Enjoy that brewery. You deserve it for a very well put post. Thank you.

I agree that both members and staff need to be patient and understanding if any change is to occur.

Neither parties should take offense, rather we all should take on an objective perspective and see the plus + side to this open discussion.

No server is perfect.

No person is "perfect"

Every individual is different thus issuing consistent punishments can be difficult.

As best as I've garnered from the comments here, there are concerns about the consistency of punishment vs. offenses, as well as how rigorously rules are enforced. You, the community, want something that can be used to hold the staff accountable and make sure that we are abiding by the rules and not overstepping the authority granted to us, in a way, by yourselves when applying those rules to the community. I don't think any of the staff is naive enough to think that Minetown exists without the community-- the community here *IS* Minetown. Regardless of who is staff or how staff is selected, there must be trust between the staff and the community, and part of that trust is knowing what the rules will be, and how they will be handled when broken.

Right now, you don't have that. It's understandable that there are areas where the trust between staff and community is lacking. This thread has brought this to light. The recent issue between DeathSnipa and Revel21 brought some of this to light. In that case, I think you guys got what you ultimately needed-- a way to keep the checks and balances in place, something that you can point at, can read and verify that the staff is doing its job correctly.

Are there still areas where the community has no checks and balances over the staff? Yes. We're trying to help identify these so that we can get the unwritten rules written down; While those new to the staff all but religiously get second and third opinions from more senior staff regarding rules and situations, including bans, the fact that such tends to happen behind closed doors does not help with trust. What we're trying to do is provide you with more ways to verify the decisions being made-- even if an individual doesn't necessarily agree with a particular decision, we want them to be able to understand how the staff reached that decision, and be able to offer input and feedback if they feel the process used is incorrect.

We're discussing the severity of punishments and how they should be applied to situations in hopes that we can provide the community with a reference on how we intend to apply the rules of Minetown and punishments for when they are broken. There will always be special situations; some trust and faith in the staff will be necessary. But hopefully by giving something with which the community can double-check how they are being governed, such trust will be given, and not taken.

Out of my own observation, I have seen a few inconsistent unbanning and bannings...that have sort of irked me a little.

For Example

1 person will be caught griefing or stealing out of a chest.

Excuse: Oh sorry didnt know it was wrong? (LOL REALLY?)

Response: Okay, well, Read the rules, Temp banned/Bann Removed.../Locked Thread

And then Another pesron who would do the same exact thing and use the same lame excuse...

Response: Sorry, you read the rules, you checked the box stating you did, not unbanning, Permabanned..

This irks me for a few reasons And I will Explain...

Reason 1) Is for the showing of inconsistancy...Yes Different Mods have Different Judgements..But that is where I have the problem.. Becuase of Mods having different judgements..Some idiots get off scott free and others not so much..

There Should be 1 judgment that fits each crime. You Hack/Exploit/Steal/Grief Your gone, no need for that type of person on this server..And for them to say they didnt know it was wrong, Or oh the house looked abandoned..Proves to me they did not infact read the rules, and only checed the box to hurry up the process..And shows to me that Again we dont need those type of people on the server...

How can you not know Stealing/Hacking/Griefing/Expliting is not wrong? And if you trully dont know its wrong, then again, we dont need those type of people on the server...

Reason 2) Wheter you are trying to or not, in alot of other peoples eyes, it can show and is showing favortism onto other members And Ill Explain.

What is happening is, Even tho different mods/admins have different ways of dealing with a punishment, Staff are looked at as 1 united front...So 1 action that is done buy 1 staff member is usually looked at as if th staff as a whole made that decision. (is this right to do, No but it happens) Which is why again, I belive 1 punishment to fit the crime is a +.

Another Reason people may feel favortism towards others bans/unbans is because we leave it up to one person to make the judgement, and then the rest sorta just go with it...So yes, you cansay, we all decided, but thetruth is it was the person who did the ban who came up with judgement in a sense..

Now I am not saying ban somone with no chance of a pardon for breaking 1 glass pane or one glowstone by accident..(THIS WE ALL KNNOW DOES HAPPEN).

But if somone puts in a //pe for griefing and that eprson griefed 5 blocks on the side of a house, or took something out of a chest.. Perma banned their ass!...Sure they have a right to a ban appeal..But I'm a STRONG beliver in...

You dun it once, youll dun it again... (Sorry Was getting to serious had to say something funny <object class="emojione" data="https://resources.enjin.com/1489581540/themes/core/images/emojione/svg/2639.svg?0" type="image/svg+xml" standby=":(">:(</object> )

So yes, I would like to see a Set Punishment System For things done.

/end of ranting and not making any sense.

After reading through this thread and looking at what everyone has said I just feel like saying one thing.

One of the common defenses is that "we don't know what goes on behind closed doors" as a general public. This is indeed very true. We don't know if J0hnD0e (hope that's not a real username, just using it as a made up one) was mean outside of the places we can see and monitor ourselves. Sure, he could be the biggest cyberbully around and we might not even know it.

But the same uneasy feeling you're trying to point out towards a player could be felt about a moderator. We can't see what goes on outside of the channels we can monitor.

Everyone is saying we should trust a moderator because they're "supposed" to be just and good. Now please, I am not trying to pick on moderators, you've been nothing but helpful to me and I respect everyone I've run into (so far at least, none of you had rubbed me the wrong way) but just the fact that you can say 'supposed' to be fair and reasonable is what causes my doubts.

I'm not saying that something needs to be done -now- or that anything really can be done in the next few weeks, months or even years. I'm not expecting a moderator to suddenly give up having a life at all and toil away on the computer trying to become the Superman of Minetown. I'm just voicing my concerns in hopes to improve minetown which I believe is what started this whole thread to begin with.

I believe that a somewhat visible set of "if you do -this- then -that-" will happen would be a comfort. Seeing these guidelines followed would better allow us to blindly trust decisions that might not rub us the right way otherwise. Yes, there will be cases that go against the grain, or could be seen as harsh or lack in punishment but if we see that moderators are keeping things black and white it would make it easier for us to say "Sorry pal, you knew what would happen when you did what you did and you knew it could result in the punishment you received." It would provide the masses a safety blanket without making us privy to every foul world or action someone has committed.

Since everyone's pinning everything on me these days, another blame probably wont hurt because it seems i now have no reputation whatsoever as a good person.

So go ahead and blame this on me. I agree I am a butthurt little twelve year old.

BUT- If I was the only one at fault, wouldnt the mods say "Grow the cod up" instead of answering my messages with "That's terrible ill handle it asap"?

So again go rant on me all you want. But if the mods decide to help me and punish you, it's THEIR decision. Im not being the law enforcer here. If I was, i'd be a mod myself.

Ok poke. Youve done enough and what this has become isnt involving just you. Your doing exactly what you were doing before and taking it and making it about you. THis has become a bigger issue than you. You should know you are no innocent party in this matter anyways and should not make it out to be so.

This thread isnt to make attacks against you Pokemon, its about how the punishments for rule breaks have been too inconsistent. Your case is just being used as one of the biggest examples because everyone thats has done what you did has been permabanned. Again, I dont think anyone here is trying to rant on you about it.

They arnt but as she even stated she is disgruntled. If i wanted to start a flame thread on you i could have. Would have gone hot in 2 mins then locked. Waste of my time. Im trying, as are other players to get to a deeper issue.

My Opinion: Yes, punishments have been extremely inconsistent lately. However, that is not to say that they are too harsh; I think the staff simply needs to rewrite a more standard punishment system, regardless of how "harsh" they may be.

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