Sibanamush wrote:You end up calling people griefers, and dehumanizing them for things they intended absolutely no malice in doing.
To me, malicious intent doesn't factor into the result, other than whether I ban them or not.
Sibanamush wrote:AdmiralMemo wrote:People do things without talking to me about it first.
I think this is really the biggest problem in the cycle. People can't check with you about everything that they're going to do in the game, it would mean no one would be able to do anything, and it would be a ridiculous overload of just useless junk for you to deal with.
Most certainly true, and many of the rules in place are to prevent that overload. I tried to get a handle on a system that would cover most use cases with minimum action from me. If that system is flawed, I'm certainly willing to try to discuss where it could be improved.
Sibanamush wrote:I think for people to tell you about things that they're going to do that you want to know about beforehand, that they need a very clear list of things that you want to know about beforehand. Right now from my understanding things to talk to you about first are
- Building in a new area / claiming land
- Building something so large it extends outside of 150 x 150 block area of the land you've been approved on
- Changing or adding something to spawn ( the limit of the area of where 'spawn' is is a little hazy )
- Building rails that extend outside of your claimed area or connect to the rail system
- Activating a Nether portal
Anything outside of that I personally wouldn't approach you about because I don't want to give you something more to have to deal with that I don't see as being something worth bothering you about. Its the 'worth bothering you about' part that needs to be defined.
Let's define Spawn City right now. The northern and southern boundaries are clearly the oceans. With the exception of the Snow Farm (placed where it is due to biome issues), I've always considered the eastern boundary to be somewhere between the cacti around the OCB and the western shore of Kool's bay (roughly 20-block variance in X, so not terribly significant). The western edge has always been the haziest. For current practical purposes, the river is the western edge. However, depending on what's needed in the future, I could potentially see terraforming out so the Desert Rail Station is the western edge.
For the other things, yes, you've pretty much gotten it nailed.
Sibanamush wrote:AdmiralMemo wrote:I get upset when I'm surprised by things and don't understand.
I think there are two parts to this, Surprise and understanding.
...
As for understanding, frankly I don't understand this. You've numerous times said you want to foster creativity, but you're upset if you don't understand why something is there before you encounter it? It seems like its an issue for you if you don't know about everything before-hand. Why is it a bad thing for you to discover something you didn't have an understanding of , and be able to be shown and informed? There are three things I enjoy most about minecraft, those are
1) getting to give tours of my things to people - I really enjoy having people discover what I've made and getting to show them around , and explain what things are and how they work. Its a lot of fun to have someone appreciate your work and get enjoyment from the discovery and exploration of it.
2) Helping people build things or understand things - I love being able to help someone work on a project. Showing someone a redstone circuit that will help, pitching in and assisting in the build by placing blocks or clearing an area, or even just being able to donate some materials to the cause are all really rewarding.
3) Discovering peoples creations. I LOVE being able to go into someones base and explore their corner of the world, see how they've done things , getting to discover how their system works so I can use it to improve my own , and just getting to enjoy discovering something awesome that someone has made are great!
These are the reasons that I'm playing on a multiplayer server and not cloistered away in single player; Sharing, creation and discovery. So I'm coming from a position where I genuinely don't understand why its a problem for you to discover something after its completed and get enjoyment out of that, or whats so wrong with not understanding something before hand...
In my experience one of the greatest things about minecraft is being able to show and explain something I've made to someone, but if you're that someone I'm afraid that the interaction isn't going to be a fun discovery. I'm afraid that instead of getting to show this thing to you and explain how it works and be excited about sharing , that you're going to get mad that I built it without telling you about it first, and be mad that you don't understand it. The enjoyment in showing something you're proud of to someone instead turns into trying to defend what you've done, and that's not fun at all.
Well, we need to define and separate pleasant and unpleasant surprise. I have had plenty of pleasant surprises on the server, but also many unpleasant ones. One of the key points in distinguishing them usually comes down to whether I know
something was going to be there in the first place. In my effort to keep everything straight, I've ended up compartmentalizing everything into "thing space" and "empty space"
If I know
something will be in an area, I can set that into "thing space"
However, if I find something built in what I considered "empty space" then that gets my brain out of order, and I get flustered and upset. If I've set aside an area in "thing space" it still doesn't mean I know
what is going in there. I can make the pleasant discovery of a town, a castle, a roller coaster, a giant mining pit, or whatever. But conversely, if I don't know that something's in a certain place, a giant project in an area I thought I could parcel out to someone can get me out-of-sorts.
To put it simply, a "where" surprise is likely unpleasant, while a "what" surprise is usually pleasant.
Regarding understanding, I'm really referring to understanding why someone might need more than the standard amount of space, or anything else that goes against the "norms" that I've structured the rules around.
For example, I didn't understand why there was a train system that was always running over at Orthanc. Therefore, I asked to understand this, because I was worried about lag. I needed to know why it existed in the first place. I needed to know why it was always running. I needed to know why the thing was structured this way and couldn't be structured differently. I needed to know all of these things because I needed to know why I should allow something that could potentially cause lag for all the players on the server. An always-running train system could easily do that. If I didn't get a good response, my decision would be to rip it out or somehow restructure it so it's not always running, for the benefit of all the players on the server. However, through my questions, I did get a good answer to all of them. Thus, I was able to wrap my mind around this thing and shut it out at any point that I might be fighting lag problems in the future.
Sibanamush wrote:AdmiralMemo wrote:I get surprised by things when people don't talk to me before-hand.
Again, I think we need a way of knowing what we need to talk to you about first, and we need a way of being able to show you something after the fact without being worried about you getting mad about it.
I've built some really cool things that I really enjoy giving people tours of, but I'm afraid of mentioning them to you (even in the context of mentioning them in this post right now) for fear that you're going to get mad at me about them for some reason that I don't understand , and potentially completely erase my days and weeks of time and effort and enjoyment because something I did offends you in some way I don't understand. I genuinely don't believe that I've broken any rules or that my creations have caused any problems, things have gone along smoothly without showing them to you, and I feel that by not bringing them to your attention you would never have any issue with them. I also feel that If I do say something ( like I feel I am right now) that I'm risking having to defend myself and having to fight to try to not have my works destroyed.
Now, if you'd come to me
before you spent days or weeks of effort and enjoyment that you believe could be potentially in danger, then there would never be any risk of danger in the first place.
I would like to see these things that you would think might be in danger of me flipping out and why you'd think I'd flip out regarding them.
Also, if I do make some sort of action or judgment, it is almost always in the context of keeping the peace and keeping a stable server. I can only think of two rules that are based on my wants, rather than needs. Those would be avoiding The End until the scheduled raid and letting me do the rails. I can justify the End Raid as me wanting to give the people of the server a good experience, and also the fact that I've never (legitimately) been there. It would be the first time I'd experienced it, and possibly others, so I wanted to keep it special. The rail thing, I can't justify other than it's what I want and enjoy. I simply don't want people stealing my joy away from me.
All the other rules are either to keep peace among players, or trying to keep the server stable, or, as mentioned, not coming to me about every little thing.
The fact that Lurkon's Nether Fortress issue is the first time I can recall a player fighting with anyone other than me shows me that I'm doing
something right, at least.
Sibanamush wrote:I think that the problem is that the only context people are used to seeing you in these days is dealing with issues and getting frustrated at problems. And they don't want to risk something that they have time and love invested in becoming one of those issues or problems.
Well, as mentioned, if they come to me first, that's the most sure way of preventing that from happening. It may seem like that goes contrary to the "don't need to bug me with every little thing" policy, and it kind of does. However, it's the only way I know of that can be sure.
Sibanamush wrote:I think the only things people see you doing on the server are fixing problems, getting mad about new issues you've discovered, or building in creative mode in spawn city. That ends up creating distinct line between you and the rest of the players. I feel like the mods that are in place are players that are approachable, they have their own bases and projects that they work on and I can go visit, they chat and hang out and play minecraft with the rest of us. but it has seemed like for you Memo, that you aren't one of us that also is the admin, you're just "THE ADMIN". the 'admin base' is an area that if you go there you get jailed and yelled at for ignoring the signs to stay away, When you're online you're dealing with problems, you don't want anyone's help to work on projects you need to do it all your own way. And that's fine, but it also makes you seem much less approachable.
Regarding the admin base, I simply don't want anyone to break it through either maliciousness or ignorance. It houses the stuff that runs the server. If you had, say, a button that launched the nukes, you wouldn't just leave it out in the open, would you? Most people wouldn't
want to launch the nukes, but if it was in the open, and someone accidentally bumped into it while trying to get coffee or something, a "Sorry" isn't really going to cover it.
I've been asked why I don't just bedrock it in, then, and that has a very simple answer, in 2 parts.
1. It's historical, just like the Old Community Building. I don't want to modify it. Would you "fix up" the Colosseum in Rome to "improve" it?
2. What good is an underwater base without windows?
Thankfully, as I've mentioned numerous times, the "Barrier" block coming in 1.8 will solve both of those problems, so the auto-jailer won't be necessary.
Regarding being "The Admin" or "The Player," I do have a player base that I've sorely neglected for about a year now. I want to go back to being a player, but admin duties have just
eaten up my time, not to mention stress from dealing with my parents living with me since the fire, and increasing stress to do more and more at work. It's currently hard to recall the last time I was green-named Memo. I'm pretty sure it was summer, at the very latest.
Sibanamush wrote:I was genuinely excited and happy that you asked for my opinion on something in spawn, it showed me that I'm not a non person to you and that you can want to ask for my input, and that you want to hear my opinion.
To be honest, I hate to burst your bubble, but I only picked you because you were a regular player who was available and was close by at the time. If it had been Fox or mui or Kino or whoever instead, I would've chosen them. It was nothing specific about you. I hope that doesn't disappoint you. However, that said, getting input from regular players is something I usually want to do.
Sibanamush wrote:In short I've had a lot of fun, and like interacting, with "Memo, the minecraft player" (who happens to also be the admin ) and I've been seeing more of that lately , and not "Memo, the stressed out, pissed off admin" that you want to avoid accidentally setting off.
The first is who I want to be, while the second is who I end up being when things end up going wrong, one way or another. Believe me, I don't
want to be this tyrant guy.
Sibanamush wrote:As a sidebar, I know that when I post on the forum here , it tends to be a giant long breakdown and analysis of something as a response to whatever. I hope that these rants are actually helpful opinions and that I'm not just annoying everyone by posting a giant wall of text that they don't want to wade through.
Thanks for this. I want to say that these long breakdown posts are insightful and useful to me, at least.