Best Posts in Thread: Helper Application from MasterofBoom

Member Name MasterofBoom

Additional In Game Names: N/A

How old are you? Twelve

Location: Missouri, United States

Do you have Discord? Yes

How many hours per day do you play MeepCraft? (weekdays) 6-10

How many hours per day do you play MeepCraft? (weekends) 7-10

Have you ever been staff on this or any other server? No

References: Please give IGN's @EllieEllie @Vampire_Man @Lady_Hestia @AdrianBfaust

When did you join Meepcraft? First in September 2015, but stayed in January 2017

Introduction: Well hello there, I’m Boom. I’ve got about a billion nicknames, so doesn’t matter what you call me. Kittyboom, Boom, Master, DarthBoom, DarthCactus (Great story behind that one), kitybom (also a story), and all the rest, doesn’t make a difference. I first came around in September 2015 after a longtime factions friend asked me to come play Boomo with them. So I came, played a few rounds of that, and left again.

I’m always off doing my own thing, and I can’t say the server interested me all that much. However, I decided to give it a shot once again during the January reset. This time was different, however, and I adored working in the town of Legend, building it with the rest of the people there from the ground up.

Today, I hold the rank of Legend co-mayor, and constantly mess around with my own things in the town. I enjoy playing Halo, engineering things in Creative, building up my town, and numerous other tasks I perform.

Last year, when I was eleven, I became interested in the changes to command blocks being used to create advanced commands. Looking up a bunch of vanilla mods (modifications to the game using command blocks), I dissected them and taught myself to program completely from the ground up using trial and error. Using these skills, I have a significant understanding of the way Minecraft operates. In addition to my extensive knowledge of commands, I have also taught myself from the ground up on the usage of server components like installing plugins, setting them up, and then using them. So far, I’ve managed to imagine the concept for, design, and implement two minigames that have logged more than sixty players called Skyfort and Village Builder, complete with their own challenges, lore, and storylines.

I greatly enjoy interacting with people, and constantly play other games (besides Minecraft) with people from Meep. It’s been quite the experience to join such a vast and diverse community. One thing most who have played with me a lot can attest to is my ability to PvP. I have a great time when people I play against accuse me of hacking (even though I’m nowhere near as good as some of the old PvPers from around here).

Outside of Minecraft, there’s not a whole lot to me. I spend the vast majority of my time inside at my computer. I’m a huge fan of the Mario games, and have fully mastered both Super Mario Galaxy games (including the Perfect Run).

In my non-virtual life, I live in Kansas City, Missouri. The only family I have that you’d know is Ck, of course, who is the one who really got me into the server.

Why should you be Helper? For me, a “Helper” and a strong community member aren't all that different. Both are active on all aspects of the server, honest about issues without being overly negative, easy to work with, among other things.

However, one of the greatest differences between someone in the community and server staff is the ability and mindset of moderation. For those that know me well, they already are well aware of my clear understanding of the fine line between being fun and easygoing (Let’s burn the Capitol some more, Adrian!), and recognizing when things have gone too far, and need to stop, such as when I handled an issue between the Adrian mentioned above, who was trespassing on Blue_Marlin’s property.

One thing I specialize in is troubleshooting issues, whether they be Redstone, commands, client-side issues, or computer errors. Thanks to my experience with the game's systems and mechanics in programming my own creations directly into the game’s interface, as well as server knowledge, it makes me ideal for this.

Essentially, my goal is to improve anything, in whatever way I can. There's a lot I have been able to do unofficially, as I have assisted the staff team on numerous occasions when dealing with that the game can handle, and certainly better prepares me for an official position.

As I previously mentioned, I'm quite experienced when it comes to combat. New or old combat, there are always hackers. One ability I can “bring to the table,” so to speak, is the ability to recognize hacking from skill, especially in combat. I've already taken the liberty of downloading the Prism plugin for myself to use on private worlds, which means I require little training in this.

One area most of you are well aware of my passion in is suggestions for the server. Balancing is a delicate act, and must constantly be fine-tuned. When I am coming up with whatever random idea pops into my head, it's important to ask how it will benefit things, how or can it be abused, and are there strong reasonings against it? My own personal goal in making suggestions is to implement things that either balance out something (like Ctf), increase donations (Vein Miner and /feed), or simply make gameplay more enjoyable (like changing combat). It takes a little imagination is o create things, like just today I tested out three new custom mobs on one of my mini games. The first one was far too overpowered, the second was too easy, and the third didn't do much. Sure, it wasn't perfect on the first try, but that's why I collected feedback from the players, and then implemented changes based on their suggestions. The goal of the player on a server is to have fun. Simple, enjoyable, lasting fun. However, the server also needs its support, so it needs to be balanced, as well. Tying these two together is what creates balance, and it constantly needs to be adjusted.

Being a leader in the town of Legend is not unlike being a staff member. Everyday, you need to work with new players, and work to retain them in your town to keep it growing. You need to settle disputes between residents arguing over whatever it may be. You need to keep it under control, and not let it get way out of hand even when you're just having a little fun. Even more, there's the simple matter of interacting with people, as well as working with and organizing your team. There's no way one person could do it on their own. While it applies to everyone, I've found one of the toughest things to get to is the ability to accept that someone else is right, and maybe they know better than you.

Overall, I see Helper as an opportunity. An opportunity to give back, and really work to improve the server.

What are your weaknesses? -Discord
I'll be the first to admit, I'm not terribly active on Discord. I'll use it every once in a while when I'm playing team games with people from the server, but I can definitely try to be more active on it.

-Stubborn
While I'm completely open to criticism, I can be insanely stubborn about my decisions. If anything, I can be a bit proud of this trait in myself. I stick to my guns, and don't back down at times when I probably should. However, I recognize my own flaw in this, and am learning to be far more open-minded to other ideas.

-Age
I'm well aware this this seems odd. People don't normally guess my age too easily (I'm just glad it's usually up rather than down). Still, I'm younger than the rest of the entire current staff team. However, while my age might seem to be a great detraction, I try to more than make up for this with my overall maturity and reasoning. I'm the little brother, so I've always advanced to things before those in my age group. While other kids were watching their first education programs, I was finishing the third season of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” (Take a guess who picked that out)

Please give any other information you might think is useful for us to know: If you still don't feel like you know me, I'm always open to conversations. Message me on Discord, forums, or in-game anytime you'd like, and I'll certainly be happy to answer questions, or just have a good time doing stuff. Thanks for reading!

 

@PseudoGod
First, thank you for all of your insights and considering applications very cautiously. I agree that such applications like this need to be considered with great care so that we can be sure that the applicant is qualified for this position, without any dishonesty such as plagiarism.

I see your point that some content in their applications have been reused again to some extent. I have compared two different applications with the same question format on the same plagiarism checker, and the copied text rate was 2.8%. That means around 8.1%-2.8%, 5.3% of the words have been directly reused. (More or less, since his application might be longer/shorter)

In my opinion, you are putting too much into this. You have outright called out a hardworking and inquiring twelve year old person a suspect for plagiarism because he came up with 94.7% of his well written application. I wonder how many people could've done that when they were 12 years old. I am afraid that I am getting you wrong but you sound so disrespectful to him.

Of course, some text was copied from his own family member whom maybe he used as a reference or an adviser. There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking people to review their application before submitting it, right? I reviewed inexxer's application. Is that using someone else's work? Of course not! Also, most applicants look at the same guide (by Courtney) and refer to the same accepted applications that are considered "good". So I do not believe that we should deny someone with this much future potential just because 5% of the text was likely to have been reused.

I would appreciate the applicant's insight on this also.

 

I understand what you are saying, but what you didn't consider is that maybe he wrote a draft, ck edited it, then he maybe helped him finish it. So naturally it sounds a bit like clueless.

Also, he might have used ck's app as an inspiration.

[Edit] if there is one 8.1% word similarity then he couldn't have copied ck's post.

 

I actually did mean to mention this in the application, but I have chosen to go without using him in any way, and have already talked with multiple high staff on how this would be handled if I were to be accepted. I don't expect any kind of special bonuses or anything of that sort due to my family and intend to do my own part of this completely on my own. Thanks for the feedback so far!

 

-1

Had some extremely large suspicions reading such a well written app done by a "twelve" year old, and Pseudo wrote all that I would have.

 

This is typically where I dissect into the application to see just how poorly it is written, but fortunately for this app, there seems to be very little if nothing wrong...
but wait...

While I was reading this app, I was reminded very well of your brother's, Clueless's, application. It felt incredibly similar to his while I was reading, and it was very peculiar in my opinion. Mattisaperson also caught onto this, so we decided to look at some of the parts of your app seem similar, if NOT identical.

FOR REFERENCE: Read his app here: Helper Application from kcschmidt

First, let's just look at this similarity checker:
Documents

This compares your application to that of your brother's. What comes up is interesting: 8.1% of your ENTIRE application is completely identical to that of clueless. Some of the identical parts are expected in any app just due to word choice and the required fields which count as part of the app. However, an 8.1% identical rate indicated about 1 in 12.5 words are identical in structure to that of his.

There are also specific parts of your app I'd like to mention:
1) For age, you wrote "twelve" in alphabetic form. This is VERY professional, and so I commend you for using it. But wait, Clueless wrote "sixteen" for his age, in the same form. I'd wager <1% of all apps use this form for age, so it's peculiar you just HAPPEN to use this form, considering you're only 12.

2) Your first paragraph in your introduction is extremely similar in format; not only do you list off all of the nicknames you've been given or use, like clueless did, but then you ALSO included "doesn't make a difference", which is just a rewording of clueless' "it really doesn't matter to me".

3) When you mention life outside meepcraft: "outside of Minecraft, there is not near as much of a story" vs. "Outside of Minecraft, there’s not a whole lot to me. I spend the vast majority of my time inside at my computer." Again, very similar.

4) You added "One thing I specialize in is troubleshooting issues, whether they be Redstone, commands, client-side issues, or computer errors." which is VERBATIM THE SAME AS CLUELESS'S; "One thing I particularly specialize in is troubleshooting issues, whether they be Redstone, commands, client-side issues, or computer errors." You literally just changed the opening phrase to that sentence.

5) "Essentially, my goal is to improve anything, in whatever way I can. There's a lot I have been able to do unofficially, as I have assisted the staff team on numerous occasions when dealing with that the game can handle, and certainly better prepares me for an official position. " vs. "Essentially, my goal is to improve anything, in whatever way I can. There's a lot I have been able to do unofficially, and certainly better prepares me for an official position"

6) ''spotting true hackers (which I have moderate experience in already)" vs "One ability I can 'bring to the table,' so to speak, is the ability to recognize hacking from skill, especially in combat"

7) Less obvious, but: "Kansas City, Missouri... ... ! A few of you may know my younger brother, MasterofBoom" vs "In my non-virtual life, I live in Kansas City, Missouri. The only family I have that you’d know is Ck, of course" not to mention the weird wording of "in my non-virtual life"


So... what happened here?
In my theory, as well as matt's, you had to have done at either or both of these things: Copy from ck's app directly and change parts of it to fit your life and decrease the diction, or have clueless write your app FOR you, which does not show your work ethic in a positive light and is a false indicator of how mature you really are in text.

In my honest conclusion, I believe you did a combination of the two. Not only is this app containing 8.1% identical text, but even the non-identical parts are very similar grammatically and in verbosity. This means that some of your app contains the same level of writing of clueless's app, and some parts contain a slightly higher or slightly smaller level of writing.

Unfortunately, I don't believe you wrote this app, because in game, you are not necessarily the most mature person and you do not type at nearly the vocabulary you possess here.

Not going to get into your in-game behavior. -1 until you can write your own application.


EDIT: To clarify, your app isn't actually 8.1% identical in reality. While 8.1% of the words are identical, a small bit of it is part of the staff application format. However, excluding that, you run an approximate 5% identical rate, significantly higher than what you'd obtain from just writing your own app by coincidence.