PUBLIC BANS

Bans have been made public for the past while now and we would like the community to display their views and opinion on the matter. Make sure to select a choice on the poll and all feedback is taken into consideration.

 

yes I need everyone to know how staff aboose me

 

I enjoy seeing people getting banned, its like when people would spread gossip around school, great fun

 

I like it.

 

These are back?? I might visit more often for the free entertainment now c':

 

If they get removed the sadness I will endure. Don't do this to me. Please.

 

Ban messages should remain between the customer and the server. As you can see from a majority of these posts public ban message only serve to provide entertainment to the current playerbase. Additionally you run into instances where players weaponize this information to use against the person banned down the road.

Additionally you open up the avenue for players to criticize a staff's choice on ban amount / message for something that gains the server nothing.

 

I need to see that old red line in /seen

 

What's the big deal if it entertains people? If you were banned then you deserve to be laughed at. Don't do illegal things if you don't want to be ready for everything that comes with it.

 

Should a business that relies on customers ridicule those customers?

 

If that customer was a customer who stole items, should they rely on them? It's the same thing here. The customer who stole items is the minecraft server equivalent of a player who was banned. Relying on members who have done bad things to and for the server doesn't sound like a good plan.

 

It's not about relying on anyone, it's simply about good and bad business practices.

Why would a failing business argue for bad business practices?

 

Although I completely understand where you're coming from, why change something that doesn't seem to be negatively impacting the playerbase? Allow me to elaborate a bit.

I do concede that this is somewhat childish when used as an indirect disciplinary system (do something stupid -> get banned -> that's announced -> possibly get made fun of). And I do appreciate your standpoint of looking at MeepCraft as a business, and not simply a server made for fun. But unless I'm wrong here, and I might be, public bans do not harm the playerbase very significantly. People usually don't leave as a result of a couple people at the very most (usually, it's one troublemaker who pokes fun at someone for being banned) slipping a snide little comment in about an earlier ban.

My point is, from what I can tell, MeepCraft is receiving enough donations to remain operational, and that's enough in my book. Fuzzlr arguably already caters to small children (a non-lucrative demographic) by implementing family-friendly restrictions that are not favoured by most of the 14-18 playerbase, and this appears to not be harming the server too much. The playerbase MeepCraft currently has appears to enjoy the public ban system (and the maturity of that is questionable, but that isn't the point), so why fix what isn't broken? Currently, only two people out of 29 voters believe that it should be removed, and only five are indifferent to it, versus 21 players who would like to see it continue.

Despite all that, there may be something I'm missing here - I'd like to know if that is the case. But from what I know right now, it appears like a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" scenario here.

EDIT: This no longer accurately reflects my views on this, I've reviewed my opinion a few posts down.

 

Originally, the ban messages were removed simply because it caused too much grief to listen to players complain/comment on ban times/reasons/etc. While this may not be an issue today there is an argument to be made about giving your customers just basic respect, especially when you toss out the basic respect of privacy for the simple entertainment of others.

I'd certainly argue the family friendly, among many other things, has harmed this server if you look at the playerbase numbers historically, as I remember a specific time when MeepCraft only had an IP number and had hundreds of players on at a single time. I remember when the server had 300+ on low times, compared to the paltry numbers today. While this cannot be attributed to a single cause, where is the logic of running a business unlike a business?

When a player receives a ban, there is over a 90% chance of them coming back and there is quite a bit of precedent of players weaponizing that information to attack the person who came back. I'm just not sure of any successful business that makes shaming their customers a standard practice.

I absolutely understand and agree with the premise of do something stupid and you get stupid returned; however it seems like the issue should be looked at from a much larger perspective.

Does publicly shaming customers for the simple entertainment of other people offer any profit/success in anyway shape or form? What benefits above a quick simple entertainment does it provide the server?

On the flip side, what benefits do making ban messages private offer the server? One, it removes the issue completely of players giving staff a hard time while they do their job and it removes the ability of kids to weaponize information to attack other kids which is a massive consequence of maintaining a family friendly server -- Something which has driven off a quantifiable amount of people.

-- I appreciate your well thought out reply.

 

That is a great way of looking at it, and to be honest I probably should have weighed the pros and cons of public bans themselves, as opposed to simply talking about why it's not doing that much harm right now, from what I could see. However, I've reconsidered what I originally said, and yes, it does actually appear like there's nothing to be gained from displaying ban messages.

No one's going to leave the server because "they removed public ban messages!", but they could leave due to harassment as a result of this. Of course, one could argue that the problem lies with troublesome users here - although, in all honesty, it seems like the thing that's happening here is that we're creating problems that don't even need to happen.

So I suppose my final stance will be that no, this is an unnecessary feature that doesn't really benefit the server other than providing a short second or two of laughs for some players, and certainly won't encourage donations.

But allow me to digress here and note that I absolutely agree with your stance on being family-friendly. If I remember correctly, someone discussed this with Fuzzlr, and he used the defence that he wants to make MeepCraft "a safe environment for all ages" (not exact words, but I don't think I could find the post if I tried, haha).

And with that, there is a severe misconception, that being the fact that little kids do not already know swear words and are not exposed to anything inappropriate. Small children have proven, time and time and time again, that they have very little respect for their peers online (they believe they're anonymous -> someone angers them -> they start using all of these new cuss words they've picked up), or at the very least, that they do not have the maturity necessary to be contributing members of an online community.

I'd love for the server to be open to players of all ages, and it still would be even with looser restrictions. How about those kids who don't actually know inappropriate language yet? Although rare, those kids are likely even younger than the kids I've already discussed - and it's a common theme among children to not follow the rules. Whether this is expressed by scamming, being rude to others, stealing, griefing, they've really done it all. Not that this isn't a problem with players of all ages, but very rarely is there a child able to act maturely and make themselves worth keeping around in a community.

At the end of the day, MeepCraft is a business. And, as you've expressed and I'm sure you already know, small children are a playerbase that really are not worth catering to; they provide very little financially other than begging parents to donate, they cause a large amount of problems for staff, and they simply seem to have difficulty following rules. Likely a more controversial point, I'd like to mention that this is a Towny server. Most of the time, small children lack patience and they do not work for things. Instead, they would prefer to simply receive things now. This is why minigame servers are still hugely popular - along with the average age of Minecraft players worldwide decreasing, minigames are becoming more and more attractive to those who do not wish to work towards a project, which is the main goal of Towny.

Lastly, thank you, Deinen. It's always nice to see your posts since they are always rational and provide a viewpoint that I think MeepCraft really could always benefit from hearing.

 

It's refreshing to see someone to take in information and then use that information to come to some sort of logical conclusion, even if it ends up being one I wouldn't agree with, which isn't a comment to your opinion.

Although I don't necessarily play on the server anymore, the ridiculous amount of hours I put in have left me with an attachment regardless and I really want to see this server succeed always. Minecraft may come and go but a well thought out developed world and playstyle can attract a playerbase that surpasses the fad of Minecraft. There are still text based RPG games out there with populations that dwarf this server and pull in tens of thousands of dollars - But they do this by recognizing they are a business and act accordingly.

I will say with the current heads of staff the pursuit for family-friendly hasn't been nearly as zealous as I've seen before, which is a good thing. There certainly is merit to trying to cater to all ages but there is a thin line between that and suppressing the entertainment which this particular style of game provides.

 

We should know the reasons someone is banned. If someone commits a crime that should be known so you can reevaluate your trust in that person.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

I don't agree that you have any need to know the details of why some random joe was banned. There is already precedent of asking staff about relevant bans if you are promoting someone to assistant or co-mayor.

 

My only question is why?

This will only make issues for the staff.