This Is A Problem That I Have Noticed That I Would Like To Bring Attention To.

I have noticed and I find it a bit unfair to Trusteds and down that they get banned for spamming by using caps in 3 sentences it seems, yet people that are T+ and higher ranked can get away with a ton more spam than that without even getting ridiculed about it. Before you staff say, "That is not how we do it", within the last month, I have seen many people who are even as high as Trusted get banned for a small amount of spam. I took a look at the rules on the subject, and the only thing in the "Spam" part of the rules that some of the Members and Trusteds disobeyed is the caps.  I remember someone, I forgot his username, the got banned a few weeks ago because of spamming with caps, and what he did was he said 4 sentences in caps, and it wasn't any form of begging, or useless letters, or anything, and what he was saying, he believed was important and he wanted everyone to read it. I have also seen multiple cases similar to this in the past.
 
I have seem a lot of staff and higher ranked people just spam all they want and not get banned, kicked, ridiculed, or anything. The other day I saw a T+ person spam random phrases that had nothing to do with what he was doing in MC and had nothing to do with the conversation in chat. And, before you say that there probably no staff on at that point, I remember there were 2 on at the time, both not being afk. I don't remember who they were, because it was about 2 and a half weeks ago.
 
This following story was told to me by the friend, and I dont know for 100% sure how much of it is true. I invited a few people to Oasis that I know in real life, and I heard this story from one of them. He came on, read all the rules on the forums, and he saw an artisan spamming a bit, and asked staff if he/she was going to ban or kick that artisan because he/she was disobeying the rules. That staff responded back basically that he/she was not going to ban the artisan because they are friends with each other and the artisan did not disobey the rules very strongly. So my friend, about 15 min ago, wrote a sentence in caps about that sign in the tree at spawn, and he got kicked. he said he was so agitated about it, that he decided to leave for a while and cool down. When he went to get on the next day, it said he was banned.
 
Basically, what I am saying, is that staff should treat the non-staff equally when it comes to rule breaking, regardless of their rank. The thing on the spam with not doing super often or much, that is like saying, "I robbed a store, but I didn't rob very much stuff, so I should not be in trouble." It is just wrong.

I can also agree with this but with caps I guess it depends on a staff members mood or how annoyed they are. This is also true with cursing. For example I get a warning for saying Fuck once in a non offensive manner but staff throw around curse words like it's nothing (even words like "faggot" have been said like its nothing recently, don't know when that was allowed or acceptable).

It all depends on the staff person, I mean. I don't ban that fast for swearing and capslock. I just warn, everyone. Even other staff members. As long as it doesnt get out of hand. Aka, saying the same line in caps 4+ times.

And we are a pg-13 server, so swearing is okay. But just not excessive.

Plus, there may be 2 staff online. Which I was probably one of. I'm not always looking the screen. Sometimes I am building and I don't see the chat, or I am making some food so I don't starve.

We staff are all volunteers, never forget that. We are humans, not machines. We have real lives as well, except for taccy.


Also, about your friend. Who was it?

I must admit that now I think about emerson is probably right, I have seen low ranks get kicked for caps after saying one sentence and some Veterans/Artisans etc not be kicked for saying whole paragraphs in caps.

Kяazo wrote:
Also, about your friend. Who was it?

 I don't fully remember his username, mostly because I never do anything MC related with him, but I think it had something along the lines of Probsolver with some wonky numbers in it. I don't remember the numbers though. there was no ban thread on him which was weird. he said that even if he gets unbanned, he probably wont come back on anyway because he is just too frustrated about it (he has a VERY short temper xD). I don't really know why I consider him a friend anymore xD

Personally, if i see a whole line filled up with caps i will kick anyway (regardless of rank). There is only one reason for that, and it is to get attention drawn to themselves. Which is an eyesore and annoying.

Okay.... first....One does not simply ask staff to kick someone else and then break the same rule themselves  to test it minutes later and expect nothing to happen...if you wanted someone banned or kicked for it then why in the hell would you do it yourself afterwards >_> ....

There are a lot of things that affect staff's behavior just like other people. Time of day (different time zones), amount of sleep, what they've dealt with that day, and how they deal with things according to their own morals/system. Some staff are more lenient with somethings then other staff. Some staff give higher ranks a bit more slack, where as others actually give lower ranks a bit more slack. It depends on who's on, and what's being said as well, as far as chat etiquette things go.  

I don't know who was on with your friend... nor can I find a ban thread on anyone named "problemsolver" after doing ctrl+F prob and solv on a few pages... when was he banned?

Whoever it was spamming "paragraphs" will be punished if I find it when I'm online. I don't care what rank people are, to be honest I really only treat people as two ranks when it comes to rule enforcement: Guest, not-Guest. I try to give guests more then one or two chances if they seem sincere, and deal punishment quickly for obvious crap (Ads, excessive spamming, excessive caps, repeated griefing after caught once, etc) Older players I'm not so lax with. You are not guests, you've read the rules, and you're expected to act your rank and set an example for everyone else. When you mess around, you give everyone else the idea that your behavior is acceptable.

4emersons wrote:I have seem a lot of staff and higher ranked people just spam all they want and not get banned, kicked, ridiculed, or anything.

You can't even begin to imagine how much I agree with this statement. It happens in chat more times then I care to count.

Well, I think I agree with everyone here, but there is favouritism between some players and staff, it needs to be fixed, but saying it depends on the staff members "mood" is I think not acceptable. If a staff member is willing to moderate, they must keep everything fair. If they are angry, tired, or annoyed they should rest, make sure they have a cool, calm mind. AND, occasionally I do see staff spamming, staff should be setting the example, I sure bet they wouldn't have been filling the chat when they were Veterans Artisans and Trusted players.



~Surv

We, admins, get a lot of spam as well when some blocks are placed.



Now, THAT'S annoying. Your whole screen turns white pink yellow and you cant scroll up because it is like this for the rest of the chat. AKA, you cant talk to anyone.

Yeah, this is true. I'll personally try to keep my spamming to a minimum because I know I've been guilty a couple times, but I totally agree with this.

Lina wrote:how they deal with things according to their own morals/system. Some staff are more lenient with somethings then other staff. Some staff give higher ranks a bit more slack, where as others actually give lower ranks a bit more slack. It depends on who's on, and what's being said as well, as far as chat etiquette things go. 

All staff have a different way of handling things. I usually don't react to very short capped sentences (or words really) like "OMG!". If I see a 'reason' for a person to use all caps sentences, I just give them a warning in chat. If a person writes something ridiculous, in an attempt to be funny or something, I kick him with a "no spamming" message. If someone spams just to be a pain in the a**, I ban him right away for a temporary amount of time.

I admit that I'm a bit more patient with higher ranked players, because I believe that this is not something they'd normally do (otherwise they probably wouldn't get promoted). But being a higher ranked player also means that I will pay more attention to their actions, so if they continue to break the rules, they will get punished, and probably even harder than I would a guest. So it goes both ways. I cut higher ranked players a bit more slack, but I also punish them harder, when I do punish them.

EDIT: This only goes for things like less obvious abuse of caps and less obvious rule-breaking

Kяazo wrote:We, admins, get a lot of spam as well when some blocks are placed.



Now, THAT'S annoying. Your whole screen turns white pink yellow and you cant scroll up because it is like this for the rest of the chat. AKA, you cant talk to anyone.

During my first week on Oasis I got the impression that staff was capricious and arbitrary, but I paid attention and realized that staff is actually very busy all the time (or just getting chat spammed).  I guess all things being equal, we can't expect every kid who logs in to have the patience of an adult - and since these kids are driving the community with their energy (and their donations) it's really past time to implement better chat logging for staff.  There are many different ways to filter chat, and I'd be glad to help with implementing that.

Now if some staff really were being arbitrary or abusive, I'm sure they would lose their staff rank or be forcibly retired, as has happened in the past.

#trustedarmy

surv1v0r08 wrote:Well, I think I agree with everyone here, but there is favouritism between some players and staff, it needs to be fixed, but saying it depends on the staff members "mood" is I think not acceptable. If a staff member is willing to moderate, they must keep everything fair. If they are angry, tired, or annoyed they should rest, make sure they have a cool, calm mind. AND, occasionally I do see staff spamming, staff should be setting the example, I sure bet they wouldn't have been filling the chat when they were Veterans Artisans and Trusted players.



~Surv

We are humans, not robots. We have lives just like all of you do. So asking us to disregard all emotion and execute the exact same punishment for every situation black and white like robots with no gray area is also unacceptable, and frankly impossible.

If players want us to start outright kicking/tempbanning people for every single rules offense like some sort of boot camp, I'm sure that can be arranged. But I doubt any of you will like it, considering we would lose both guests and non-guests alike. 


I do agree that there is favoritism though. Maybe I'm even guilty of it. We were all non-staff at some point and got adjusted to our own group of friends, routine, style of chat, etc. For example, sometimes I forget to kick Mary for caps because I'm so used to her using them in party chat, where it isn't punished XD I don't even notice it sometimes... maybe there are other things staff isn't aware of that is favoritism.

If you find any form of major favoritism, it may be best to alert the staff. Sort of like Emersons just did with this thread, the spamming artisan vs. guest.

I swear all the time and the only person I see calling me out on it to stop it is Gweedo when I say fuck.

This is based on my own personal experience and not meant to kiss ass with staff or anyone else. As a former staff member (on another server) and former server owner I would have to say there are somethings that go on on a staff members screen that can and will hinder the persons ability to "properly" monitor stuff. As stated before staff members can be spammed with a lot of non-player talk. Somethings are Log blocking an area or grief, if there is an anti-cheat plugin: anti-cheats, as well as chat. So in conclusion not all staff can or will be able to catch all chat spam or rule breaking. So, just because there are some happenings that you do not like does not mean the staff is not doing their job or picking favorites. Finally, by what I have seen, if you do not think staff has seen or just isn't doing anything anyone can take screenshots of the spamming and report the culprit to staff by means of the forums. Just my two cents.

I already loved Big Mac's from McDonalds. But Joe, let me love you.

I've been watching this thread develop for a while now and I think it's time I stepped in to say what I have to say.

Regarding the staff and how they deal with players who use caps: Every staff member is allowed to use their own experience and decretion to deal with the various rule-breakers on Oasis. This ranges from greifers, to spammers, to advertisers, to even the topic of this very thread:
Players who use caps.
Allow me to define what caps are. In my eyes, and in the eyes of many other individuals, caps are WORDS THAT ARE ALL IN UPPERCASE AND MAKE IT LOOK LIKE I AM SHOUTING. "Caps" are a means for players to draw attention to themselves whether they want it or not.

In the 2.5 years that I've been here, I've found several situations where a player and staff will use caps in the chat. They are as follows:

• If they have an announcement to make, aka GUYS THE SERVER IS RESTARTING, COME BACK IN FIVE MINUTES!!!
  
• If they are excited, aka OMG I FOUND A SPAWNER YAY!
  
• If they are upset aka HEY THAT GUY JUST KILLED MY HORSE!1
  
• If they are trying to get staff's attention, aka STAFF STAFF ADMIN I NEED HELP PL0X!!!!
  
• If they are using caps to purposely be annoying in chat by and spamming it.
  

Each of these situations warrants a different decision from staff. Staff can ignore, warn, kick, slap, tempban, or even ban players based on (A) the situation and (B) the staff member themselves. Some of the staff have already posted just this, and I have reposted their thoughts below.

Kяazo wrote:It all depends on the staff person, I mean. I don't ban that fast for swearing and capslock. I just warn everyone - including other staff members - as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

bandityogo wrote:Personally, if I see a whole line filled up with caps, I will kick anyway (regardless of rank).

Lina wrote:It depends on who's on, and what's being said as well, as far as chat etiquette things go. I don't care what rank people are, to be honest I really only treat people as two ranks when it comes to rule enforcement: Guest, not-Guest. I try to give guests more then one or two chances if they seem sincere, and deal punishment quickly for obvious crap. Older players I'm not so lax with. You are not guests, you've read the rules, and you're expected to act your rank and set an example for everyone else.

Notice how almost all of the staff (and even some of the non-staff who have posted in this thread) have mentioned that the punishment given to the player "depends". not only on the staff member, but also the situation and current events. It is this variance in the day-to-day events on the server and the different personalities and styles of the staff that makes this issue so controversial. It is also for the same reason why it's impossible to have enforce a "one-size-fits-all" rule regarding caps.

While it's good to have the rules enforced, it is NOT good to have the rules overly enforced. It makes the server seem less fun, and if the server is not fun anymore, Oasis will lose popularity and eventually fade to dust. In addition, if the rules aren't enforced enough, it makes Oasis look like we are poorly run, and therefore are not a 'fun' server to play on. It is very hard to find the 'sweet spot' in enforcing all the rules, most notably the "caps usage" rule. It is similar to calibrating the sights on an archer's bow. Adjust the sight too high, and your arrow will miss the target. Adjust the sight too low, and your arrow will again miss the target. Eventually through trial and error, the archer will adjust the sight so that the arrow will fly and strike the target. Like the archer, each staff member has their own bow that they are constantly adjusting. Their "bow" is their level of discretion, and the staff are always tuning their bow so that they can hit the 'sweet spot'.

Getting back on track, the caps issue is not one that we can enforce with a one-size-fits-all, but rather with a case-by-case basis. The staff use their varying levels of experience to make the choice that they believe is the right one for that moment in time, whether it is a warning, a /kick, a /mute, a /tempban, or a /ban. As told by Lina...

Lina wrote:We are humans, not robots. We have lives just like all of you do. So asking us to disregard all emotion and execute the exact same punishment for every situation black and white like robots with no gray area is also unacceptable, and frankly impossible.

The staff's discretion for their decisions (not for caps but also for griefs and other issues) is why Oasis is still alive and kicking. Now at this point you might be asking yourself "But Madsci, what about floris's picture of 'chat spam' he posted? Is there really that much chat spam for staff?" The answer is: yes. There is more chat spam as a staff member than there is a non-staff person. It can be very hard to keep up with the chat, especially when there are more players in-game. As Big_Mac_Joe pointed out:

Mr_Big_Mac_Joe wrote:I would have to say there are somethings that go on on a staff members screen that can and will hinder the persons ability to "properly" monitor staff. As stated before staff members can be spammed with a lot of non-player talk. Somethings are Log blocking an area or grief, if there is an anti-cheat plugin: anti-cheats, as well as chat. So in conclusion not all staff can or will be able to catch all chat spam or rule breaking. So, just because there are some happenings that you do not like does not mean the staff is not doing their job or picking favorites.

Lemme just give you a quick list of the plugins that give all staff notifications:

• ChestChop notifications (all players see these from time to time)
  
• Player join/leave events (aka player has joined the game, player has left the game)
  
• LogBlock / CoreProtect (fills up half the chatbox when checking logs)
  
• WorldGuard (alerts us when players place or break specified blocks
  
• Lockette (only OPs get these)
  
• WorldEdit (mods and up)
  
• AdminChat (aka staff chat)
  
• NoCheatPlus notifications (only Ops get these when its installed)
  

When you combine the amount of 'plugin spam' with the various day-to-day events in chat, it is inevitable that some of the caps users will not be detected by staff. Paxination and myself (and actually most of the rest of staff too, I might add) have gone through the various plugin configuration files in an attempt to reduce the amount of 'plugin spam' that we get. Even then things still slip by us, but we work very hard to make sure that Oasis is a fun and enjoyable place for everybody.

TLDR:

• Staff use their discretion and experience to make the right choice for all players, not just those that use caps.
  
• Every staff has their own 'staffing style' (some are more strict than others)
  
• The amount of 'plugin spam' is considerable for a staff member and it is easy to get lost in chat
  
• The staff are not machines - they are people like you who have volunteered to enhance your Minecraft server experience.
  

You also forgot signlogger!

And I want to add that OasisExtras will be included in this.  Its going to be notifying staff when players attempt to kill protected animals.  It will also notify the OWNER of those animals as well.  The reason behind this is if they are trying to kill them, then they probably griefed to get to them!  But it shouldnt be that much more spam as it doesnt happen that often.

I am working on a set of filters & chat configuration changes that should prove helpful to staff and experienced players.  I was intending to do this for a long time, but this thread got me motivated.  Keep an eye on the forums because I will be posting screenshots in the near future.

At the moment, the Tabs are:
Unfiltered Chat, Clean Chat, Private Messages, Party Chat, World Guard, Log Block, Helpop

I'm trying to keep the number of tabs to a minimum, but staff may send me suggestions.  Other changes include extending the chat history from 100 lines to 10,000 lines, dumping the chat log into a text file (with time-stamps!), making the chat window way bigger when opened, making the chat window stay open until you hit Esc, and automatic party chat so you don't have to repeatedly type "/p" when you are in that tab.