Concerns with staff regarding rules.

Discussion in 'Reports' started by sStari, Oct 25, 2020.

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  1. Hi, I would like to talk about some things I recently have noticed about how rules are enforced and where they are enforced. In this report I will cover:
    Rules being enforced outside of Safe Survival and its discord
    Unwritten rules
    "Rules should've been enforced earlier"
    Staff Inconsistencies
    Ignorance

    First of all I would like to say that I, and nobody else are not attacking the staff team nor attacking any specific staff members. This is purely my take on the problems I have noticed in recent times, all of which I, and many others have experienced in one way or another. Please do not send hate to anyone involved too.

    Rules being enforced outside of Safe Survival and its discord.

    I was recently banned from the server for advertising a server IP in my own discord server. I was banned for a month, but the ban was reduced to two weeks. The reason I was banned was because I had posted a server IP into my own discord server of around seven people without any previous warnings, mutes, or bans. The only past evidence the staff team had against me was a single warn from over a year ago, which was completely unrelated to the ban situation. The reason I found this ban so unfair was because of how rules were being enforced outside of safe's discord server without being mentioned anywhere in the rules that this could happen. This is just unacceptable. This rule can also be abused by reporting someone who said an IP in a safe related server, even though that discord server's rules have no rules against advertising or are very lenient to mentioning other servers.
    Many people have also been told to change their discord statuses because it doesn't fit within Safe's rules.

    Unwritten rules
    I have noticed that there are many unwritten rules on Safe. One example of an unwritten rule is that "You cannot make safe-related discord servers outside of Safe Survival". This means that every discord server for malls, group chats, towns, etc. is not allowed and if servers like this are found to exist, they are technically breaking the rules. I have gone through this with Shaz in DMs and he can confirm this, yet this is still not mentioned in the rules, anywhere. Also, if it has always been a rule then why isn't it mentioned in the rules list at all? I would also like to say multiple staff, including Shaz is in these other discord servers, so he's technically breaking his own rules.

    "Rules should've been enforced earlier"
    I was recently warned for "Please leave 10 minutes between adverts". The reason why I was warned is because I was advertising my Mushroom Warp Spleef event, which I was getting really close to starting. The problem with this warn is that I was warned for something that I had done tens of times in the past, with no punishment. And staff can argue that I'm able to announce prizes and things like that, but I had done advertisements like this one in the past and not been warned for it, therefore I didn't know any better. I was never given a verbal warn for this at all, and it was also based off a warn I had again, recieved over a year ago for something completely unrelated.
    Another example of this happening is with other Safe-related discord servers and how they're supposed to not be allowed. I was talking to Shaz about this and he said "This is why we're disallowing advertising other discords even more-so now, so we don't run into this." and "Ik, if I could go back I would've stopped invites to there too. " If he didn't want to run into the problem in the first place, the unwritten rule should've been enforced earlier. I'd also like to say this rule that Shaz says is not allowed has still not been enforced anywhere other than my discord server. This is extremely unfair.

    Staff Inconsistencies
    I have noticed that staff can be quite inconsistent when discussing certain topics, like punishments and server issues, for example, if I asked a question to different staff members, I could get different answers from different staff members. Also, due to this inconsistency, mod hopping, which is the act of having staff give differing opinions on something, is very common and is only a rule because staff will not fix their inconsistent answers towards people. Innocent players have been punished for this in the past, which basically means that staff are in the wrong for making a rule to prevent them having to self correct all the time.
    I believe this can also affect punishments depending on which staff members are online at the time. An example of this is my recent warn for advertisements, in which I was warned by one of the newer staff members for something I had never been warned for in the past.

    Ignorance
    It is very well known that some staff, but most importantly the owner can ignore certain things at times. In the two times I have had discussions with Shaz, he has ignored me every time I have given him a good suggestion, for example:

    Regarding the discord server rule, I said

    "so what would the alternative for things like my own discord be, if SS discords can't be made for better communication?
    why don't you just let these discord servers exist and go by their own rules?"
    He ignored me.

    Regarding the "Rules should've been enforced earlier" excuse.
    "if you're going to enforce stuff whenever possible, then why wasn't i warned the 50 other times i did it, where the majority of the time mods were online anyway. honestly there are some inconsistencies with how different staff can treat the same people."
    He once again ignored me.

    Here is evidence of Shaz completely ignoring an error which got Riley banned from Safe's discord instead of being muted. There was no response after this message. Riley had to go in game and get attention of the staff, who also ignored his problem and instead told him to change the topic, not bothering to help or dm him at all. I'd also like to point out that the blurred part of the image was completely unrelated and justified on the staff team's end.
    [​IMG]

    Shaz may be a busy person, but it doesn't justify the fact that he intentionally ignores people when he doesn't want to answer the question. If he wants to keep people on his server, he needs to listen to other people, otherwise people will not enjoy the server anymore and/or quit. I'd also like to say the responses he makes are usually not full responses and are usually something along the lines of "hey lemme check with other staff rq", and then never replies back, unless prompted to.

    Conclusion
    These have been problems of which many people have encountered atleast once in the past. I hope this is addressed appropriately, as these are problems that either need to be improved upon or fixed. Many of these problems have pushed me and other players to the brink of quitting. I hope this is read carefully as I don't want anything to be missed.

    Thanks for reading,
    -sstari
     
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  2. jinnie

    jinnie Veteran

    I agree,, I think a lot of it is also lack of communication between players and staff. Yes, there's things that shouldn't be shared from staff but I believe we deserve a bit of leeway and communication before being given 'unfair' warns, unclear statements and not fully formed answers. I'd rather it take more time than get multiple different answers and getting in trouble for that.

    i'd like to mention that this does all boil down to a minecraft and ppl trying to enjoy their spare time but there was things that needed to be mentioned.
    thanks
     
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    • Agree Agree x 2
  3. Shazepe

    Shazepe Admin Admin

    Rules are enforced as efficiently as possible, as I've said before in another discord (and I know you've seen this before) staff are not perfect or expected to be. You were banned for advertising, because you broke the advertising rule. You were warned for breaking the in game announcements/repeated messages part of the rule too.

    Rues being enforced outside of Safe Survival and its discord:
    This ban was for inviting SS members to your own discord and then giving them an IP to another server, classic advertising. Safe Survival is not for recruiting/poaching players for other servers. You've seen other players get banned for this.


    Unwritten Rules
    The rules do include discord inviting, please check. Again, our intention with the advertising rule is that we don't want players recruiting SS players for their own / other servers.


    Rules should've been enforced earlier
    Again, staff aren't perfect and they probably didn't see it before. You received a warn for breaking the rule and it doesn't matter if it wasn't enforced earlier. If we saw it earlier, you would've been warned then. It doesn't mean we're never going to enforce the rules or give everyone a pass.


    Staff inconsistencies
    Covered this already, staff are volunteers and are not perfect. We discuses rules when something important arises to make the best judgement. Not every case is the same, and we are fair for each one. We have no consistency problems, and there's no proof there is. If anyone has thoughts and facts on why they think staff are inconsistent please post.


    As for Riley, I do get a lot of messages and do not reply each time. DMing me on discord does not guarantee a reply, I try to answer as much as I can. This is just 1 message, and missing 1 message is not a problem. There is also the discord helpop, and forums to post on. I did not intend to ignore him, and that message is not relevant to you. The reason I stopped replying to you because I explained everything I could already, and you don't stop trying to argue.

    "If he wants to keep people on his server, he needs to listen to other people, otherwise people will not enjoy the server anymore and/or quit."

    The large majority of players follow the rules and don't have these problems. A lot of players get warns, learn the rule, and get past it right away. Warns are not bans or any serious consequence, they are to help players learn rules and give them chances before being banned.
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  4. Hi, while I do agree with a lot of your points you made, you seem to have either not gone fully in-depth with some of your points or not even addressed them at all.

    I'd like to say that again, the seven players who were in my discord at the time had applied and asked to join this discord, but I guess that isn't very relevant anymore as I am currently unbanned.

    The rules do say this, but this rule has never really been enforced and you and many other staff members are in these other discord servers, along with hundreds of other players.

    Regarding the warn I was given, the 10 minute advertising rule does state that "In-game trade advertisements must be limited to once every 10 minutes. Attempting to bypass the 10 mins by having multiple players advertise a single establishment is not allowed." Spleef is most definitely not a trade advertisement. We have gone through this on discord and you said yourself, "I'm not sure why they changed it to "trade" ads but 10 minutes counts for these advertisements too" although this has been the rule for a while now, so I do not know why you are only aware of it now.

    If there is no proof, then why is there a rule that disallows the act of "Mod hopping", which I mentioned in my first post.

    I have had reports from more than one player to show you have been ignorant to many people in the past. The most widely known problem with you and the staff is usually a great lack of communication from staff to players.

    I'd also like to mention one of my points you haven't seemed to address here.
    You haven't addressed "Mod Hopping" at all, which is a pretty important thing to discuss when discussing staff inconsistency.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2020
  5. Shazepe

    Shazepe Admin Admin

    It doesn't matter why you invited them, you invited SS players to your discord and advertised another server. Very clear violation of the advertising rule.


    That isn't proof of anything, we just don't want player spamming mods in hopes of getting an answer they want. Again, we are very fair in how we apply the rules and you can't prove otherwise.

    Again, I miss messages sometimes, but reply very often. It is not your job to police staff and make sure we answer every message. Obsessing over this won't accomplish anything. We are highly responsive. It's not a real problem, just one you made up for yourself.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  6. Amrou Kithkin

    Amrou Kithkin The Dread Pirate

    Hopping from one mod to another hoping to get a different favorable answer takes a mods time away from players who actually needs help, and delays us from helping other players who have not already been given an answer/help to a problem. Players who mod hop tend to be very argumentative and refuse to take no for an answer thus making it very hard to help others who have not already gotten an answer or help from a mod. Please do not mod hop.
     
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