New Era of Moderation

[Credoo]

The Old

Back when MCME was still young and wild we had but one rank that dealt with keeping the peace. The admins. Admins back in the day had the task to welcome new players and secure a friendly environment by moderating the server. Because there was such a big influx of new players and along with the various other tasks admins were already having to deal with Q220 decided to create a separate rank called Officers. The idea was to free up the admins from having to deal with naughty folks and to have them be the friendly welcoming face of MCME without also having to deal out the punishment. This new Officer rank had the sole purpose of making sure players were not griefing or generating new chunks of land together with keeping the chat friendly along with banishing trolls from our ventrillo (old voice chat) server. Back in the days without Worldguard and Worldprotect this was a time consuming and vital task.

The Present

Currently after many name and permission changes the rank grew into what we now call Enforcer. As the name states enforcing the rules and our ToS. The Enfocers are now aided by various plugins and tools at their disposal to deal with the misbehaving players on our server. But the times have changed not only in terms of new player influx but especially in the terms of automated tools. While it was easy back in the days to break blocks and grief to one's content this is no longer so easy with Worldguard in place. This is the same for the people that venture deep into unknown parts and previously generate new chunks they to will meet an invisible barrier protecting our world. Along with a new player world explaining the possibility's and impossibilities the workload for enforcers has gone down quite a bit. All these tools have left them with chat/voice moderation, settling the occasional dispute between members or the even more rare grief on themebuild/freebuild. Because of the various ToS and rule changes chat/voice moderation is left to interpretation of the present enforcer. While one enforcer would let something slide the other would punish severely. Which has led to some controversy in the past years. With this and other issues arising the rank Enfocer has been under heavy fire the past years. When looking long and hard at these issues we have come to the conclusion that this problems does not start at enforcement since they merely carry out the rules we have set, but the issues wont end by merely improving our ToS.

The Future

Now that I tried to explain the past present and purpose of this rank, I want to try and change it so it fits with the current and future of MCME. Starting with cleaning up the ToS together with Q220 and the rest of the admin team. This will be a tough process where we will also look at what chat is offensive and what is clearly not. Once we are satisfied with the result, we will then present it to the public, after I went over it with the new moderation team. This new Moderation team will consist of the current enforcers but they will no longer hold a rank instead they will carry out their duty's with the help of a newly in development moderation badge. These fine folk in possession of this new badge will have the ability to mute, kick and ob a person that is misbehaving. Returning the ban hammer to the admins where it will only be used if all admins are in agreement in hopefully extreme rare occasions. Another spearhead of this change is making sure the moderators are operating on one line as much as possible. We are all human and thus errors may occur but I really want to make sure there will be no significant difference between what is being punished by moderators.
The other change that this brings is that the moderation badge will be accessible from commoner+. This means it will no longer be a main focus task. This switch will hopefully encourage mature, thick skinned and level headed players to apply for said badge from all possible roles. The fine details of said badge and permissions that come with it are still being discussed and will be presented to the public once there is a solid draft. If everything goes smoothly the change will happen within 2 months of time including the holiday season.
Hopefully these changes will solve some of the issues mentioned above I will do my best to make sure they do.


Now if this leaves you with any questions or ideas or concerns you want to share, direct them to me. I will do my best to answer them.

Happy Holiday season!

Fishy

 

[Ardelenia]

With regard to TOS revisions: Have you considered including "ok and not ok" examples for certain hard-to-interpret elements of the rules? Namely in the Communication section. I myself don't know if this would be beneficial, but I encourage you to give it thought if you haven't already. This would probably want to be its own page, so as not to break the quasi-legal demeanor of the TOS.
Also, wow are the first three points of the Game section outdated.

WRT bans: Restricting bans to unanimous (or even majority) admin decisions seems inefficient, since most bans seem to fall under "Enforcers / Heads are sure to have identified the infraction as having been malevolent" e.g. spamming chat without remorse or otherwise causing strife. With the current numbers, you would halve the number of people who can ban such trolls, more frequently forcing players to attempt to find someone on discord or just wait out the troll. I understand that "severe infraction" like pervasive distasteful memery -- the bans which have the potential to be contentious (unlike your random droog advertising) -- might be better restricted to a group decision from admins. In summary, is restricting the removal of trolls an oversight in your description of these changes, or is it intentional? If so, please explain your reasoning.

Feel free to defer answering until the details of the proposed badge are completed.

 

[BWOT]

The ToS are guidelines and guidelines only. There is only one rule: Behaviour that won't be tolerated in the real world will not be tolerated here either. When we promote moderators or enforcers, it is because we trust their interpretation of that rule. If a moderator or enforcer sees something wrong: it does not specifically need to be in the ToS, neither it need to say specifically, in order for them to take action. Whatever, action they take is for the benefit of the server and should be followed regardless. If an enforcer/moderator is not fit to make this decision, abuses these powers, makes a mistake. This of the fault of us admin for promoting them. We do not have to spell/write out every little thing of what we expect. It is common sense and if we ask you to not do something -> listen and all will be fine.

I don't understand what you mean be this new system not being efficient. We don't need people around the server banning others. It will be very rare for a ban to happen. The moderation badge we expect to have the functionalities to /mute, /kick and /ob. That way if they are causing a nuissance in chat, we can fix it. If they are abusing building privalges, we can fix it. There is nothing we can't achieve through this, and also in our eyes reduces drama. There won't be any more issues with premature bans. Also we are bringing our moderators to a much more "humane" level, as they are now actually aiding in the development of the server, then just telling people what not to do. I feel there will be more moderators than enforcers. We aren't trusting all people with the /ban command, or a staff position. So, it will be a lot more achievable.

Its a shame we have to be so "quasi-legal" with the ToS, but hopefully with re-enforcing the thought that there is only one rule, and us trusting our moderators to interpret that as they will for the benefit of the sever, we will move further and further away from this "quasi-legal" idea.

 

[Eaglz24]

With the current numbers, you would halve the number of people who can ban such trolls, more frequently forcing players to attempt to find someone on discord or just wait out the troll.

Are trolls even still a thing? I know it's ironic coming from me but I haven't come across a poorly-disguised one in ages tbqh

 

[Ardelenia]

Are trolls even still a thing? I know it's ironic coming from me but I haven't come across a poorly-disguised one in ages tbqh

I wouldn't know given how little time I spend online I'm going by the Public Infraction Register, which admittedly has few entries for the past few months. Almost all the bans in the first half of the year were of unknown people, with many explicitly labelled spamming chat.

 

[_Iru]

Are trolls even still a thing? I know it's ironic coming from me but I haven't come across a poorly-disguised one in ages tbqh

It's the ironic, passive ones that lurk the interwebz this day and age

 

[Arkengard]

Basically we’ve just deemed it inefficient to have a whole rank dedicated to punishing players who are unwise to the rules. Indeed that isn’t to say the job isn’t needed, but the purpose of those with that job could be much better served contributing more to the community and server in other ways. It’s a big change and perhaps a controversial one but I hope everyone can understand where we’re coming from.

 

[Tyranystrasz]

So when I log drunk saying racist jokes I can get muted by a commoner?
That's sad

 

[_Iru]

So when I log drunk saying racist jokes I can get muted by a commoner?
That's sad

Sounds like a citizens arrest #SJW #amibeingdetained

 

[_Iru]

Basically we’ve just deemed it inefficient to have a whole rank dedicated to punishing players who are unwise to the rules. Indeed that isn’t to say the job isn’t needed, but the purpose of those with that job could be much better served contributing more to the community and server in other ways. It’s a big change and perhaps a controversial one but I hope everyone can understand where we’re coming from.

Although I haven't been on the server for some time, and my guess is this new movement is due to a recent change in climate regarding the amount of staff that is on as well as the time they have to dedicate is it not?

I find it a little ironic in the statement that those who are not in the role (from my understanding the enforcement role is being removed) will be given enforcement powers, yet what if that person who wants build is then taken away from that duty just to continue to handle another player who continues break the rules? The enforcement role was strictly there to handle such things so that other players could continue building. This is not to say, Enforcers of the day couldn't contribute to building and assisting with other things on the server once the occurrence has been handled.

I feel this new system would work if it meant that if a player continues to be disruptive, there should be a system in place that requires unanimous, individual votes from 3+ moderators on the server. If it reaches a threshold, then that person will be banned; pending review from the admins. I am in agreeance that bans should be reviewed by the admin team, provided they are independent of the matter.

Although I am somewhat initially sceptical of disbanding a rank that is solely there for enforcing the rules; I hope to trust this is a right move by the server and something that the staff will consider a long-standing and efficient system; a system where the people need know what is going on and be confident with it.