On: Telling mods to do their job

Writing this because it has happened a few times recently.

On days where there are a lot of hackers online, I've witnessed more and more people shouting at mods to "do their job" and how bad they are at moderating. I wanted to get rid a few words on that.

Since McPVP merged with brawl, its playerbase has increased, which is a nice thing to have. Unfortunately, with this development, more hackers have started to play on CTF (and other gamemodes as well). Not all CTF mods were promoted to Mod. Thus it has become more difficult to keep up with banning those hackers. Criticism at mods is fine and normal, it has happened on McPVP before and they're used to it. However, more and more often, players have begun letting out their emotions if they witness a mod and a hacker at the same time on a server. Though it is understandable the hacker is supposed to be punished, I do not like this way of reacting to this matter at all.

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Mods need to see the incident before they can ban. Do not expect the mod to ban a player seconds after he joins the game. They need to get a good recording of the hacker first before a ban is issued. Quite a few people appeal their ban. In cases of killaura this can take up to a few minutes until a good headsnap is recorded. Please don't immediately assume the hacks are obvious and the hacker will be banned because he has killed you once.

Also, on McPVP there used to be the option to publicise the ban message to all players. It was done regularly out of good reason, it shows mods are actually doing something against hackers. This is not available on Brawl anymore sadly, mods need to announce it in chat manually. Don't assume nothing is being done if you don't get feedback. If you really want to know if a hacker was banned, either ask the mod via /msg or do a quick /lookup search on slack - it will tell you if a player was banned.

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Jmods have it even harder than mods: They cannot ban players. They have access to /kick and /mute as well as clearing the chat. If a hacker is online, they may kick him if an obvious hack like fly, speed or fastbow is used. Furthermore, even if it is an obvious hack, the Jmod needs to reach the hacker first, as they have no access to TP or fly mode. In the case of CTF it means going soldier or ninja and trying to catch up to him. Then a decent recording needs to be made before a kick is issued. I hope you understand this needs time and cannot happen seconds after the hack is reported.

Trying to play the game and catching hackers isn't the only thing that can happen, often multiple people are asking questions in /msg as well, and other reports of players might come in with people demanding their ban, all at the same time. Trying to record properly while answering questions and dealing with ragers is what makes moderation really stressful atm.

Another myth that happens to pop up every now and then: MODS ARE NOT PAID. Neither are most admins in fact. All is voluntarily, they offer their free time to try and keep the game as clean as they can. Actually, they're players just like you and me, they are in no way superior over anyone else. All they try is to keep the game fun to play.

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I know hackers can ruin the game for you and I completely agree they have to be removed from the server as soon as possible. But shouting stuff like "MODS DO YOUR JOB" alerts the hacker of their presence and puts the mod himself under more unneeded stress. And being put under unneeded stress and being shouted at makes mods rethink if they still want to offer their time and moderate the server. If you want to point out there is a hacker ingame discretly, do it via /msg <name> <message>. Doing /report <name and reason> is really helpful as well. It is different from McPVP's /report system where you had to include your youtube link to it. Basically what it does is to send out a message to all online Jmods and Mods, including those on other gamemodes. Feel free to use it when you see a hacker, it is the easiest way to reach mods ingame. If you don't already, try using the Slack HRC, this can reach mods even if they are not actively playing. Most have set an alert to that so they get notified when a new report comes in.

Before you point it out: Yes, often a mod is online but does not respond to any messages ingame or in slack. This happens when the mod is afk and doing irl stuff, is busy checking other players, is on an other server or does not moderate a specific gamemode (I for my part don't moderate on War or WarZ as I'm not experienced enough on all the different guns). Or he's trying to actually play the game for once (yes, that can happen). Mods try their best to cover gamemodes and ban people as fast as they can, but it doesn't mean they can respond to everything immediately.

I'm sure most players that read this are part of the CTF community and have an idea on how the moderation stuff works and that dealing with people can be stressful at times, just wanted to get this out to those who don't know.


Tl;dr:

What to do:
* Do /msg and tell the mod there is a hacker online
* Do /report <name and reason> for chat violations or hackers
* Try to record if there is no mod online and report on report.brawl.com
* Report hackers with name and server on slack (most efficient)

What not to do:
* Scream at mods to do their job
* Demand their demotion if they don't ban immediately


I hope this cleared up stuff a little bit. This game is quite stressing at times already, hope we don't have to make it more stressing as it is. =) Thanks for your patience!

<-- closest to a cookie I could get..