spam and not. Yes "Nooo" being considered spam alone is stupid, perhaps that should change but that is just something to bring up with the staff member themselves. Via PM... not global arguments. Another issue is, if warnings aren't in chat, people think it's fine. =============================================================== I agree with your comments on touchy subjects. Although I think most of it is like that anyway. I haven't seen anyone getting accused for political discussions when talking about traffic and voting day. It's if people talk about who to vote for, why, and why you're wrong. If it never reaches that, great Trolling - Yes, bigger reaction just causes bigger trolls. I agree with this again Cussing - The rules state Mild to Moderate. F*** is not moderate, I'd say that's more severe. Remember we're a child-friendly server. If they swear with anything above shit then sure, even if it's a slip-up just a casual chat warning would be fine. Unless a common occurrence. I do agree that cussing at other players should be an immediate /warn however being on the staff team myself I know that /warns are meant to be used in only serious situations, after all they do end up with a temp-ban. I'd prefer to see them used more often though. =============================================================== Enforcement of rules - Yes, not equal at all I agree with that. There's reasons behind this. The staff team don't want to lose big-figure players on the server because of a few slip-ups. If a builder swears at someone constantly they end up getting banned, if an EcoMaster swears at someone constantly they get a 24 hour temp ban for example. Here comes the biased enforcement, but you don't want to lose any of the big players. They often keep the economy in shape Thing is, there's not a set handbook for staff to issue what punishments when. There's a guide, but you can't possibly do everything by the book each time. It takes some initiative and common sense to determine what is right and wrong and what punishment to issue. I agree that some warnings should be via PM or /warn but then again, global needs to realize that the staff team ARE doing something about the issue. Otherwise new players will think it's fine to swear, rant, abuse, troll, etc. Okay sure I think better guidelines should be in place. Now for your comment on taking rank into account, yeah I believe that rank is an indicator of experience of course. So you should know the rules but again we don't want to lose bigger players due to little mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, even the server staff team and owners. Should be even no matter what rank imo, perhaps more stern warnings and less "chances" for the longer-term players but not instant punishment. Depending on severity and repeat offences. 5 warnings is reasonable, never seen a tempban from it though. I'd say 3 rather than 2, and less than 5 of course. =============================================================== Addressing the Community - My favorite topic. Ties in with my big idea I had sent to the SA/Dev/Owner team. As you said, there's big difference within the community. People play ECC for different reasons. I play to get as rich as possible with a very powerful and large business (multiple businesses) while also interacting with the community. Guess what? I've even got some cool events planned for next month with the Staff Team, but that's hush-hush for now. Some very nice prizes too, different to the usual ones. But yes, there will always be people arguing, that's inevitable. The main solution to this is finding ways to bring people together, work together and basically just chill out. It's a MineCraft server not the school playground. You play MineCraft for fun, if you wanna argue, discuss serious topics, do that in your own time. Above are my thoughts on it all. Sorry it's quite long. I'm thinking about posting details on my PM in another suggestion, but I have a feeling that it would be a little rude because of the content of the PM and don't want to "force" anyone into anything. Perhaps in the future, not willing to release details just yet
Ok wow this is a super long post and you have quite a few valid points, let me try and go through this here. Ok, so I say no one is happy with the state of chat because I feel like this is true. Ill address things that I think are too harsh in the comment below this but I think part of why chat rules are an issue isn't because they are too strict but too lenient on certain issues. If someone is obviously trolling chat I feel like they should be /warn'd rather quickly but instead they tend to remain trolling chat for a half hour before they get a /warn. Ok yes, that oppressed comment was rather silly, clearly I am not oppressed but I was trying to make the point that sometimes things aren't allowed that come up in normal speech that I think really should be. Specifically words that would be considered offensive by one group but not by another. An example I can think of off the top of my head is "retarted". People IRL and apparently on Ecc also really disagree on words like this. Personally, I dont find it offensive at all its commonly used where I live and no one means any disrespect to the mentally ill. Other people believe that just using the word is insulting and unacceptable. Other words that I think shouldnt be moderated are words such as Alcohol, Gay, Slave, ect. all when just used in normal speech of course not to offend anyone. =============================================================== I dont really have a problem with "Hellooooo, how are you all todayyyyy. I reallyyyyy want to play some ECC cos I am boreeeeed" and thats a bit over what the rule actually allows. That message really doesn't spam up my chat that much and if people want to keep saying stuff like that they can get punished for bending the rules. Maybe change it to every 6 words "Hellooooo, how are you all today. IIIII really want to play some ECC cosssss I am bored." That doesn't seem spammy to me. I understand that mods don't want to count characters but I think its necessary to have a rule and not leave it to staff discretion. If you leave something to staff discretion you are creating inequality in punishment. Also one thing about the spam rule is that its enforcement guideline would be equal just not available to the public making it more difficult for people to get the exact amount of chars they need to troll. Yes, the f word is not moderate, however staff tends to chat warn people for every word including mild and moderate swear words (Ive even seen people told not to use silly potty words used by 11 year olds before). I understand that the server doesn't want to loose high ranking players, but we really shoudn't be going out of our way to not ban them. I think they should have to follow the rules like everyone else. Currently thinking on this issue, global does need to realise punishment took place but it cant be in a way that just helps out trolls. I am not necessarily proposing instant bans but I do think that those with experience should be punished, instead of merely warned. If you come on the server to double post every day then you should expect a /warn from that not just a chat message. This isn't a slip up this is intentional rule breaking. I dont think 5 warnings is reasonable because it results in very little punishment. Personally, I don't consider a 24hr temp much of a punishment if I got that I would just go play some League. I like 2 because from what ive seen people tend to get warned in chat like 5 times before getting a /warn. At 5 warnings to get a ban they can get 25 chat warns before getting a tiny 24hr temp and I think that's silly. Ive think ive been warned in chat probably around 5 times in the last 3 years and never gotten a /warn. Its not that easy to get a /warn you have to really try for it so I dont think you should need to get 5 or even 3 to get a small temp ban. Thanks for the feedback, especially the part about in chat warnings, it makes sense that new players should be aware certain actions are not allowed.
I appreciate you not arguing with me about it. Im at work. Had a very very quick skim over it and will read and reply once home.
@RyanBlocks2, please go for staff. @andrewkm please promote Ryan to SA. Ryan your views on the current issues are real. Staff members aren't consistent, the rules are sloppy at best and punishments are back-to-front. What you have said is my opinion on the matter so there isn't much need for me to say much. But what I would like to say is that change needs to happen, and the way for change isn't through the community but through the staff. I feel that E.C.C. does discriminate, not by gender or race but by rank. A builder will never be listened to on this server, their ideas aren't recognized. Only the rich, famous and staff members can change things. For reasons said above my opinion will probably not heard, I don't have a lot of ECD, I'm not a large member of the community and I'm obviously not staff, but I would like my opinion to be picked up by someone - Leon
No matter how rich you are or your standing within the server. Views should be equal, I understand that a SA may be able to make a choice outright sure. But, in some cases I would like the server to be consulted about said choices. =================================================== Now... time to reply to @RyanBlocks2 (rip me): - Yes, I agree quicker to /warn. - I agree with half of what you said about offensive words. Retarded, hmm I'm not sure... I still think it is pretty offensive to people with disabilities, even if not directed it's not a nice word. It's not awfully bad, but I'd prefer to avoid it ya'know? Anyway, alchohol I think is fine in context, talking about getting absolutely hammered is a gray area then encouraging drinking/18+ activities is a no-no I'd say. We're family friendly. Gay should be fine, I don't like people getting warned for saying the word "gay". If you call someone gay with the intention to be insulting, that's another no-no. It shouldn't be an insult word. Also "This is gay, that color is gay" not cool, should be a positive word. Or a literal explanation, aka "I am gay" or "My brother is gay" if you are honestly serious. Not an insult. Slave is a gray-area, maybe a touchy subject. The mention of the word should be fine, but selling yourself as a slave of referring to others = no. - I still think that sentence is spammy. Here's where mixed views come into moderation. There's such a thing as being too fussy with how you moderate, if I were back on the staff team I would like some freedom in how I do things. I'd say keep it to maximum 5 characters in a row and that's it. If people want to be stupid, they'll be punished accordingly. At least leave some decisions up to the staff, or we might as well have a bot at spawn that automatically punishes people after it counts the spammed characters compared to words lol. - Eh, if used excessively I don't think swearing should be allowed. The rule is minor slip-ups, but idk. As long as it's not directed, currently I don't think minor swearing is an issue. People don't go too crazy. - They definitely should have to follow the rules yes, I'm just saying it how it is. Some leniency... But yeah I'm not sure if that's good. - /warn or PM warning is good for trolls. Then /warn + global message (or just global message) for anything non-trolling? Idk. - Solution to that is to use /warn more. - Finally... I meant like 5 warnings is bearable... But you can do 4 things wrong and be fine. 24 hours is enough for people to realize the messed up, because after the 24 hour ban comes a 7 day ban I think, then a 30 day. I'm firm on 3 warnings if warnings are given more frequently. You're very welcome, thanks for being reasonable about your response. It's good to have a decent discussion on a suggestion without people believing their views are #1. My ideas/counter-suggestions may not be perfect, just trying to negotiate something that I believe the server would be happy with (or that would benefit the server).
Yes I totally agree, everyones' views on the sever should be equal, but they aren't. I have seen a builder say that they wanted to be perma-banned (for scamming) because they felt that they weren't being treated the same.
Exactly. That's not cool. I'm working on a suggestion right now which releases my "secret" information. Heavily tied in with some of the points in this article.
