Around 18 months ago I was banned in-game for 1 week for 'admitting to hacks'.
Big deal, right? Who cares?
The exceptional thing about it was that my 'admission' was in a forum post, which read thus:
"I use xray even tho it look funny xddddd."
What's even funnier is that if you look at the relevant rules, the rule for admitting to hacks falls under in-game rules and so joking about hacking on the forums is should not be punishable by even the most stringent of mods. However I did get banned, and despite explaining that I hadn't even broken any rules and appealing to common sense I had 3 separate ban disputes turned down and the ban upheld. The ban caused my pending mod application to be instantly declined, because somebody who makes bad jokes about xray on the forums without even breaking any rules is apparently not fit to moderate.
Why was I banned, and why does the rule exist? I'll tell you why. I was banned because, for the longest time, the staff team has been predominantly made up of suck-ups and status seekers. I can imagine the mod who banned me rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of adding another punishment to their all-important numbers for the month while reading my post. Why was my ban upheld? Because the staff team have deeply ingrained issues with accepting blame and admitting to being wrong. When I pointed out that I hadn't actually broken any rules I became a smart-ass in their eyes.
You can point to the fact that we reverted to dual protocol after 1.8 as evidence that the staff have come better in this regard, but how long did that take? Only once player numbers plummeted was the u-turn made, and up until that point every thread complaining about 1.8 was met with mods recycling the same bs arguments about how "every server would update to 1.8 eventually, so why not get ahead of the competition!" People have been arguing for Toggle Sneak to be allowed for the longest time, with every thread met with stoic resistance from mods insisting that freeing up 1 finger is an unfair advantage. One problem here is the frankly ridiculous amount of time changes take to be realised. I don't know what has to happen in order for big decisions to be made, but the bottom line is that whatever protocol is in place right now
doesn't work. Let me list off some grievances:
- 11 months for hackers to not be given a second chance (
http://www.mcgamer.net/threads/first-time-permaban-for-hackers.89054/ to
http://www.mcgamer.net/threads/no-tolerance-rule-policy-for-hacking-starting-february-1st.163154/)
- 24 months for gamma to be allowed (
http://www.mcgamer.net/threads/the-controversy-of-gamma.63568/ to
http://www.mcgamer.net/threads/the-great-increased-gamma-debate.224647/ )
- 30 months for a sprint mod to be allowed (people originally argued for bsm to be allowed, but the focus shifted to toggle sneak)
- ? months for the admitting to hacks rule to be removed (
http://www.mcgamer.net/threads/admitting-to-hacks.108097/)
In all cases this is far too long for the community to have to wait. Badlion adopted all these policies way before MCSG and will continue to reap the benefits if MCSG doesn't respond to the wants of the community more quickly. In order to compete with more progressive servers such as badlion, the protocol
needs to change.
Now onto mods/hiring. MCSG's mod hiring policy is deplorable.
I_love_desk was, in my eyes, the perfect candidate for mod, but was declined from pending for a 'lack of experience', despite having 500 forum posts and >1000 games played. That same week Scott48284929 or whatever the numbers were was hired with under 10 forum posts and 3 or so wins out of 400 games. Sure enough, Scott was in my opinion one of the most incompetent mods imaginable- when you reported a blatant hacker, you crossed your fingers and hoped Scott didn't reply, as the would mean having to report him all over again. I had reports of regen hackers who walked in fire declined by Scott! He also regularly expounded neolithic views on marriage, religion and life in the good 'ol southern states of murica! Anyway, my point is that getting mod currently involves having a relatively clean punishment slate, learning the rules and showing enthusiasm. The 'clean slate' requirement doesn't seem unreasonable, but the reality of it is that most of the people who spend enough time on the servers without receiving punishments are mostly players tryharding mod for one reason or another (often social status). I wonder how many players would reply to question threads and end posts with 'Have a nice day! c:' if the server was somehow auto-moderated? Few people are as cloyingly friendly as most of the mods pretend to be, so why force applicants to behave that way? Furthermore, the nature of clans is such that camaraderie in teamspeak or whatever will often cause clan players to receive punishments for joking around- this is detrimental as clan players, as a group, are the most experienced players in the community- something the current staff team lacks. The system can also be easily played- I know of a current senior mod who received dozens of mutes and an eventual permaban from badlion. He then decided he wanted mod on MCSG (not for the purest of reasons) and consciously avoided punishment for a few months. He then obviously got mod, and is now one of the best members of staff in my opinion. Why did he have to adopt a facade in order to get mod? Would him bypassing the filter a couple of times in a server with friends really have shown him to be unworthy of a staff position?
The seemingly required criterion of boundless enthusiasm and undying love for the server is also misguided- it results in a bunch of subservient, admin-worshipping mods who only contribute to the retardation of positive change by proclaiming their love for 1.8 pvp and calmly explaining to lesser members that toggle sneak gives an unfair knockback advantage because Cam said so. I'm sick of writing at this point but what we really need is mods with good people skills, experience and a personality, instead of the generic mod personality most feel the need to adopt.
