I believe that both ways should be used. First a public warning, then a private warning. By using the public warning they show the community that they are handling the situation, there's no need to pm them to tell them about it, they're handling it. But if the player doesn't respond the public warning, a pm should be used. By only using pm's the staff will probably get a lot of pm's telling them about it, which is distracting.
Like jason said, we do it publicly because then people will realize we're dealing with the situation, as well as realize that they can't do that stuff (many people don't read the rules, apparently) This situation can easily be compared to a classroom, you wouldn't get the student in private just to warn him, would you? Instead you yell at the student, or talk to the student publicly. Another example is a cop, a cop won't just take you somewhere away just to give you a ticket or a warning, no, he'll do it right on the spot, in public. Although partly I do agree with you, but for different reasons. I agree that in some cases we need to pm the user, but this is only when the user isn't responding in global chat.
if they aren't paying close enough attention to respond to a moderator in global chat, then they don't deserve the extra attention of a PM. Maybe the (from their perspective) out of the blue kick, will make them realize "oh, maybe i should pay attention when i am doing this kind of thing"
I could be out of all the chat channels and be nicely advertising my advertisement with my macro while farming. I'm listening to music, ect, then I get kicked. Out the blue. No one said anything, no warning. The only way to fix this is to remove the /ch leave global. Otherwise it's useless to have a command like that. It's there so they can leave global, if someone warns in global and you deserve it, there's no point whatsoever for a command to leave global.
There are plenty of reasons to need to leave global, either for a short time, or completely. Very young children, or even older ones, or anyone for that matter, with disabilities, social anxieties, learning difficulties, etc, might not need to see what's going on in global chat 24/7, since it can get very busy, and not always PG. I know I used to leave chat, pre-mod, when I had a headache but still wanted to play without the global chatter. Or, if you are looking to focus on an auction so you don't miss bids, or something going on in local for your town or an event. Now... keep this in mind: Your usage of the EcoCityCraft server constitutes an agreement to this disclaimer.
I warn in global for many reasons but I will state two of them: Firstly, it alerts other users that what the user was doing is against our rules. By doing this, I hope they would take the hint to not do it themselves. For example, if a user is advertising their youtube channel, which is against our rules, I would tell them in global and other people would then recognise that this is not allowed. However, people should have already read the rules and know that this is not allowed Secondly, it tells people that we are dealing with the situation. If a user is using excessive vulgar language and we warn them via pm, other people don't know whether they have been warned or not. This may come across to new players that's it's fine as they have not seen warning for somebody else not to do it. Also, it tells people that we have dealt with the situation and that there is no need to file a complaint. If a user is bringing up subjects that are not allowed to be discussed, such as politics, then if we warn via pm, people may still report it on the forums as they don't know whether the user has been dealt with. That being said, I understand that you may not see our warnings in global, as sometimes I do PM the user. When the kick comes along, you are then notified that what you are doing needs to stop. So the best thing to do would be to watch all channels to look out for warnings, but all in all just don't break the rules. Simples.
I am with others here... Warning in Global lets our community know that we are handling a situation. This highly calms users down, and makes them feel as though we care and are doing our job. It is very important that we are warning users in Global, rather than privately. Not having a bunch of complaints on things already handled is good, too. Staff already has a workload. Although I see the point of "not yelling at someone in public, and instead calmly telling them in private," we are not real life, a business, school, etc. It can apply at times, but for the most part, it does not. The main difference is that we are not "yelling" or meanly "scolding" users in public. We are giving them friendly warnings. Other users learn from this (I see it all the time). In the case of privately messaging warnings, many Staff will privately send a warning if a user has not acknowledged their first couple of warnings said in Global (or otherwise). Usually, users will respond/acknowledge then, but even still.... There are many times they do not. Even without a privately sent warning, users are given more than enough fair warnings before there are kicks. Another issue with privately sending warnings is that it clutters our chat; a lot. As a Staff member, you can have up to six - sometimes more - people actively asking you important questions, needing help, trying to get an issue resolved, etc. Once you PM someone, they will start to message you back, too (almost all cases). Trying to juggle just three people and all of the chats is already very difficult.
