[chelllman]

I'm going to move this to PH suggestions.

---

snip



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First off... When it comes to the rules here... Every time I load into the game I see as a #1 Rule posted on the loading screen... "No Trolling". I see this, and I smile, because I know that I can play a game without worrying about being hounded by people trying to incite a reaction. That type of harassment is what usually drives me away from servers, and I take solace in the idea that it is openly frowned upon at Dinkleberg's.

It's important to note that there is a difference between harmless and harmful trolling.  The rules page for the server when you load in has not been updated since...2018...at the latest.

However, I still see it. And I know no one can be perfect. We can't catch it all. I understand that. That being said, I all too often see people saying things and picking on people to a point of discomfort. I really wish we were a bit more strict on this. I think that when a staff member sees someone exhibiting certain behavior, they should be able o use their personal discretion with extreme prejudice. Any time someone makes comments repeatedly that affect the mood and demeanor of the entire lobby, I think it should be dealt with swiftly. Harassing Staff or individuals who are just trying to have a good time is easily recorded, and therefore, I am unsure why I see so many donos and staff tip-toeing around in the tulips with Trolls.

chibill posted a link to the PH staff guidelines.  The reason why we have guidelines is so that some subjectivity is removed and we know that each staff member is relatively consistent with how they enforce the rules on the server.  This helps us prevent things like: accusations of favoritism and widely different player experiences when different staff members are on.
As far as I know, staff don't tiptoe around trolls, though it may seem this way if you have a different definition of what constitutes trolling.  We have some new Trusted that are working on getting their footing, so if they seem unsure that's simply because they are learning.  While we have a lot of children that play on the server, we have plenty of adults that enjoy playing on the server as well.  As such, the server is not a "G or PG" rated server.  Some trolling is expected because of this, but as long as it's not too disruptive it's allowed with players having the ability to client-side mute players they don't want to hear.

Personally, I think the server would be a more open and welcoming place for the good eggs, if we dealt with the bad eggs... more efficiently. Now to move on to my second statement.

While I agree with this statement, it also depends on your definition of what a bad egg is.
__________________________________________________________________________________________


The current order of operations (As I have come to understand it) Is basically "Warn, Warn, Warn, (optional warn), (Optional warn), Gag, Mute, Kick, and then either seek help from higher staff, or Put in a ban request". I have an issue with this logically. Kicking someone doesn't necessarily harm their experience in our server. Sure, you could argue that they lose their current K/D and that may effect their end-of-round rewards... But if they are being problematic, that's not an issue anyways, because we wouldn't want them to continue playing on the server. Meanwhile, gag/mute takes away the communication aspect of the game, which arguably is half the fun of most of our offered gamemodes. This highly affects these persons' gameplay and experience on the server. Furthermore, if a troll is saying rude or off-color things, and they ignore the warnings, gagging and muting them harms any chances of us recording evidence of how they are acting.

chibill posted the staff guidelines, we don't have any protocol like that.  Staff do have discretion when it comes to warnings especially for kids breaking rules (since most young kids may not understand their mic had feedback, they are being super loud, etc), but in general it's a single lobby wide warning before gags/mutes.  As for kicking someone, players are far less likely to come back and play after a kick whereas a gag/mute allows them to keep playing.  Usually, players take the hint that they need to stop micspamming, verbal ghosting, etc. after a mute/gag.  That's punishment enough to get most to stop being a problem and they can still play during that time.  We have plenty of regulars who were once problems but obey the rules and have fun on the server after just a single gag/mute. We'd rather these players stay with our server instead of getting kicked and joining another server.

For example, If a troll is harassing a user, and a mod asks them politely to stop, and the troll ignored 3 warnings. If the moderator is recording, and ends up Gagging then Muting the offender, that's where this all stops. There's not enough evidence to take the situation further, or pursue a harsher punishment. The troll will get bored, eventually leave, and come back later on to harass others when the moderator is offline.

Correct, as it should be.  We punish according to our guidelines.  If they comeback and harass again, then we continue on with the next punishment in the protocol.  We are not overly trigger happy with trolling unless they cross into certain categories such as: racism, pedo stuff, death threats, suicide, and rape comments.

-snip

__________________________________________________________________________________________
snip

But I think it's pretty hard to deny that there's a shortage of moderation in some aspects of the game servers. While it may not be much of a lack of it, we still have blindspots. We likely will always have blindspots, we can agree upon that, but we can also combat them. I can infer that my idea is going to be less than acceptable to some, and thats ok. We are merely talking about all this. But I would make the suggestion that we ease up on the staff application requirements just a little.

There are several reasons our staff team is small.  The biggest one is that we are very, very careful with who we allow to staff on the server.  Our server has a LOT of kids play primarily due to YouTubers occasionally playing PH which then means a lot of children will search for PH servers to play on.  Dinks has a dark past with staff members being community banned for their interactions with minors which is not something the PH admin team will allow to repeat.  As such, we are very selective with who we allow to join the team.  Additionally, being staff is...rough on a good day.  It can really suck the enjoyment out of the game after a while.  Many people don't want to deal with server issues and that's their prerogative.  Finally, we make sure that potential staff are on-board with the current staffing protocols.  If we feel they will just enforce their own rules, then they won't join the staff team.

snip