I know this is kind of a strange thing to say, but I've found that there are ways to change a community beyond yourself without simply getting rid of people you don't like. The politics of a massive community are very hard to understand, but there are things the staff can do to reduce hackers and rule breakers without going out and manually banning all of them.
The reason I say this is that hackers have increased dramatically in EU in the past year, yet nobody knows
why. Nobody has even asked why. We are so pathetically stuck in the heart of the problem that nobody has thought of any solutions besides things like cleansweeps. And the why... Forget that. We've asked how to solve a problem before asking why the problem is there in the first place, which is a huge mistake when it comes to any new problem. I tried to come up with some possible explanations in a thread about EU hackers a couple weeks ago, but nobody could imagine why hackers would increase so much without explanation. Nobody other than me even attempted to explain why EU has more hackers than the US, other than the fact they have less moderators. Clearly, there are
psychological forces at work here. Somehow, whether because of things MCGamer has done or because of forces across the internet, Youtubers, and the globe, hackers have increased drastically. This is despite the addition of several anti-cheat plugins in the past year, as well as vast improvement to the servers and growth in the staff team.
If we can somehow pinpoint what meta-forces are at work across the population of MCGamer to cause these problems, then we can potentially decimate hacker problems, something that can never happen by simply being a good example and going around banning everyone. These meta-forces are similar to what Malcolm Gladwell has outlined in his famous novel
The Tipping Point.
One example of a meta-force is the Broken Window Theory, which states that whenever a small problem goes unnoticed in a large community, such as a simple broken window on a busy street, then passers by will see the problem and grow disenchanted with the quality of the city's maintenance and quality, and will then intentionally create more problems, such as graffiti, to bring attention to the problem. If the city continues to neglect such issues, then vandalism grows to severe levels. Therefore, a small show of care for the community, such a stat reset, could reduce attention-seeking hackers. If the community shows signs of progress, then people will take it more seriously and break less rules. A sense of belonging will discourage a user from wanting to break rules.
The broken window theory is especially apparent when comparing hacker levels in the US versus EU servers. They have the same maps and setting, but the EU servers are less populated. (though it is worth noting that EU has a smaller proportion of players compared to US than it used to) EU also lacks moderators, unlike the US, which typically has at least one or two moderators in hub 8. It may not necessarily be the moderators themselves going around banning people that reduces hackers, but often times their mere presence.
(Feel free to argue with me about this-I'd like a debate. I could be wrong entirely, in which case the fact is that more US moderators ban more hackers, which causes less hackers to be spread out across more servers. This is a simple explanation, so beware! History is never simple. 
)
Other meta-forces at work that could cause increases in rule breakers could also be the increasing competitiveness of the servers in general. MCSG v2 in particular has been very competitive, with a wide margin of players knowing how to PvP effectively, causing beginners to feel like they need to hack in order to win.
The rise in Youtubers could also contribute to rule breakers, since many players want to have excellent ratios like them, and may feel compelled to cause drama in order to get attention that their favorite Youtubers often receive. You can't deny that Youtubers have also contributed to a competitive atmosphere in the game. In particular, the rise in the type of Youtuber who is excellent at PvP, commentates regularly, and makes montages, has contributed to a lot of rule breakers, despite not being rulebreakers themselves. This type of Youtuber also typically talks a lot about causes of death, which often includes hackers, teams, etc... This widespread knowledge about hackers and teams may actually encourage people to do exactly that, simply for the sake of understanding what it is like to team a lot or hack. Indeed, in beta many players even knew what hacking meant, but the widespread knowledge about what hacking is and how to do it has probably encouraged a lot of people to do exactly that.
Then there is also the effect in which telling a group of people not to do something actually encourages to do it. I don't know what the technical name for it is, but I call it the "big red button" effect. If you tell a small child not to press a big red button, then you are actually increasing their chances of doing exactly that. Curiosity kicks in. Rebellious users see this as a way to pay back injustices. One of my favorite quotes of all time is
"The opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice." -Unknown It applies to the situation more than you might think. Perhaps instead of telling people not to hack, abuse people, and make inappropriate skins, we need to simply state the rules and do no more. We should encourage forumers to avoid talking about such subjects. In fact, I can think of a few other things MCGamer could do right now to possibly help with these problems.
- Delete threads that complain about teams, hackers, and drama. Users who read about such incidents will, as explained in the above paragraph, undoubtedly feel compelled to do so as a result of rebellion and curiosity. This is probably going to be seen as some violation of some right to freedom of speech on the forums... That has actually never existed haha.
- Make improvements to the servers that show that we do care. (Sounds like MCGv2, doesn't it? Yay!)
- Keep at least one moderator in hub 8 in every region if we can.
- Encourage Youtubers to be less competitive.
- Increase the amount of moderators. Perhaps we could add some perks or change the duties of moderators to make the job more appealing. Being a little looser in the amount of activity expected for current moderators could also help us retain moderators.
Now please, debate!
-BitoBain
