So, this is my thread. Will it be my last? I don't know. We shall see. If it is, so long, if not, well, then, err, let's just get on with the thread. The Problem with the Justice System. Through time and time again, we have all seen the powers of staff been over used, abused, and down right condescending. Why am I saying this? Because, I feel that I should be heard. There are places that are botched, and need fixing. As well as for you, as a reader, to understand my standpoint, as well as pick up some lessons a long the way. Chapter 1: The Ban Appeals/Complaints System This is the most obvious of the botched systems. It's clear and blatantly biased. The most annoying part of this whole area is how it is indeed biased. Whether intentional or not, it's biased, and there's no denying it. To begin with the bias, builders. Builders are the prime example. Why should their ban appeal take two hours to process over an experienced players ban appeal? What gives them the priority? To keep them here 'eh? They broke the rules, and should be treated the same way as the donator. The donator should get the priority! Why do the top 1% get a tax break? To keep them here. They still have to pay thousands of dollars in taxes, yet, they get a tax break in order to keep them in the area. It's stupid. The analogy is that when you give a rank, just a rank the tag that they will get a faster process time on the appeal, it shows that the server cares more towards one than another. Don't get me wrong, builders are great, we all were a builder at one point in time, but, they should be treated the same as the rest of the players. The thing that irks me the most is when a builders appeal takes four hours, then boom, the player is unbanned, then a mayor, who was donated $650 to the server has to wait two weeks for the appeal to be processed, to then be told that their appeal has been denied and they have two weeks to wait to appeal. That's not right. I shouldn't have to wait a month to be able to play on a minecraft server. There's no incentive to re-appeal now is there? It's the same with builders. If you can't keep their attention span, their going to leave. So, when I see an appeal that takes two weeks to be processed, then they have to wait two weeks to appeal, it gives them little to no incentive to get back on and play. So, when you do in fact wait that long, and people find it funny, remember, you're hurting the server. That's what really gets to me when I read the Ban Appeals/Complaints section of the forums. Moving on with the Ban Appeals/Complaints argument as to why it's botched is the same generic response, that actually does nothing to the felon. "Thank you for filing this complaint! <username> will be warned in-game! Locked." It does nothing. Oh no! I got a warning! I'll only get 500 more before I'm banned!" There's total lawlessness. As well, even for literally speaking in trade chat, someone will file a complaint and they will be warned. Like, really? What benefit are you getting from filing that complaint? You're making an ass of yourself and are just kissing up to staff. You know what's worse? Staff respond to it, and warn the user! How insane! The fact that I was talking in trade chat inhibited your gameplay to the point where you had to file a complaint on me? That's low man, real low. That's not really benefiting anything but your post count, and is just taking up space. Threads like those should be deleted. They do nothing but ruin the reputation of an innocent player. http://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/user-complaint.110050/ That thread is a prime example of something that should be deleted or locked. It serves no purpose. "Oh no! He said no one cares about me!" I'm sorry, but, that's not really applicable for a complaint. A true complaint would be cursing, scamming, and things of that nature. Not something like that. Again with the bias comes into play. This is from a while ago, and the staff member swore the user wasn't hacking. To this day, there are still complaints coming in with clear evidence of hacking, being denied. This all due to a hierarchy of inner staff that protect certain users from being banned. Similar to modern-day illuminati. This ring helps protect and gives out secret information to a select group of users, to know what's going on. Now, that's my theory on it. The way I was trying to relate it to the bias is that the staff member that kept denying the complaints, had a fellow staff member on the team at the time the complaints were being sent. It just so happens that the user that had the complaints on them while the other staff member was on staff. So, the person that handled the complaint, had a co-staff member. The co-staff member's brother had the complaint filed on him. So I've heard. Is it true? Quite possibly, but, the world may never know. The other bias is for builders. If a builder can manage to file a complaint, nine times out of ten will the complaint be accepted, just because it will make them "feel good". It shouldn't be that way. And you know what? I've seen it happen before. It destroys the purpose, and the user who is now a convicted felon's reputation. All by making someone "feel good". "No good deed goes unpunished." ~Clare Boothe Luce Chapter 2: Abuse of Power As you all have witnessed before you very eyes in the latest weeks, the way andrewkm treated his users, and wisely handed the server over to phys. That was a smart move, phys will prove herself, but, let's hope we never witness the atrocity of what happened during the reign of andrewkm. To begin, there's always been the chance that staff will abuse their power. The first case ever was the Starbolt79 case. In which, Starbolt was perma'd and we are yet to hear from him again. This was the first of many cases of abuse of power. This one is mainly directed at the server owners position to abuse power, and create the semi-democratic society of today, and then change it overnight to the Stalin Administration. This is what worries me the most of all. The way that the entrepreneurial ways of andrewkm. That gave him a thick head, and allowed him to think that he could do what he wanted. As for what happened, only a select group of people know, and I still await an answer. We deserve one, and I want one. To move on with the abuse of power, is the perma-banning. It's not right. You cannot deny someone the right to a minecraft server. That's bullying, and don't deny it. Perma-banning is the first sign of, well, a totalitarian society. Us as a community should be able to ostracize a user, not a single person. Why should we allow someone to be ostracized for saying something that us as a community were fine with? That's the first problem, because it shows weakness if anything. Similar to andrewkm, when he began to perma-ban people, he immediately showed weakness and that he was indeed guilty. You need to stick to your guns. The idea of a permanent ban is silly, as all ban a permanent. What the real issue with that system is that they will eventually appeal and be let back on. Why can't they just be let back like everyone else? This leads back to the Ban Appeals/Complaints part of the justice system. The bigotry of the staff permanently ban users to let them back on three months later. I don't understand the intentions behind a permanent ban as well. It makes no sense, nor does it prove a point. That's a big issue. Running a shooting down the enemy won't help, if he's still alive, he's still dangerous. That's what you're doing. Shooting him down but letting him back up to do the same again. If you want to perma-ban someone, so be it. It's not my decision, like it should be the community, or some sort of representation system to figure that out, but, you have to stick to the name. If it's "permanent", it should be permanent. Not a temp ban. chocolatecheese1 was notorious for putting this out there. He was a figure of justice when it was served, whose campaigns eventually bit him in the ass, but, it did show how botched the entire system is. Back to abuse of power, it's concerning. With andrewkm behind us, it's still a constant threat. The way that went down and how it ended was awful. But, there's a light to remember what happened. And that's why we need to study it, and figure out what exactly happened. For us to know how to prevent this, we must know how it happened. And that's why we need some sort of voting system for situations like that in which a user is in question of being permanently banned. So that nothing like andrewkm will ever happen again. If you hate on me for bringing it up, so be it. You have your opinion and I have mine. We need to learn from our past, and one cannot simply "forgive and forget". One can forgive, but no one must ever forget. Those were my wise words. I will be adding more to this when the time arises. I thank you all for reading, and if this is my last post, and I somehow get permanently banned for it, it will only prove my point. Thank you again, and good night.
One thing that really gets to me is when a mod says "Any further posts will result in a warning." Because the people who post in the BA/C section don't already know that? gg
It used to be that donators got special treatment... and, back when I was on staff, I knew all too well the frustration of repeat offenders from that pool of users, and that they got off nearly scott free for even serious offenses. Or the donators that piled up an impressive history of 30+ bans before we could actually do something about getting them gone for longer than mere hours. That doesn't happen now, though there is still a lot more we don't see that goes on behind the scenes, for those who can access the logs or other information that we don't readily see. And, yes, it might seem like some appeals are handled faster than others, but you might have to take in to account that said builder could have been gone for 6 months already... the other, more established users who have been banned are gone for minutes to hours before appealing. To let them back on immediately would be like no punishment at all. Andrew, for all else he might have been, or became, said it once before, and I rather agree... follow the rules, don't get banned, otherwise... you'll have to deal with the wait.
This is very very wrong. Star was perma'd for abusing his powers, and sending very inappropriate links into chat, as well as randomly going on ban sprees. This was not an abuse of power, and andrew was completely willing to let him back on provided he appeal. I am the only surviving member who remembers this, except for ike. You need to clarify your facts.
This has nothing to do with priority. It has to do with the fact that builders have less of a history so its easier to get through quickly. Higher ranked members who have been here longer can have a longer history to review before the appeal can be closed. We do not want to rush through things and I stress that appeals/complaints are handled correctly and with care. This here may be a small complaint compared to others, but this also gives this user the opportunity to learn the /ignore feature which I feel makes these complaints serve a purpose. Complaints that are about hacking are not taken lightly whatsoever and are only handled by a very select group/individual on the staff team. We have to have ABSOLUTE proof before banning for this because a wrongful ban can mark a user as a hacker for a long time. Its not pretty and we don't want that. As for inner staff protections, that's just not how these are handled ever. I have personally been in the staff team to see a demotion of a fellow staff team for favoring fellow clan members. We have no tolerance for that in the staff team. Users are to be treated with no bias. As for the rest of this thread, we do not tolerate staff abusing powers and have extremely strict rules set in place for it. If this happens they are immediately removed from staff so I can assure you that this is not an issue to worry about Yes, we have been through a bumpy road recently and I have been striving hard to help everyone heal from all of that. To move forward into a better future so that we can all enjoy ECC as the server we all have loved for years and the strong community we have. Resurfacing it again doesn't help the community whatsoever and I can see by your words that you expect to be treated like these issues are still going on. This is not the case and I feel that you need reassurance on this. I don't want you to have these false views on the staff team nor feel like you will be tossed out the window for having concerns. Making a thread with harsh accusations against people of the community who care should not be done. I understand that you want to be heard but this really isn't the time nor place as this is a public forums with many very young users. You are more than welcome to come to me with as many questions as you like if you want to know how we handle things here. The staff team really cares for the community more than you may know. I know that this is one of the main reasons as to why I'm still here. All of you are a second family to me and I care about each and every one of you. I will be locking this thread up to avoid a flame war. Feel free to forum pm me if you have any further concerns you would like to address and I will gladly talk with you about them. Locked