There have been several concerns raised about questionable staff actions, inactions, comments, conduct, etc. in the past. These concerns were often raised in threads discussing specific cases and while the final response, prior to the threads being closed, addressed the main case being discussed, the staff actions that were questioned were not addressed.

Rather than dwell on the past and raise them again here, Drogo is suggesting that some guidelines be developed for the staff to aid them in the carrying out of their duties and to help them conduct themselves in a fair and professional manner and to help ensure they don’t happen again.

Each of the points raised below might seem to be simple common sense but unfortunately staff have in the past, failed to act in accordance with them.

While the cases from which the points below have stemmed might be known, each point should be looked at for their own merit and not be biased by past actions and decisions.


1. Be truthful and factual in all official statements.
By official statements, Drogo means, all comments relating to bans, appeals, player queries, server updates, etc. Being untruthful leads to a lack of trust and confidence in the correctness or justness of anything one says.

2. Respond to appeals in a reasonable timeframe.
In the past there have been a number of appeals made that have gone without staff response for up to a month. Drogo understands the staff have busy lives, but one week would seem a fair maximum period for appeals to go unattended. Anything longer than this is viewed as disrespectful which itself is a violation of server rules.

3. Only issue bans where rules have been broken.
The terms and conditions of sales via the webstore used to state that players would only be banned if they broke the rules. Since it was pointed out that staff were violating this, it has been changed. Drogo would like to see, what should be an obvious condition, reinstated. If player conduct is questionable but does not violate any rules, then issue a warning and add the rule. Banning players that have not broken the rules is extremely unjust

4. If a player is suspected of breaking any rules, speak to that player and gather all available information before passing judgement.
Banning a player without gathering all available information can lead to incorrect bans. If there is not enough evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that a player has broken the rules, then you must deem that there is a chance that they are innocent and they should not be punished.
When dealing with claims by a player, of another player that can not be proven in any way, speak to the other player at the very least and if still, no proof exists, do not punish that player.
If staff issue punishments with only half the story, then half the time they will be wrong and 100% of the time they won’t know if they were or not.
Staff who do this and issue punishments based on “feelings” or “suspicion” show a lack of respect for the players, the rules and the position they hold.

5. Do not create or modify rules to justify punishments already handed out.
As with point 3, if a rule or modification is required, then make that change. Until that change is made, do not issue punishments.

6. Admit your errors when you make them.
It is human to make mistakes and anyone who is halfway decent will forgive most errors if they are acknowledged and rectified. Noobcrew has said in the past that staff make mistakes but too often staff do not own these mistakes when they make them. Respect can only be regained by owning your mistakes.

7. Don’t remove posts unless they violate forum rules.
The forum is a place for people to share idea and views. If players views differ from yours then by all means reply with your own opinion or argument but do not simply delete them. It might be seen that there was no reason other than to suit your own agenda. Removing player comments from staff applications especially makes a mockery of the entire process.

Drogo is sure there are more that can be added to this list and might add them over time.

Perhaps there already exists such guidelines for the staff to follow and if so, Drogo suggests adding the points listed above as they are clearly missing and without them being followed, staff /player relationship is deteriorating.

 

I very much support. I have seen several ban appeals replied to by staff days after creation and in some cases, weeks! Every player deserves to be equal to one another in a ban appeal. One person shouldn't have been responded to 3 days late just because of their punishment. Someone shouldn't have been responded to weeks late just because of their status. And most importantly, nobody at all should not be allowed to appeal because they are permanently banned. The staff team should not automatically deny ban appeals for any reason whatsoever. I've seen countless staff members state "Perm bans are not meant to be appealable" however I have seen some scenarios where this does not matter.

 

I agree with Drogo's statement that staff should follow those set of guidelines, I do think its worth mentioning in defense of most staff, I believe most do these actions 95% of the time, if not more. But there have been a handful of incidents recently that overshadow the good work staff do for us all. And anytime its been discussed in other threads, its been brushed off and locked, which means it feels like you don't care at all.

I think what it all boils down to is communication and how its perceived. Open discussion should be protected, where it isn't about blame culture but about understanding each other. Like Drogo mentions we all make mistakes, it just seems like players get punished for mistakes and on the rare occasion staff make a mistake, it gets wrapped up in a bow and closed for further discussion.

 

Got to say as a player of Skyblock for A vary long time I got to say I got to agree with Drogo. Been there on the bad end of the stick wanted to say my side tho my word means nothing. As a player being a accused of things that i didn't do sucks. Anyone with a rank that can send out bans and warn players before looking into them can make things look bigger them making it seem bigger then it needs to be. Staff have not been to nice with me as my leaving but always there I think staff should have a guild line to fallow either Drogos or a open guild line to being part of staff that is also open to public that anyone that that wants to join staff can go off on for beginning of joining.

 

Drogo acknowledges that different scenarios will take differing amounts of time to deal with. There might multiple people involved and more information to gather before proper judgement can be made and sometimes those people might not be online often.
We can't expect staff to make proper judgments without investing the appropriate amount of time to investigate.

When Drogo suggests staff should respond within a week, he doesn't mean they should make a ruling in this time but they should at least alert the player that they are looking into it but need more time. This often happens, but too often it doesn't. Drogo Currently has a Discord ban appeal, that has gone without a reply for over a month now which is not acceptable. No one will even tell him, why he is banned as he has broken no rules.

 

Adding weight for the need of a minimum standard of staff conduct is the fact that staff are now anonymously deleting posts from staff applications.

The only player to disagree so far with Drogo's suggestion currently has a staff application, Drogo's posts in this Helper application, noting this fact as reason for not supporting them is continually being deleted!!

 

I personally don’t agree with this thread at all. You are essentially suggesting that some staff members are grossly misusing their power and haven’t been touched or demoted or even punished for such actions.

I find this extremely silly, I also find it silly that not one shred of concrete evidence has actually been provided by anyone behind these claims which definitively proves a misuse of power by somebody on the staff team.

Not only does this sound like a complete conspiracy, but you’re suggesting that it’s also being covered up by higher up staff members on the team?

I would like to see any evidence of a misuse of power besides players just claiming “this is what happened” and twisting the truth to paint themselves in a better light.

It’s extremely silly to believe that not one single person has any concrete evidence as of yet when the staff team have been “abusing their power” for such a long time.

I know the response to this will be negative, but I’ll happily challenging anyone who disagrees: show me some solid evidence to prove what I said is wrong. As you’ve already been banned, the burden of proof is on YOU to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that such ban/accusations are false.

The responses to this post will most likely just be more “false” and “wrong” without actually providing a shred of evidence that proves as such, but go ahead, further my point by doing so.

These suggestions heavily imply that there is something wrong with the way that staff are currently conducting themselves, which I have yet to see any proof of this being the case at all.

 

As was said in the original post, “each point should be looked at for their own merit and not be biased by past actions and decisions.”

If you can fault the individual points, then feel free to comment.

 

Some staff do "grossly" misuse their power without any punishment. That is a fact. Perhaps you've been lucky enough to not get false punished, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Any poor punishments by staff 100% are covered up and they attempt to drop them as soon as possible without punishing the staff.

As someone often of the other side of this argument, leaning towards staff being at fault, I know how you feel. People in support do the exact thing you fear to me, they just tell me I'm in the wrong without explaining how. Maybe you can help me understand once I show you my "proof".

https://imgur.com/h1hxfwr - context: me and the player in the screenshot 1v1ed (neither of us stated givebacks), as shown in the screenshot we were fist fighting and he brought out gear when he was getting low to win. Although we both consented to 1v1, he complained to Cyk and she took my stuff and gave it to him without permission (https://imgur.com/a/WbGMc4D).

Keep in mind, at the time this happened I was a new player, I asked several members this same situation and they all replied in favor of me (https://imgur.com/a/KHXTkAZ). After that I started talking to Megan (She's very polite, and a good staff member) and she told me to try to clear it up with Cyk (https://imgur.com/a/esP1JvG) I never got a reply.

Feeling I had no options left, time running out to have any hope of getting MY items back, I made a staff report stating all I wanted was an apology and my items back. That staff report was made in late June, still no reply.

Another situation, this time with Frez:

Frez has punished me twice for smaller things, and while I see that my comment wasn't NEEDED (Boba is my friend, I was joking around with him) it is no where near punishable.

The proof that they try to cover up these bad punishments is already in my reply.

To end off this comment, I'm neutral on Drogos overall points. I think it's less of a staffing issue and more of a rules and management issue. Force feeding staff what should be common sense serves no use, they should already know all of the things Drogo listed. While I agree, STAFFING on this server needs a change, I don't think this is the way to do it.

 

The purpose of this thread is not to dwell on past actions as that will merely result in arguments and no progress will be made.
The purpose of the thread is to move past these issues and create a better environment for all.

 

all of these tbh.

THIS TBH.

Honestly, this was much needed way back when in the /classic days when majority of mods didn't know how to do their job, especially when I would get bullied a lot, I would break some rules in order to defend myself against the people that were bullying me, but instead of just them getting in trouble, I would too, which kind of makes sense, but also doesn't, and the early days of /skyblock as well. And just overall, getting my butt handed to me for the smallest things, when there were bigger things going on. And I couldn't agree more on the fact that most mods wouldn't ever admit their mistakes, more so in /classic and early days on /skyblock. I will say mods have gotten better these days and we do have some current good mods.

But I digress, the "rules" that I quoted above are the 3 that I agree on the most. But needless to say, these shouldn't be "rules" and more so just things to keep in mind when being a moderator, as well as the other things Drogo stated, but the 3 I quoted are my top concerns. It was the main reason why I quit/didn't play much of skyblock. And these values should be closely looked at by Noobcrew and the fellow higher ups (the people above mod, smod, etc.). And as much as I agree with the fact that mods should tend to their appeals that involve them in a timely manner, they should also think about how the person responds to their own appeal. It's their own appeal and if they really want to get unbanned/unmuted, they should be checking their appeal for replies quite often, if they really care about their status. If they don't care to check/respond in a timely manner, then the mod shouldn't have to as well. It's their appeal, not the mod's. If the person is busy, then that's a whole different story, but the mod should take into account if they really care or not, so they can figure out when they should respond to that appeal and the priority.

NOW, I'd love for these new additions to take place, but God knows if Noobcrew will actually pay further attention to these issues stated before us. Like I said before, mods are great, but they can be even better.

 

I wasn't planning on replying to your post here, as the reason for this suggestion is more to improve the relationship between staff and players. I mean, if the staff followed these guidelines, how could it do anything other than ease the tensions between staff and players?

I can assure you that the evidence you speak of does exists. I don't make claims and I don't act without proof.

If you were provided with this proof, would you conclude that staff are "grossly misusing their power"?
Note, these are your words, I did not make this claim.

If the evidence would only serve to convince you, at the risk of calling out staff unnecessarily, as I have tried to avoid in this thread, then I wouldn't feel any need to provide it.

Unfortunately though, Noobcrew's only input into this thread is, by way of rating your post, "Agree" adding weight to the suggestion that the evidence isn't there so I feel it now necessary to provide it.

Personally, I cannot fathom why Noobcrew, would take a suggestion, that if implemented, would only lead to improved staff / player relationships and agree with the one post that could turn this into an argument.


So here is the proof that unfortunately is now needed.

1. Be truthful and factual in all official statements.

In Calidre’s ban appeal, Kera states “ Your ban was not only for maxing out the server maps, but for a cumulation of repeated offenses over time.” To which Calidre responded “And may I ask what repeat offences? I don't think I've ever been banned, muted or punished of any sorts other than a couple warnings”

Kera never responded to this so it would seem her reasoning for the most severe punishment this server can issue was wrong.

Skyblock Official Site | Skyblock


2. Respond to appeals in a reasonable timeframe.

I myself currently have a Discord ban appeal in place that has not been responded to for over a month now. Staff have not even replied to explain why I am banned. Appeals in process are not public so unfortunately I cannot provide a link, but there are others in the appeal archives.


3. Only issue bans where rules have been broken.

My most recent ban was handed out with absolutely no evidence being issued. Eventually, Noobcrew admitted that I was banned because they “felt” there was some sort of harassment going on.



4. If a player is suspected of breaking any rules, speak to that player and gather all available information before passing judgement.

My ban, mentioned above, was handed out with absolutely no prior discussion with me. Additionally, I was banned from all forms of communication for the period of a month!

They simply took one players claim, with no proof what so ever and rather than question me or allow me any avenue of speaking in my defence, they acted on their ‘feeling’ and banned me from the server and the forums for a month. Noobcrew also mentions they had little to work with. That would be because they didn't bother to talk to me!

5. Do not create or modify rules to justify punishments already handed out.

In the mute appeal linked below. Justification for the length and the reason for the mute was that the player was using signs and books to communicate while muted.

Now Drogo can see how it could be assumed common sense that this was not permitted but it could also be assumed that it was as this is exactly how mute people IRL communicate, via the written word and sign language (excuse the pun). The rules certainly did not state anything about it and only forbid the use of alternate accounts to evade punishments. At any rate, the important factor is the order of events which were.

1. The player used signs to communicate

2. The rules were changed to specifically mention this as a method of punishment evasion

3. The player was punished for breaking the rule despite the fact that it did not exist at the time.

Skyblock Official Site | Skyblock

This image, showing the rule changed at the top and the rule as it was (saved to the Wayback machine) at the time they used the signs.


6. Admit your errors when you make them.
I think this one is fairly evident from the points above.


7. Don’t remove posts unless they violate forum rules.

Now this one, I added just today because staff have been removing my posts in the last day. I have made several attempts to comment on a Helper appeal, giving valid reasons for my opinion. Complying with all rules. My comments were purely factual and not rude in any way but they were removed. I suspect because the staff member removing the posts is a friend of the applicant.



So there it is, it is not the way I wanted it to go but perhaps it is good that it’s out there as it would seem that Noobcrew is not aware given his agreeing with your post.

 

Accountability is key.

 

Absolutely. Players are certainly held accountable, too often wrongly. Staff, not so much.
Staff reports are pointless and private.

Earlier this month players were banned because they had a redstone machine that was causing lag. They were banned not because they had broken rules, but because staff needed to investigate.
Why upset players by banning them needlessly and then having to create an appeal. Staff could remove a couple bits of redstone and just discuss it with them??
Skyblock Official Site | Skyblock


To be fair, some staff do do this. I myself had Bree and Sky ask me to change a stone gen design I had made because it was causing lag.
I complied immediately and there was no issue.

The guidelines i’ve suggested would prevent needless bans.

I know some staff don’t like this suggestion, but no one can say that if implemented, it would do nothing but improve things.

 

wtf sky family Who even thinks this recommendation is a good idea? This suggestion is just a collection of tantrums.
Man, cut the bullshit. This discussion is intended to enhance the egos of sheeple.
You acknowledged the importance of responsibility, but where is yours? Banned without cause? If you believe you did nothing at all and yet got your a** banned, you must be high. That is applicable to pretty much everyone who complains about perm restrictions. Don't weep if you don't care about Skyblock or follow its regulations. Wahhh my bans are too severe; please unban my buddies; the staff has been abusive. wahhhhh
And you better know I took a quick glance at the threads and said, "Good frickity freaking f***!"
I mistakenly believed I was watching a poor soap opera and I noticed how emotional everyone was over Minecraft? over Pixels? I've heard mcprohost is cool; consider trying them if perm banned.
Sorry, Sky Family, no support. Instead of setting silly rules for meaningless nonsense, assume responsibility and move forward.
God bless America, amen, and let's all try to quit thinking we're so exceptional.

 

A number of people if you care to take note.

Well, I’m aiming to improve staff/player relations, you’re here to flame. Don’t you speak of responsibility.

Noobcrew himself stated they acted on feelings, not proof. Did you even read this thread?

What buddies are you talking about? Are you replying to the right thread? There is no mention of buddies here.

ahh. Now I see the problem. You only took a quick glance. That explains why you’re so off topic.

Good on you for admitting your mistake. That’s the first step to bettering yourself.

No rules were suggested so please try reading the whole thing.

I have no idea what God or America has to do with anything?

 

holy moly that was actually the worst attempt at trying to be funny i have ever seen in my life

and to keep this post on topic so it doesnt get deleted I will just say I agree Drogo these suggestions are very needed! I’d go further into detail but it is 2 am for me but the previous post before your reply made me have the urge to comment

 

If the thread is closed rather than deleting the off topic, aggressive posts then that would be something else to add to the staff guidelines.

 

Hey, just curious - is everything in your life unchanging? Like...are you living in a fine-tuned world where no new information ever develops that might render something you said previously to be incorrect? Or...what about like...nuance? Are there ever circumstances you encounter where two different people might approach the same problem in different ways - you know, because they're different people?

lol. lmao.

This point is sorta tied to point 5, and I don't have much more to add to my response for that one, but I genuinely love the idea that the unpaid staff on this server actually log on to spend their time banning people for no reason and getting yelled at because they love it so much or whatever.

This point might actually be the silliest one and I once again would like to know if you live in a world with no nuance. What is the line between banter between players and harassment? What is the line between an inappropriate skin and an appropriate one? What is the line between exploiting a bug and playing the game as provided? What is the line between a good faith (but erroneous) report and false reporting?

Can you see how maybe some of these circumstances might never see 100% proof of a rule being broken, or even have two different individuals disagree on whether or not a rule was broken? Like it or not, some of these decisions have to be judgement calls. And sure, not every one is going to be called right - that's why there's an appeal system.

I mean, they do actually have the "common sense" portion of the code of conduct. But honestly, how many circumstances do you see where someone gets banned for something that there wasn't a rule against until after the fact?

Like even in the "using signs" example you posted - the rule broken is still the same rule, it just was clarified to list examples of what staff consider to be evading punishments.

 

What does this have to do with change or nuance? I'm talking about speaking the truth as it is at the time.
While different people might have differing opinions, a fact is a fact regardless of the character.
Opinions and facts are very different things and it appears that you have confused them here.

Admittedly opinions might vary on whether it is disrespectful to have a ban appeal unanswered for a week or a month, such as opinions might differ on whether it makes sense to follow lol with lmao.

I've never said staff ban players for no reason, the problem is when they ban players for the wrong reason. Such as when they think someone did something, but they freely admit, that they don't really know if they did or not.
No one can argue with staff if the ban is correct. These guidelines are supposed to help ensure bans are always correct and make the job of staff less stressful.

I really wonder if you even read what I wrote here. It had nothing to do with nuance or differing of opinion. That, I wholly except and accept. It never even had anything to do with the final ruling and how that might differ from staff to staff.
It was about using all the information available in order to aid in making that decision. If you only use half the information available to you, then you might as well just take a guess because you won't know if you're right or wrong.
And again, if you're wrong, you will upset players and that will make you job more stressful.

How many times? Not very often at all.
In fact the same moderator who did this, handled another case on Eco a while back, where a player was, over a very long period of time, running scripts to auto sell at /warp shop. The reason being was that the rules specifically said no hacking at public warps and she said that running scripts was different to hacking. Despite the fact that the player was going to great lengths to avoid detection by using a disguise and changing his nickname every second hoping that no one could identify him, which implies he knew what he was doing was wrong, he was only warned and then the rules were clarified.