Previously4non
Spectator
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2015
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 24
Hello, my name is 4non.
I was forum banned indefinitely a while back, if you don't remember.
Although I did deserve this, I still feel connected to MCGamer. I want to help the community.
Anything I say in this thread is not meant to be offensive in any way to current/former staff members.
There's a few things I need to address here.
I completely understand that I will be forum banned for this post and will be denied the right to be unbanned on my former account, but I feel that attempting to be forgiven is a lost cause.
Let's get started.
#1: The Process of Appealing a Forum/TeamSpeak Ban
First off, I'd like to question the process of getting unbanned on the forums. To any of you who are currently evading a forum ban, you know how difficult it is to even get a response from an administrator/senior moderator in regards to your ban appeal.
The system goes as follows:
- Message a staff member on TeamSpeak
- Get ignored
- Keep trying, eventually get redirected to the support team ([email protected])
- Get instructed by the support team to email an admin
- Get ignored
- Go back on TeamSpeak
And the cycle repeats.
I do understand that the staff members of MCGamer have extremely tedious, time-consuming jobs, and that silly little rule-breakers such as myself aren't important enough to be bothered with. They have more important things to attend to, of course.
However, having been a staff member on several servers previously, I do understand that the job gets tiring. After all, it has little to no reward. You don't get paid, you barely get any recognition, and if anything, you get insulted for "being corrupt". I get that it's hard, and you would rather not bother with people you've already dealt with.
However, and I hate to use this as my excuse, but I did find this in the rules of this server:
"2. Do not disrespect or harass other members: We want people in our community to feel safe and respected." (I was unable to quote, as the thread was already locked)
Although I understand the context in this rule, meaning that players should not harass, call names, etc, but I do believe that not every member is respected equally. I, for example, feel discriminated against for having been involved in drama previously on MCGamer. Although this was entirely my fault, I do feel as if I should at least get a response when it comes to appealing my ban.
Once again, I understand that the staff members are very busy, and cannot deal with everything that is thrown at them. However, I do know that it is very possible for them to at least give simple responses, such as "yes" or "no".
I'll give a little example here. No offense to him, but I don't believe this was fair:
I emailed Dave while he was still an admin with my ban appeal.
(If anyone cares, this was my appeal)
He responded normally, and I assumed that everything would run smoothly in terms of actually being responded to. I had been ignored by the staff several times previously, and with good reason. I was happy to actually be listened to.
However, these were the responses to the original email.
It made me feel extremely insignificant knowing that the admin I was attempting to approach actually resigned before responding to my case.
I understand that the admins are constantly burdened with large amounts of MCGamer-related work/real world issues, but it doesn't take that long to simply say "no".
Keep in mind that Dave was going through quite a bit of stupid accusations based on what he has "done" to others in the community, and so he probably wasn't too excited to respond to me, as I was involved. Don't bother him about this. he likely doesn't want to hear any more of it.
And before you call me a hypocrite for tagging him yet saying to leave him alone, he would likely see this anyway. I just don't want anyone to personally harass him.
Overall, and I'm not pointing fingers, but I believe that the staff members of the MCGamer network should attempt to rid themselves of all biased opinions and respond to each and every individual member equally and fairly. Not only would it help the network appear more professional, but it would also help gain respect for individuals of the staff team who respond to whatever situation maturely and fairly.
#2: MCGamer In-Game Infrastructure (Chat etc)
I haven't been on the forums in a while, but I'm sure there's been several complaints about the community's overall bad manners.
You know what I'm talking about. "Ez", "rekt", "bk", "l2p", "scrub", "noob", several racial slurs, insults, you name it. It's everywhere, not only in this community.
However, there are other networks (not only in Minecraft) who have attempted to reduce the amount of immature/offensive words said on their services.
Although there's a fairly good system being used by MCGamer today, it can be drastically improved upon.
Here's an idea, why not reward players for being kind?
Even though players may say kind things sarcastically or without meaning, it's much better than having an overall toxic community.
Having rewards (MCGamer credits or whatever is being used at the moment) for small acts of kindness could encourage the community to be much nicer.
If not a rewards system, at least an attempt to improve the swear filter plugin would be useful. I haven't been in-game too much recently, but I do recall seeing players speaking different languages (primarly Spanish, as I am fluent in it) using racial slurs, swear words, and whatever they wanted, really. The network has already taken a step towards preventing this, as there are moderators who are bilingual, trilingual, etc, but an automated censoring system for swear words in multiple languages (if not already implemented, I haven't checked) would be extremely benificial.
As for players being disrespectful in the form of "rekt", etc, as previously mentioned, a rewards system may work. A variant of this is having some sort of a karma system, similar to the Hive's system in Trouble in Mineville. (When I last played this gamemode, I saw a system similar to this. It may have changed, I'm not sure. I'm writing this all in one sitting.
An automated muting/warning system would be useful as well. Although offensive words are already censored through the use of multiple characters (%&#$), completely blocking the message with a warning might be more useful.
For example, if you said "%&@# you!", the intended message would still come across. Although it's technically censored, it's still inappropriate. The meaning of the message is thought to be "hidden", but is still understood by the recipient.
If a parent were to watch their child on the MCGamer network and saw any offensive message, whether or not parts of it were censored, they most likely wouldn't approve. A step toward removing this would make the network seem much more mature.
Another point I'd like to make about the in-game infrastructure is the gamemodes available. This has nothing to do with chat, isn't too big of an issue, but I feel that it makes the developers seem lazy. Although this isn't true, it's just the general assumption that most get upon first glance.
Many of the gamemodes are glitchy, unfinished, or laggy. This (and multiple other reasons) are why they're rarely played on. In my opinion, gamemodes should be perfected before they're released.
This goes not only for gamemodes, but updates in general. Remember the release of MCGamer V2, and how insane it was? This would not have been an issue if it was simply tested and chiseled down to perfection. It doesn't take too long to test your work. The more glitches you have, the less professional you seem. I get that the network was on an overall deadline for the update, but still.
In MCSG specifically, the spectating feature is atrocious. I understand that this is Mojang's default spectating mode, but there's more options. To the people that want the old spectating back, which in my opinion was much better, it can be there as an option.
--
Well, well. This is unusual. A two-point thread. Alright.
I ran out of things to talk about, honestly.
This was written in one sitting, as previously mentioned. I did not revise this post, nor did I think twice. I sat down and wrote.
If you disagree with any of the points in this post, feel free to state your opinion below. If I were on my original account, I would gladly edit the post based on how the responses influence me, however, I'm certain that this account will be banned soon.
Goodbye for now.
- 4non
I was forum banned indefinitely a while back, if you don't remember.
Although I did deserve this, I still feel connected to MCGamer. I want to help the community.
Anything I say in this thread is not meant to be offensive in any way to current/former staff members.
There's a few things I need to address here.
I completely understand that I will be forum banned for this post and will be denied the right to be unbanned on my former account, but I feel that attempting to be forgiven is a lost cause.
Let's get started.
#1: The Process of Appealing a Forum/TeamSpeak Ban
First off, I'd like to question the process of getting unbanned on the forums. To any of you who are currently evading a forum ban, you know how difficult it is to even get a response from an administrator/senior moderator in regards to your ban appeal.
The system goes as follows:
- Message a staff member on TeamSpeak
- Get ignored
- Keep trying, eventually get redirected to the support team ([email protected])
- Get instructed by the support team to email an admin
- Get ignored
- Go back on TeamSpeak
And the cycle repeats.
I do understand that the staff members of MCGamer have extremely tedious, time-consuming jobs, and that silly little rule-breakers such as myself aren't important enough to be bothered with. They have more important things to attend to, of course.
However, having been a staff member on several servers previously, I do understand that the job gets tiring. After all, it has little to no reward. You don't get paid, you barely get any recognition, and if anything, you get insulted for "being corrupt". I get that it's hard, and you would rather not bother with people you've already dealt with.
However, and I hate to use this as my excuse, but I did find this in the rules of this server:
"2. Do not disrespect or harass other members: We want people in our community to feel safe and respected." (I was unable to quote, as the thread was already locked)
Although I understand the context in this rule, meaning that players should not harass, call names, etc, but I do believe that not every member is respected equally. I, for example, feel discriminated against for having been involved in drama previously on MCGamer. Although this was entirely my fault, I do feel as if I should at least get a response when it comes to appealing my ban.
Once again, I understand that the staff members are very busy, and cannot deal with everything that is thrown at them. However, I do know that it is very possible for them to at least give simple responses, such as "yes" or "no".
I'll give a little example here. No offense to him, but I don't believe this was fair:
I emailed Dave while he was still an admin with my ban appeal.
(If anyone cares, this was my appeal)
He responded normally, and I assumed that everything would run smoothly in terms of actually being responded to. I had been ignored by the staff several times previously, and with good reason. I was happy to actually be listened to.
However, these were the responses to the original email.
It made me feel extremely insignificant knowing that the admin I was attempting to approach actually resigned before responding to my case.
I understand that the admins are constantly burdened with large amounts of MCGamer-related work/real world issues, but it doesn't take that long to simply say "no".
Keep in mind that Dave was going through quite a bit of stupid accusations based on what he has "done" to others in the community, and so he probably wasn't too excited to respond to me, as I was involved. Don't bother him about this. he likely doesn't want to hear any more of it.
And before you call me a hypocrite for tagging him yet saying to leave him alone, he would likely see this anyway. I just don't want anyone to personally harass him.
Overall, and I'm not pointing fingers, but I believe that the staff members of the MCGamer network should attempt to rid themselves of all biased opinions and respond to each and every individual member equally and fairly. Not only would it help the network appear more professional, but it would also help gain respect for individuals of the staff team who respond to whatever situation maturely and fairly.
#2: MCGamer In-Game Infrastructure (Chat etc)
I haven't been on the forums in a while, but I'm sure there's been several complaints about the community's overall bad manners.
You know what I'm talking about. "Ez", "rekt", "bk", "l2p", "scrub", "noob", several racial slurs, insults, you name it. It's everywhere, not only in this community.
However, there are other networks (not only in Minecraft) who have attempted to reduce the amount of immature/offensive words said on their services.
Although there's a fairly good system being used by MCGamer today, it can be drastically improved upon.
Here's an idea, why not reward players for being kind?
Even though players may say kind things sarcastically or without meaning, it's much better than having an overall toxic community.
Having rewards (MCGamer credits or whatever is being used at the moment) for small acts of kindness could encourage the community to be much nicer.
If not a rewards system, at least an attempt to improve the swear filter plugin would be useful. I haven't been in-game too much recently, but I do recall seeing players speaking different languages (primarly Spanish, as I am fluent in it) using racial slurs, swear words, and whatever they wanted, really. The network has already taken a step towards preventing this, as there are moderators who are bilingual, trilingual, etc, but an automated censoring system for swear words in multiple languages (if not already implemented, I haven't checked) would be extremely benificial.
As for players being disrespectful in the form of "rekt", etc, as previously mentioned, a rewards system may work. A variant of this is having some sort of a karma system, similar to the Hive's system in Trouble in Mineville. (When I last played this gamemode, I saw a system similar to this. It may have changed, I'm not sure. I'm writing this all in one sitting.
An automated muting/warning system would be useful as well. Although offensive words are already censored through the use of multiple characters (%&#$), completely blocking the message with a warning might be more useful.
For example, if you said "%&@# you!", the intended message would still come across. Although it's technically censored, it's still inappropriate. The meaning of the message is thought to be "hidden", but is still understood by the recipient.
If a parent were to watch their child on the MCGamer network and saw any offensive message, whether or not parts of it were censored, they most likely wouldn't approve. A step toward removing this would make the network seem much more mature.
Another point I'd like to make about the in-game infrastructure is the gamemodes available. This has nothing to do with chat, isn't too big of an issue, but I feel that it makes the developers seem lazy. Although this isn't true, it's just the general assumption that most get upon first glance.
Many of the gamemodes are glitchy, unfinished, or laggy. This (and multiple other reasons) are why they're rarely played on. In my opinion, gamemodes should be perfected before they're released.
This goes not only for gamemodes, but updates in general. Remember the release of MCGamer V2, and how insane it was? This would not have been an issue if it was simply tested and chiseled down to perfection. It doesn't take too long to test your work. The more glitches you have, the less professional you seem. I get that the network was on an overall deadline for the update, but still.
In MCSG specifically, the spectating feature is atrocious. I understand that this is Mojang's default spectating mode, but there's more options. To the people that want the old spectating back, which in my opinion was much better, it can be there as an option.
--
Well, well. This is unusual. A two-point thread. Alright.
I ran out of things to talk about, honestly.
This was written in one sitting, as previously mentioned. I did not revise this post, nor did I think twice. I sat down and wrote.
If you disagree with any of the points in this post, feel free to state your opinion below. If I were on my original account, I would gladly edit the post based on how the responses influence me, however, I'm certain that this account will be banned soon.
Goodbye for now.
- 4non