Administration abuse

[KLK]

One day i was playing minetest with one of my friends. In the chat my friend called someone crybaby. At reading this, one of the admin killed my friend, destroy his house, and killed me, i was shocked, i asked him why he had to kill me too, his response was " you was in my way" minutes later he ban my friend account and mines too.

[Krock]

Switch servers and don't self-quote.

[kaeza]

See this post.

[Tedypig]

Switch servers. Admins/Owners can do as they please. If you don't like how a server is run, no one is forcing you to stay. In my opinion, this is wrong, It should have gone through steps, like warn/kill/ban or something, but it's their server.

[Minetestforfun]

Change server, and tell us what is the name ofthe server :p

[KLK]

The name of the serve is xanadu.

[Jordach]

The name of the serve is xanadu.

Go elsewhere, such as "Onez' Minetest Server" (You may overhear me in the IRC channel)

[philipbenr]

Really? I thought that one was much nicer... Then again, it isn't hosted by TenPlus1...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8494

^^ This is the forum thread ^^ I think that would be the most appropriate place to complain.

[Jordach]

Really? I thought that one was much nicer... Then again, it isn't hosted by TenPlus1...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8494

^^ This is the forum thread ^^ I think that would be the most appropriate place to complain.

I've been pinged enough on IRC to deal with him - including a complete ban from the serverlist.

[Minetestforfun]

Switch servers. Admins/Owners can do as they please. If you don't like how a server is run, no one is forcing you to stay. In my opinion, this is wrong, It should have gone through steps, like warn/kill/ban or something, but it's their server.

Yes of course, i agree.

BUT, if admins exaggerate of they powers and punish players without any reasons, i think it's very bad for the minetest community ! And i think, a higher authority should be there to protect the players from this kind of situation... (specifically on public servers)

[Inocudom]

Really? I thought that one was much nicer... Then again, it isn't hosted by TenPlus1...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8494

^^ This is the forum thread ^^ I think that would be the most appropriate place to complain.

I've been pinged enough on IRC to deal with him - including a complete ban from the serverlist.

This doesn't surprise me at all.

It's funny, you know, that the individual never posts in these forums.

[onpon4]

And i think, a higher authority should be there to protect the players from this kind of situation... (specifically on public servers)

That's not possible. Anyone can run a public server. All that the Minetest devs could do is set a policy about how you're allowed to run servers listed on the server list, but that would require presenting this policy any time you start the server and wouldn't be easy to enforce.

[Calinou]

And i think, a higher authority should be there to protect the players from this kind of situation... (specifically on public servers)

That's not possible. Anyone can run a public server. All that the Minetest devs could do is set a policy about how you're allowed to run servers listed on the server list, but that would require presenting this policy any time you start the server and wouldn't be easy to enforce.

I'll prove you wrong: most Cube 2 games (like Sauerbraten, Tesseract or Red Eclipse) include an auth system which allows players to claim master or admin on any server (public-private key authentication), as long as it appears in the public server list.

The server can remove the code that allows such a thing, but then it'll be banned from the server list. The servers on the list also have to obey many guidelines (no gameplay-modyfing mods and such, or a whole guidelines.txt file).

You may think this is an evil backdoor, but it's widely accepted in the Cube 2 community. If such a thing ever gets added to Minetest, it should be opt-in.

Try to stay away from the most populated servers from now, they're full of mobile clients and immature players. ;)

[Minetestforfun]

I didn't know games based on cube 2 had this system in place. In my opinion, it's a good example to follow

[Casimir]

BUT, if admins exaggerate of they powers and punish players without any reasons, i think it's very bad for the minetest community ! And i think, a higher authority should be there to protect the players from this kind of situation... (specifically on public servers)

Read your sentence again and thing about it. There are admins on a server equipped with special powers to prevent normal players to behave wrong. Now when those admins abuse their status you want an über-admin that has even more powers to abuse and you hope that those will prevent normal admins to behave wrong.
If I ever find the motivation to set up a public server it will be without any admins or moderators.
And I think it is worth the effort to write some mods that remove the need for them.

[KLK]

Thanks everybody for your comments. i think this is wrong what that guy is doing. I'm not that much concerned about what happened to me, but others players. I think there should be people behind the scene who watch how the admins are doing their things. My information is not concrete, but i heard this guy who banned me, also had ban 16 people in the last five days. This got me very concerned, what do you guys think?

[stormchaser3000]

well if the guy is banning without reason there then notify the server owner and tell him that an admin is out of control and what the abusive admin has done that you know of.

[Jordach]

BUT, if admins exaggerate of they powers and punish players without any reasons, i think it's very bad for the minetest community ! And i think, a higher authority should be there to protect the players from this kind of situation... (specifically on public servers)

Read your sentence again and thing about it. There are admins on a server equipped with special powers to prevent normal players to behave wrong. Now when those admins abuse their status you want an über-admin that has even more powers to abuse and you hope that those will prevent normal admins to behave wrong.
If I ever find the motivation to set up a public server it will be without any admins or moderators.
And I think it is worth the effort to write some mods that remove the need for them.

Voteban, votemute, voteprivs, votekick....

[Calinou]

BUT, if admins exaggerate of they powers and punish players without any reasons, i think it's very bad for the minetest community ! And i think, a higher authority should be there to protect the players from this kind of situation... (specifically on public servers)

Read your sentence again and thing about it. There are admins on a server equipped with special powers to prevent normal players to behave wrong. Now when those admins abuse their status you want an über-admin that has even more powers to abuse and you hope that those will prevent normal admins to behave wrong.
If I ever find the motivation to set up a public server it will be without any admins or moderators.
And I think it is worth the effort to write some mods that remove the need for them.

Voteban, votemute, voteprivs, votekick....

Voting is a potential solution, but people could bring clones in order to vote. You may have to allow only 1 vote per IP to impede that.

[Evergreen]

Voteban, votemute, voteprivs, votekick....

Voting is a potential solution, but people could bring clones in order to vote. You may have to allow only 1 vote per IP to impede that.

Maybe you could combine mods to automate moderating and voting together. eg. if a "moderator mod" detects that a player is griefing, it would go up for vote.

[Casimir]

Voteban, votemute, voteprivs, votekick....

Or more general.

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

/vote "/time 6000"
Casimir wants to execute "/time 6000". Current result of voting is 1/14. White either "/vote accept" or "/vote deny" to vote.

but people could bring clones in order to vote.

You could have some kind of consensus. With 1. some proportion of all player have to accept 2. no one disagrees (except the one getting banned).

[TenPlus1]

One day i was playing minetest with one of my friends. In the chat my friend called someone crybaby. At reading this, one of the admin killed my friend, destroy his house, and killed me, i was shocked, i asked him why he had to kill me too, his response was " you was in my way" minutes later he ban my friend account and mines too.

KLK, you forgot to mention that your friends were swearing in server and harassing the girl so a decision was made that players like that should not be on the server since children play there also... Part of the ban is that their builds are removed so other players can use that area...

[KLK]

Tenplus you forgot that i also was banned and i didn't have anything to do with it. Also my friend wasn't swearing and the guy who banned us titanius harass more Tiko than he did to the girl.

[Sokomine]

Removing admins alltogether, voting, consensus, technical solutions - all that may be part of it but isn't the definite, finite solution to all problems in the world. Some of these things may create even more problems on Minetest servers.

Regarding this particular server and incident, it might not even have been malice or anything like that. Even on a normal server, with good tools available to the moderators/admins (especially rollback_check and logs), there is room for error. Xanandu does not offer these tools. Thus, a moderator/admin confronted with 20 or more kindergarden-children killing each other at spawn, jumping about with nothing but tiny names above them, some random lag thrown in, never having consulted with other admins, may get confused easily and make errors. Besides, maintaining a server - either as mod or admin - is a learning process. There are servers out there with more experienced admins. Though those did (and do), in their time, learn as well. Perhaps you ought to talk to TenPlus1, who's a moderator at the Xanandu server, and who may forward your problem and thus help the mod/admin in question learn a bit more.

Please take a look at more than one server and select one you're comftable with. Servers and the rules and priorities their admins employ may differ a lot. If you're looking for a server that is very stable and friendly to builders, take a look at linuxgaming.us, one of VanessaEs servers, the KingArthur server or Redcrabs server. They have been around a while, care about protecting buildings, usually have more than one moderator and have moderators who share their experience with others. Which in turn implies that players are expected to at least try to behave well on these servers.

[KLK]

I'm totally agree with you Sokomine. Is ok for admin sometimes to ban people because they are inexperience, but the problem is why he had to involve other people and start harassing the players, they should be the example.

[jp]

Which in turn implies that players are expected to at least try to behave well on these servers.

Or rather : "try to behave in a manner which is compatible with the expectations of the admin". What is arbitrarily defined as a "good" or "bad" behavior doesn't often meet any logical criteria, but moral. There is no absolute truth to expect from morality, because its intrinsic nature is cultural & protean. Morality leads naturally to a botched manichaeism.

The nanny-ism, the surabondance of rules can also be stifling for players. Some puritans admins/mods are waiting for any microscopic opportunity to exercise their little bit of power they proudly have in the hands to offset some frustrations IRL... That's why the democratic poll could be a good thing.

To conclude, if I refer to the common rules, we can also criticize them. Two examples :

• Griefing : for me, this act shoud be tolerated. Couldn't we place the responsibility for this nuisance to the owners who omitted to protect their buildings ? We might consider this risk as part of the game such as a zombie's attack. We are not in real life trying to punish someone for rob an house.
  
  
• Dating : where is the crime ? The companionship is a positive thing in a world full of indifference and easy-distrust. We are not either in a old religious school being out conscientiously separating girls and boys to preserve our moral purity.

Non-exhaustive list... Note that I can be wrong, just my anarchist ideas ;)

[Calinou]

“Dating” annoys everyone because it's mostly kids spamming in the chat. Again, the problem is mostly brought by the mobile clients.

If you tolerate griefing, then you imply protection is perfect: sadly, it isn't: there are tons of failures in every protection system (too small area, can drop sand over it, can pour liquids near it…).

[Sokomine]

Or rather : "try to behave in a manner which is compatible with the expectations of the admin". What is arbitrarily defined as a "good" or "bad" behavior doesn't often meet any logical criteria, but moral. There is no absolute truth to expect from morality, because its intrinsic nature is cultural & protean.

Perhaps we can settle on "try to behave in a manner consistent with the rules. If you do not agree with the rules, go to another server". You're right that "good" and "bad" is a choice based on morale - and that's not universal. Yet these problems which arise from morality are seldom relevant for a mere Minetest server.

The nanny-ism, the surabondance of rules can also be stifling for players. Some puritans admins/mods are waiting for any microscopic opportunity to exercise their little bit of power they proudly have in the hands to offset some frustrations IRL... That's why the democratic poll could be a good thing.

Deciding on weather a player violated the rules and e.g. griefed or not is not always obvious. That's why I dislike automatic meachanisms like Landrush which - in its first version - reduced player's health when digging somewhere protected. This has fortunately been changed now. And players who griefed a handful of blocks may not be aiming at destroying all - they may just be having trouble with their clients or be very new. If you start a democratic poll too often, people will get less intrested in the polls and spend less time on investigating the offered alternatives. They might even be less forgiving on violations of rules than a moderator would. A moderator's job is to serve the playes and ensure that all may enjoy the game withhin the borders provided by the rules. This may require some talking about what is expected now and then.

Griefing : for me, this act shoud be tolerated. Couldn't we place the responsibility for this nuisance to the owners who omitted to protect their buildings ? We might consider this risk as part of the game such as a zombie's attack. We are not in real life trying to punish someone for rob an house.

People in RL seldom rob the walls of a house :-) (But then, they did...many historic castles and city walls where torn down and re-used as building material..). For me, personally, protection of buildings is important. The protection mod as such is only a tool saving trouble for moderators who don't have to constantly check all houses for potential griefings. A nice side-effect is that you can see who built what. But the right and duty for protection arise from someone having put effort into building something. That - and that alone - is what ought to stop people with the same mindset from even considerting randomly griefing the building. The need for careful modifications may arise if the environment is changed, and it might even be necessary to tear the building down and re-build it elsewhere. This does not apply to basic structures such as an ugly cobble box below even the standards of mapgen dungeons - the creators of such boxes can be glad if they're removed.
If you have a diffrent attitude, that is fine. You may enjoy life on Xanandu then. We will most likely not enjoy the same servers, as we have diffrent expectations regarding the rules. But that is fine. There is no need that we all play the same way. We just have to know about who expects what and use servers which match our expectations.

Dating : where is the crime ? The companionship is a positive thing in a world full of indifference and easy-distrust. We are not either in a old religious school being out conscientiously separating girls and boys to preserve our moral purity.

Dating is certainly not a crime. And even on servers where it's explicitly stated in the rules that it's not a dating server, nobody will mind if people date in private via /msg. It's just that dating-related chat on the public chat will be considered spam (=the other players do not want to read about that topic). There are also quite a lot of problems which may arise from dating - which the moderators on such a server are not willing to sort out for the players.

Non-exhaustive list... Note that I can be wrong, just my anarchist ideas ;)

There used to be a server called "F R E E D O M" which had no rules at all. That's fine as well :-) Just select a server that fits to the rules you like! There are enough out there :-)

[Minetestforfun]

@jp
I totally agree with you. My server has no Griefing and dating rules (it's accepted)
And it's a pvp server, if you don't protect your area, it's your fault.

@calinou
Destroy walls protected with usebug is a motivation for ban players.
Indeed, for sand and water, it's difficult to prevent this abuse... But if players make that, i think, they aren't good people for the server community, and they can be banned for this reason... (unless they are friend with the player's area, and it's a joke against him)

@sokomine
in fact, if the dating is done with the "/msg" or "notice" command, it's better

[KLK]

I agree with all you guys, about dating and all this things. Every serve have their rules, and players have to respect them. All the time i was playing in xanadu i respected all the rules and players. What i dont agree is that people be ban because of somebody else fault, like it was in my place. Like one of you guys said, players have to proctect what they own, while i was playing i asked myself why there are proctetion tools in the game, in the case of xanadu there are proctetion blocks wich proctect your propities, so if you are robbed is you fault. That is what i think.