All Networks Feedback on the new "Way of Moderating"

[Blom]

Dear all,
I was not planning on making yet another post, but here we are. To see the post I am talking about, you can click here, it will take you to there.

Normally, I make my feedback and suggestions all fancy, with color codes and emojis and stuff, but I don't feel like doing that right now. It should be plain and easy, which might make the structure a bit worse, but you are gonna read the entire thing, aren't you?

I have a lot of issues with the update, the post and everything about it. I will start off with the first, continuing down the road by mentioning all. DISCLAIMER: I feel I am not in any position to criticise the decisions CubeCraft makes. I do not have the insights they have, as well as having my biased opinion on certain matters.

Removing all punishments (exception for severe punishments, which I assume are network bans
- I was joking with a friend of mine about how this is a great way to get the player count up again not, but there are so many different layers that I simply don't get. Most of the players were punished for creating an unsafe and/or unenjoyable environment. Whether this happened because of hacking clients, swearing, stalking or bullying, other players may have considered to leave the server because of these groups. Most certainly the latter mentioned groups can harm other players in ways we can't comprehend from our own perspectives. With these people back on the server, you will get a playerbase with less casual or known players, but more hackers. The people that enjoyed the server because of how it was will now enjoy the server less, causing them to go elsewhere. Even if your player count does not plummet, you still have serious issues with the people you have left.

Rules updated
- The rules are more easily accessible for the people that do not know how to behave themselves in public. This contains again a couple of problems built in something that deems to be good. First of all, punishment tracks are completely gone. This is mostly a problem with the next point I am going to discuss, so we'll leave it be for now. Secondly, there are no explanations at all (except for 2 lines of them at most, but you get the point). Let's be honest, barely anyone will read the rules, except for when they need to check about a specific situation. 95% of the time, these situations were easily accessible for anyone, as they were described right under the correct rule. Now we will have to guess what is and isn't allowed, certainly for the players that aren't familiar with the rules as we, returning playerbase, are. This will lead to confusion and because of a worse understanding, a worse playing environment. The points you won by making the rules good looking for the new players, you lost twice as much by removing the categories which made the rules relevant.

Letting specific situations slide by giving mods more freedom
- A much requested feature made horrible. More than once it has been asked to have mods be more helpful towards players, making sure they have a good playing experience instead of getting punished for the smallest offences. A good example was given ages ago by xHappyMood in this thread (see 'Not Helping People'), but multiple threads are mentionable. It is great to see that staff is now stimulated to look at specific situations instead of the not so bendable rule book. However, I rather call it the use of common sense and I find it quite interesting this wasn't promoted earlier. And believe me as I say it wasn't (I sadly cannot show you any examples, but with people I talked about the matter back in the days, I assure you I am right). But, by also removing the punishment tracks, you give the Staff Team a bit too much power. Knowing how they sometimes treated other staff, letting them go for no particular reason at all, just because they didn't really like the person for example, I don't even want to imagine how they could possibly use their 'common sense' in their own advantage. I would rather have a hard rule book than depending on how a moderator likes me. Therefore, I find it quite ironic abuse of the system was mentioned in the thread, but then from players. There are no precautions taken on the matter, which is frankly scary.

Transferring rules from one location to another
- Cool update. Don't have much to say about this particular change. However, I don't understand why forum helpdesk is closed. I am not sure if that was a thing before this update or not, but I think that should be reverted as well. Why not have as many possibilities for players to reach out to staff for help as possible? Though, that's a whole different story, so I will not elaborate that any further.

Closed update thread
- Having to put my feedback in a separate thread is not a great improvement. I suppose many players have questions about why the decision is made (including me) and what the impact will be according to the CC data, but there is no possible way to ask questions right under the thread. After making a ticket in Discord to ask these sorts of questions and in particular why the thread was closed for responses, I didn't get a response. Actually, I am still waiting while writing this thread. To continue on the last point I made, I feel like there should be more ways to reach the staff team for these kind of questions

Thanks for reading, I don't need a reaction in the form of agrees or disagrees, but if you feel like I am wrong in any of these cases or you want me to elaborate, I am happy to start a conversation about my opinion. Cheers yall!

 

[Stijnnn_]

Glad you're mentioning everything in a way without attacking the entire cubecraft team and their decision.

I dont feel in a place nor in the mood to discuss the wipe, though I'll state my opinion about your comment on the moderation change of removing the tracks.

Yeah, I see your point and yeah unfortunately I'm afraid some biased decisions will get made (if this happens a player can make a staff feedback and itll get discussed most likely). Though we are all trained well and have been through a trail as you know. I think it's good we can judge everything on a case-by-case basis, and hope that this advantage heavily overpowers the disadvantage, and ofcourse expect a fair moderation team.

I believe that's everything I wanted to mention xd

 

[adrian525pl]

Removing all punishments (exception for severe punishments, which I assume are network bans
- I was joking with a friend of mine about how this is a great way to get the player count up again not, but there are so many different layers that I simply don't get. Most of the players were punished for creating an unsafe and/or unenjoyable environment. Whether this happened because of hacking clients, swearing, stalking or bullying, other players may have considered to leave the server because of these groups. Most certainly the latter mentioned groups can harm other players in ways we can't comprehend from our own perspectives. With these people back on the server, you will get a playerbase with less casual or known players, but more hackers. The people that enjoyed the server because of how it was will now enjoy the server less, causing them to go elsewhere. Even if your player count does not plummet, you still have serious issues with the people you have left.

I 100% agree. I recently noticed a high amount of teamers appearing in my games, I sometimes report several teamers a day. And now all of those that may have gotten banned will now be back as it wasn't bad enough already. They also said they are moving away from perma bans, which isn't the way to go. I don't care what you did to get banned: should have though about it before you got banned instead of just rolling with it.

Besides, from what I've heard from some people who used to appeal system and from what I've seen online, its super easy to get unbanned anyway.


Thanks cubecraft for making my half years worth of reports and the sole reason I made a forums account to begin with pointless. There was already little reward in reporting people, unless you were petty enough to try and get someone a warning for trolling or teaming its usually a waste of time, but now with those changes and all previous punishments reverted to zero it feels completely useless to keep trying.

Rules updated
- The rules are more easily accessible for the people that do not know how to behave themselves in public. This contains again a couple of problems built in something that deems to be good. First of all, punishment tracks are completely gone. This is mostly a problem with the next point I am going to discuss, so we'll leave it be for now. Secondly, there are no explanations at all (except for 2 lines of them at most, but you get the point). Let's be honest, barely anyone will read the rules, except for when they need to check about a specific situation. 95% of the time, these situations were easily accessible for anyone, as they were described right under the correct rule. Now we will have to guess what is and isn't allowed, certainly for the players that aren't familiar with the rules as we, returning playerbase, are. This will lead to confusion and because of a worse understanding, a worse playing environment. The points you won by making the rules good looking for the new players, you lost twice as much by removing the categories which made the rules relevant.

Again, fully agree. A worse understanding of the rules will lead to a higher amount of reports where players get reported "just in case" they may have done some thing wrong.

And its not like the rules are clearly defined already anyway, the rules page only provides very basic and vague cathegories of offenses without giving you examples of what counts as such and what doesn't. For example: when is it "camping" and when is it "just defending my base so I don't die instantly". Or when is it "trolling" and when isn't it.

Not to mention that this sounds like something they did because of the highly specific scenario that some 5 year old started complaining about getting a teaming ban, but because said 5 year old happened to be the admins younger brother or whatever, they decided to redo the whole system.



This will just lead to mass confusion and a lot of people being reported over an offense they weren't guilty of in the first place. It will lead to mods wasting their time with useless reports while they could be busy with something else.

Letting specific situations slide by giving mods more freedom
- A much requested feature made horrible. More than once it has been asked to have mods be more helpful towards players, making sure they have a good playing experience instead of getting punished for the smallest offences. A good example was given ages ago by xHappyMood in this thread (see 'Not Helping People'), but multiple threads are mentionable. It is great to see that staff is now stimulated to look at specific situations instead of the not so bendable rule book. However, I rather call it the use of common sense and I find it quite interesting this wasn't promoted earlier. And believe me as I say it wasn't (I sadly cannot show you any examples, but with people I talked about the matter back in the days, I assure you I am right). But, by also removing the punishment tracks, you give the Staff Team a bit too much power. Knowing how they sometimes treated other staff, letting them go for no particular reason at all, just because they didn't really like the person for example, I don't even want to imagine how they could possibly use their 'common sense' in their own advantage. I would rather have a hard rule book than depending on how a moderator likes me. Therefore, I find it quite ironic abuse of the system was mentioned in the thread, but then from players. There are no precautions taken on the matter, which is frankly scary.

I am not entirely sure about that one. While I do agree that mods should be more helpful instead of just trying to punish everyone, I feel like letting rule offenses slide is not the way to go. There is a reason the "small offenses" are part of the rules, and its because without them everyone goes around spamming, trolling, crossteaming, camping, and so on, as they wish. I do think context should be taken into account when making a punishment, but at the same time, if someone is blatantly teaming then regardless of context they should be punished.

I also don't think they should get a say in how severe the punishments are, for minor offenses the punishments are non-existent anyway, and for major ones anything but a perma or long-time ban is not a good idea. I reported many teamers, trolls, campers and others on my time here on cubecraft. Yet I still keep finding them in my games, doing or trying to do the same things I reported them for. Whatever their initial punishment was, it clearly didn't help discourage them from doing it again.

Punishments have 2 purposes:
1. They are meant to serve as a consequence of breaking rules
2. They are meant to discourage people from breaking them.

With the mods being able to decide on the severity of punishments, as well as being able to let it slide entirely, there is no way to consistently ensure all 2 of those are met. Hell, meeting just one of those, with the current punishments for minor offenses, is difficult.

If the only "consequence" for teaming or trolling is a warning, then that's nothing.

Especially if the mod can just choose to let things slide. That means the rules will not even be enforced 100% of the time, on top of having a joke of a punishment anyway.


And like you said: this system is very prone to personal bias.


This whole thing makes minor offense reports even more pointless than they were before. Now, there isn't even a guarantee of them getting punished depending on the mods mood.




As for the whole rest: I agree, if staff can't be reached very easily for questions, then what's the point of even having it for anything other than to enforce rules, which they can choose not to do now?

I feel like they may have closed the update thread to avoid people getting mad and spamming it with hate as they knew a change like that may not be very well received.


As for the help desk, I did not even know that was a thing, I literally only found out because you said it was a thing, so I am not going to voice my opinion on that.

 

[emptypandora]

Dear all,
I was not planning on making yet another post, but here we are. To see the post I am talking about, you can click here, it will take you to there.

Normally, I make my feedback and suggestions all fancy, with color codes and emojis and stuff, but I don't feel like doing that right now. It should be plain and easy, which might make the structure a bit worse, but you are gonna read the entire thing, aren't you?

I have a lot of issues with the update, the post and everything about it. I will start off with the first, continuing down the road by mentioning all. DISCLAIMER: I feel I am not in any position to criticise the decisions CubeCraft makes. I do not have the insights they have, as well as having my biased opinion on certain matters.

Removing all punishments (exception for severe punishments, which I assume are network bans
- I was joking with a friend of mine about how this is a great way to get the player count up again not, but there are so many different layers that I simply don't get. Most of the players were punished for creating an unsafe and/or unenjoyable environment. Whether this happened because of hacking clients, swearing, stalking or bullying, other players may have considered to leave the server because of these groups. Most certainly the latter mentioned groups can harm other players in ways we can't comprehend from our own perspectives. With these people back on the server, you will get a playerbase with less casual or known players, but more hackers. The people that enjoyed the server because of how it was will now enjoy the server less, causing them to go elsewhere. Even if your player count does not plummet, you still have serious issues with the people you have left.

Rules updated
- The rules are more easily accessible for the people that do not know how to behave themselves in public. This contains again a couple of problems built in something that deems to be good. First of all, punishment tracks are completely gone. This is mostly a problem with the next point I am going to discuss, so we'll leave it be for now. Secondly, there are no explanations at all (except for 2 lines of them at most, but you get the point). Let's be honest, barely anyone will read the rules, except for when they need to check about a specific situation. 95% of the time, these situations were easily accessible for anyone, as they were described right under the correct rule. Now we will have to guess what is and isn't allowed, certainly for the players that aren't familiar with the rules as we, returning playerbase, are. This will lead to confusion and because of a worse understanding, a worse playing environment. The points you won by making the rules good looking for the new players, you lost twice as much by removing the categories which made the rules relevant.

Letting specific situations slide by giving mods more freedom
- A much requested feature made horrible. More than once it has been asked to have mods be more helpful towards players, making sure they have a good playing experience instead of getting punished for the smallest offences. A good example was given ages ago by xHappyMood in this thread (see 'Not Helping People'), but multiple threads are mentionable. It is great to see that staff is now stimulated to look at specific situations instead of the not so bendable rule book. However, I rather call it the use of common sense and I find it quite interesting this wasn't promoted earlier. And believe me as I say it wasn't (I sadly cannot show you any examples, but with people I talked about the matter back in the days, I assure you I am right). But, by also removing the punishment tracks, you give the Staff Team a bit too much power. Knowing how they sometimes treated other staff, letting them go for no particular reason at all, just because they didn't really like the person for example, I don't even want to imagine how they could possibly use their 'common sense' in their own advantage. I would rather have a hard rule book than depending on how a moderator likes me. Therefore, I find it quite ironic abuse of the system was mentioned in the thread, but then from players. There are no precautions taken on the matter, which is frankly scary.

Transferring rules from one location to another
- Cool update. Don't have much to say about this particular change. However, I don't understand why forum helpdesk is closed. I am not sure if that was a thing before this update or not, but I think that should be reverted as well. Why not have as many possibilities for players to reach out to staff for help as possible? Though, that's a whole different story, so I will not elaborate that any further.

Closed update thread
- Having to put my feedback in a separate thread is not a great improvement. I suppose many players have questions about why the decision is made (including me) and what the impact will be according to the CC data, but there is no possible way to ask questions right under the thread. After making a ticket in Discord to ask these sorts of questions and in particular why the thread was closed for responses, I didn't get a response. Actually, I am still waiting while writing this thread. To continue on the last point I made, I feel like there should be more ways to reach the staff team for these kind of questions

Thanks for reading, I don't need a reaction in the form of agrees or disagrees, but if you feel like I am wrong in any of these cases or you want me to elaborate, I am happy to start a conversation about my opinion. Cheers yall!

Interesting post and information!

I have noticed over the last month not so many "obvious" cheaters such as flyers or auras but instead so many players who were good or very good before and now seem go be awesome overnight....like I get the more you play the better you might get, but now is see players able to do things that makes them unplayable. All I hear is "it's drag" ...but nah something has changed and the concern is that it must be easy not to be legit.....so being this way, using a macro or whatever that is, may soon become the norm. I hope I'm wrong in what I'm seeing.

 

[Roxrock]

I have a lot of different opinions which are generally negative:

Removing all punishment: Controversial opinion: this was a bad idea. The idea of a prison is to keep the prisoners inside for the duration of their punishment. It is absurd to pardon everyone all at once, and will inevitably result is a negative outcome.

Current rules:

1. No swearing: Probably a requirement by Mojang and Microsoft, no point in arguing about it here
2. Discriminating: I agree with this rule, but wish I was provided an example of how someone might break this rule
3. Threatening: unclear what is considered a threat. If I say “I’m going to beat you” is that a threat, or just a taunt? Cubecraft needs to clearly define where this line is drawn
4. Trolling: Very unclear rule. If I, in a game of lucky islands, trick an unsuspecting player to open a trapped chest, could I get banned for negactively effecting their experience?
5. Spamming: agree
6. Impersonating: This rule gets broken a surprising amount of times in lucky islands, and a lot of young kids come very close to breaking it by saying “I am mr. beast” or “I am dream” (I don’t report these people because I don’t believe they deserve to be punished, although I explain that they should stop) 99.9% of the time, people who do this don’t have an evil or malicious intent, they are just passionate for the person they are impersonating.
7. Trading, personal info, etc.: Agree, Cube isn’t the place to exchange business information or personal information.
8. Advertising: Again, advertising isn’t clearly defined. If I’m playing with a friend and tell him about how good some other server is, am I advertising?
9. Camping: Please clearly define this. If I am one of two remaining people and I pearl away to regenerate health, am I camping? If I were to get softlocked, or forced into a situation that would take an unreasonable amount of time to escape (getting trapped far below the map) does cube expect me to close the game?
10. Teaming: I see this broken all the time in LIS, and couldn’t care less. I’m not going to waste my own time to ruin the day of two brothers who don’t want to play squads. I wouldn’t mind this rule getting removed, but I understand why it would make certain people upset.
11. Team trolling: agree
12. Abusing glitches: Actually controversial opinion: this should be allowed. Cube claims that glitches are banned because they make games unfair. First of all, drag clicking makes games a LOT more unfair. It gives players a significant advantage, is not an official feature of Minecraft, and is not accessible by all players. The same could also be said about clients. Glitch abuse is almost always not a significant advantage, accessible by almost everyone who knows about it, and very rarely causes damage to servers. The only reason it should be banned is if it creates an unfun meta, which clients, drag, etc. already do in my opinion. Nonsplit controls are only accesable to mobile players, so I guess that gives pc players an unfair advantage, and players who use it deserve to be banned. This rule about glitch abuse could lead to players accidentally breaking rules and has limited my ability to glitch hunt and make bug report (something I do voluntarily to benefit the server) I feel very strongly about this one
13. Alt accounting, agree
14. skin an alt accounting no longer have ground rules, except invis and small skins. Again, please provide elaboration or examples to give clarity.

Also, not letting people reply is a shameless way of refusing to accept feedback or let people respond. It’s like calling someone, insulting them, and then hanging up and blocking their number. Cubecraft needs to be willing to accept negative feedback if it wants the community to respect them.

 

[TheMrSpacee]

Letting specific situations slide by giving mods more freedom
- A much requested feature made horrible. More than once it has been asked to have mods be more helpful towards players, making sure they have a good playing experience instead of getting punished for the smallest offences. A good example was given ages ago by xHappyMood in this thread (see 'Not Helping People'), but multiple threads are mentionable. It is great to see that staff is now stimulated to look at specific situations instead of the not so bendable rule book. However, I rather call it the use of common sense and I find it quite interesting this wasn't promoted earlier. And believe me as I say it wasn't (I sadly cannot show you any examples, but with people I talked about the matter back in the days, I assure you I am right). But, by also removing the punishment tracks, you give the Staff Team a bit too much power. Knowing how they sometimes treated other staff, letting them go for no particular reason at all, just because they didn't really like the person for example, I don't even want to imagine how they could possibly use their 'common sense' in their own advantage. I would rather have a hard rule book than depending on how a moderator likes me. Therefore, I find it quite ironic abuse of the system was mentioned in the thread, but then from players. There are no precautions taken on the matter, which is frankly scary.

Moderators can take any punishment just for greeting and not punish their friends cheaters, and team feedback on these actions are immediately rejected

 

[adrian525pl]

Interesting post and information!

I have noticed over the last month not so many "obvious" cheaters such as flyers or auras but instead so many players who were good or very good before and now seem go be awesome overnight....like I get the more you play the better you might get, but now is see players able to do things that makes them unplayable. All I hear is "it's drag" ...but nah something has changed and the concern is that it must be easy not to be legit.....so being this way, using a macro or whatever that is, may soon become the norm. I hope I'm wrong in what I'm seeing.

At least now I know that the non-obvious cheaters I see every now and again isn't just me going insane.

In my case, they usually say its ping, not drag, tho

 

[Priley]

I feel I am not in any position to criticise the decisions CubeCraft makes

Proceeds to criticize CubeCraft, and rightfully so. Why would you not be in a position to give them criticize them?

 

[Blom]

Glad you're mentioning everything in a way without attacking the entire cubecraft team and their decision.

Thanks for taking the time to respond as well. I wasn't expecting any staff to respond, so that is much appreciated. I am also happy the way that you processed the message being only meant as feedback rather than an attack <3

Yeah, I see your point and yeah unfortunately I'm afraid some biased decisions will get made (if this happens a player can make a staff feedback and itll get discussed most likely). Though we are all trained well and have been through a trail as you know. I think it's good we can judge everything on a case-by-case basis, and hope that this advantage heavily overpowers the disadvantage, and ofcourse expect a fair moderation team.

I am sure the team can see what's good and bad. With over 7 years of playing experience I can be sure that every one of you knows the rules. Where my concerns come from is not whether the team will take action on the correct offences (okay, maybe a little bit, but that's not the main point), but more that for the same offence, the punishment will differ. As there are no more punishment tracks, there is no reference to any punishment.
Previously, I felt like there was a guide for each individual case without any discussion, so I am glad that the team is now stimulated to use common sense, but instead of a bit of guidance being dropped, there is now no guidance at all, making the decisions on punishments quite biased to start with. I hope this clarifies my concerns a little!

There was already little reward in reporting people, unless you were petty enough to try and get someone a warning for trolling or teaming its usually a waste of time, but now with those changes and all previous punishments reverted to zero it feels completely useless to keep trying.

This is a great addition to my points. I suppose not only you, but at least half of the playerbase feels this way. This will contribute even further to an unenjoyable environment on the server.

I feel like they may have closed the update thread to avoid people getting mad and spamming it with hate as they knew a change like that may not be very well received.

Also, not letting people reply is a shameless way of refusing to accept feedback or let people respond. It’s like calling someone, insulting them, and then hanging up and blocking their number. Cubecraft needs to be willing to accept negative feedback if it wants the community to respect them.

If this would be the case, which I am unsure of, it would be a terrible development. Being afraid of certain responses is not where a company the size of CubeCraft should be in relation to the players. I hope there are different reasons which may or may not come to light, so we'll see.

Current rules:

I am not going to argue about any of the current rules. Whether you like them or not, which is completely fine for that matter, CubeCraft wants to have their server behave within those parameters. There is always room for suggesting changes with a decent reasoning behind it, but I feel like the rules proposed in the Rule Book are completely fine. Where my issue lies within the rules is with their explanation. As you mentioned with for example rules 8 and 9, there are a million possibilities to interpret those. Maybe it would be helpful to have a spoiler with a clear definition beneath them? Just thought of it, maybe that's an idea.

Moderators can take any punishment just for greeting and not punish their friends cheaters, and team feedback on these actions are immediately rejected

I do have faith in the moderation team, but without any explanation on the rules for public it is tough to negotiate about, appeal or discuss punishments. See also my explanation on Stijnnn_'s comment above.

Proceeds to criticize CubeCraft, and rightfully so. Why would you not be in a position to give them criticize them?

You are completely right that my word choice was tremendously poor. What I meant is that I cannot see a lot behind the scenes, as well as not having played a ton lately. I just responded with whatever came to my mind from what I know about my previous years spent on the server. Therefore I would really appreciate a bit more clarification coming from the Staff Team. But, as you said "and rightfully so", I suppose you agree with at least a little bit of what I said, so maybe I should have a bit more confidence in my ability to give constructive feedback

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

Proceeds to criticize CubeCraft, and rightfully so. Why would you not be in a position to give them criticize them?

I appreciate that some x-staff members have enough guts to criticize and confront these issues as we can’t do so as easily as staff members. As a staff member anything said that isn’t positive can lead to issues. They can deny it but it’s true. As former members of the team at Cubes peak we know how far it’s fallen from that. It’s just getting worse and worse each change… You and I both remember CubeCrafts low points long ago but this is definitely the worst I've ever seen the server. What’s even sadder is most of this could have been prevented or avoided. Stubbornness and unwillingness to listen was a major downfall.

Dear all,
I was not planning on making yet another post, but here we are. To see the post I am talking about, you can click here, it will take you to there.

Normally, I make my feedback and suggestions all fancy, with color codes and emojis and stuff, but I don't feel like doing that right now. It should be plain and easy, which might make the structure a bit worse, but you are gonna read the entire thing, aren't you?

I have a lot of issues with the update, the post and everything about it. I will start off with the first, continuing down the road by mentioning all. DISCLAIMER: I feel I am not in any position to criticise the decisions CubeCraft makes. I do not have the insights they have, as well as having my biased opinion on certain matters.

Removing all punishments (exception for severe punishments, which I assume are network bans
- I was joking with a friend of mine about how this is a great way to get the player count up again not, but there are so many different layers that I simply don't get. Most of the players were punished for creating an unsafe and/or unenjoyable environment. Whether this happened because of hacking clients, swearing, stalking or bullying, other players may have considered to leave the server because of these groups. Most certainly the latter mentioned groups can harm other players in ways we can't comprehend from our own perspectives. With these people back on the server, you will get a playerbase with less casual or known players, but more hackers. The people that enjoyed the server because of how it was will now enjoy the server less, causing them to go elsewhere. Even if your player count does not plummet, you still have serious issues with the people you have left.

Rules updated
- The rules are more easily accessible for the people that do not know how to behave themselves in public. This contains again a couple of problems built in something that deems to be good. First of all, punishment tracks are completely gone. This is mostly a problem with the next point I am going to discuss, so we'll leave it be for now. Secondly, there are no explanations at all (except for 2 lines of them at most, but you get the point). Let's be honest, barely anyone will read the rules, except for when they need to check about a specific situation. 95% of the time, these situations were easily accessible for anyone, as they were described right under the correct rule. Now we will have to guess what is and isn't allowed, certainly for the players that aren't familiar with the rules as we, returning playerbase, are. This will lead to confusion and because of a worse understanding, a worse playing environment. The points you won by making the rules good looking for the new players, you lost twice as much by removing the categories which made the rules relevant.

Letting specific situations slide by giving mods more freedom
- A much requested feature made horrible. More than once it has been asked to have mods be more helpful towards players, making sure they have a good playing experience instead of getting punished for the smallest offences. A good example was given ages ago by xHappyMood in this thread (see 'Not Helping People'), but multiple threads are mentionable. It is great to see that staff is now stimulated to look at specific situations instead of the not so bendable rule book. However, I rather call it the use of common sense and I find it quite interesting this wasn't promoted earlier. And believe me as I say it wasn't (I sadly cannot show you any examples, but with people I talked about the matter back in the days, I assure you I am right). But, by also removing the punishment tracks, you give the Staff Team a bit too much power. Knowing how they sometimes treated other staff, letting them go for no particular reason at all, just because they didn't really like the person for example, I don't even want to imagine how they could possibly use their 'common sense' in their own advantage. I would rather have a hard rule book than depending on how a moderator likes me. Therefore, I find it quite ironic abuse of the system was mentioned in the thread, but then from players. There are no precautions taken on the matter, which is frankly scary.

Transferring rules from one location to another
- Cool update. Don't have much to say about this particular change. However, I don't understand why forum helpdesk is closed. I am not sure if that was a thing before this update or not, but I think that should be reverted as well. Why not have as many possibilities for players to reach out to staff for help as possible? Though, that's a whole different story, so I will not elaborate that any further.

Closed update thread
- Having to put my feedback in a separate thread is not a great improvement. I suppose many players have questions about why the decision is made (including me) and what the impact will be according to the CC data, but there is no possible way to ask questions right under the thread. After making a ticket in Discord to ask these sorts of questions and in particular why the thread was closed for responses, I didn't get a response. Actually, I am still waiting while writing this thread. To continue on the last point I made, I feel like there should be more ways to reach the staff team for these kind of questions

Thanks for reading, I don't need a reaction in the form of agrees or disagrees, but if you feel like I am wrong in any of these cases or you want me to elaborate, I am happy to start a conversation about my opinion. Cheers yall!

Plain and simple this update and changes were super dumb. I’d use stronger language but I’d get in trouble and my window to break rules and get a free pass has come and gone. The mind numbing logic that went into “Let’s give everyone ANOTHER chance.” is unbelievable. People with permanent bans who clearly never were gonna change are back for free and can cause problems again. Racists, homophobics, anti semites, get to hurt people again, and for what? A few new players? Cube must be hella desperate to want these people back. Egg Wars, 1.19, Store Update wouldnt be called the most successful so moves like a random back rooms update or this shows how bad it is. People are forgetting this is a massive issue for Bedrock. Making an Alt takes 5 minutes and bypassing even easier so thousands of alts now just got new use. This even allows people to SELL them as they have added value in a clean record. How can they miss this detail?

On a side note, Cube has long pandered to the players with rules, often if someone of importance or a few people broke a rule, they were more willing to change the rule then enforce and punish it. Ive seen and heard of several instances where despite following the rules and enforcing them the player would get away with it. This was either due to favoritism or just taking advantage of weakening rules. Somehow enforcement = being to strict. Over recent time very undesirable behaviors have been not only tolerated but encouraged by the moderation team and it’s on them when these people cause issues for others. A similar example is with the lowering of requirements over and over for Helper more undesirable people became staff leading to more and more demotions and even some worse fates for others.

Sadly though, nothing is going to come of this thread, deny and ignore is the new order of the day and all we can do is watch it go down.

 

[Blom]

Sadly though, nothing is going to come of this thread, deny and ignore is the new order of the day and all we can do is watch it go down.

As a staff member anything said that isn’t positive can lead to issues. They can deny it but it’s true. As former members of the team at Cubes peak we know how far it’s fallen from that. It’s just getting worse and worse each change… You and I both remember CubeCrafts low points long ago but this is definitely the worst I've ever seen the server. What’s even sadder is most of this could have been prevented or avoided. Stubbornness and unwillingness to listen was a major downfall.

I hate to see ex-staff say such things, but they seem all right. I wish to go back in time again, and even though that's not possible, even the mindset completely disappeared. Thanks for responding to the thread and sharing the misery. Let's hope we get responses from within the core of the team

 

[TheMrSpacee]

I do have faith in the moderation team, but without any explanation on the rules for public it is tough to negotiate about, appeal or discuss punishments. See also my explanation on Stijnnn_'s comment above.

I may have spoken too harshly, I just want to say that the probability that your team feedback will be accepted is close to 0

 

[TheMrSpacee]

Plain and simple this update and changes were super dumb. I’d use stronger language but I’d get in trouble and my window to break rules and get a free pass has come and gone. The mind numbing logic that went into “Let’s give everyone ANOTHER chance.” is unbelievable. People with permanent bans who clearly never were gonna change are back for free and can cause problems again. Racists, homophobics, anti semites, get to hurt people again, and for what? A few new players? Cube must be hella desperate to want these people back. Egg Wars, 1.19, Store Update wouldnt be called the most successful so moves like a random back rooms update or this shows how bad it is. People are forgetting this is a massive issue for Bedrock. Making an Alt takes 5 minutes and bypassing even easier so thousands of alts now just got new use. This even allows people to SELL them as they have added value in a clean record. How can they miss this detail?

On a side note, Cube has long pandered to the players with rules, often if someone of importance or a few people broke a rule, they were more willing to change the rule then enforce and punish it. Ive seen and heard of several instances where despite following the rules and enforcing them the player would get away with it. This was either due to favoritism or just taking advantage of weakening rules. Somehow enforcement = being to strict. Over recent time very undesirable behaviors have been not only tolerated but encouraged by the moderation team and it’s on them when these people cause issues for others. A similar example is with the lowering of requirements over and over for Helper more undesirable people became staff leading to more and more demotions and even some worse fates for others.

Sadly though, nothing is going to come of this thread, deny and ignore is the new order of the day and all we can do is watch it go down.

All we can do with these is follow the rule: If you can't change it, join them
But its hard when u can got punished for random msg

 

[xHappyMood]

I will start off with the first, continuing down the road by mentioning all.

wow i thought ppl usually started with the last then somewhere in the middle and then the rest in a random order

- I was joking with a friend of mine about how this is a great way to get the player count up again not, but there are so many different layers that I simply don't get. Most of the players were punished for creating an unsafe and/or unenjoyable environment. Whether this happened because of hacking clients, swearing, stalking or bullying, other players may have considered to leave the server because of these groups. Most certainly the latter mentioned groups can harm other players in ways we can't comprehend from our own perspectives. With these people back on the server, you will get a playerbase with less casual or known players, but more hackers. The people that enjoyed the server because of how it was will now enjoy the server less, causing them to go elsewhere. Even if your player count does not plummet, you still have serious issues with the people you have left.

i both agree and disagree with this, idk what exactly those 'severe' punishments are but i think that especially for the not-severe ones it isnt that bad a thing at all. if you got permbanned 7 years ago for teaming with your friend a couple times when you were 11 it's not like ur likely to do that again. and also since ppl who idk threatened someone 5 years ago have grown up a bit by now i'd hope they're a little more mature too and wouldn't do it again.

at the same time i also think that ppl who got permanently punished for something severe recently aren't all that unlikely to do it again, but well that is if they care enough to even get back online - which most of those ppl don't seem to do anyways. ig there might be an increase in mean ppl for a bit tho but well, it is what it is

there are no explanations at all (except for 2 lines of them at most, but you get the point). Let's be honest, barely anyone will read the rules, except for when they need to check about a specific situation. 95% of the time, these situations were easily accessible for anyone, as they were described right under the correct rule. Now we will have to guess what is and isn't allowed, certainly for the players that aren't familiar with the rules as we, returning playerbase, are. This will lead to confusion and because of a worse understanding, a worse playing environment.

i very much agree with this (also pls give me affirmation im the reason necroposting and bumping are even explained at all im so cool but pls confirm that to me dear internet strangers). for some rules, like alting or abusing discord channels i don't think a lot of extra explanation is needed, but for some others i think things are very unclear.
especially these:

• "Trolling users in a way that will damage their gaming experience on the server"

Like what does damaging their gaming experience mean? Trolling used to also be like faking a /msg using colour codes, or faking plus join messages but like?? that doesnt harm anyone's gaming experience, but if i understand correctly the actual things that aren't allowed are still generally the same? so if even someone who (used to) know the rules doesn't know what is and isn't allowed then well

• "Excessive bumping"

What is excessive? It used to be allowed twice, then it wasn't allowed at all, and I think it was even allowed only once at some point, like this is just the most unclear thing i have ever heard

but i also agree with

Threatening: unclear what is considered a threat. If I say “I’m going to beat you” is that a threat, or just a taunt? Cubecraft needs to clearly define where this line is drawn

Trolling: Very unclear rule. If I, in a game of lucky islands, trick an unsuspecting player to open a trapped chest, could I get banned for negactively effecting their experience?

Advertising: Again, advertising isn’t clearly defined. If I’m playing with a friend and tell him about how good some other server is, am I advertising?

(to some extent)

xHappyMood in this thread

omg THAT IS MEEEEEEE INTERNET FAMEEEEE YESSSSSSS

It is great to see that staff is now stimulated to look at specific situations instead of the not so bendable rule book.

i agree

However, I rather call it the use of common sense and I find it quite interesting this wasn't promoted earlier. And believe me as I say it wasn't (I sadly cannot show you any examples, but with people I talked about the matter back in the days, I assure you I am right).

i dont think it is very useful to complain about that now anymore but well

But, by also removing the punishment tracks, you give the Staff Team a bit too much power. Knowing how they sometimes treated other staff, letting them go for no particular reason at all, just because they didn't really like the person for example, I don't even want to imagine how they could possibly use their 'common sense' in their own advantage. I would rather have a hard rule book than depending on how a moderator likes me. Therefore, I find it quite ironic abuse of the system was mentioned in the thread, but then from players. There are no precautions taken on the matter, which is frankly scary.

i agree with this, especially if your punishment involves a forums ban because you can't even make a staff feedback thread so like ur basically screwed - at the same time i don't really know how it shoudl be solved because well making staff discuss eveyr punishment with multiple ppl isnt very practical and efficient either

Having to put my feedback in a separate thread is not a great improvement. I suppose many players have questions about why the decision is made (including me) and what the impact will be according to the CC data, but there is no possible way to ask questions right under the thread. After making a ticket in Discord to ask these sorts of questions and in particular why the thread was closed for responses, I didn't get a response. Actually, I am still waiting while writing this thread. To continue on the last point I made, I feel like there should be more ways to reach the staff team for these kind of questions

i obvisouly agree that communication is but like i don't think this is that bad a thing, it's not like those discussions in the threads are usually very productive anyways so better to have feedback structured in a feedback therad rather than in 5819025820958210951280925809125809 separate posts underneath the announcement with random ppl saying "LOL GOOD updATE" in between

I am not entirely sure about that one. While I do agree that mods should be more helpful instead of just trying to punish everyone, I feel like letting rule offenses slide is not the way to go.

this literally used to be punishable, that is just the saddest thing ever and because ppl were being very pathetic and reporting it staff basically had to punish that poor person for it, which really isn't a useful thing to do

if someone is blatantly teaming then regardless of context they should be punished.

that is kind of the point of it, if it's really bad then they get punished but if there's something that changes it then they don't punish them - or not as severely

I feel like they may have closed the update thread to avoid people getting mad and spamming it with hate as they knew a change like that may not be very well received.

well we don't know that sooo not really a reason to speculate abt that

team feedback on these actions are immediately rejected

??

If this would be the case, which I am unsure of, it would be a terrible development. Being afraid of certain responses is not where a company the size of CubeCraft should be in relation to the players. I hope there are different reasons which may or may not come to light, so we'll see.

it's still speculation so there's really no need to get dramatic about it smh

I appreciate that some x-staff members have enough guts to criticize and confront these issues as we can’t do so as easily as staff members. As a staff member anything said that isn’t positive can lead to issues. They can deny it but it’s true. As former members of the team at Cubes peak we know how far it’s fallen from that. It’s just getting worse and worse each change… You and I both remember CubeCrafts low points long ago but this is definitely the worst I've ever seen the server. What’s even sadder is most of this could have been prevented or avoided. Stubbornness and unwillingness to listen was a major downfall.




Plain and simple this update and changes were super dumb. I’d use stronger language but I’d get in trouble and my window to break rules and get a free pass has come and gone. The mind numbing logic that went into “Let’s give everyone ANOTHER chance.” is unbelievable. People with permanent bans who clearly never were gonna change are back for free and can cause problems again. Racists, homophobics, anti semites, get to hurt people again, and for what? A few new players? Cube must be hella desperate to want these people back. Egg Wars, 1.19, Store Update wouldnt be called the most successful so moves like a random back rooms update or this shows how bad it is. People are forgetting this is a massive issue for Bedrock. Making an Alt takes 5 minutes and bypassing even easier so thousands of alts now just got new use. This even allows people to SELL them as they have added value in a clean record. How can they miss this detail?

On a side note, Cube has long pandered to the players with rules, often if someone of importance or a few people broke a rule, they were more willing to change the rule then enforce and punish it. Ive seen and heard of several instances where despite following the rules and enforcing them the player would get away with it. This was either due to favoritism or just taking advantage of weakening rules. Somehow enforcement = being to strict. Over recent time very undesirable behaviors have been not only tolerated but encouraged by the moderation team and it’s on them when these people cause issues for others. A similar example is with the lowering of requirements over and over for Helper more undesirable people became staff leading to more and more demotions and even some worse fates for others.

Sadly though, nothing is going to come of this thread, deny and ignore is the new order of the day and all we can do is watch it go down.

I hate to see ex-staff say such things, but they seem all right. I wish to go back in time again, and even though that's not possible, even the mindset completely disappeared. Thanks for responding to the thread and sharing the misery. Let's hope we get responses from within the core of the team

I may have spoken too harshly, I just want to say that the probability that your team feedback will be accepted is close to 0

All we can do with these is follow the rule: If you can't change it, join them
But its hard when u can got punished for random msg

i don't think being this negative is going to help anyone but ok you do you i guess

this is the first time i posted something this long in like forever, be proud

edit: also just to add, apparently staff isn't allowed to discuss moderation in DMs anymore, and everything moderation-related needs to be discussed in tickets so other staff can look back at it, which i think is also a bit weird and useless? if i have a small question i cba to make a ticket i just wanna get my answer quickly :'( so like i also think that really is not necessary

 

[Blom]

wow i thought ppl usually started with the last then somewhere in the middle and then the rest in a random order

this is the first time i posted something this long in like forever, be proud

omg THAT IS MEEEEEEE INTERNET FAMEEEEE YESSSSSSS

(also pls give me affirmation im the reason necroposting and bumping are even explained at all im so cool but pls confirm that to me dear internet strangers)

I need this more often, please keep being who you are <3

ig there might be an increase in mean ppl for a bit tho but well, it is what it is

Exactly what I mean when I say I don't have the data. Cube probably calculated this stuff out. Issue is the communication towards us imo, but oh well.

i agree with this, especially if your punishment involves a forums ban because you can't even make a staff feedback thread so like ur basically screwed - at the same time i don't really know how it shoudl be solved because well making staff discuss eveyr punishment with multiple ppl isnt very practical and efficient either

I don't certainly think all punishments should be discussed with multiple people (in the best case it would, but as you point out, efficiency is a thing), but it looks like with the current system there is not much to discuss anyhow. A mod can say "I felt like that was the right thing to do", not having to refer to any punishment track or previous offences that are similar to the committed offence. I don't think mods will abuse their perms, but it makes a tough situation while that is completely unnecessary in my opinion.

but like i don't think this is that bad a thing, it's not like those discussions in the threads are usually very productive anyways so better to have feedback structured in a feedback therad rather than in 5819025820958210951280925809125809 separate posts underneath the announcement with random ppl saying "LOL GOOD updATE" in between

Fair, there is something to say for that. Not giving the option however, not sure about it. Guess that's opinion based a lot too...

i don't think being this negative is going to help anyone but ok you do you i guess

For a lot of people on the server (and people who left a while ago) it is also a lot of emotions stacked on top of each other. This might not be so dramatic, but the combination can for some people be a lot sometimes. I get that you might think 'get over it', but everyone has their own thoughts and I think if that is the way to go for them its the way to go.
That was all a lot more dramatic than I intended but you get the point I suppose

edit: also just to add, apparently staff isn't allowed to discuss moderation in DMs anymore, and everything moderation-related needs to be discussed in tickets so other staff can look back at it, which i think is also a bit weird and useless? if i have a small question i cba to make a ticket i just wanna get my answer quickly :'( so like i also think that really is not necessary

I miss the old Staff Help. A lot of simple questions could be answered super quickly. I know it wasn't the most efficient way, but I enjoyed it :D

Thanks for taking the time to respond and elaborate this much, it is appreciated <3

 

[Deann]

i do not have the time nor the energy to talk about all of this like I would want to, but a couple things stick out that I wanna say

Most of the players were punished for creating an unsafe and/or unenjoyable environment

So this is true, but its kinda misleading. The vast majority of punishments (excluding the few people who make a thousand alts) are kids making mistakes or just someone who cheated out of boredom a couple times back in the day. The amount of people who have enough time and will to consistently sit at a children's game and do malicious things are really very few, and those people would bypass anyway - so I really don't see the issue with the wipe.

I appreciate that some x-staff members have enough guts to criticize and confront these issues as we can’t do so as easily as staff members. As a staff member anything said that isn’t positive can lead to issues.

This is the actual reason im responding here, I see this point so much and I don't understand it. I know we're slightly different times, but from back when I got onboarded and was talking to animal, literally one of the first things I was told was that criticism is fine as long as it's not attacking people (on that topic, this point im making is not directed at you doc but at the general idea that we aren't honest because we're not allowed to be negative).

For example: I don't like all of this update. I think that slimming the rules down (while necessary, holy cow that was a long page) so much so fast is going to lead to a bunch of staff feedbacks and confusion for a while before everything settles. Even broader than this, I don't like a lot of what happened to Java. I miss lucky islands duos a LOT.

So now lets wait for capitan to lead the crowd of pitchfork-wielding admins running at me, right?

 

[adrian525pl]

this literally used to be punishable, that is just the saddest thing ever and because ppl were being very pathetic and reporting it staff basically had to punish that poor person for it, which really isn't a useful thing to do

Okay? Why shouldn't that be punishable? The guy on the skybase most likely was prolonging the game and camping, and all of that to achieve literally nothing ingame. Don't call him "that poor person" coz he can't abide by a set of rules that a literal child with an elementary school level of reading comprehension could understand.

And there is a reason the rule of camping is in place, and includes (or used to include) things like that, and its because it is annoying, ruins the game for everyone and makes it last longer than it needs to for no reason.

The rules are meant to assure everyones enjoyment from the game and are meant to punish and discourage anyone who thinks about actively doing that.

The only "sad" thing here is you trying to find excuses for rule offenders who clearly knew what they were doing and still kept going with it. And even if they somehow didn't know what they were doing, and as much as I think you should be able to look up the rules ingame instead of having to go to the forums, there is a saying: "ingorance of law excuses no one".

Basically: if there are rules in place, its their job to inform themselves about it and its their fault if they get punished for breaking them, even IF they don't know the rule exists.


And did you really call punishing someone for that useless? Maybe with the current punishment (which, at least for the first time someone is caught commiting the offense, allegedly is a warning) it is a little useless, but rules like that and their enforcement in general are not. Again: There is a reason the rule was created, and if you can't abide by it you deserve punishment.

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

i do not have the time nor the energy to talk about all of this like I would want to, but a couple things stick out that I wanna say


So this is true, but its kinda misleading. The vast majority of punishments (excluding the few people who make a thousand alts) are kids making mistakes or just someone who cheated out of boredom a couple times back in the day. The amount of people who have enough time and will to consistently sit at a children's game and do malicious things are really very few, and those people would bypass anyway - so I really don't see the issue with the wipe.


This is the actual reason im responding here, I see this point so much and I don't understand it. I know we're slightly different times, but from back when I got onboarded and was talking to animal, literally one of the first things I was told was that criticism is fine as long as it's not attacking people (on that topic, this point im making is not directed at you doc but at the general idea that we aren't honest because we're not allowed to be negative).

For example: I don't like all of this update. I think that slimming the rules down (while necessary, holy cow that was a long page) so much so fast is going to lead to a bunch of staff feedbacks and confusion for a while before everything settles. Even broader than this, I don't like a lot of what happened to Java. I miss lucky islands duos a LOT.

So now lets wait for capitan to lead the crowd of pitchfork-wielding admins running at me, right?

Well, before I’ve been yelled at by certain individuals for saying I didn’t like an update and giving reasons. This was even after I stated it as feedback prior and my points echoed player feedback. Some posts were deleted others were not. Unless you missed it, I recall there being certain discussions about “thinking before you post” and “how it makes the team look bad” regardless I often talk to MANY staff members so it’s funny to watch them post such positive things about and update and 180 with me to admitting they don’t like it but they can’t say that. Also if you see this point often it validates my claim, no?

Cap isn’t the one who would do that anyways, and considering the way you wrote this I think they’d rather leave it and make it seem like it doesn't happen rather then take action, especially because what you said is so minor.

Maybe things have changed, maybe it isn’t like this anymore. But I still see the 180 opinions from public to private…

 

[Deann]

I don’t want to take this thread over, here’s all i’ll say: in no way are we pressured internally to talk well about updates, or even not to talk negatively about them (so the 180ing is real weird, because why lie for no reason about liking an update lol). at most, the “think before you post” is about being respectful because it’s a role-model type position, which is entirely reasonable.

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

I don’t want to take this thread over, here’s all i’ll say: in no way are we pressured internally to talk well about updates, or even not to talk negatively about them (so the 180ing is real weird, because why lie for no reason about liking an update lol). at most, the “think before you post” is about being respectful because it’s a role-model type position, which is entirely reasonable.

I’m not sure you know what instances I’m referring to, also most are probably private to most. Besides that, you are right, we aren’t forced to say good things, you are encouraged to say something that’s positive or nothing at all. Bad reactions or comments reflect negatively on the team and are discouraged. Again, unless something magically changed between end of 2022 and now.