The idea is that Joe, even if he was a moderator, wouldn't be able to do anything really special that he couldn't do when he wasn't a moderator. So the chance for abuse becomes greater. I believe the same has happened with SubSpace.
Over a year ago, before BanG and Continuum, there was a thing called Twister. Its use could have originally been for debugging, but once you create a help file and ease of use for it, you are pretty much asking for abuse. So there was massive amounts of cheating going on. Moderators were needed greatly. They took pride in helping to keep the zone cheater free when they were in the game. They had something to do. The moderators now don't do much, past run events in subarena. So the chance for abuse increases as people become bored with their powers, because they have something they can't use.
This happened with BanG not long ago too. Originally, you got maybe one or two ops who could network ban people per zone (and then, only if you were really lucky.) So there was little chance for network wide abuse. People who broken zone-specific rules (ie: teamkilling) could only be banned in that zone. For really bad things, you had to get your zone sysop, or another zone's sysop (I was called upon to do this a lot), to do network banning. That led to a level of control, because a moderator had to make his case as to why someone should be network banned to the zone sysop. Some zone sysops questioned even the moderator's word on some things (I know I did). But not too long ago, too many zones has too many people who could do this. I'm not saying limit it down to 1 or 2 per zone, but the problem was that there were now 40+ zones, each with somewhere between 1 network bannable op, to like 8 (I know some zone had a lot, even more, at some points). And the number of real cheaters has decreased way too much. So the chance for abuse increases. There started to pop up 7 day network bans for teamkilling in a zone. Some 1 day network bans for being in the wrong ship in a zone. Or, worst yet in my opinion, month long bans (some even longer) for cursing out a moderator.
This isn't to say that everyone abuses power, but the chance of having some that do will rise as the need for people with power decreases.
Dr Brain - Tue Sep 23, 2003 12:04 am
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Only reason to be a mod on this board is for the cool title.
Yes, good staff are hard to come by. I've had a zone for 3 years, and still have suck @$$ staff.
Helicon - Tue Sep 23, 2003 7:06 am
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it's the penguin... its too... plush for people to take seriously
Dr Brain - Tue Sep 23, 2003 10:37 am
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ROFL! I got a cool title!
How is the avatar heli? Less plush?
Cyan~Fire - Tue Sep 23, 2003 5:53 pm
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Lol I've always thought Dr Brain should have a cool title since he posts so much.
But anyway: Yeah, Mine, I think you're right. Now I'm considering firing my one and only mod in TA. I think a problem is when zones first start up, they're willing to let anybody be a mod just to please people. But I think it's better to keep a tight control from the beginning. But, I didn't do that, and have fired 2 mods now because they just didn't do anything.
Helicon - Tue Sep 23, 2003 8:16 pm
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This is the internet people... it's like America but without the Citizen-Kane association with having to maintain an identity.. like opportunism w/o responsibility.
BTW:
For Brain i recommed "General: Legions of Entropy"
Sercit - Thu Sep 25, 2003 1:55 am
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It was the simple Mod in a zone useing arena messages to post unneeded things, Prizeing himself to make his bounty go up higher (Which in this zone is really a status quoe.) when I confronted this Mod about it, saying: Hey, you hvae to be prizeing yourself, there is no way your going up 50 points at a time on your bounty without doing such. What I got in responce stateing that he was drunk and ready to abuse his staff powers to ban me... Now, If this person turns out to be not on staff in the first place, that in itself is a bannable offense in every zone I know of... I started this thread to see what the majority of the feelings where on this subject. I'm not going to flame the Sysop in this forum about it.. It's not my place to do so. And, Seeing as I didn't log the event.. D:< Which has prompted me to log every game of subspace i play now.. I shall talk to him privately about it. I'm happy to see though that there are still civil people that play this game. And, if i'm flamed for it, SO BE IT! being nice to others isn't that hard; It's ten times easier then being a buthole... =\ But meh, thats ME talking.
Gravitron - Thu Sep 25, 2003 12:34 pm
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I used to help people for several years on MGB's, which is how I have earned my position within this forum (incase brain was wondering).
As time passed and I grew tired of this game (or rather its heading) and its community (and its "leaders") and with the introduction of changes and features I knew nothing of, in addition to new objects of interest which took my focus and time, I lowered profile and presence around here (although I think my duties are pretty much the same heh).
I end up being simply a forum moderator, checking around to make sure the forum is tidey up and posts are where they should be, and posts/users that shouldn't be around here, aren't.
Eventually, Akai was brought in, and I felt that I have a replacor, so I was at peace with "not showing up to work" (since I was pretty much the only one still active to help around to MGB with all the "work load").
Currently, I'm pretty much with about 2-4 hours, tops, free a day.
And before that, the aforementioned new objects of interest took my activity time away from here.
In such, I've had pretty much retired from here.
As for the topic at hand, I do belive my position is well known.
At VIE, things were centralized, power was at check (well, sort of), people (for the most part) knew what they're doing, corruption was very low and most of the game was fun playing.
Generally...better.
Nowdays, it's a cess pool, run by stupid teens and powerhungry corruption mongerers.
Frankly, and honestly, MGB is the only one around here (subspace, if one can even still call it that) I can truely say I appriciate and is dependable, worthy of friendship & trust, posses good judgement and is objectional/impartial.
His (MGB's) board mod. example can be corolated onto the game as well.
Most of the moderators, could do their "job" just as well without (or some of) their powers.
Help new players? They don't need powers to do that.
Run events? An op. rank within a bot that would be the actual controller for a sub arena can handle events pretty the same way a mod would nd without the ability to abuse ban powers - troublemakers can be *spec and/or *shutup
A even further programming can be done to put in place a forbidden list that would send the players "banned" from an event back to the pub arena automatically, so they're effectively blocked from that arena untill removed from the list.
And so forth...
Too many mods recieve their powers for no reason, and could do their job just as well without.
And sadly, it goes upto sysops as well.
Helicon - Fri Sep 26, 2003 5:31 pm
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