An Open Letter to the Meepcraft Staff

Dear Meepcraft Staff:


With the opening of Revamp and Towny Extreme, many veteran players such as ourselves who have played on this server during its prime are coming back and having loads of fun playing minecraft again and reconnecting with all of their old friends. Before this server was a mini game server, us ancient players remember how fun a minimalistic towny/pvp server could be with a strong and consistent community/playerbase. Our current town (Exegol) consists of players that have been involved with the server ever since the beginning of 2012, a short time before the server went from a 10-40 player community run on Fuzzlr’s laptop to an immense gaming community with thousands of players everyday. A lot of us have also had the privilege of being a part of the wonderful staff team throughout the rise of Meepcraft. Collectively, as some of the oldest, most devoted players you will find on this server, my townmates and I have decided to put together a post that includes our thoughts and opinions on the revamp as well as the issues that we have noticed after playing on here again since the start of the revamp.


We also want to thank everyone on the staff team that spent so much time fighting to keep the server alive prior to the revamp. It was your decisions and actions that caused this new influx of players coming back. We know the crazy amount of hours and dedication that you have put in to keep the server alive and we can speak for the whole server that we really appreciate you guys. We also know that moderating a server is a lot of work and requires you to make many tough decisions. A great staff member is able to be a leader, connect with the playerbase, and understand where to use proper discretion when punishing players who break the rules. They are also able to be introspective and honest with themselves when they make mistakes.


However, we also know we can speak for a majority of the server that the inconsistencies in moderation right now have had a significantly negative impact on the server as of late and have not reflected the qualities of a great moderator. Certain staff members are having a tough time connecting with the current playerbase because they do not spend much time actually playing on the server and interacting with players because in a way they are actually trying too hard to moderate the server. The influx of players coupled with the lack of need for moderators to assert their authority has caused punishments to be handed out without proper discretion and without the staff member thinking about the infraction. This has led to some instances where there has been a “Show me the man and I'll find you the crime.” complex.


Since the start of Towny Extreme, there have been almost 20 players banned for either xray or some form of bug abuse. Right now there are about 35 players consistently online. These players have all been extremely active since the start of the revamp. These aren’t new players who’ve never played Meepcraft before, they’re players who have come back because Towny Extreme included everything that paralleled what made the server and community so fun and engaging. If these bans were lifted right now, there would most likely be 50-60 people online right now instead of 40. We are not saying that these players didn’t break the rules, but we are concerned that the biases of the staff team that we’ve highlighted above are disproportionately punishing meepers that fit a certain description: Very active, respected, and otherwise rule-abiding veterans who are in towns that are not named Legion who resorted to breaking the rules due to server bugs and problems that the staff team are responsible for. These problems include not properly setting bounds on the world, and making diamonds so rare to the point where average gamers would be lucky to get enough for a set of diamond tools after a week on the server. We are all adults here, and we have set a precedent of reporting bugs such as the tree spawning glitch and flying outside of towns glitch to the staff team when we’ve discovered them. We are not young children who need to be babysat and set an example of anymore. We are actual people and the staff can do a better job at using discretion by talking to people and understanding the parameters of an infraction of the rules. The handling of punishments by certain staff members has put a bad taste in the mouths of many players, and will likely cause many people to just stop playing once this quarantine is over and people go back to their normal lives. At the start of this new page in Meep's history, we should be doing everything we can to keep players online so that when this pandemic is over, they will still want to hop on and play. Banning a bunch of players for small infractions while the only thing for some of them to do right now is play minecraft just lacks the sense that a staff member who wants to increase quality player engagement should have.


To conclude, we are imploring you to think about what is best for the continued growth of Meepcraft and capitalize on this time where many people will be online by unbanning all players who were banned for non toxicity-related crimes on Friday, April 10th. We cannot speak for everyone, but as for those in our town such as VKL and jcbetro who have been banned already, we can assure you that we are not here to cause harm to the server. We genuinely care about this server and we are only here to play minecraft and have fun during these hard times. We ask that you consider using more discretion when passing hefty bans on players because we feel that it interferes with the enjoyment of this server and provides an unstable and unhealthy relationship between staff members and players that may inhibit players from continuing to play on the server. We truly appreciate the time that you have put into keeping the integrity of the server intact. Again, we are all friends and on the same side and we implore you to use more discretion when handing out punishments. The smaller the community, the more the engagement. If we all work together and recognize our faults we can continue to make Meepcraft great again.



Love Always,

The Sith Coalition
(written by: IFOC, jcbetro1011, VKL, BTeets, HotAsianBeans, and Epicdude141)

#VKLForHelper2020

 

meep revolution incoming

 

yes . pl E a S e

 

"the biases of the staff team that we’ve highlighted above are disproportionately punishing meepers that fit a certain description"

Just in case you missed that part.

 

f in the chat

 

Very eloquent and level headed response. I concur.

 

First, thank you for taking the time to write this. It is one of the better critique threads that I have read over the years, and I appreciate how you wrote it. Secondly, and why I am here - having banned the majority of the xrayers, I feel like I need to address this: I do not look for any specific people or towns that I "want" to ban. I look through a general database, note outliers, and investigate from there. I have nothing against any player or town, nor would I ever let my personal affections interfere with moderation. I have banned friends before. If I need to, I will ban them again. The same applies to people in my town. I wasn't going to comment but then I started considering leaving Legion - a town I joined just because I wanted to have fun - because people were so overwhelmingly alleging bias. I hope to attempt to convince you that there is none.

 

I feel a unban for all is justified.

 

Hey thanks for being cool and having a response that contributes to the conversation. I blame Adrian for bringing attention to quite a minor part of what the message was and his response contributes to the problem we were trying to indicate. We were mostly concerned with the discretion and lack of sensible response when it comes to interacting with grievances/rule infractions. This server is new and obviously wasn't going to be implemented without some hiccups such as the world border being messed up (later fixed) and the diamond oregen being absolutely wack (later fixed). The TLDR is that with a smaller server you can just talk to someone before slapping a long ban (especially during the quarantine) and the problem can be fixed much easier. It could be cool if we had another Town Hall like we did the first few days into the server launch.

 

This isn't a place for toxic crap like that

 

You literally find reasons to post useless messages that demean and otherwise provide no constructive feedback. You literally post an entire thread about me when I have never even talked to you. Grow up bro lmfao.

 

Please try to keep this discussion constructive and respectful and not derail it with nonsense.

 

When I was banned, it took me 2 hours for a staff member to tell me why. The reason was for “Player Harassment,” but I wasn’t sure exactly what the staff meant by that. I made a ban appeal asking why I was banned, and that appeal was deleted by staff. I dm’d CluelessKlutz on discord asking why, and he didn’t respond. I asked two of my friends to go to meep discord and join ck's and qazini's call to ask why I was banned (I couldn’t go myself because I am also discord banned). Instead of answering their question, staff ignored them and then muted them for “being annoying.” I asked another friend to dm ck on discord, and ck immediately responded by saying that ban reasons are private and he couldn’t tell him why I was banned. However, this gave me proof that ck was on discord and was just ignoring me, so I confronted him about it and finally he gave me the reason why I was banned.


So yeah, staff to player communication could use some improvements in my opinion.

 

I do like this thread.

 

The Sith Coalition outlined in their post that they believe Meepcraft Staff was acting biased against players like them. I'd argue, instead, that the Meepcraft staff act in a way that appears biased towards everyone because they act against the best interest of the server.

What is this best interest? My argument is that Meepcraft's ultimate goal, like any server, is to be fun. Under this logic, I believe rules that do not increase enjoyment or decrease unenjoyment are out of place because they limit player engagement. What constitutes a fair rule is up to interpretation, but I'd at least like to open up the idea that the way rules are enforced should be to promote fun. Staff, you made an error by forgetting to generate ore correctly in an area of the map, and you banned people for this error.

Dismissing the idea that banning these people were justified or not, I implore you to think about what good banning them does. What does banning these people do for the server? These players were not acting maliciously. They were mining fairly in an area of the map that was, apparently, completely off-limits to mine in due to an oversight. They love the server to death, and the work they have done on the server and continue to do on the server adds life to it. Did banning these people make Meepcraft a more or less enjoyable place?

This adage is relevant once again. "In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least." Staff members, think about it. This game is called Minecraft, and you banned players for mining in an area that was impossible to verify as unfair. Does the need to ban people for this faulty reason outweigh the positives they could do for the server? I'd argue not, I think you need these active, passionate players more than they need you. Please, for the sake of the server, act in the interest of enjoyment.

 

Here we go agaaaaain...

 

keep the mean comments to urself bully