Admin Abuse Ends Now

[KenuDragonfire]

Well, the time has come. Enough "whispering to admins" and "I'll talk to them later" nonsense. If trying to handle it quietly doesn't help, posting it where EVERYONE can see it will.

I know everyone won't share my thoughts and maybe even this will bring hate towards me, but something needs to change. I'm going to be blatantly honest: Epic and Mop are abusive admins. Epic is a new admin with a bunch of new powers, I get it, I was there once, I know how fun it is to mess around with powers. Mop? Mop is one of our oldest players on the server, he should know better. Gall's Principle is out of date. Unlimited power for admins is an awful idea, and I know it might have worked once, but not now. Admins have their off days. I get it. That is why admins shouldn't be all-powerful.

If you think I am just whining because I don't like Epic and Mop, here are a few examples: Mop was under siege by Haven City. He got killed. But before he went back to fight with the rest of his towns, he vanished. He went through his town portal. He walked through the town, while vanished, and went into an underground area (Cathedral is a floating city, it was under the floor. ), unvanished, and then covered up his little entrance. I was absolutely outraged, so I created a jail, and jailed Mop right next to the invading party. He vanished immediately, and shouted at me and threatened to ban Zor and I. (Zor had nothing to do with it, this was all on me.) Say all you want about what I did being abusive, but what Mop did was absolutely unfair and I knew if I EVER did something like that I'd get immediate flak from all the admins.

Want another? I created my new nether portal because the always lovely Preksak blew up the nether, and while I was looking around the area, Epic teleported to me. Unvanished. I began to punch him because hey, walk here yourself, then you get to look at my ugly little nether island. He killed me instantly. So I went back, and then punched him off the island to his death.
Or he should have died anyways. He vanished mid-fall. Any vanilla player should have died from that unless they had enchanted armor. And then, he teleported to me again so I punched him a bunch of times, he vanished and went through my nether portal. Unfortunately for him, he had no perms in my town and he got trapped in one of my furnace portals. So he teleported to me again. And then he finally teleported to someone else who was near spawn.

That is all that happened to me that I can think of, I won't report any other abuse that happened to others because I want others to speak for themselves. People need to stand up to this nonsense! Admins have a duty to protect us, not to abuse their power. I get throwing a few lightning bolts around as a joke or teleport to people while unvanished as a joke. But if they fight you, you better re-vanish than use your fancy diamond gear that you are carrying around. If you are under attack, don't use your admin power to fight, use your power as a player with a sword and a bow to fight.

 

[Defgnww]

I agree to this lengthy wall of text. I also would like to point out that Mop teleported me out of the cave I was in after I told him I was caving, and would not let me go until finally he was convinced by Computern. The reason was for business between me and Gudbrandr that we had settled hours before hand, which was not of Mop's concern.

 

[Zor95]

A couple weeks ago I decided to have some fun in Cathedral so I ran there and killed one of their citizens named Jeff_lion. I killed him because Mop refused to unvanish and fight. After killing him again I had to leave for a while so I ran to the other side of Cathedral and logged off. When I returned Mop vanished, tped to me, saw I was still in Cathedral, and escorted me to spawn with /tpa. I ran back taking Memrme with me. According to Mem, Mop was stalking me while vanished. He urged Mem not to say anything but Mem was indeed reporting everything back to me. I took a different route up to the cathedral not wanting to reveal my main method to Mop and as soon as I hit the top I was tped to spawn again. Memrme threatened Mop so when I got back and climbed up Cathedral I was not teleported. Mop, however, continued to stalk me while vanished and provided commentary as I raided his town.

During this time a few of the newer players called for admin help due to a grief which Mop refused because he insisted on watching me. Eventually I entered the house of Jeff_lion who had quite a few goodies so I spent a while in the house. Mop unvanished, blocked the door, vanished, then watched me try to escape. He eventually logged off with me still inside the house so I called Nouv to Cathedral and threw my items out a window then suicided.

As for Epicbacon... he does play with his powers too much. When we upgraded to 1.3 I was one of the first to explore the new lands. When I found my first desert pyramid I celebrated in public chat. Epic saw this, teleported to me, ran inside ahead of me, opened up the chest chamber, vanished, dropped onto the tnt pressure plate, then looted the chests. I demanded he throw me the items (which he did) then he proceeded to take the sandstone around it. I kicked him out and as soon as I got out of the pyramid he ran into the nearby jungle harvesting cocoa beans and searching for the rare jungle temple.

Epic has also made casual remarks about his use of vanish. He will make suicidal jumps and vanish to survive them. One time he missed and died and in public chat explained that he could not vanish in time. Earlier today I was explaining some changes I'd like to the ranking system which removes /tppos from guardians. He complained that he liked /tppos so he could teleport to high Y values and vanish as he fell.

 

[adderman500]

I agree. Admin abuse ends now. One thing id say is that there's not really anything wrong with bacon teleporting to high y values and vanishing provided it doesn't hurt anyone. The other thing I'd say is is that nou is right in saying the power is tempting, I can imagine if you had that power under your fingertips it would be extremely difficult not to abuse it now and again, particularly if your town is under threat.

One more point - for the length of time mop has been admin both now and in the past he has a relatively clear track record. There are only a few cases where he has abused his power to an extent which ruins someone's experience. That's not to say I back him up on the actions described here by nou and Zor, but I would suggest that he is still an effective admin in most cases as long as he addresses these infrequent problems, as he did with the smite scandal.

 

[mopb3]

Guys, its a game;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo[/youtube]

I'll just say that for every action I have reason, and don't really want to argue about these things ^_^ If anyone has any issues with myself I would be much happier if they would just approach me directly, and I would be happy to resolve them there and then.

(I can discredit or give reason for any and all action listed here for myself, and I'm sure bacon would be able to give similar words, but for now I shall leave it until asked to do so)

Edit; Upon reading them again I realized that a fair few of the things said are not even true :/

 

[adderman500]

I can pick a few holes in ur claims nou and Zor. Nou, why didn't u mention this teleporting into a hole during the cath raid before? Zor: if u spend an extended period of time in one building inside someone's town, you are extremely easy to trap. I could have, if u spent even 2 mins in the building. Use a town portal, walk to u. Simple. I also don't believe ur claim about throwing items out the windows. In which case, how did nou get in? Bugs, perhaps? Hmm....

And no, I haven't spoken to mop, so he hasn't twisted the facts. This is what I think. How can I communicate when I am on holiday so not on minecraft. I haven't used private forums to discuss this, ask toi/line/epic if u don't believe me.

 

[Zor95]

I can pick a few holes in ur claims nou and Zor. Nou, why didn't u mention this teleporting into a hole during the cath raid before? Zor: if u spend an extended period of time in one building inside someone's town, you are extremely easy to trap. I could have, if u spent even 2 mins in the building. Use a town portal, walk to u. Simple. I also don't believe ur claim about throwing items out the windows. In which case, how did nou get in? Bugs, perhaps? Hmm....

The same way I got up I expect. Spunk and Memrme witnessed all that happened so they can confirm we did nothing illegal. And the problem with being trapped in a house is that Mop would've had no knowledge of me being there if he hadn't been stalking me. I also had absolutely no chance to defend myself because he was vanished. If you were online at the time I definitely would've been keeping an eye out for you.

Also I can't speak for Nouv but the time of the hole incident was just pure madness. You had Newdood raiding the place, Noobrampger griefing it, Mop ranting, you pleading, I was trying to reason with Nouv and New then I was hunting Noob. There wasn't much anyone could do.

 

[Loki]

If the whole of Cathedral posts on here in mop's defense it will not make any of it false. I've got a fair amount of accounts that would technically be abuse on his part. The bottom line is that he is an abusive admin, whether it is justified or not. Epic is just having fun with his powers, but they weren't given to him as a toy. The only thing I have seen him do since promotion was logblock a theft. Besides that it has been stalking using vanish, teleporting, high falls and small fights that end in abuse. It gets to the point where I have to get off the Tekkit server I play to get on to make sure the server isn't in turmoil. Admin ABUSE is ADMIN ABUSE; Do NOT try to justify it. The whole server is done with it. There's no room for abusive admins, now moreso than ever because of the update, and because of how many new people we should be getting.

 

[Zor95]

Even if none of these items were considered abuse... what do these admins do that is actually admin work? All I see from Mop is offers of forgiveness to griefers, xrayers, and hackers. He will undo the work of everyone else and make it more difficult to continue doing the work. So why do these guys need power?

 

[Cryptite]

Simply put, I have witnessed many of these abuses of power from console. Some stories may be stretched, some may be partially untrue, but I have witnessed each and every one of you doing this. Epic does indeed constantly teleport around, vanish and unvanish. Practically speaking, I think the best resolution for this is a revamping of what ranks get what permissions. Magpie, though rare he may be these days, has been one of the better examples of neutral adminning.

Epic you ran around with your diamond armor just after the nether exploded because you vanished; everybody else died and lost their stuff. Mop I have also watched you vanish, tp, and the like from console during times of known pvp. Zor we've already handled, and Nouv's points are equally valid.

In my point of view, you guys either need to knock it off, or we'll very quickly be back to the point where all you guys get are kick and ban.

 

[KenuDragonfire]

I do understand Epic messing around with powers though, because atm, he is the only American guardian. Lolo and Slim are gone, and Spunk quit. So yeah, that I understand, but still, something should be done about it.

 

[Loki]

There is so much that he could be doing that he isn't, so I have to get on and clean up after him the best I can. I can't do much as a Sentry; if there is a problem I have to walk there no matter how far it is, while Epic is using tp for his own personal entertainment. As the only active American Guardian it is his responsibility to take care of everything during hours that typically only Americans play.

 

[Zor95]

This is an old point, but what is the use of an overseer rank? All it has over guardian is /tpa and I cannot think of any circumstance where it is needed. Especially now that we have jails.

I will list the suggestions I told Epic below. They may be a bit extreme but honestly... does our current system really work that well?

Slicer: Gain /tptoggle + /kick. Is /ban too risky?
Sentry: Same
Guardian: Lose /tpo and /tppos
Overseer: Same (or just remove it)

 

[adderman500]

What does tpo do?

 

[Zor95]

It overrides /tptoggle.

 

[adderman500]

Yeah, seems like an overseer command to me, not a guardian one

 

[Cryptite]

We have enough new and random slicers that I think they should remain an honorary title. Sentries I believe should be able to kick and ban. I think Guardians indeed shouldn't have tp and Overseers+ can have the tp stuff.

Perhaps a slightly more extreme solution is forbidding the involvement of admins in pvp affairs. Anybody who has the ability to change the course of a conflict because they have greater powers is going to have a real hard time now abusing them, so either we pick some admins that can remain neutral to all forms of pvp or we limit what they can do.

 

[Loki]

You could find some way to deactivate powers in PVP, I'm sure there's a plugin for that. I think Guardians should keep tp, but not tpo. If someone with /tptoggle doesn't want you to teleport to them you should respect that and not /tpo anyways. But tp would help a lot when checking on people while vanished, as long as you're not screwing with anyone or using it for PVP purposes.

 

[MrAlchemy]

I'd make a moral and just admin if given the position. And I'm also in America (EST) :ugeek:

Cant say I'd solve all the problems that come my way, but surely most of them.

Plus I dont really find pvp fun so I'd just build and build and build.

In fact, I've been building a town that I intend on being admin only citizenship.

I've never witnessed any admin "abuse" myself. Having access to specific commands is just that, access to commands. Sure they arent supposed to be used all the time but they are there to be used. I'm sure jealousy is a small portion of the issue, as well as the perception that this server is vanilla when it is semi vanilla.

With the rampant and widespread raids that have going on coupled with grudges that players are holding are also part of the issue. I've noticed that many on this server arent acting as a community, with much of personal play being devoted to becoming rich instead of building a great world and having fun together.

I've got no suggestions as to what we should do about corruption or "admin abuse" aside from increasing observation of certain behaviors and making sure those who break the rules are held accountable.

Hope everyone is having a great day!
~MrAlchemy

 

[Zor95]

I'm pretty sure you can still /tp [player x] without being able to /tppos and there are pluggins which put you in a "combat mode" which has different rules such as logging out creates a npc which others can kill and etc. It's mostly used on faction servers.

As for Crypt's suggestion...

The problem with that is it puts the majority of the load on Overseers. When you're an admin on this server it often seems like you're more of an employee. Mop posted on the first page that this is just a game. He is correct, it is a game and we should all have the opportunity to have some fun. Now that I am a slicer I can honestly say... being an admin was hell. I was actually working on a project that I wanted to work on about 5 minutes every hour. I could not PvP which is one of my favorite activities because of the constant claims of abuse.

My suggestion would give a small amount of power to all the slicers which would help take care of the more basic admin tasks. When a scenario arises where more power is needed it can easily be provided because 1) the admins aren't too busy and 2) they aren't burned out. It would also severely limit the power of lower admins so they are seen more as players, not employees or even gods in some cases.