A Discussion on Mods

Imo there is more to being a ctf mod than ref matches so why they would resign? However, maybe if they are also inactive in committee chats, they can resign from committee (if this is a thing). I had seen winter, Nohox, and Adam all active in ctf regular servers and Adam and nohox has both set maps for me multiple times, so if they no ref a match doesn't mean they inactive.

 

I has seen all 3 mods you mentioned as inactive ban hackers, and mods are also there to solve any problems that are in game and fix any game glitches. Before saying these mods are inactive, at least confirm that they are not in game much and don't ban hackers, as those are general mod duty that should and from my perspective is being fulfill.

 

First off, I'd like to say that both of these issues were talked about in our Q&A session, which you can find here.

For your first issue, we are watching. You probably haven't seen anything of it because if we were open about who we are watching and when we are watching, we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot. Another point we hit on in the Q&A is that we don't have all the tools other servers have, which makes our method of catching hackers less accurate and more time consuming. You can watch the Q&A for more details on that.

On the second issue, I'd like to point out a couple of things:
1. We just brought in two new Refs, ningeek212 and Removers.

2. A mod not signing up to ref does not mean they are not able to ref; if Miskey says that he will ref a match, then I'm not going to step in and say that I will ref it. The phrase "too many cooks in the kitchen" may be a bit exaggerated in this case, but unless the teams involved specifically ask for more than one ref or there are a multitude of potential hackers playing, we will stick to one ref for simplicity's sake. These spreadsheets also do not account for mods who did not sign up to ref but are present during the match in ./poof or in ./spectate, so it's unfair to base your judgement solely off of the numbers.

3. Is there really an issue if only a couple of people are reffing a majority of matches? I mean, if the matches are being reffed, then where's the problem? I mean, you could argue that if said person went inactive or resigned we would have issues. However, Gam himself reffed 20% of matches before he resigned, yet after his resignation we haven't experienced any major hiccups with no refs available, so I don't think it's that much of an issue. Obviously we don't want one one mod doing every single match, but I would argue that having 3-4 active refs would be just as effective as having 6-7 active refs.

Finally, you seem to be a bit confused on what it means to be a CTF Mod vs. CTF Ref.

A CTF Ref's job is to ref matches. These people do not have to be CTF Mods, but we have yet to have a non-CTF staff member pass the trial ref stage (rooting for you SoCool!). These are also the people you usually contact to set up practices or unofficial matches, but those tasks can be done by any staff member above trial JMOD.

A CTF Mod's job is to moderate the CTF servers, specifically the public ones. We're here to ban hackers, deal with chat issues, and punish rulebreakers accordingly. However, we are not accepted on our ability to ban hackers alone. A major part of accepting a JMOD is their ingame experience because we are the ones who discuss and generally decide on the direction that CTF will take, whether that is in the form of reworks, nerfs, buffs, map waves, rule changes, even down to deciding whether pyro should have red or black armor. I mean, we literally just had a 2 hour long discussion on these very topics. (And I would also like to say that being online is a very important characteristic of a good moderator)

Bottom line is that while you may be a CTF Mod, you do not necessarily have to be a CTF Ref. Those two roles have different responsibilities, but since the CTF community and CTF team scene are so entwined, it's almost a given that a CTF Mod will become a CTF Ref. Winter / Kat / Nohox may not be active CTF Refs, but that does not make them inactive CTF Mods, so please don't tell them to resign from a position they aren't failing.

 

For example, I shared evidence of people a month ago and haven't received any feedback or word that it was actually reviewed even after bumping. I've also been seeing some questionable judgments recently. With gam and I gone, more people seriously have to step up to actively & correctly deal with hackers, because I honestly don't see that right now.

And regarding reffing, when I was still mod many times when I would have/could have reffed, one of the hyper-active refs had already hopped on that match. This only accounts for a decent handful of matches but still something to keep in mind. (Also, I was more busy watching hackers anyways - as Kev explained, there are a few roles for a CTF mod whether they want/can only work in a single/specialized area and time-frame or work in a more encompassing manner.)

 

if you're supposed to ref matches as ctf staff why isn't there a question about it on the form for ctf staff applications?

 

Considering all the matches placed got reffed by at least someone, I do not see an issue with this as long as someone is reffing. The Moderators not reffing as many matches may get overtaken by other Moderators too beating them to an answer on a "Can you ref this match" situation. They also may not be reffing matches but they contribute to an opinion within the CTF Committee and give ideas which may get implemented and may not, however, these ideas contribute to sparking other peoples minds to thinking in a different way to usual as they would on their own.
Being a CTF Moderators doesn't mean we have to constantly be CTF ONLY and purely focus on CTF, for example, Miskey works on a lot within the staff slack and comes up for ideas for some other gamemodes and is currently helping an extreme amount for another which I will not name here. Myself too is another example of this as I work extremely hard with some other KitBrawl staff members to come up with ideas, discuss, implement and try keep communication between us and the community more functional at this moment in time.

Onto the ghost client and hacking topic.
Some of the CTF Moderators will not know much about ghost clients and you cannot pin that on them, they still put in work banning the more obvious people on the server which still takes into an account for their job. For the other Moderators that do know information and have knowledge of ghost clients, they are normally putting their all into trying to get them banned and keeping them banned.

Spoiler: A Small Sample Size Of One Player:

**WhySneak**
These aren't all the videos I gathered either on him these are just the ones that I'm allowing people to see due to multiple alts being used that I have to catch people out, and other peoples perspectives and videos too.

This is usually the amount the Moderators get just to ban one single player from brawl which takes a long period of time to get, as they aren't always going to be as blatant each and every single day. We all work our hardest on this and try to keep those players banned. However, when a player appeals with a video and they are using a ghostclient in that video, for example, a premium autoclicker with click sounds, a CPS Spoofer set up on their CPS Display and the jitter feature causing mouse shake or Modified KB with very specific settings, it'll look completely legit on their screen and because of this "looking legit" it causes us to have to unban players and try to gather even more evidence for potentially the same thing to happen again. If we do end up keeping them banned after these types of appeal have been submitted it also causes other Moderators (Not just CTF), not saying names, to jump in and complain about them not being unbanned and Moderators (Not just CTF) with less knowledge also complain about falsely banning a "legit" player.

Don't quote me word for word on this as I may have explained something poorly and/or have said something purely out of my own opinion on these two topics.

 

Strange idea: We make a minimod role, that requires three minimod votes to ban someone (for a week) these roles will be given out after applications

 

Easily abusable, pointless role, if we trust them enough to use this role why not apply for JMod? Doesn't solve anything when there are not 3 minimods and they'd have to actually have knowledge on clients.

 

Problem #1: We literally banned two regulars within the past 3-4 days. One thing I want to say here is that a lot of these players don't play aside from matches, where they know they're going to be watched. What I'd recommend doing is recording as much as you can when up against them and submitting a report. In matches specifically I can rarely even watch a specific players due to commentating/reffing. I've been making an effort to get more staff members on for official and tournament matches, but nothing has come out of it yet.

Problem #2: Most of the reason a lot of those mods don't have a lot of matches reffed is because I claim matches the second they go up on the spreadsheet. It's not inactivity from them, it's over activity from me.

What you said here is incredibly ignorant. There are a bunch of things that CTF mods do that don't involve the team scene or cheaters. The CTF committee comes up with numerous ideas (basically the entire elf rework & related ideas, ideas for credits, etc..), but that's not something you guys get to see as they don't always make it to live, especially without a coder. Almost every committee member is active within committee chat when it comes to bringing up and working on these ideas, which is something that should be very apparent after the Q&A. Also note that being able to ref doesn't mean you're required to ref. That being said, a CTF mod doesn't even have to be a ref. Currently all of the CTF mods/jmods are refs but any of us could decide at any time to not be refs anymore.

 

I don't agree with your complaints. To ban a regular player one must have quite a substantial amount of evidence, and even then a solid appeal can overturn that. They're doing the best they can with what they have. Regarding refs, as long as someone's there, it doesn't really matter who refs. There's no reason for anyone in the committee (from what I've seen) to resign, unless they have a personal reason. The only issue I had, was the lack of communication between the committee and the players. However, as long as every once and a while another q&a is done, it shouldn't be much of an issue. At the moment, there's really no glaring issues.

 

I agree on several mods including myself not reffing enough, although I do have to point out that I haven't seen any matches being cancelled because of the lack of a ref (correct me if I'm wrong). If matches are cancelled, it's usually due to the lack of players on one team.

And just yesterday I banned eight people, four of which were hacking on CTF (and none of them have appealed)

 

This is actually easy to resolve, just ask in your discord(whatever you use to communicate between refs) group if anyone wants to ref a match, instead of you instantly taking the ref spot from someone who has a low activity percentage and wants to ref a match.
Btw no offense towards you

 

If they want to ref a match they can reserve the match before I do. I can't ref every match and I check the ss once every night. There's more than enough opportunity for other mods to ref.

 

Like I answered in the Committee Q&A when this exact thing point was brought up, I'm more of a casual player. I didn't apply to be mod just to ref matches or to be part of the team scene, I applied to help the gamemode I enjoy improve. Map waves, class reworks/tweaks, gameplay improvements; those are all things I help do as a CTF mod. I play on Brawl all the time and definitely wouldn't be considered inactive from a staff standpoint. From your standpoint of "CTF mods must ref matches", yes I would be counted as inactive; however, that's not all that a CTF mod does (as Miskey stated). I prefer hanging out on CTF with players and having fun but sure, matches from time to time are nice. Like I also said in the Q&A, if you have a match that doesn't have a ref and I'm online feel free to tag/message me. If I am able to make it I'll come. I get lots of last minute plans so I can't say ahead of time if I'll be able to attend the match or not. That and the fact I'm at church Sunday mornings and then frequently go out with friends afterward.

If you've got any more questions or criticism let me know.

Edit: If your match has a ref, why do you care how many matches a certain person has reffed?