Here are my personal suggestions for the forums. Knowing that very limited people will read this besides staff, this is mostly geared toward the staff then 1. I believe that any hacker reports should be private and only viewable to a higher staff member such as Head Mod +. Why does the community need to see any hackers, etc. if they can't even discipline the players or deal with them themselves? (ban, etc.) These should honestly be private so respect the privacy of the players and also to prevent flame and also, the reports could be bias towards players. If someone really wanted to see a hacker/hacker video, they could search it on YouTube, but not the forums. 2. The fact that ban appeals are public is a bit unneeded in my opinion. If a player is banned, they should talk to a staff, specifically a ban manager or anyone higher than players, helpers, or mods. Someone trusted should handle the job of dealing with hackers and their appeals, not the community. Once again they could be very bias and you should give equal opportunity to everyone no matter who they are. 3. Staff Applications. To me, coming from a first hand witness I think the current staff application format is... well... very restrictive. And in fact, it really is. All you are saying in the application is your age, time zone, and why you think you should be mod. Obviously everyone will GENERALLY have the same things in their applications. "I will greet new people", "keep chat clean", etc. but what is that really saying? The staff applciations really should TEST the players and see if they are CAPABLE of being mod, not if they really just want to be a staff member. Something along the lines of this would be a big step forward (I'm not going to include necessities such as age, timezone, etc.) Are you active on the Forums, TeamSpeak, and In-Game? What is your experience and knowledge of Minecraft? Do you know all of the Factions plugins and how they work? What is your experience with moderating servers? (Please provide sufficient proof) What will you provide to the community and to players if you are accepted with this rank? Have you ever used a hacked client before? Why? Have you ever been banned on a Minecraft server? Why and how? How active do you consider yourself on TeamSpeak, the Forums, and In-Game? What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses? How would you handle someone performing a minor transgression for the first time? (add in second and third time) What would you do if someone publicly proves you wrong either on TeamSpeak, the Forums, or In-Game? What would you do if you see someone breaking the rules on TeamSpeak, or the Forums? When and why would you lock a thread? Describe yourself in 3 words (or write a short sentence whatever works) Do you realize that if you are disrespectful or abusive with your role, it will immediately be taken away? Provide a poll (for example, do I deserve a staff position? Yes or No?) Give a real world SITUATION such as: If there were a group of hackers or advertisers on at the same time and will not stop and there are no admins online, what would you do to handle the situation? Also, you can add a little box for the player to tell you about themselves and their life outside of video games. Their outside lives can tell you a lot about their character. Anyways, these are examples of questions I would like to see in the mod applications, since once again the current ones are VERY restrictive. Many are questions that can only be answered in a sentence or two, and some are just questions where you fill in the blank with a phrase provided. There is no room to say how you actually feel and you have to just say whatever. The applications right now I believe test very little to absolutely nothing. Why would you ever want to accept a player who has no way to prove at all they are mature and respectful and know what to do if you never ask them? For all you know they are lying just to get the rank. You need to find a way to really see if they know what to do and they will go through the correct procedures to ensure the server stays healthy and clean. Who knows who is behind that screen and if they really are what they say they are.
Love the ideas, except people would lie about some of the questions that you suggested for applications, such as the one about if you've hacked, and if you've gotten banned or not. Also, not many people know when and why would you lock a thread.
Yeah well if they are lying, then that's just a reason as to why they shouldn't be staff. Honestly, I was asked this question on my old server that I was staff on and I was truthful, yes I have hacked but only to see the hacks to know first-hand what they look like and I've been banned but appealed for it because it was a misunderstanding. And if it really mattered, I would do research myself to see if they were being truthful... I mean it's 1 search into google and you'll find your answer. Also, if someone doesn't know how to lock a thread they could/should learn from someone who does know. They can ask staff or figure it out themselves, but they should know when the lock a thread such as if there were a flame war, outdated guides, etc. Anyways yeah thanks I agree with you agreeing with me I guess?