barneygale Posted August 5, 2014 Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 Made a modreq with undeniable evidence of a staff member using a banned client hack yesterday. He still isn't banned, so I'm making this post so everyone has a little background. -- After initially being a "risky choice" (in the words of a then-survival admin) for being a moderator, he was added because of the chronic shortage of mods at the time, over 2 years ago. Within days he was caught rifling through hundreds of chests belonging to a clan. When asked what he was doing, he replied "I'm bored". His moderator powers were temporarily removed. Days later he was caught xraying on the first day of a survival revision, using hacks for serious material gain by becoming the first player with full diamond gear. He voluntarily resigned as moderator (something he is keen to point out) but if he hadn't, he would certainly have been demodded for hacking and various minor abuse of his powers. Less than a week later he had created a huge lava moat by spawn, to cause FPS lag for new joiners. His request was initially denied by an admin, but he asked around until he found a mod willing to do it. Other mods reported griefing on the same day. The next day, a moderator asked in IRC: "so what are the qualities we're looking for in mods, exactly?". The answer came from a head admin: "the primary focus nowadays is non-cheating, sadly.. X damaged our trust". 10 days later a note is added to his account for combat logging. This player spent the next 6 months trolling on mumble (to the extent where even Warwick thought he was trolling too hard) and accumulating dozens of nearly-rule breaking infractions. Mercifully he began to play less and less on survival. Eventually he decided to squeeze MCPublic one last time by logging in and advertising his rival server to everyone online via PMs. For this, he was banned. -- Imagine my shock when I heard he had become moderator again. In all the time I'd known him on survival he was never good mod quality, and after he resigned in disgrace his behaviour became as bad as any of our "trouble players". "Unbelievable," I thought, "that he could come back and have such a positive impact that he was nominated for mod again. What a turnaround! He must have dedicated months to showing how much of a changed player he is!". So I went looking for his nomination thread... ... and I couldn't find it. And then I heard that it was *never voted on*. It was never even announced! Apparently, he just asked for his mod powers back.. and they were given to him! Why? Because he was mod for about 2 weeks in 2011. Does it matter that he spent most of that time abusing his powers, hacking and being a complete pain to staff and players? Apparently not! Once a mod, always a mod! Who cares why you left?! -- And then, in a turn of events that surprised ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE who knew him before he got his mod powers back, he recently (few days ago) inadvertently revealed he was using a client hack. This mod is *specifically listed* on the disallowed client mods page, and it has been on there for a long time now. This hack has a known flaw which makes it easy to accidentally show that you're using it, but *most hacks don't*. Given this user's history of unfair play I have *zero* confidence that this is the only hack he's using. *At the very least* his mod powers should be temporarily removed while this issue is looked into. Yet it hasn't happened. If I proved to everyone that I was using a hack, would I be given 24hr of free play while the admins kick the issue around? I'd be banned in a fucking instant. Please hold your staff members to the same standard you hold us players. Cheers 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barneygale Posted August 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 (edited) Apparently this has been resolved by giving the mod in question permission to use the (previously banned) mod. I will update the wiki page to reflect this retroactive permission. edit: apparently it's only editable by staff. Edited August 5, 2014 by barneygale 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diznatch52 Posted August 5, 2014 Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 Still makes one wonder why he would be brought back in the first place. It's not like S has any need for mods at the moment. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Four_Down Posted August 5, 2014 Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 Question for an SAdmin: Does that mean that players are okay to use Macro and Keybind mod too, providing they ask for permission? As Barney said, you guys may want to take a look at the wiki page and make any necessary updates to avoid confusion like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barneygale Posted August 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 I can understand the confusion. Currently the wiki says: Any client mod on the NOT APPROVED list may NOT be used on the server, period.Which in my opinion is incredibly vague and open to interpretation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diznatch52 Posted August 5, 2014 Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 I can understand the confusion. Currently the wiki says: Any client mod on the NOT APPROVED list may NOT be used on the server, period.Which in my opinion is incredibly vague and open to interpretation. To be fair, Loud recently told me that updating that list has been on his list of things to do for a while. The Sadmins do know that it needs updating, but perhaps it needs to be a higher priority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barneygale Posted August 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 I don't care if the admins are slow to update the list provided they don't start grant exceptions to individual players in the meantime. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jllmprrt Posted August 5, 2014 Report Share Posted August 5, 2014 (edited) I don't care if the admins are slow to update the list provided they don't start grant exceptions to individual players in the meantime.This is a good point. Isn't one of our key values that no one is really at an advantage over anyone else? I've pointed this out before but mods/admins really only have powers for modreqs and other business that a normal player would not be trusted with. e.g. They don't get special blocks and the player with the most hours doesn't spawn in with diamonds the next rev, and so on.Edit: accidentally downvoted the post Edited August 5, 2014 by jllmprrt 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrloud15 Posted August 6, 2014 Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 Apparently this has been resolved by giving the mod in question permission to use the (previously banned) mod. I will update the wiki page to reflect this retroactive permission. edit: apparently it's only editable by staff. Question for an SAdmin: Does that mean that players are okay to use Macro and Keybind mod too, providing they ask for permission? As Barney said, you guys may want to take a look at the wiki page and make any necessary updates to avoid confusion like this. I have always been told that using a macro mod is allowed on S only for moderating purposes. For example, having /modmode, /vanish, etc. bound to a key. If a mod was using it for something other than moderating, proper actions would be taken which is what happened when several players brought the screenshot in your modreq to my attention about a week ago. The staff member was told that using the mod for anything other than moderating purposes was not allowed. This is the same thing that we would have done for any other player. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djt832 Posted August 6, 2014 Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 I'm not sure how well we look into a players past when they ask for their mod powers back, but maybe it would be worth having a discussion thread about in the future. We cant expect anyone to know or remember what may have happened to cause the player to resign from moderating in the first place. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barneygale Posted August 6, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 We can't? Because literally dozens of people knew about it, many of whom are still easily contactable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djt832 Posted August 6, 2014 Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 We can't? Because literally dozens of people knew about it, many of whom are still easily contactable. I guess I wasn't clear. I would like to see discussion about players before they are given their mod powers back, due to the fact that whoever decides to give them back may not know or look into the history of that player. If we open it up to all of the staff members, we would be able to get better feedback on the person. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barneygale Posted August 6, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 I misunderstood, sorry! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dex4002 Posted August 6, 2014 Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 Even though I never went on S, and left the servers, I wouldn't want this guy with mod powers. I agree with you 100% Barneygale, and hopefully this issue will be dealt with soon. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malvagio87 Posted August 6, 2014 Report Share Posted August 6, 2014 https://nerd.nu/forums/index.php?/topic/2407-malvagio87s-side-of-the-story/ For anyone that cares to see what i have to say. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyotie911 Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 These accusations are being looked into. Closing this thread, as there is only drama to be had by continued comments. Thank you Barney for bringing this to our attention and we will investigate this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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