Mods and Admins: You're working too hard.

[Vykoden]

As a long-time Nerd PvE veteran user, it's easy for me (and others in my community) to see how and why the Nerd population has dropped as drastically as it has. Please consider this post merely as a constructive observation and suggestions; not as a negative criticism. There is no reason any of you should be offended by what I'm about to say.

 

In the beginning, PvE was chaotic. Players could do practically anything. The Nerd servers were attractive, because they weren't "vanilla", and "don't be a dick" was the law of the land. But, as the server grew, more "dicks" began appearing. And, instead of simply kicking or banning the players, mods and admins who were ruining the Nerd experience for others, The Nerd Collective chose to start handling every complaint diplomatically; in an attempt to retain users ... dickish or not. 

 

With that attempt to retain as many players as possible (and often more players than the server could handle) came more so-called problems. Land disputes were settled by towns and among players. The only time a mod was called in was to protect a region, to investigate griefing or to place water or lava. 

 

Since then, even more rules have been created to protect players' "rights" ... even after said players abandon their builds and the server. Creating more rules is the logical "next step" when running any community; be it in gaming or IRL. Most gaming communities overreact to what they see as ongoing problems.

But, those rules are a double-edged sword. When the average post-16-year-old player is faced with all these rules, they become less enthused about the server. Although those rules are implemented to protect the players, too many rules can deter players (see Communist Russia). 

And, with more rules comes more complaints, more violations and thus more work for the mods and admins. 

For example, take our community's issue with mrstone's birch derp house. This is an issue where the player (mrstone) still hasn't returned to their derp shack since the middle of May. Had our community simply taken it down, per the old rules, your mods and admins never would have been involved, because you never would have noticed, because mrstone never came back.

But, I chose to handle the issue "legally", and doing so caused more work for the mods and admins because of the new "user friendly" rules and policies. Soon, that tiny abandoned house became a property that was regularly monitored by mods. It became the source of discussion, debate and controversy in our community and with your staff. In all, more than three hours of mod/admin time and more than 10 hours of player time was devoted to this tiny house, in the middle of nowhere, which remains abandoned, to this day, since the middle of May.

Now, here's the kicker: YOU'RE NOT GETTING PAID. This fact is key, because the only reimbursement you are receiving for doing "your job" is the satisfaction of knowing that others are doing what you're saying ... which, although most of you are great people, is rather narcissistic.

The consensus in my community is that, if Nerd wants to to attract more and more-regular players and put itself back on the map, it has to take a serious look at all its policies, rules and procedures, because, clearly, how you are currently thinking isn't working to your benefit. Although you are mods and admins, you should be having more fun than headaches. You should be able to play, without feeling like babysitters or hall monitors. By adding more rules, you have more than doubled your workload, which will only lead to one thing: Burnout ... especially because YOU'RE NOT GETTING PAID.

Moving forward, we recommend you roll the Nerd clock back a couple years and make the following changes:

1. Allow players the freedom to do anything they want outside of griefing.
2. Any region or build that hasn't been touched within one month should be cleared for removal, so others can use the property.
3. Allow players to place running water and lava.
4. Keep "fire spread" off, so running lava doesn't cause destruction.
5. Allow city builders to reserve and protect large areas of land ahead of time ... or as soon as they spawn in and find a location.
6.  Only use moderators for griefing, region protections, "harassment issues" and land disputes.

By making these changes,:

• Players will be attracted to build large cities again.
• Players will be able to do almost anything they want without doing modreqs.
• The server will grow and be more fun again.
• And, You will cut your work, at least, in half, which will increase your fun and decrease your stress, because you're NOT getting paid to work so hard.

​

We're all here to have fun. For that to be achieved, rules must be clear, concise and minimal. We don't need events and prizes to attract players; we just need more reason to keep building, and your current policies make even that, at least, fairly undesirable for most players ... and, obviously, for most moderators and admins. (If you haven't noticed, your unpaid turnover of mods and admins is HUGE). 

Give the players what they + Moderators work less = Community is more fun and thus more attractive to new users. 

It's simple, but to see it, you, the mods and admins, have to admit that you are not always right and that your way is not automatically the best way .... because if that's what you believe, then Nerd has become nothing short of a modern-day embodiment of fascism. 

"Don't be a dick" was a great blanket policy. It demanded respect between everybody on the server. It's time we revert back to that policy, respect everyone and remember why we're all here ... (and respond reasonably when we're not here and haven't been here for several months).

Thank you for your consideration, maturity and objectivity while reading.
-Vykoden (p.nerd.nu player for six years)

Edited August 9, 2015 by Vykoden

[SkrapssparkS]

I get where you are coming from however, a lot of the rules are there to reduce staff workload, some of the restrictions really help us, for instance the flowing water/lava when used to grief causes an annoying amount of work which I believe would cause the staff to burn out quicker. We do try to look at the rules every now and then to see what we can relax/what we really do need to tighten up a bit.

[kittypuppet]

I feel like this can apply to all of nerd, not just P.

 

There's been a bit of a "heavy crackdown" on things, and it feels extremely restrictive.

Granted, most of the rules, I understand why they're there.

Edited August 9, 2015 by kittypuppet

[Guest Former Staff]

Vykoden, thank you for taking the time to pen such a thoughtful post. My first reaction while reading was to share this topic with the other admins for visibility.

 

I can see that a significant portion, if not all of your post seems to have come from your experience with a land dispute and your further thoughts. My opinion is that you have some good ideas in there and others which would increase our need for moderation.

 

The opinions of the P community and replies from the P admins are what I'd really like to see in response to your thoughts, so I'll try to keep mine as brief as I can for now.

 

In terms of your six proposals, here are my thoughts so far:

 

1. The freedom to do whatever you want outside of griefing is a bit vague for me. Might I enquire as to some of the restrictions that you're experiencing which aren't covered in your other proposals please?
2. This suggestion ties in with your experience with Mrstone's build. I certainly feel a discussion of how users who have not been online for a duration of time, the size of their build and the "distance" towards the end of a revision could be judged on a case-by-case basis with the P admins. At the moment on Survival, all land disputes are handled however the admins deem fairest, which gives us more choice on how to act.
3. With respect, I feel that allowing all to place running water and lava on the surface, is a good idea. This would decrease our moderation requirements significantly. However, on the other hand it would increase the number of time consuming grief reports that we handle. Rolling back damage from liquids can be, at times a task in itself and having people able to flood their friend's redstone build time and time again (for example), would add to the burnout that you're trying to help us address with your feedback.
4. I may have mis-interpreted this suggestion but I believed that fire spread was disabled. Would someone be able to shine light on this for me please?
5. Allowing city builders to reserve and protect large pieces of land - To my understanding, anyone can currently reserve large sections of land with the border blocks, with the number of people involved in that area taken into count. In terms of protecting however, unlike creative, I understand that P primarily protect builds and areas where a significant modification has been made by people. On this current revision of P, my build has not been protected at all and I even chose not to create borders. Despite being less than 250 blocks from spawn, I've not yet been griefed or experienced issues with expanding my builds further in the area. With that in mind, I understand this isn't always the case for people. Can anyone share an example of where having a protected region would have created a different outcome to the current method of marking out borders?
6. Since this point follows on from your other suggestions, I wanted to use this one to address your post as a whole. Thank you for constructively sparking a conversation with the aim not just to help yourself but also the community at large and even the moderating teams. While I've enjoyed reading your feedback so far, now I'm interested in subsequent responses to see how others feel.

[Vykoden]

Hi Barlimore ...

I need to make a quick initial response and then head out for a while. I will respond in more detail later. 

First, I want to thank you for your deep consideration and objectivity. It is my goal to help Nerd through these "growing pains"; not only to improve my own experience but to improve the experience of all admins, mods and users alike, with the hope of inspiring renewed growth. 

In terms of #1, it used to be that cities governed themselves, without the need for mod or admin input. We made our own rules, had our own policies, etc. And, we enforced those rules as needed. As I understand it now, with the current region permissions policy changes, it could take days and even weeks to resolve a city issue, while following the rules, if a mod or admin are included in the discussion. Cities should feel free to kick and ban residents as they deem fit, and they should be able to remove any structure within their region; providing that region protections policies go back to they way they used to be,

Concerning #5, city builders can no longer reserve large plots of land for their build. "Region protections are meant to protect the buildings, not the land." This will deter city-building communities from attempting a pre-planned build, because ... at any time, any player can build within three blocks of an unprotected structure. If an entire area could be reserved and protected under one name, at one time:

• Mods wouldn't need to be contacted to create "child" regions so much,
• fewer protection modreqs would be made,
• mods wouldn't be as busy,
• fewer land disputes would arise,
• and city builders would feel assured that no one will be able to interfere with their plans.

Making this one simple change would relieve so much work and anxiety on the server while making it more user-and-mod-friendly. 

I need to go buy coffee and food but will respond in more detail later. 

Thanks again,
-Vyko

[Sapphric]

In terms of #1, it used to be that cities governed themselves, without the need for mod or admin input. We made our own rules, had our own policies, etc. And, we enforced those rules as needed. As I understand it now, with the current region permissions policy changes, it could take days and even weeks to resolve a city issue, while following the rules, if a mod or admin are included in the discussion. Cities should feel free to kick and ban residents as they deem fit, and they should be able to remove any structure within their region; providing that region protections policies go back to they way they used to be.

 

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're talking about here. Town mayors DO run their cities as they see fit. Mods and admins don't meddle in the internal politics of the towns. I'm not sure how region permissions factor into this. Also, cities are free to remove players from their cities if they so choose, but I don't think allowing mayors to remove said players' builds at will. Then there's nothing to stop someone from kicking a player because they don't like their build and removing it "because they can". That'll only lead to more drama.

 

Also, what are these "changes to region permission policies" you're talking about? I don't think the way region perms have changed very much, if at all, since I began playing 4-5 years ago. 

 

 

Concerning #5, city builders can no longer reserve large plots of land for their build. "Region protections are meant to protect the buildings, not the land." This will deter city-building communities from attempting a pre-planned build, because ... at any time, any player can build within three blocks of an unprotected structure. If an entire area could be reserved and protected under one name, at one time: 

 

 

To my knowledge, protecting large, unbuilt sections of land has never been a thing. It's been a thing on the other servers, I know, but not on PvE because of the potential for abuse. As for your point about deterring cities from building a large pre-planned build, lack of formalized land claiming does not seem to be an issue. We've had many large builds over the revs. We also have a note in the rules about allowing other builds space. If someone were to go up to a large build and plop down a house right there, provided the large build was there first, we would ask them to move. This is not really an issue that comes up that often outside of maybe the first week or two of the rev.

 

EDIT: I will note that players are allowed to build a border and "claim" their land, but its up to them to manage any disputes that show up, because we won't protect empty land. Also, having a border will show us that they were there first if the admins have to step in to deal with the land dispute.

 

 

 

•  
• Mods wouldn't need to be contacted to create "child" regions so much,
•  
• fewer protection modreqs would be made,
•  
• mods wouldn't be as busy,
•  
• fewer land disputes would arise,
•  
• and city builders would feel assured that no one will be able to interfere with their plans.

   

 

 

I feel as if you're vastly overestimating how much work mods/admins have to do on a daily basis. Water/lava flow reqs and protection reqs do not take very long at all, and most land disputes are already handled by the players without word of them ever even reaching the staff. 

 

I appreciate your concern for our workload, but I assure you, we have plenty of time for fun. We even caution all new moderators to make sure they actually play the game instead of DO ALL THE MODREQS (though it is sometimes tempting).

[Vykoden]

Sapphric, with respect, almost everything you said in your response was contradicted by two other admins, whose names I won't mention, out of respect for them and your community. There is clearly a disagreement/ dysfunction about what all admins and mods believe to be "policy". 

Again, I will respond in more detail later.

[Sapphric]

I look forward to your reply! It sounds as though there could be some misunderstood or outdated information about our policies out there. I'll try to clear up anything that may be unclear.

[redwall_hp]

> p.nerd.nu player for six years

PvE rev 1 started in January of 2011...

We've got a time traveller here!

[Vykoden]

> p.nerd.nu player for six years

PvE rev 1 started in January of 2011...

We've got a time traveller here!

You are referring to "Rev 1" as the first map after Minecraft was a finished game title. Before that, Nerd hosted maps when Minecraft was in Beta ... long before 2011. 

This is a great example of Nerd admin group-think. It's a herd mentality. Redwall thought he would say something that would make an user look like an idiot, and another admin supported him. It's a bully mentality. 

But, touche; I know more about Nerd's history than your own admin, so the joke is on you, and to anyone who has used Nerd as long as I, Redwall and his fans are looking like total morons by now.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Vykoden

[Trooprm32]

You are referring to "Rev 1" as the first map after Minecraft was a finished game title. Before that, Nerd hosted maps when Minecraft was in Beta ... long before 2011. 

This is a great example of Nerd admin group-think. It's a herd mentality. Redwall thought he would say something that would make an user look like an idiot, and another admin supported him. It's a bully mentality. 

But, touche; I know more about Nerd's history than your own admin, so the joke is on you.

 

I think the joke he's making is that PvE itself isn't 6 years old. Survival and Creative were around quite a while longer before PvE started, so while it being impossible to have been a PvE player for 6 years, you could have been a nerd.nu player for 6 years.

 

Also kittypuppet isn't an admin? Unless you're referring to someone else.

[Vykoden]

My mistake on his fangurl. Suffice to say his supporters. 

 

Scherererer can jump in and back me up anytime on the history. We met on a Nerd PvE map in 2010, which had been around since 2009. I have friends who were literally kids, playing Nerd PvE in 2010.

This is ridiculous and extremely immature. I shouldn't feel a need to defend myself in a post that is intended to help you guys. But, to those of us, like Scherererer, who've been around since the beginning, it's nothing new to see admins using their power to trump others in otherwise productive discussions. 

Edited August 10, 2015 by Vykoden

[Mrloud15]

My mistake on his fangurl. Suffice to say his supporters. 

 

Scherererer can jump in and back me up anytime on the history. We met on a Nerd PvE map in 2010, which had been around since 2009. I have friends who were literally kids, playing Nerd PvE in 2010.

This is ridiculous and extremely immature. I shouldn't feel a need to defend myself in a post that is intended to help you guys. But, to those of us, like Scherererer, who've been around since the beginning, it's nothing new to see admins using their power to trump others in otherwise productive discussions. 

I think there is just a little confusion about the dates. p.nerd.nu has only been a server since early 2011. You are probably thinking of the time around when mcpublic became a thing, mid 2009, and the pve areas on survival which started late 2010 as pve revs.

[SwitchViewz]

You are referring to "Rev 1" as the first map after Minecraft was a finished game title. Before that, Nerd hosted maps when Minecraft was in Beta ... long before 2011. 

This is a great example of Nerd admin group-think. It's a herd mentality. Redwall thought he would say something that would make an user look like an idiot, and another admin supported him. It's a bully mentality. 

But, touche; I know more about Nerd's history than your own admin, so the joke is on you, and to anyone who has used Nerd as long as I, Redwall and his fans are looking like total morons by now.

I haven't fully caught up on this thread yet but going and calling redwall and his "fans" morons is not going to do anything productive but work against you. As soon as this turns into petty bickering or insults then it looses all legitimacy. Let's play nice, this is a game after all. 

[killmall62]

All right everyone calm down this is a discussion on how Nerds Rules and guide line can be improved not a pissing match cause some "Admins" decide to bring up a ridiculous topic about how long the server has been running while this topic is suppose to be about helping and improving not about a slap fight between not even between but against 1 guy who from the start of this is just trying to help you guys all out by making some good and some bad points about new rules and or improvements that honestly could help breathe new life into nerd.nu and make life a little more fun so how bout all of you guy stop going off on this tangent and lets get back to main topic at hand "dust off his hands" 

Edited August 10, 2015 by killmall62

[darth]

Redwall was trolling, vykoden. No comment on your reply, but when I see three posts from admins whose posts only pertain to the "jab" you snuck in and weren't otherwise constructive, I could tell you didn't get it. Chill man, it's all good.

although, I noticed no admin backing up Redwall mentioned that an admin made a "trolling" post in a serious thread with a well thought out and well-written post and caused a slight derail- c'mon.

Also if I recall, there were instances in the past where a mod or someone like that made a large land claim in a PVE rev before the revision even fully started - don't remember when that was specifically though.


What about large landclaims with a weekish long timer on them maybe? and obviously there would have to be a limit. and only during a certain time after rev start? that would give town members that can't get on immediately a saved spot for any town changes, time to build a fence around boundaries (with large, irrelevant, and empty spaces getting cut out when the time was up- ignoring fence lines if need be. it would kinda be like "we saved a seat for  ya!" except you know, instead of a seat it would be a potato store or something on the edge of town.

Edited August 10, 2015 by darth

[Silversunset01]

To get back to the original topic, let me address each of your suggestions separately

1. Allow players the freedom to do anything they want outside of griefing.

I think what you are really asking for here is a looser definition of what griefing is. According to our rules, griefing is essentially the modification of something that you did not build, without the permission of the original builder. I really don't know how to better define it that is fair to everyone involved.

2. Any region or build that hasn't been touched within one month should be cleared for removal, so others can use the property.

This is an interesting proposition, however it does come with some challenges. How do you propose the builds be removed and who will do the removing? If we leave that decision and action on players it can cause a whole host of problems, not the least being that if/when the original builder does return and modreq the removal as grief mods will see that it was removed by another player and place a warning on the remover. Safest bet would be staff intervention, but to that end: how do we decide which builds stay? Just the ones that someone doesn’t like? There are quite a few very impressive and useful builds (such as the end grinder) where the owner may or may not be available or active in the immediate area, should that be removed? There are also less-impressive builds by players who may not have the same skill as others, who decides when these stay or go? The biggest challenge I can see, if we could overcome those obstacles is the time commitment. Having builds ‘age’ and be removed is a huge challenge, time wise. This would likely take up a good chunk of playtime from staff which isn’t fair to someone in a volunteer position.

3. Allow players to place running water and lava.

I can see how this is annoying, however I think the benefits outweigh some of the annoyances. Things like water and lava grief, even accidentally, are all too easy to do. Staff could potentially be spending an enormous amount of time cleaning up leaks if something goes haywire. I know that behind the scenes this is something that does come up as a topic for potential change, and i’m sure if a better solution does become available in the future it will be implemented.

4. Keep "fire spread" off, so running lava doesn't cause destruction.

Fire spread is already off, no worries here!

5. Allow city builders to reserve and protect large areas of land ahead of time ... or as soon as they spawn in and find a location.

This also seems to be one of the main points of contention. How do you propose towns reserve land? Are you looking to have it protected with a region, or some other means? the current popular method is for a player/town to fence or wall in the area they wish to build in and then start building. most players will honor this as a claim. Rarely someone will not, and a land dispute may arise out of it if players are not able to come to an agreement on their own, and at that point an admin would be more than happy to assist in moderation. I understand the desire to know that your desired area will remain untouched until you are ready for it, however there are a few challenges to this proposal that make it difficult to implement. The most obvious being that there are often more desirable areas to build (directly outside spawn, around a portal, on a main road, etc) - what happens if someone claims all of the most desirable land for themselves. Other players i’m sure would be angry with this, as it would be unfair to them. And what happens if the town goes inactive - is there some system in place to un-claim this land? What if we can’t get in touch with the mayor of the town, and they come back and see their ‘claim’ has been used? There are so many ways that this can end badly that the easiest solution is to not have official land claims at all. The same would go for large swaths of land outside of the normal ‘desired’ area (not on a main road, far from spawn, etc). There is enough map space available that everyone should be able to find a place to build without overrunning anyone else.

6. Only use moderators for griefing, region protections, "harassment issues" and land disputes.

Harassment and land disputes really fall more into the admin responsibilities as they often time require a better understanding of current policies, but otherwise that is the moderator's job. in addition they flow water and lava, help players who are stuck, and keep an eye on general chat to make sure that no one is breaking the few chat rules we have.

My last thought is this: Rules and policies that were in place in the past may have been changed or updated to reflect current opinions on the server. There are reasons behind it, staff doesn’t just make changes because they feel like it. Everything we do is very intentionally done in the best interest of the server to provide a fair and enjoyable gaming environment for everyone who comes. When we find rules that no longer apply or are out of sync with the server culture they should be changed, and from your post it seems like some of our current policies may need to be revisited. That does not mean they will change overnight, or even into the form you think you want at this point in time. We as admins need to make sure that the rules we put in place are fair to everyone, not just a small portion of the server. But we do look at them, and we do discuss them, even if it is not apparent at the time.

We play on these servers in the same way that you do, we are subject to the same rules. The only difference is that not only do we have to play by them, but we must also enforce them fairly amongst all players. That in itself can be challenging, but I believe that we all do it as fairly as we can, to the best of our ability.

 

I look forward to your response, it may give us some guidance on policy changes that can be used to better the experience for everyone.

[Vykoden]

Okay, cutting through all the crap, here's the raw thought ....

What does it take to run a server? "We" have played PvE on Nerd since 2009 & 2010. We have also played on Yoshi's, Zimsky's, Zimdoorcraft and Junction, and we've hosted our own. There's not a whole lot that needs to go into running a decent Minecraft server that people enjoy and to which we're attracted. 

The job of the admin is simple:

1. Make sure the game is running well,
2. Make sure players are having fun,
3. Make sure mods are doing their jobs,
4. Make sure mods are not overloaded.

The job of the mod is simple:

1. Do modreqs.
2. Handle griefing.

Players should have no other reason to involve mods or admins. 

There has been recent talk about why this rev has experienced such a decline in population. Mods and admins speculate it's because this rev lasted so long. But, players agree that interest in Nerd has dropped off so drastically only because of their constant need to involve mods and admins in their experience because of all the reasons they (we) need to do modreqs and all the ways we don't have control of our cities.

It doesn't need to be this way, and this is why I'm saying you're working too hard. To continue operating under your current assumptions is both self-defeating and inefficient.

It used to be that Spawn had a simple rule board; maybe 10 signs total, all on the same board; much like cities often have. Today, all of Spawn is one giant tour of rules and explanations, and we even get our very own "rule book", which is fairly useless. That, in itself, requires too much work and instantly makes players think to themselves, "That's an awful lot of rules."

I think we can all agree that fewer rules = more fun. And, with that sense comes player responsibility; which is why "Don't be a dick" is/was so effective. Until all these "new" rules came about (within the last three years), we governed ourselves, and we did a pretty good job with it, too.

Our limited experience with the current map is exemplary of the inspiration supporting my concerns. My community returned to Nerd roughly (2 or 3 months ago?). We were accustomed to the old way of protecting areas of land for future building projects and were quickly informed that we couldn't do that anymore; that protections are for buildings and not for reserving land.

However, when we lose the ability to protect land for future builds, cities attract other players, who might not want to be part of the community but only want neighbors and to have a nice sidewalk, which the city builders already created. Currently, our community has three such builders on land we wanted to use for something else, but we couldn't protect it, because we can no longer protect undeveloped land.

 

We even have one guy, who we deterred, but who already started a build in part of our town. But, because we didn't place his blocks, under the current rules, we can't remove them without doing modreqs and negotiating with the admins, which causes less fun for us and more work for you ... and it's all soooooo unnecessary.

 

While refusing to protect undeveloped land is new-user friendly, as described in the preceding paragraph, it creates a whole new mountain of problems with which the mods are forced to deal. We don't want non-active neighbors building in our town, but we cannot prevent them from doing so under the current rules ... which makes town building REALLY unattractive. So, anyone who wants to build a city in multiplayer Minecraft may be deterred from Nerd, because they cannot be guaranteed that they will be able to build their city the way they want.

For example, under the current region protection policies, in the next map, if we want to be sure not to have unwanted neighbors, our community will be forced to build super fast; possibly even including tons of materials in temporary derp structures just so we can get that area protected under our region for our future projects ... and that's a giant, unneeded pain in the ass for us.

So, although the rule is "player friendly" it is also not fun. And, when we build our city, because of your current rules, your mods will be extremely busy fulfilling all our modreqs for regions, child regions, flowing water, etc.,

And, that's just one city. Imagine a map with 10 towns, who all have to build and get protections under the same system. That's a ton of modreqs all caused by the fact that towns no longer have the ability to reserve and protect undeveloped land ... and that doesn't make any sense whatsoever, when you're trying to run a good, efficient and attractive multiplayer Minecraft server. 

If a build is abandoned (1 month with no progress), or if it's just not wanted in a town, no one should have a problem with the townspeople removing the structure. We did it this way for, at least, three years, and it worked great for everyone. The only people who complained were those few who were either complete dicks or who weren't mature enough to effectively communicate their thoughts with the town's leaders. 

Finally, a word about the development of your current rules and policies ....

The majority of your new rules was not developed out of player-player concerns but out of plaver-mod concerns. When the Nerd-to-Junction exodus occurred, it was because new admins, who the player-base knew to be self-righteous and corrupt, took over Nerd and began implementing new, much-unneeded rules. The "new regime" micromanaged Nerd's players, and the result was absolutely awful .... awful enough to make players, mods and even a couple admins flat-out leave Nerd all at once. 

So, your "new" rules didn't come from players; they came from the mistakes your preceding admins made. I am hoping you choose to break that cycle and end that erroneous "us vs. them" position. 

As for the lava, water and stuff, all that can wait. Right now, let's focus on regions and allowing cities to reserve land for big builds and govern themselves. If you allow us, the players, to reserve and protect large areas of land for cities, and if you allow each city to free govern itself, without the need for mod input, your workloads will be reduced, and your server will attract more players who want to be involved in bigger, more-enjoyable builds with more-rewarding social experiences ... 

... and that's what multiplayer Minecraft has always been about.

Your predecessors just forgot that along the way.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Vykoden

[SpiderMan]

I think this has gotten pretty ridiculous considering the structure in question is pretty much the definition of derp (image attached below). Hint: It's built out of the block you punch to start the game. Total of 81 Birch Wood Planks (About 21 Birch Logs of effort)

 

It's also pretty ridiculous that in order to reduce drama, the admins have decided to prevent the removal of the derpy structure in order to protect the holy sanctity of structures and the rule of laws on a server which averages this many players. With threats of long bans, too.

 

I'm pretty sure mrstone isn't coming back and gonna make a big deal out of the removal of his multi block palace. Based on the amount of effort they put, I don't think he's the type that makes mountains - In this case, Mount Everest -  out of molehills.

 

The "community" has become a parody of itself.

 

So how do we move past this and make this place an environment that is more receptive for keeping players?

 

The community has been shrinking for a long time and stuff like this does not help, at all.

 

Stuff like this is the reason /r/minecraft mods do not like this network and make sure to not recommend when mentioned.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2015 by gsand

[phillippassmore]

Hey guys, 

 

Thanks to Vykoden for his interesting posts in this topic. I have to agree with him that there are some issues with the rules that worry me. I am also part of the same old group as Vykoden. 

 

As a group our plans for the next rev should avoid the issues we have seen with abandoned builds. Our plans for the next rev will be shared here closer to the new rev, but a large noob friendly town is being one aspect planned (hopefully called New Cobble after the Rev 2 town called Cobble, but we still need to agree on a name). 

 

However, one aspect that worries me is the land claiming for towns. Now we have a history of building large towns. One of our next builds will include huge amounts of land clearing, but we have been told this is not enough to get a region protection. We do not intend to build until the area is clear [150 by 150]. So our concern is a random player will move into an area we have cleared and set up. Considering the frustration experienced by others in my group at the situation of a small wooden house. Our concern is this could potentially waste huge amounts of time and create unnecessary drama. 

 

As a group we have come up with build plans to mostly avoid drama and to work within the current rules, but perhaps temporary regions could be set up in cleared areas. This would go a long way of encouraging large group builds. 

 

I also agree the MrStone hut drama went rather nuts. The response to build a giant rainbow wall around the area we agreed to not touch was entertaining and provided a nice project for some of the group. I personally like Kroax's solution of simply modifying the outside to make it look great, but this was considered griefing and Kroax recieved a bunch of warnings. I think this entire situation could have been handled better and I know Vykoden had a productive meeting with some of the PVE admins in mumble which did help resolve a lot of the tension. 

[Vykoden]

Yes, Phillip and gsand, the mrstone derp hut issue was grossly over-modded and is a partial motive of my concern in this post.

For all who don't know the story, here it is ....

When we began building our small town in June 2015, we noticed a small birch hut that appeared abandoned. After a couple weeks of not seeing the owner, "mrstone", we followed the old rules, which included:

1. Placing a sign outside the front door, notifying the owner of our intention to remove the structure within 48 hours, if we didn't hear from them.
2. Doing a modreq for permission to remove the structure after 48 hours had passed without any sign of the owner.

Our community has done this NUMEROUS times with no problems, and Schererer will support that claim. In past maps, we have also incorporated nearby builds to gain friends, built nearby residents new structures, and we have even paid people with valuable materials to compensate them for the inconvenience. We would have done exactly the same for mrstone, had he returned to the server. 

But, mrstone never returned. However, because we didn't place his unprotected blocks, under the new rules we were prevented from razing his shack. This might not sound like a big deal, but consider all the time and effort that went into the issue:

1. My initial modreq to remove the structure.
2. My communication with mods.
3. Other community members' discussions with mods.
4. Community members' discussions with admins.
5. Mods told to check on the mrstone property often to make sure we're not griefing it.
6. My e-mails with admins.
7. Tons of screenshots and hours of diplomacy.
8. One final three-way discussion between myself and two admins.

Eventually, an admin told us we could build within four blocks of mrstone's hut, but we couldn't touch it or put anything over it (or under it)? So, we built the "mrstone and Nerd Pride Tower" around it... not only to cover the abandoned derp house with pleasant colors but also to make a historical marker out it ...

because mrstone never returned to the map. In fact, he hasn't logged in since the middle of May 2015. His hut has been abandoned for three entire months, and, under the current rules, we still can't have it removed.

It's another real-life example of how you're working too hard ... all to protect a derp shack that was built by a random player three months ago. I don't care how you spin it; it doesn't make any sense.

 

Edited August 10, 2015 by Vykoden

[Sapphric]

The rules aren't in place arbitrarily, or to deliberately inconvenience people who want to build towns. They are there to protect everyone who plays on our server, whether they're part of a large town or building by themselves in the wilderness.

 

The reason we don't let players remove unwanted or abandoned builds is because it is simply grief. If the situation was reversed, and someone destroyed your house because it was "in their way," you'd be angry as hell and would immediately modreq it for grief (and you'd be right). So if you want a build removed, make a modreq and we'll look into removing it for you.

 

It's very straightforward: you cannot edit someone else's build without their permission. I don't care if it's "derp" or not; one man's derp is another man's dream home. Everyone has a right to not have their build destroyed by other people, simply because they don't like it. I've been very firm and consistent on this point since I became an admin. I can't speak to what the policies were back in the days when you played here, but this has been the policy for at least two years before I joined staff,  let alone became an admin. It doesn't matter what the policy was then, this is what it is now, and that's what we're going to enforce.

 

I'm also not quite sure why you decided to post a complaint about our long-standing policies under the guise of caring for our "enormous" workload. Everything you've said thus far in this thread seems much more about reducing work for yourself, than for the mods. You don't want to have to deal with the "tedious" process of placing a modreq and waiting. You don't want to have to build something to get an area protected, because then mods would have to make the region. You don't want to have to wait for water to be flowed because "oh no, the mods will have to fulfill my modreq now, despite it taking literally ten seconds." If our workload was a problem, we would take steps to reduce it. But changing the rules because they're inconvenient for you isn't how we would do it.

 

To respond to phillippassmore about land claiming, as I wrote above, we don't protect empty land. Regions are put in place on builds to prevent grief, but building on empty land isn't grief. This is why we only protect builds.

 

But if you want to claim land, go ahead and do it: place a block border and signs. Bam, it's claimed. But we're not responsible for keeping the claim for you. It's up to the players who place the border to deal with any disputes that arise in areas they haven't built in yet. Unbuilt land is fair game, but a border and signs in almost all cases will prevent people from building there. And if someone does build in an area you've marked off, talking to the builder is usually more than enough. You can always elevate the issue to an admin, who will be more than happy to handle land dispute issues, if other attempts have failed. We do generally take borders and such into account when dealing with land disputes.

[Vykoden]

Sapphric, with all due respect, by posting this super long, detailed defense of Nerd policies, you have proven all my points. 

"You can always elevate the issue to an admin ... " Done that ... with three admins. It did no good. 

Listen to yourself. Essentially, you're saying, "If you want this, do a modreq. If the modreq doesn't satisfy your needs, elevate it with an admin."

If Nerd was operated like it was three years ago, those steps wouldn't be required, which, literally means "You're working too hard."

There was no guise. Personally, I don't care how much you guys want to work for no pay. My goal was to appeal to your presumed common sense, which should dictate "Why would I want to require all these things and enforce them without reimbursement for my troubles?" 

Simplify the rules, give players what they want, and you will automatically work less. Since you're not making a dime on any of this, that should be appealing to you. The fact that it does not appeal to you is completely irrational and baffling. 

You're actually spending time arguing about the fact that you're working for no pay, and you have no desire to reduce the amount of work you need to do for no pay. LOL. In what world does this make any sense whatsoever? 

[Sapphric]

I typed all that out to clear up the confusion you seem to have about our policies. I'm not sure what else I can say, since you seem determined to ignore my and Silver's points. We've explained multiple times now why the policies are the way they are, and you keep ignoring it, saying "if things were done they way they used to be..." Guess what? That's not how we do it anymore, and I have yet to see any convincing argument as to why that should change.

I don't work a lot, seriously nothing you've implied is a lot of work. And in the cases where it is a bit of work, I'm okay with it because I enjoy it. I like helping people and running this server. If I didn't like doing work I never would have accepted the invitation to become an admin in the first place. I don't know why you keep insisting that I want or care if my (already small) workload is reduced.

The problem I have with "giving the players what they want" is two-fold. One, you and your friends are the only ones who have asked for this, which leads me to think you have your own interests at heart and that any concern for the community is merely a way to get us to agree with you. Secondly, giving "the players" what "they" want is not always a good thing when what "they" supposedly want is going to likely erode the experience for other players.

[SpiderMan]

The rules aren't in place arbitrarily, or to deliberately inconvenience people who want to build towns. They are there to protect everyone who plays on our server, whether they're part of a large town or building by themselves in the wilderness.

 

I don't think mrstone is coming back, man. It's been Three months already. I don't think he cares about his magnum opus of derp build being protected on a server he has decided not to return to 3 months ago. I'm pretty sure he's not coming back his a 81 birch block masterpiece.

 

The problem I have with "giving the players what they want" is two-fold. One, you and your friends are the only ones who have asked for this, which leads me to think you have your own interests at heart and that any concern for the community is merely a way to get us to agree with you.

 

Him and his friends have asked for it because it's currently ONLY affecting him and his town mates. That is pretty much the point of the request. He's complaining because of the time that has been spent dealing with this whole thing and that the mods and admins have had very long discussions (according to silver) regarding the 81 block derp shack adjacent to the town. That is pretty much the point of this forum discussion if not 100% of it.

 

 

Secondly, giving "the players" what "they" want is not always a good thing when what "they" supposedly want is going to likely erode the experience for other players.

 

In this case, the experience of other players isn't being erroded because nobody else has been affected by it as of this moment.

 

Giving players what they want, if it's a reasonable request, is one method of keeping players.

Edited August 10, 2015 by gsand