Brawl's Efficiency

i was requested to make another textbook of a thread so here goes

To put it simply, Brawl's staff team and server as a whole is extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY outdated. Within the last year (starting last July), I stopped focusing on Brawl to focus and staff two other very large servers (won't name because idk if mentioning names is considered advertisement). From spending my time on there, and then looking back at Brawl, I'm not going to sugarcoat things, it's just honestly sad. I'm not trying to say that this server is trash or anything, because I've been here since 2012 so obviously I've found it fun enough to stick around (that + my friends), but things are just ran SO slow here and it's honestly unbelievable.

[STAFF]

For starters, there is NO reason a staff application should remain pending for 2+ weeks. There have been instances where a staff app would remain up for MONTHS. For example, TheTitaniumTitan's Wild West application in 2017. Made in April, accepted in JULY. That's unbelievable. Although this was a while back, there are still so many instances of applications taking 3+ weeks to get resolved. This did get a bit better for WarZ specifically (because the server was in desperate need of staff for the amount of players it was receiving), but it's gone back to the point where it takes forever. I don't understand the reasoning behind this, but it could be that there is only one staff manager. In my opinion, and from my experience working for other servers, there should never only be one person managing who gets hired. Multiple admins should be working the applications, and it should be WEEKLY. As for a staff manager as a whole, there definitely should be one (for current staff, promotions/demotions, etc), but the resolving of staff applications needs to be made more efficient. At the VERY MOST, it should take no more than 2 weeks for a staff application to be denied or accepted. That's plenty of time to gather information on a potential applicant and decide overall whether or not they're fit to staff. As well as this, the hiring of staff needs to be a lot more thought out. There have been MANY staff who were accepted when they absolutely should not have been. For example, oobuck. AURailing. oobuck was completely inactive on all platforms and had contributed little to nothing to the community (nothing against him, he's chill as a person) and was still accepted. AURailing had a very recent history of teaming with perm banned players when he applied and was still given staff. And then continued to team with perm banned players WHILE staff. None of these people were demoted. Both of them resigned. They were allowed to continue being staff when oobuck never played and AURailing continued to mess up over and over and over again, leaking alts, teaming with cheaters/permed players, etc. Originally this server was way too strict in terms of hiring staff, but there's also a thing called being too lenient. There needs to be a "3 strikes and you're out" protocol implemented into the staff team, because it's completely ridiculous that Railing was allowed to remain for such an extended period of time. Same with other current staff, who I won't name. The only people that should be accepting applications for servers are people who are familiar with that server and it's community. For example, Ritzy is the only admin who has played WarZ and is familiar with it, he's the only one who should be handling WarZ applications. Overall, Minesheep as a staff manager should only be managing current staff, promotions/demotions, etc. Hiring of players should be managed and resolved by admins who are very familiar with the gamemode the player applied for. And again, all of this should only take 1-2 weeks.

Along with staff applications being slow, the promotion system/staff team as a whole needs a rework, which includes ranks/perms. As it is right now, getting promoted takes FOREVER, which is only a detriment to the server and community. Here's the rework I've planned out (excluding the hiring of trial JMODs, which I mentioned above):

Trial JMOD --> Global JMOD
The promotion of a Trial JMOD to a Global JMOD should be solely based off playtime, them doing their job correctly as a whole, as well as a basic understanding of the other Brawl servers. If they do their job correctly and they're active in game as well as on other platforms such as Discord, and they understand the other servers, they should get Global within 1-2 weeks. As for perm changes, Global JMOD should not have access to /alt. There is no reason for them to have access to this command and all it does is give people more chance to abuse because of how easy the rank is to access.

Global JMOD --> Mod
If a Global passes the hack test, and they are active and do their job correctly, they should be given Mod. If they repeatedly make mistakes and are repeatedly talked to by higher ups/the staff manager, they should remain Global regardless of their hack test results until they get better. For example, if a Global has a history of screwing up such as leaking alts, teaming with permed players, etc., then they should not be given Mod even if they ace their hack test.

Mod --> Senior Mod
This would be a significant change. As it is right now, Senior Mods are "Managers" of their respective server. I believe this needs to change. SMOD should not be given out to so few people, there should not only be one SMOD per server. SMOD should ultimately be reverted back to the way it was in 2014, before the whole manager system, to where it's just a Mod with more perms. The reason for this, is that a LOT of issues are only able to be handled by Snr Mod+, and there are so few of these ranks as it is because there's only "one per server". For Mods to be promoted to Senior, they would need to be EXTREMELY active, be constantly contributing to the server with ideas as well as working to implement them rather than just playing the game and staffing, and do their job correctly. They would also need an extensive knowledge of all Brawl servers, rather than just basic knowledge.

Senior Mod --> Jr. Admin/(Server) Manager
Rather than having SMODs be the manager for each server (to where there's only 1 per server), a new rank could be implemented which would be called Junior Admin, or [Server] Manager (for example, War Manager/WarZ Manager, etc). This would emphasize that this player manages the specific server, which includes events, ideas and implementation of them, overall keeping the server alive with fresh content. Overall, this rank would be an Admin for their specific server and would focus on that server rather than all of them (which is what Mods/SMODs would be doing). This would only be given to people who know all there is to know about their specific gamemode, who constantly contribute to the server, who are extremely active on all platforms INCLUDING the forums, and who do their job 100% correctly with no faults.

Jr. Admin/(Server) Manager --> Admin
Admin would remain the exact same as it is now. In order for Server Managers to get promoted to Admin, they would need to know everything there is to know about ALL gamemodes on Brawl, rather than just their specific server. This is essentially promoting a server manager to a manager of something else, such as staff (like minesheep), perm bans/bans (Ritzy), etc.


[PROTOCOL]

Staff protocol as a whole right now is also very outdated. This goes for everything: chat offenses, physical offenses such as hacking, etc.

CRV
As it is right now, if you get 30 punishments from chat offenses across all of your accounts within 8 months, you get CRV'd (Continuous Rule Violations), which is a ban on all accounts that received punishment. This needs to be HEAVILY reworked. In general, a CRV isn't just chat offenses, temp-bans/kicks also apply to a CRV. If somebody continuously gets kicked/temp-banned for physical ****, such as ridealongs, glitching, etc, and a lot of the 30 punishments is from that, then they should be perm banned. But if the majority of the punishments are from chat offenses, they should receive nothing but a perm mute (IP-mute). There is no reason to permanently ban somebody off of the server on all accounts that received punishment just for chat offenses (excluding cases of threats). However, in order for this perm-mute change to be implemented, the mute command needs to be reworked in itself. As of right now, if you're muted, you are still able to /msg people, which completely defeats the purpose of the mute, ESPECIALLY because you are able to be muted BECAUSE of messaging people. This needs to be changed, to where if you are muted, you are unable to use ANY form of communication in game, whether that be /msg, team chat, etc. Along with all of this, the CRV in itself is inconsistent as hell. There are SEVERAL people who are over 30 punishments within the last 8 months who have not been CRV'd. Out of the 9 people someone I talk to has checked (won't name), 5 of them qualify for a CRV and yet have not received one. This is still being looked into, so there are bound to be more. The reason I bring this up, the reason the CRV is so inconsistent as it is right now, is because there's no automation for it whatsoever. Considering how impactful this system is, the fact that it can result in a full ban of MULTIPLE accounts, means that there NEEDS to be automation for it because it NEEDS to be consistent. There needs to be a form of automation that will either:
a) notify staff when a player has qualified for a CRV (30 punishments across accounts)
b) automatically CRV the player when the 30th punishment across accounts within 8 months was reached

Chat Offenses
As of right now, chat offenses and what qualifies for punishment is also inconsistent within the staff team. In general, some staff will punish for something that another staff wouldn't. There needs to be a set protocol for what's allowed and what's not in chat, so there's no confusion or any false punishment that could contribute to a CRV. I'm not sure if this is already implemented or already a requirement, but staff should be required to take a screenshot of every instance that they are required to punish somebody, whether that be a soft warn, etc (assuming that a way of tracking everything that somebody has been punished for in chat is not implemented). This would eliminate any chance of a false punishment going unresolved, should it occur.

Game Offenses (Cheating/Glitching)
Although punishments for these types of offenses are not necessarily inconsistent, they ARE inefficient. The main thing I'll be talking about is X-Ray. From what I've seen, there are absolutely no measures being taken to prevent X-Ray. There was an instance where action WAS taken, and staff were able to accurately detect when somebody was X-Raying (WITHOUT screenshare), but it was never taken advantage of and now people have been able to freely X-Ray without any punishment. One huge reason for this is because abusing f3 + a is allowed, which is RIDICULOUS. Abusing f3 + a in order to see through walls and spot players, is literally the EXACT SAME THING as using X-Ray. It's xray without a client, and allowing it just gives players who DO xray an excuse for how they're "not". "It was just f3+a". Disallowing this would make it so much easier to tell when somebody is actually xraying or not, if you aren't going to implement screenshare or even try to prevent people from using it. Along with this, staff members need to actually start actively trying to prevent people from cheating/glitching. Which means responding to /report's or /support when they occur. There are so many instances where I or somebody else /report's a player who is blatantly cheating, and it's never responded to even with other staff online. And if it IS responded to, we're never notified, which I will get into next.


[SUPPORT]

The support system on this server is also very outdated. As of now, if you have an issue, all you can do is either PM a staff member on discord (where 80% of the time, from my experience, you don't get a response), or you create a thread in the Q&A section on the forums. The Q&A section can take DAYS to get a response, and PMing staff on discord does not even guarantee you a response. There needs to be a ticket system implemented into the server discords, where a player can create a ticket in a bot channel which would open up a private text channel with just him and all the staff on the server. They would explain their issue or request, etc., and it would be seen by all staff, rather than having to PM them each one by one hoping for a response. The issue would get resolved quickly as everybody is more active on discord, and then the ticket would be closed. If the issue in the ticket requires somebody higher up, such as an SMOD/Admin, the original staff member handling it would simply ping the rank role which would notify somebody with the proper rank to handle it. However, for the most part, it would be JMODs/Mods handling the tickets (with only one staff member handling each ticket, rather than having multiple people give input).


mk that's about it, these changes would 100% benefit the server as well as its community. feel free to leave feedback
@Ritzy @SoCool21 @xxMineSheepxx @Lord_Roke @Usp45 @Havai

 

From my experience, concerns voiced regarding a potential applicant are often not taken seriously. AURailing was caught teaming with a perm banned player literally the day he submitted his application if I remember correctly. This was when normal players could not comment on staff applications, so I messaged several staff members telling them about it. AURailing then proceeded to get accepted, and I was told he was "given a warning not to do it again". He THEN proceeded, during his time as staff, to do the exact same thing multiple times (teaming with the SAME perm banned player), as well as abusing /alts and leaking them in public chat. I reported the teaming with the perm banned players, and was told that "he was never given an official warning (for the first time he did it), an issue on our part, but he's no longer teaming with people he doesn't know". Was also told "his memory can be a bit fuzzy". Everything was reported, several videos and screenshots, and all he ever received was a warning. Overall, in terms of demotion and hiring, it's far too lenient right now.

From experience, it doesn't take long whatsoever to gain staff experience/read up on protocol, if you ARE a fit applicant. In April, I became Helper on Complex, which had an extremely extensive protocol system (a lot larger than this server), and it literally took me 3 days to get 100% used to it. Was promoted to Trial-Mod 5 days later, and then promoted to Mod a week later then resigned due to personal reasons. If it takes 2 weeks for a Trial to get promoted to Global, that's fine. That's the most amount of time it should take for a good Trial JMOD to get promoted. However, dedicating 2-4+ weeks for TMODs in order to accept "potentially less fit candidates" should not be a thing. You guys should not be accepting "potentially less fit candidates", you should only be accepting players who you 100% know to be fit for the job after having extensive research done.

I'm aware that it's only a "role", but Server Managers should not be held by any Mods, or anybody with insufficient perms rather. All that does is create more issues and make stuff take a lot longer than it needs to regarding the specific server they're managing. Creating an actual rank for this would make things a lot more efficient. An example of the tediousness of having lower-ranked players as Managers would be @JayOG on WarZ a couple years back iirc. Was a moderator but was basically WarZ manager, and didn't have any perms to do anything, so he was literally promoted to SMOD on WarZ only. This was a huge detriment to the server because little to nothing was getting done because Jay had little to no perms. A server manager should be able to do what they want with the server in order to better it, without it taking days just to get permission.

If there is a "simple tool", it really needs work as well as the entire aspect of a CRV as a whole. Again, there are multiple people on the server with 40+ punishments across accounts within the last 8 months who have not been CRV'd and have continued to be punished. If this protocol is to be kept in place, it needs to be made more consistent to where it is known when somebody reaches 30 punishments across accounts.

For example, on WarZ, players will say "ez" in chat after every kill. Sometimes they are warned, other times they are not depending on the staff member. It's considered flame/toxicity in chat, but I would say 50% of the time it's actually enforced.

I'll PM you later when I have the time regarding this, don't believe it should be publicly mentioned.

Whether or not it's a Minecraft glitch, it should be bannable if there are recordings of people using it (after the rule is implemented, ofc Not previous recordings). Pressing f3+a in order to see through walls is literally 100% the exact same thing as pressing a keybind to toggle your X-Ray. Literally no difference between the two, it's an X-Ray glitch and action needs to be taken because of how game-breaking it is.

99% of the time, no staff responds to /support. This isn't just my experience either, most people I've talked to have had little to no success with that command.

I appreciate the feedback!

 

The majority of staff or staff applicants put up a facade in order to get the rank. They fake a mature personality and then when they resign or get demoted their true colors show. If you were trusted as mod before and you did a good job, you shouldn't have to take a hack test that you already passed in order to get the rank again.

 

4:56

@Lord_Roke @SoCool21 in no way should this be allowed. Obviously he shouldn't be penalized for the video as it's allowed currently (for whatever reason), but it's gamebreaking and it's gotten to the point where people are literally asking him to make callouts ("where are they?"). It's an X-Ray glitch, so it should be treated the same as X-Ray.