The Imperative MCME Moderation REVAMP

[greencaver]

People of MCME, I come here today with an incredibly serious and important suggestion, the contents of which I have been conceptualizing for some time. The moderation on this server has been corrupted, arbitrary, and discriminatory for years with only small changes implemented. The moderation is incredibly substandard and inadequate for a community server like Minecraft Middle Earth. The current system does not cultivate creativity, innovation, and determination within the community. Thus, I have scrupulously arranged the following changes that both I and many other members of the MCME community would like to see. We will not tolerate this blasphemous and condescending behavior any longer!

Disclaimer: Any members of the MCME community mentioned or displayed as “evidence” in this suggestion thread are merely examples and are not meant to fall under intentional or direct accusation. I do not wish to call anyone out, and I am simply looking to start an honest conversation.

Section 1
The MCME rules are difficult to access and many of them are unclear. They are only accessible through obscure forum threads and you cannot access them on discord. Shockingly, the moderators enforce some rules that aren’t even listed in the MCME Rules!​

In order to access the rules, you must maneuver through a series of links, forum threads, and other obstacles. When you first enter the MCME Forums, it is unclear where the rules are situated. Are they in the “Forums” tab? Are they in the “Resources” tab? That seems the most likely space for them to be. However, they’re in the “New Player Guide” tab. Furthermore, you must click on a forum thread, follow a link displayed in that thread, scroll to the very bottom of that thread and click on a second link before you finally reach the MCME Rules page. This process is outrageously long and unnecessarily complicated. A majority of players returning to the server haven’t joined in several years, so they won’t have the faintest clue regarding the location of the rules, and they will have already passed through the New Player World when they first joined years before. Heretofore, this issue was not a problem, because the rules were clearly displayed on the MCME Discord. Unfortunately, many of the rules listed in discord are not listed in the forums and vice versa, which makes it hard to know all of the server’s rules, and the discord rules are hidden away in a misleadingly named channel. Furthermore, if you find yourself among the rules of MCME, you will bear witness to the fact that many of them are twisted and extremely unclear. For example, the rule “No Punishment Circumvention” is extremely vague, because the description states “Creating an alternative account to bypass a disciplinary action”. The description leads me, as well as other people in the community, to believe that it only applies to the circumstances specified in the description. The description does not mention that you can’t use the local chat channel to “bypass” a mute, nor does it mention that you can’t use glitches or bugs to “bypass” an oathbreaker punishment. Pertaining to the mute “bypass”, it is incredibly unclear why using one of the freely accessible chat channels on the server is considered a form of mute circumvention. If you do not want people to use these channels, apply the mute to them as well. Another indubitably ambiguous rule is the “No Impersonation” rule. Does this mean that you can’t change your name to have some similarities to that of another person on the server? Or, does it mean that you can’t attempt to duplicate their personalities? Why can’t you perform “impersonation” if you both agree that it is an acceptable form of amusement, especially when there are clear ways to distinguish you? Finally, the moderators of this server often enforce rules that don’t even exist in an official medium. For example, the rule “Your discord name must be the same as your in-game name” isn't listed in the rules. Additionally, some team members seem unaffected by this “rule”, such as Stoog_Gaming and vikdaboss, who appear as “Stoog” and “vikdabossman” in the discord. Hilariously, Shen added “vikdabossman” as an artist in the Official Rank and Roles List rather than “vikdaboss”, ostensibly due to the fact that his discord name does not match his in-game name. It is understandable that these names are allowed, because they’re similar enough to their in-game names to be recognizable, but there are some additional issues regarding this “rule” that I would like to address. Nearly a year ago, I was prevented from changing my discord name to a new variation due to the approaching holidays, simply because I had changed it an allegedly “excessive” amount. Does that mean there’s a limit to how many times you can change your discord name? As mentioned earlier, another “rule” that’s technically not listed in the MCME Rules is the circumvention of a mute through the use of help chat or local chat. While there is a “no punishment circumvention” rule, the description directly states that you can’t use alternate accounts to bypass a punishment, but it doesn’t mention anything regarding the use of chats on MCME that are easily accessible to punished accounts. Additionally, players are purportedly required to speak English in global chat, but there is no rule that states such a thing.

Section 2
Each moderator administers different punishments for similar player transgressions. There seem to be very weak guidelines surrounding what punishment moderators are encouraged to give out.​

It has come to my attention that different moderators administer different punishments for similar misdemeanors. Not only does this exhibit the disorganization of the moderation team and the excessive freedom that its members enjoy, but it’s also extremely unjust for the players of MCME. It’s simply unacceptable for one moderator to give you a 15 hour mute for spamming and another one to give you a 24 hour mute for spamming. It is outrageous for one moderator to extend your mute for “bypassing” a mute while another would simply kick you, or, in some cases, egregiously threaten to ban you for a week. Furthermore, some of the punishments are disproportionately long compared to other types of punishment. One example of such disproportion is the one hour mute you may receive from “trolling” and the 24 hour mute you might receive from “spamming”. Is spamming truly 24 times worse than trolling? Many of the moderators’ actions are interchangeable, but there is still an unnerving quantity of punishments that moderators execute in contrast to each other. I believe that punishments should be listed next to the MCME Rules so that the community can know the severity of justice elicited for each individual rule. This is not something that moderators should be free to decide at their whim, unless the situation is unique and dissimilar to average rule breaks. For example, if someone has repeatedly broken the rules and has been the target of several punishments in a predetermined amount of time, they should be dealt with in a non-traditional way. If a severity system was applied to the MCME Rules, this issue would be easily surmountable. For example, spamming could be a Severity 1 transgression, and the rules could state that after committing a Severity 1 transgression a specific number of times in a determined amount of time a more severe punishment would be enforced. The current system is undoubtedly arbitrary and unstable. There have also been some double jeopardy issues where one moderator enacts a punishment on someone, and then several hours later a second moderator enforces a far more severe punishment for the same perceived transgression.

Section 3
Moderators are often unclear with their warnings or explanations for punishment.​

Moderators expect their orders to be acknowledged and accepted without complaint. However, this is exceptionally difficult when their “warnings” are vague, obscure, and confusing. Direct language should be used when warning someone of their misdeeds. “(player name), please stop (specific unlawful action) at once or you will be (punishment)” would work as a suitable guideline. If the moderators don’t mention specifically what they want the player to stop doing, the player may get confused and they’ll ultimately get frustrated when a punishment inevitably comes their way. Some examples of warnings that’re extraordinarily vague, indecisive, or informal are “stop with the act”, “stop”, or “don’t do that”. Sometimes, moderators fail to warn a player at all, or fail to mention the particular player that they’re referring to. There are an unfathomable number of punishments elicited by the mods that don’t have proper explanations. Sometimes these are jokes, but the mod may unintentionally interrupt the player’s actions when they elicit a punishment on the player. Server progress is undoubtedly stalled when certain players are “joke kicked” or “joke banned”, such as Wyattrox03. It is also simply unnecessary, because these moderators went through an extensive application process to deal with rule breakers on the server, not joke around with their arguably overpowered capabilities and permissions.

Section 4
The rules are not consistently enforced throughout MCME’s mediums.​

I’ve been present during several instances in the discord voice chats when a member of the community has stated that rules are less applicable in the voice chats than they are in the actual game. This insight is further expressed through certain topics that are discussed in the discord voice chats that would elicit an instantaneous mute on the actual server. The reason for this difference is clear. The Discord ToS requires you to be above a specific age to utilize their services. However, there are several inconsistencies regarding that matter that I would like to highlight. If certain discussion topics are allowed in voice chats and not in the server’s global chat due to the alleged younger ages of players on the server who aren’t in the discord, why are bad words allowed in the server’s global chat? Many parents would frown upon the server and possibly prevent their child from playing on the server if they were to witness the expression of a bad word in the server’s chat. Another inconsistency that I would like to call attention to is the well established “norm” (one that I mentioned earlier) that you can speak languages other than English in local chat and through direct messages. While I don’t have a personal issue with this, it seems that people can still misuse other languages without the knowledge of any present moderators when following this norm. Moreover, the main problem with these inconsistencies is that there is no way to know which rules apply to which parts of the MCME Network. Some rules are apparently optional in discord and certain chats in-game, so does that mean that they all are? Additionally, an array of inappropriate books can be found throughout the server, such as the nefarious “Love in DA” and other such novels. It has come to my attention that, while these books are easily accessible and exist in large numbers, the contents of them cannot be copied into the chat without repercussion. It would be nearly as easy for a nine year old to come across one of these books as it would be for one to witness the disclosure of their components in the chat.

Section 5
The MCME Moderation Application Process is embarrassingly bad and inaccessible to many members of the community.​

I’ve heard about a certain component of the moderator application process: you must engage with the community and be known by the community. However, how can the application administrators truly tell if a moderator applicant has been engaged with the community if they receive no community feedback on the applicant? How can the community express their concerns with applicants if they can’t see the moderation application forums? Moderators receive undisputed power over everyone on the server, but the community has zero say on who gets this power. It is instead decided by a closed group of individuals, many of which spend only fleeting amounts of time on the server. Similarly to the commoner-vote conundrum, Australian and American applicants may have a difficult time during the application process, because some of the European Moderators and Administrators may not recognize them. Furthermore, the art of applying for a moderation position should be encouraged, but it is instead hidden, difficult to access, and unreasonably complicated. The moderation application forum should be visible to all members of the community, and the Moderator Application Guide should be displayed in the moderation application forum, so that members of the community can easily access it and analyze it without the need to ask for it from their peers. Giving an individual the power to build and alter the main map is as dangerous, if not more so, than giving an individual the power to ban and mute players. Yet, the application process for moderator is extremely different and supplementally complicated.

Section 6
There is an extreme imbalance of powers and permissions on the server.​

Some commoners have more permissions and insights on the inner workings of the server than almost every other commoner and team member, simply because they have the moderation badge that they applied for and received when they were an artist, guide or other dignified rank. These commoners are still considered “team”, and they have additional access to moderator chat on top of team chat. These commoners have unlimited power even over some designers and managers! Is it truly fair for these commoners to have a surplus of extra permissions that no other commoner possesses as well as access to discussions that include no other commoners, simply because they were allowed to keep a moderator badge after their resignation from their former rank. It’s similar to a player retaining their team/staff rank without doing their rank’s duties. Furthermore, some ranked members enjoy certain privileges that others are allegedly "not allowed to possess”. This is most notable in the fact that some badges are ostensibly restricted to specific ranks. For example, you’re only technically allowed to have the voxel badge as an artist, foreman, or designer, but there are several commoners and a Guide that enjoy the badge’s privileges. Another badge that sees little attention is the Builder Badge. While no public description exists explaining this badge’s capabilities, it seems plausible that a “Builder” Badge would essentially allow you to build on the main map. This badge is currently only held by one maski98, but the existence of this badge essentially defeats the argument against a job badge, a pvp badge, or a plot badge. If there’s a badge that can give you building permissions, why does the rank of artist exist? A simple solution to these problems could be to simply attach moderation capabilities- at least limited ones- to the staff ranks and remove the moderator badge from team members when they resign to commoner, similarly to how the voxel, world edit, and animation badges are removed from most team members upon their arrival to commoner.

Section 7
We need a way to petition for moderator review after unjust actions.​

It is a simple and indisputable fact that moderators sometimes make mistakes with their enforced punishments. They are human, so it is inevitable that they will misjudge situations or let their biases and emotions get in the way of their logic and reason. Thus, I believe that it would be beneficial for the playerbase to have the ability to petition for moderator review after presumably unjust actions. There would be limitations to this, of course, such as a minimum punishment severity or length, but it would allow for the community to voice their disapproval of a moderator’s actions. This would be a session where the moderator would be required to provide evidence of the player’s misdemeanors, and if a majority of the community members present voted that the moderator’s efforts were inequitable, the player’s punishment would be revoked or, at least, altered.



It is undeniable that this server has had numerous moderation related issues in the past. It is time for us to work towards fixing these issues so that MCME can fulfill its incomprehensibly massive potential.

 

[Credoo]

Hi greencaver,

I have read your post. And I think you bring up some decent points and concerns. I’m sad to hear you feel treated unfairly, and that you feel being treated condescendingly. Moderation is and has always been a difficult department of MCME with its fair share of controversies in the past. Policing the internet is extremely difficult if not impossible.

I will try to cover the way moderation is done presently and why, before I will go over your concerns and points. I do this to hopefully give you some good insight to why certain things are done in certain ways.
Finally I will go over how you got in your current situation.

Over the years there have been many changes regarding moderation.

• It used to be a rank and not a badge.

This was done to make the rank of moderator a side job. I am of the opinion that moderating should never be a main job of any person in our online community. This is purposely done to avoid having moderators act preemptively. The main focus of a moderator is to keep the community of MCME a safe and friendly environment that is enjoyable.

By making it a badge it became easier to give this role to trusted individuals who were part of a team or used to be part of a team.
We had only a handful commoner moderators, Awaywind, Dyno (may he rest in peace) and now Shen. All three of them fully resigned from their active tasks they had beforehand. And all three of them were trusted enough to keep their rank.

• Stripping of permissions.

The moderator rank has seen more than just name changes, Officer/bounder/enforcer and now moderator used to have a variety of different permissions. In the early days officers had access to all permissions except admin commands.

During these times you would see builds being led by officers instead of designers. This lead to tricky situations and thus the rank got changed to bounder. Bounder was more focussed on locating rulebreakers and following an precise infraction guideline. For example in the days before worldguard. If you were to break x amount of grass block you would receive x punishment. More on this later.
The name change to enforcer was done due to a step away from the lore friendly names and was an overhaul of most staff and team names at the time.

Moderator was a complete overhaul of how we view moderation on our server. Moderators lost the ability to vanish, permanently ban and being part of staff. This was done in an effort to make Moderators a visible group on the server that needs to be approachable.
Permanent bans are the most severe punishment we can give on our server. And thus are now only handed out when there is a majority among valar and moderators.
No longer being part of staff was an effort to make the badge not look appealable to people who wanted an “easy” way into staff and it would clash with my idea of moderator being a side job.

Moderators currently have the permissions that we agreed on that are necessary to fulfil their duty of ensuring the safe environment on MCME.

• Multiple changes to our TOS and Rules

Over the years there have been a few iterations of the terms of service and rule set.
We used to have some draconian TOS back in the days ( just because we could) and luckily it has changed to a somewhat more acceptable version we have now.

Rules are there to have a positive environment on the server and they should be used with common sense from both players and moderators. We do this to make it possible to handle and act during events not clearly covered in the rules beforehand. We hold the discretion of our moderator team in high regard and we trust their judgement.
Rules will be applied at the discretion of a moderator, this can somewhat vary between moderators.
You will also see differences in where rules are being applied and where they will. As an example rule application between VC’s, minecraft chat and local chat or random discord channels.
You will see rules added and removed ever so often to best meet the needs of providing a safe environment on all MCME platforms.

The particular flexibility in rules is purposefully done to allow the most amount of freedom for our community members to express themselves. While attempting to make sure it remains an environment where everyone can safely enjoy spending their free time. It is a delicate balance and what makes Moderating a difficult task.
Of course this is the biggest point of discussion as to what is allowed, and what is not, and where, and this is inherently the biggest task of a moderator is discussing this among their peers on a case by case basis.

• Change of application system

The moderator applications have never and will never be public due to us valuing the privacy of our applicants.
Moderator applicants have to submit an application using our format. If they meet the requirements of being or having been a team member and never had any major prior infractions or have shown huge behaviour changes since their last infraction. Then the application will be taken into consideration. When an application is considered promising they will be provided access to the moderation quiz. Then there will be an additional interview conducted. Based on all of the above the applicant will be accepted or denied.

This seems like a tedious process but a necessary one for a role that wields very powerful tools aimed to protect the MCME platforms.

• Going from an infraction severity based system to a moderator discretion system.

As I briefly touched before in the rule section back in the old day we moderated based on an infarction severity based system. X amount of block breaks leads to X amount of punishment. Nowadays with worldguard new players no longer have the ability to break blocks unsupervised. Most of the infractions where moderators act upon are chat based. There are no set in stone rules to X amount of swear words will be followed by X type of punishment. Since it is circumstantial and reliant on context. “This is F** amazing” is not considered punishable. Now there are countless examples we can go through and there is always room for discussion.
There will always be warning before a perceived infraction is acted upon.
Due to your raised concerns we are working on a moderator guideline for offences & punishments that will cover minimum, recommended and maximum punishments for various infractions.


Section 1
The MCME rules are difficult to access and many of them are unclear. They are only accessible through obscure forum threads and you cannot access them on discord. Shockingly, the moderators enforce some rules that aren’t even listed in the MCME Rules!

The rules are difficult to find and we will look to improve their visibility and clarity. However, it is important to note that they are linked when you join the server for the first time as well as well as when you join the discord server you are greeted with this page and you can find a link to it in the server guide on the discord page, see the screenshots below:

Moderators have discretion for enforcing the rules and they are trusted to enforce them in a reasonable manner. Should someone feel that they have been treated unfairly, then they can raise this with the Valar who will review the moderation that took place. The appeal process for bans also exists for this purpose.



Section 2
Each moderator administers different punishments for similar player transgressions. There seem to be very weak guidelines surrounding what punishment moderators are encouraged to give out.

We are aware that not every moderator enacts the same punishment. However there is a limit of 4 weeks for a ban or mute. Permanent bans or mutes are reserved for the Valar. Any permanent bans are discussed between moderators and valar, before being applied. Again, we trust moderators to moderate the server reasonably and there are ways to challenge this if you feel it is not fair.

If on a rare occasion there is a double jeopardy issue then this is due to an error, or changing a punishment and will be addressed when that issue is raised.

We are working on a guideline as I stated previously where we will have a minimum and maximum recommended punishment per individual infraction. The Head of Moderation will be able to change the punishment if it is justified and this would be done on a case-by-case basis.



Section 3
Moderators are often unclear with their warnings or explanations for punishment.

We endeavour to give reasons where possible. In some cases, and some of the examples you have given in your post, these people know why they have been banned and it is obvious to them when they get banned, such as a spammer advertising on the server. The Moderation Team keeps a log of all infractions, with actions taken and evidence, so we can refer back to the reasons if they are unclear.

Joke kicking is frowned upon, and will be (and has been) taken seriously when the individual raises it as an issue. Since it is a form of power abuse. However, there are occasions where it is done for entertainment such as during a major server event, like the MCME anniversary. Or during a promotion. Again discretion is advised. It should not be overused or abused.



Section 4
The rules are not consistently enforced throughout MCME’s mediums.

In a discord voice chat it is easier to get consent regarding certain topics and same goes for local chat. They are thus treated in a similar way to which private dm’s are treated. It is a more private environment and with the age restrictions you mentioned it should be inherently safer then our minecraft global chat that anyone can join and read as similar rules apply to our global discord chat channels.

The rules apply to books, but it is difficult to combat the spreading. We have addressed issues regarding books and items when the issues arose. In the past we banned the ability to interact with chests. However we want to give our community the freedom to interact with chests and use it as it was vital to their player experience. Moderators have powers to remove chest interactions from players when this is abused.

This is also addressed in our responses to sections 1 to 3.



Section 5
The MCME Moderation Application Process is embarrassingly bad and inaccessible to many members of the community.

Part of this point has already been addressed at the start of the post during the section on changing the application system. Similar to staff applications and promoting Designers, community feedback on the applicant is taken into consideration through the ways that they interact with the community. Moderators should be trusted by the community and they should be visible and approachable.

There has been no feedback from applicants that have been accepted or denied that indicated that the process is ‘bad and inaccessible’. Also, as being a team member is a minimum requirement, they are people who already understand the process of applying for roles (because they have been through this process for a team role).

Section 6
There is an extreme imbalance of powers and permissions on the server.

This has partly been addressed in the permission section above. Each rank and role has access to carefully selected permissions necessary for them to perform their varying tasks.

If a player is responsible for multiple tasks/departments they will have access to multiple permissions in order to perform them to the best of their ability.


Section 7
We need a way to petition for moderator review after unjust actions.

Generally we are held accountable for our own actions by our fellow valar/moderators. For example whenever wyat complained about being kicked too many times in the past the people responsible got reprimanded. Or when I went too hard on a certain community member during the rings of power discussion I got called back too.

Of course if a case appears where someone thinks a moderator acted unjustified it will be reviewed by Credoo and Smaug. If there is a case where either of us is involved, the other one will review it. The appeal process is also available for when someone is banned.

I hope that sufficiently addressed your concerns and points. In the bottom I added a few useful links.

Moderator manual
FAQ with rules
TOS
Rules

 

[Dahl]

:skul:

 

[SamXAB]

Man thinks he's Minotroll 2.0

 

[greencaver]

Man thinks he's Minotroll 2.0

Minotroll failed. I will not.

 

[Dahl]

remember when i got banned for flying while OB. kinda harsh ngl. lets overthrow the vala

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

I don't want to get into troubles. I'll better leave and flee....

 

[Dahl]

fr

 

[Credoo]

remember when i got banned for flying while OB. kinda harsh ngl. lets overthrow the vala

If you have little constructive to add to the topic, I'd like to ask you not to comment at all. If you have any issue with the way your case has been/is handled I'd like you to go trough the proper channels.

 

[Dahl]

If you have little constructive to add to the topic, I'd like to ask you not to comment at all. If you have any issue with the way your case has been/is handled I'd like you to go trough the proper channels.

what the right channel

 

[_Shen]

what the right channel

The Head Moderator.