The recent unbans were a big mistake

[ZeroYams]

When I looked at the list of people who were unbanned, my jaw dropped. Of all the people who have been banned, this handful of them were the worst, most serious offenders. I know many will disagree, i.e. the people who unbanned them, and their friends. In this post, I will state why I don't think they should be unbanned, and go in - depth on my opinion on each of them. Let's begin with why I don't think they should be unbanned.

1.) None of them appealed. I only think a player should be unbanned if they write a valid appeal and it is approved by all of the staff members. I think real life / virtual life issues leak into the server and affect who gets banned and who doesn't. For example, I wrote a very obvious reason on why XFudgemanX, hi24fiaa (An Admin)'s friend should not be unbanned, yet you went ahead and unbanned him anyways. Ridiculous!

2.) I banned them all. All these people who were recently unbanned were banned by me, and for very good reasons. I think that 'they've been banned forever' is a bad excuse to unban someone. They're banned for a reason, and if I banned them, it's probably a good one. Whatever happened to the rule 'If you banned them, only you can unban them?'

3.) The group that was unbanned were unbanned out of favoritism and popularity among the server. Dlavery is a good example in this case. He was banned once for building in someones area, which could have been moved, and once for, quote, 'being a douche.' Those are not big reasons, which is why other admins and myself unanimously agreed to let him back on. Not a lot of people on the server liked Dlavery, so my theory is that's why he stayed on so long. If he had befriended more of the staff, I doubt he would have ever even been banned. All 5 of the players whose unbans I'm against seem to be well known and friendly amongst the players base and the staff members, thus leading to their short bans (with a few long term bans, i.e. Creeper__.)

Now, I will go in depth on the 5 major offenders: XFudgemanX, Creeper__, Hissingheelyboy1, Peanutville, and laughy_tafy.

XFudgemanX (King of Rage)
XFudgemanX banned: over abusive raging, swearing, and harassment.
The reasons why he was banned, and unbanned are quite obvious. He was banned for going majorly over board on the swearing directed at RichardALZ, 5CookieMonster, and myself. The most brain dead part is that it was over a little fun. Richard and Cookie were just playfully name calling (Squirrel Humper), and Fudgeman took it way beyond little name calling. He swore his mouth off, saying crude things at the two players, and me, for no apparent reason.
That itself is a perfect example of a perma ban. Sergeace posted the harassment and bullying on the server is, and will never be tolerated on the server. And I think everyone can understand why. Cyber Bullying is a big issue, and we will never want anyone one the server who treats other players the way Fudgeman treated us.
Fudgeman has even stated to everyone that he does not want to be a member of the server, and that he was happy with his ban.
. . .
So we unbanned him? Like really, what the heck?
Someone should not be able to do the things Fudgeman did, say he wants to be banned, then just nonchalantly come back like it never happened.

Creeper__ (Ban Lord)
Creeper__ banned: for hfwbsfj bjfhbjsh AKA: Too many reasons to list.
Oh boy, I don't even know where to start with Creeper__. He has been banned for so many reasons so many times that I've stopped keeping track. Creeper has a lot of Staff members defending his case (Legendpla, Luvusarah, etc.), which is why he's a tough one. But even the few who back him up know that he shouldn't be allowed on the server. His support has stated that he has a hard time in real life, so he takes it out in MineCraft. I know how he feels, life can be really hard, so I have sympathy, but coming on our server to let it out is not the answer. You're ruining the time that us on the server are having, and you're not exactly helping yourself.
You have been banned by rocky1138, matayu (twice), Legendpla, and myself. You have been banned for talking poorly about the server, bringing in an obnoxious, suicidal act into the server, abusing moderator powers (which he somehow got), and by me, for being the most rude and selfish player that I have come across in my time playing MineCraft. People say that his ban is unfair. When I banned him they said I should be banned to. I am against that idiotic thought, not only because it's myself involved, but I have never done anything ban worthy on the server. Creeper__ has. 5 times.

Creeper__ has been given too many chances, and certainly does not deserve another. When he comes on, he has a tendency of being very abusive and hurtful to the other players, which is wrong. He was even given a chance to be a MODERATOR and still was very abusive with it. Creeper__ can't play here without being hostile around most of our players. No player has caused more trouble than him. He does not need a SIXTH chance.

Peanutville (scottsakura x2)
Peanutville banned: being an obnoxious, annoying player, griefing, and giving banned players access to the server.
For those reasons, Peanutville was removed from the server. It was a fair ban. Him and hits P.I.C, scottsakura, were the most annoying players on the server at the times. Scottsakura was just plain annoying, to a point where he was crude to me and hi24fiaa, which lead to his ban. Peanutville did the same thing, plus more. He was very annoying, always asking for stupid things, asking to be and Operator, and occasionally spamming the chat with nonsense. I have banned him twice, and LagBox has once.
His first ban was for griefing. Seer informed me he was griefing his town, so I teleported. This information was true, so I banned him. In the following weeks, he got his friend on the server and convinced the Admins and Moderators to lift his ban. He said he didn't know griefing was against the rules.... To that I say AYFKM? If you don't know griefing is against the rules, you ask a staff member, or just DON'T GRIEF. You don't just think to yourself, 'Hmmmm, griefing might not be allowed. Let's do it anyways.' That is a stupid decision, and he should have known better.

I banned him once again, for being a nuisance to all of us. Simple as that.
Then, scottsakura came, and YET AGAIN convinced the admins to unban him a sceond time. I know I am not superior to the other Admins, but I don't think they get this, so let me say it CLEARLY:
IF A PLAYER HAS BEEN BANNED NUMEROUS TIMES FOR DOING STUPID THINGS, YOU DO NOT KEEP UNBANNING THEM.
Other admins, only a few of you realize this. I'm not trying to make you look stupid or anything, but you need to get it through your heads.
LagBox banned Peanutville, for letting scottsakura evade his ban. This is a huge offense, because if someone has been banned, it's for a reason. So if you want them back on, you should tell them to appeal. NOT let them use your account.

Hissingheelyboy1 (Disturbance in the force)
Hissingheelyboy1 banned: Being a common annoyance amongst the server, and griefing 5CookieMonster's shops in Minecraftia.
This one, in my opinion, is the most minor of all the bans. But it still should not be lifted. I know Hissing in real life, and he can be an annoyance there sometimes. But to make matters worse, he brings it back with him into MineCraft and harasses me and my friends (i.e, bobulicious, mdkal12345, kmarting, etc.). It got to the point where it was unbearable for us to even play the game with him around anymore. So, I took action and banned him.

In the coming months, I unbanned him, out of sympathy. I now regret it, of course. But you can't undo the past. Hissing was being fine on the server. I saw a few subtle disturbances, but definitely nothing ban worthy. But I could tell something would soon spark up. And I was right. 5CookieMonster complained on the forum, giving evidence that Hissing had griefed his shop in MineCraftia Mall. This was very unexpected, and sad, but I had to do it. People say griefers should only be unbanned if it's minor. This was a major grief, yet he was still unbanned. I don't know why the admins are going back on their words.

laughy_tafy (n00b haxorz)
laughy_tafy banned: for hacking on the server (given 2 chances).
Laughy_tafy's unban is the one the aggravates me a lot, because I would argue that he was the second worst offender (beside Creeper__). This guys went into killcraft, and COMPLETELY cheated. He used x-ray, fly, and so many other hacks. When I finally realized it, I hit him with the Ban Hammer. For some reason, I don't know why or how, he was unbanned. He said he had 'changed.' But he had only gotten worse.

Laughy_tafy continued to hack on his second chance, but used it to other people's benefits (ibeevil). He had allied with ibeevil in KillCraft, and they hacked together. Laughy_tafy would use his hacks to either mine diamonds, loot bases, or kill people, and share profits with ibeevil. This was very wrong, and when I found out, I banned both of them (ibeevil for flying). Ibeevil appealed to staff and got unbanned, and I wouldn't let laughy_tafy. A repeated offender deserves to stay banned. Forever. Recently, he appealed on the forums. 5CookieMonster and I harshly disagreed, but other admins just unbanned him in a split second. We questioned, and rocky said because he was banned for a long time. I have already stated that that reasoning is biased.

I honestly have no idea what you few were thinking when you unbanned this group of players. I have nothing against players being unbanned. But these few are the biggest offenders our server has seen. They have all had more than 1 chance on the server, and have proven numerous times that they can not control themselves. Rocky has made it clear that Griefing, Stealing, Cheating, and Harassment will result in a quick and permanent ban. All 5 of these players have broken those rules, and yet they remain on the server. I beg that you reban ALL of them, for their uncontrollable behavior in the server. If you are heartbroken to see them go, then you can always play on a different server with them.

Please, ban these players.

-Z

[TehCoreeyy]

Wow, i have to say after reading this im thinking maybe most of thse players shoudn't have been unbanned, I think what Hissingheelyboy1 did was minor so his unban was fine.

We will have to see how these player behave and deal with them from there.

[Legendpla]

Creeper was unbanned? LOL
Who unbanned him? Sorry if I missed anything but I saw his name and started rolling around on the floor.
Edit: Nevermind I just saw the other post.
Lolling so hard..

[5CookieMonster]

(This post may seem a little derogatory)

Ok first of all, I couldn't agree more with what Zero posted. In my personal opinion, there are certain players who deserve to be unbanned, and certain players who do not. The players who were unbanned are the worst of the worst. In the topic "The Great Unbanning" I held my thoughts back. Now, I'm going to express them all.

To The Admins who unbanned these players-
I respect your decisions, but do not agree with them. If you guys know what's best for the server, then you would ban these players. I understand that maybe you guys felt bad for them or you felt their punishment was too harsh. Hissing is manageable, but still a big nuisance. Creeper is not very easy to handle, but does have people who like him unlike others that have been unbanned. Laughy just doesn't deserve to be here. Hacks are one of the worst things you can do on servers. Fudgeman, TOTALLY not handleable due to his short temper. Peanut is quite annoying too. I won't say much more about this, but here's the point: these players shouldn't have been unbanned and will be a nuisance to the sever and will cause more trouble than they already have. Please consider these thoughts and change your decision about unbanning these players.

PS Zero, I thought you hated essays, but how come you can write essays on minecraft like matayu enforces the rules (which is crazy good but crazy annoying)? And nice job on going all matayu on the admins! I can tell you've been practicing lol

[ibeevil]

I support the unbanning of them besides laughy_tafy. Since he's my friend, I probably can't change your mind, but listen. He told me to keep a secret that he flew, which, he was banned quite fast after it, I believe. Then, on this other server he showed me, he said that he doesn't use any hacks whatsoever, so it's 100% legit. I'd let him on the server to see what happens.

[rocky1138]

Take advantage of /mute and temp banning (even though the /tempban function is broken until mcbans fixes it).

I did read it all, by the way. Thanks for sharing what you thought. I want to change perma-bans for only the worst offenders like the dude that came on and broke 200,000 blocks. The rest can get 1, 7, 10, 15, and 30 day bans.

For some of these people, they have been banned a long time. As for Creeper__ I've been talking with him outside of the server, and am hoping that he has cleaned up his act. If he hasn't, feel free to ban him again for whatever time you see fit according to what he has done at that time.

[Legendpla]

Creeper__ Cleaned up his acts?
Haha, I've been in a few skype calls with him, trust me, he hasn't changed.

[LagBox]

I don't understand why you guys are letting other players detract from your enjoyment of the game. If that's how you want to run things, ban everyone who isn't perfect and whitelist the server. I kept playing on this server because there was minimal fighting, everyone had a positive attitude, and there were no extremely restrictive rules. Now I'm watching from the top, and I'm not seeing what I saw a year ago.

So, do we want to ban everyone who doesn't follow orders like a little soldier? I'm all for individualism and some people are a little more rough around the edges than others. Why should we penalize them for it? And why, my fellow staff, are we in some cases banning builders for things we do every day? Might as well drop the hammer on me as well, because I'm just as bad if not worse than some of the aforementioned players.

As someone who likes to behave slightly out of the comfort zone of my superiors, I don't think we should be creating a negative environment for those who do the same. I don't think the environment we're creating for players would have been any less welcoming had we left these players unbanned in the first place. We often talk among ourselves about how often there are only staff members online. Might it be because we seem to inevitably ban regular players the first time they break a rule? Is that really going to change anything? We fight on the server, we ban, then we fight on the forums again.

Why don't we try to solve problems in a way that doesn't involve a ban?

-LagBox

[Legendpla]

Might as well drop the hammer on me as well, because I'm just as bad if not worse than some of the aforementioned players.
-LagBox

I am sorry that you had to say that..
I take this very seriously and I have decided that it would be best for the server if I banned you.
Again, I am sorry for having to go this far. (You kinda did ask me to ban you though, amiright???)

I bet you believed me huh? I am very believable! (BTW I was joking)

[flamingninja124]

The problem i think we have is that we nned a better noob filter system. People are basically ragequiting because they just cant do parkour. I am not saying to make it easier but maybe some hints. Some will go over the line and get their friends to come on and greif the server. Also we need positive feedback when they make cube houses. I am seeing some feed back that says "redo" i am sure that people would not like that response. I would personally like some feedback atleast. To also make them happy while they wait for a mod to check their house, they could play some mini games that are appropriate for them to actually play so they would start liking the server. That would mean we could get more people as they tell their freinds. If people agree with this plan, we could get together and make the mini games.