Community Discussion: Should Ex-Hackers be Considered for Mod?

[Col_StaR]

Disclaimer: this thread is meant to be a purely exploratory discussion with the community, and will have no official bearing on the current or future policies of the staff of MCGamer. This thread was made purely to sate my curiosity in addition to encouraging a calm community discussion of such a political matter. I just want to know what everyone thinks.

I also made this to try and prove Devin wrong by showing him we can have a calm political discussion. So ha.

Hello folks,

I'd like to get a Community Discussion series going to let the community voice their opinions in a calm, collected, and organized fashion. There are a lot of topics and controversies that are floating around, and unfortunately the discourse surrounding them is ineffective at best, utterly hostile at worst. But beyond the flaming and the trolling are some good opinions and arguments that really do deserve to be heard. As such, I wanted to create a place for people to voice their perspective on certain topics, and for those perspectives to be shared with everyone. We've done it before, let's do it again.

Some general guidelines:

• Obey the rules. Be nice.
• Flaming, Trolling, and other hostility will be removed.
• Please be considerate with your arguments. Aggression only weakens your credibility, so please be courteous.
• Please consider everyone's perspective as much as you'd like yours.
• If things get too out of hand, I will be handing out bans first. If the thread is no longer civil or productive, I'll close the thing myself.

With that out of the way, let's begin with our first discussion question:
"Should Ex-Hackers be Considered for Mod?"
​

"According to some, hackers are cut from the same moral fiber as murderers. Whenever we imagine the stereotypical rule-breaker, we imagine someone who is hacking rather than abusing or stealing accounts. Indeed, hackers have gained a reputation of being criminals of the community who ruin other peoples' experiences for their own selfish indulgence. Simply put, hackers broke the rules that everyone must abide by, and not being able to apply for mod is part of their punishment."

"But perhaps that reputation is not representative of every hacker. In fact, a good number of hackers who are caught regret their decision. These are not the criminals the community often paints them to be; they are people, good and bad. And the good hackers are the people who are honest enough to quit hacking and clean up their act. It's these reformed hackers that are the ones who offer to moderate as well, helping to catch the very hacks they once were. Unfortunately, because of our policy, even one hacking ban automatically removes any possibility you may have of getting mod. And that is not fair."

"The issue is not about the past, it's about trust. A hacker obviously couldn't be trusted to not use hacks the first time, so why should they be trusted with the powers of a moderator now? While you say that some hackers are good, many/most [citation needed] return to hacking. As such, a history of hacking is all the proof you need to see whether someone is good or bad; if they hacked once, they're already neck deep in the dark side. The first time may have been hacking, but after they get their red tag and powers we could see a whole lot worse. Thus ex-hackers should not even be considered to be mods."

"There are a number of ex-hackers who work with the staff currently to report rule-breakers and such, effectively acting as volunteer moderators. As an added bonus, because these guys have used hacks before, they may be more familiar with what hackers look like better than the trained mods themselves. The mods themselves state that they would love to see these people as official fellow moderators, but they know that that cannot happen because of the policy. The policy exists for a reason, but it's far too strict to enable these people from achieving what they want to do. Thus, ex-hackers should be considered to be mods."

So, what do you think?...​

 

[Fireized]

I think they should be able to prove themself to be worthy of being a mod through helping out in the community, but rarely.

 

[KyleD]

Personally, I would say, yes, dependant on the circumstances, the users level of majority, and if they caused any trouble due to their ban, or reacted in an immature manner down to the ban. If this were to actually go ahead, I'd suggest treating users applying for mod to go through a process similar to the age exception process to make sure they are deffinetely suitable for Moderator. People do make mistakes and end up getting ban due to not knowing the rules, and of course; people change over time.

 

[Deformed]

Maybe only through some special process, but I'm more in favour of not allowing it. They knew hacking was against the rules; infringing the rules is disrespect to the server and the people who put the rules in place.

 

[Sean]

Too late right now to give my opinion, I have mixed opinions on this matter and as it will be lengthy I will write it up tomorrow.

 

[Sim_Man]

Thought the title was gonna say, should ex hackers be unbanned xD

But for the subject, I say sure, if they still play on the servers there obviously not hacking anymore. But it's already hard enough, they need to be mature, like all mods and qualify equally the same as others

 

[C0nsole]

My personal opinion is that the Moderator Application process is rigorous enough already. What I mean by this is that if an ex-hacker can be mature, smart, and qualified enough for the moderator position, why not let them give it a go? The entire reason that we've not let people with hacking bans apply in the past is because these people are likely not mature enough to be a member of the Staff Team here at MCGamer, right? Well, if they can get through an application process which is as hard(if not harder) as the ones our current moderators went through, then why shouldn't they be allowed to apply?

*Sorry if my thoughts were jumbled here, I rewrote this multiple times because I wasn't correctly getting my point across and I'm still not sure I did*

 

[TomahawkGoesChop]

I say yes, but only if a good amount of time has passed since the ban and since their moderator application.

 

[Edog]

I'll make a more detailed post once I'm on my computer, but yes, they should be considered for a staff position.

 

[Manos]

Is this only for ex hackers or can this apply for ex rule breakers and people who were banned for disrespecting others?

 

[KingofGrapes]

If they have not broken rules in the last [insert # of months here] then they should be able to

 

[MoLoToV]

I'd say yes aswell, but only if there will be a seperate, harder, apllication process for them. As said before they clearly knew what they were doing at that time and they knew the punishment. But even though, alot of people chance overtime. We currently do not allow people to apply with bans that are over 1.5 years old, that's a long, long time. I know for sure I wasn't able to be a moderator 1.5 years back because of several reasons, such as being imature, and barely able to speak english. Once people get older, get more involved with the community they'll want to help it out, and what would be better then having the position as a moderator? Therefore, I'm saying yes, they should be able to apply for mod...

TL;DR Yes they should be able to apply, people chance

2 am here, might have been a pile of rubbish I wrote ;-;