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+--- Thread: Staff Abuse and Rule Change (/showthread.php?tid=4102)
Staff Abuse and Rule Change - NoDefiance - 11-13-2018
I just wanted to report the fact the some of the Guardians are abusing their power on the HometownMC server by muting anybody the defies them. Especially in the case of the Greenview settlement where they were silenced because of their town meetings. Greenview's town makes up for most active players in game and is one of the fastest growing/expanding settlements. Therefore; they do have quite a bit of information to talk about/discuss. Once they were forcibly silenced by staff under threat they moved to a Discord server to discuss their upcoming election and the laws they were voting on making. There was an altercation where Greenview did refuse to have their public meetings in a private discord server. Nonetheless; due to the fact that most of if not all of Greenviews members are active. So based on that we can conclude that there will be alot of talking from the Greenview settlement. Therefore; being silenced because of the fact that we bring in alot of new members and we do speak in chat alot is completely unreasonable. The rule the staff cited in their forcible mute of Greenviews town discussion was rule 1. This rule states that you must treat all people with respect on the server, and you cannot be intentionally annoying, this includes racism, sexism, and backtalk. Now some members of Greenview did question the fact that the silence was unfair in their eyes and some of the other players from different communities. Also along with the first rule that was cited they stated that being "annoying" was the reason the Greenview community was not allowed to hold public meetings. The Greenview members did discuss the fact that they may have been a nuisance to some community members. Although the only people who seemed to be making complaints about the Greenview community were Guardians and a V.I.P 3. None of the regular/casual players who played on the server for fun made any complaints. Most of the servers players made no comment whatsoever. But now i have personally had people complain about how the situation is unfolding. Some people have even stated the fact that the current staff handling the situation are being unfair in their "discipline" of the situation. Along with that as an overall server issue watching staff unfairly treat normal players with a direct use of force, because those normal players want to play the game their way will certainly drive other players who are new to the server away. What is going to happen when a new player comes into the server with the idea of starting up a government. Will they be silenced as well. What happens when the leaders of these government run communities decide to leave because of unfair treatment. As you can clearly see by the facts i have stated lower-tier staff abuse on the server is running unchecked and needs to be dealt with before more problems arise. Either the staff training needs to be more elaborate on the rules. Or the rules need to be revised removing any generalizations in the rules section so an abusive staff member cannot "interpret" the rules their way. This is clear unfair treatment of players on the server, and other players as well as I will not stand for this misuse of staff power to enact clear dominance on "lesser" players who dont have as much power.
~ND
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - Cjweasley - 11-13-2018
AMEN AMEN I say
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - TransientReverie - 11-13-2018
I think it is quite clear that Greenview could've and should've taken measures to prevent flooding the global chat with information mostly irrelevant to other players. Although staff interpretation of the rule is debatable, it is definitely within the scope of the staff to prevent what could be seen as spam (although the good intentions are there and the intention of 'deliberately annoying' is likely not there).
Don't turn this into an us vs them, big vs small battle. The right thing for all of Greenview to do instead of kicking up such a fuss would be simply to take it up with superiors. Only if that response is inadequate should this all be kicked up. Greenview continues to be giving the staff headaches and the rapid growth of the town seems to be beyond the ability of mayors to make sure that there are structures which facilitate discussion and prevent negative interactions with staff.
I don't see any unfair treatment here - I don't see any "threat" or "force". I see a manipulation of the rules in order to fit general sentiment and an area which server staff need to reform their approach to.
This has nothing to do with freedom of speech but rather the staff working to make sure that there is open discussion between members of the community without inhibition by towns who should be setting up effective communication channels themselves.
I think that the incorporation of town based text channels into the discord would be a good step forward from a staff perspective whilst Greenview staff really need to look at their structures more. I haven't seen such a large town with such a lack of oversight over the actions of their members and I've spent hundreds of hours on town servers.
This conflict between Greenview members and the server staff does not seem like a large issue worthy of intense discussion in isolation. This individual incident is for Greenview and the staff to work out, with reform needed in the management of towns on the server both from a staff and a mayoral standpoint.
We don't need conflict - we need discussion and I really do hope Greenview members don't rush to back up their fellow residents before getting the whole story.
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - derpedo - 11-13-2018
You are not telling the whole situation as it is. Earlier this week, Darillium and I were online when we witnessed olas101 and GreenPigeon holding a town meeting. It had completely taken over chat, making it hard to get any word out or have any other converstaion. Multiple players complained. To fix that, we simply asked you to take it to party chat, or, as a player suggested, take it to the server discord.
A few days later, with me, Darillium, Steasaur, and TrekkieEnderman online, they held another meeting despite the warnings. You, GreenPigeon, and olas101 had quite the words for us when we told you to take it to private. After continuous arguing despite warnings, you all carried on. Olas going so far as to say he would do it in public, but without announcing so we wouldn't know.
You already argued that Greenview takes up over half of the active population, which is incredibly untrue. It is true that it is growing fast and is quite large, but there is no need to blow it out of proportion.
We are just doing our job as staff. You were told to drop the topic and you didn't, despite warnings. So, we told you that you would receive a mute if you didn't stop. That is not abuse of power. That is our standard protocol. The rulebook itself states that what qualifies as breaking the rules is up to each individual staff member. We do not pick our staff members all willy-nilly, we are very thorough and make sure they are very qualified so we don't get members who abuse their powers. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's abuse of power.
I am working on trying to get a "Town" category set up in the HomeTown discord so you guys can hold your meetings while still being in the community, but that is the most I can do for you at the moment, as you are not all in the same party.
End of the day, dude, it's a minecraft server. It's not that serious, the rules are not government law. They're just here to regulate.
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - Cjweasley - 11-13-2018
You may be right about that but i have noticed some unfair treatment with being a greenview citizen also it depends on your defenition of spammy
also someone told me we were blacklisted what does that mean
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - Cil - 11-13-2018
Blacklisted basically means banned, which I doubt you have been.
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - Cjweasley - 11-13-2018
thank you
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - TransientReverie - 11-13-2018
(11-13-2018, 09:34 AM)Cjweasley Wrote: You may be right about that but i have noticed some unfair treatment with being a greenview citizen also it depends on your defenition of spammy
Spam
"irrelevant or unsolicited messages sent over the Internet, typically to a large number of users" (Oxford Dictionary)
Much of Greenview's internal chat is irrelevant to other members and members of the server have not asked for full transcripts of town meetings and full correspondence of impatient town members trying to get help in Greenview that only the leadership can give them. I'd call it spam.
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - derpedo - 11-13-2018
There's been a "town" text channel and voice channel to the discord where you guys can hold your town meetings and showcase the town.
RE: Staff Abuse and Rule Change - Cil - 11-13-2018
I think this will help derp, thank you.