cepheid's thoughts #2: problems with staff and the server of CraftyMynes
cepheid's thoughts
Hey guys, cepheid’s thoughts is a series that I use to share a thorough version of my thoughts on the server. If reading a few pages of ideas and (hopefully) several thought out responses isn’t your thing, then this isn’t the thread for you.
Link to previous post:
cepheid’s thoughts #1: state of the server and possible reset

Introduction
I've played on CraftyMynes for a bit over a year now. When I started I played as a loner, I didn't know a single player on the server and I basically played single player and envied everyone I saw in chat on teams and having a good time. It took many months for me to begin talking in chat more, and eventually find friends and build trust on the server. My post about the roulette at the casino established both that I care a lot about making sure the server's economy is balanced and also that I'm able and willing to put in the time to get it right. The one thing I've learned about CraftyMynes as I gained more respect and also from joining staff is that the more I learn, the more problems I see. Here are some of the issues I currently have problems with, and I hope they will be taken into consideration:

CraftyCrates, heads, and other overpowered items
At the end of the last map CraftyMynes struggled with the problem of overpowered spawn eggs breaking parts of the economy. Fortunately everyone realized that converting spawners can't continue (and therefore the economy will be better preserved this map), but I still have problems with some overpowered items being given out, in craftycrates or otherwise. I could go into detail about many borderline items, but here are some recent craftycrate items that I believe are unacceptable to give out in exchange for donations:

The creeper heads (there were in 2 in the crate and I gave 1 away, iirc) and the sponges I believe are too difficult to obtain in-game to give out to players for free. Creeper heads especially would have a high value and it would be very difficult to find a seller and come to a price agreement if it wasn't for craftycrates ruining the market.

As far as I'm concerned, giving out totems of undying (not to mention 2 in one craftycrate) are similar to giving out god swords or god armor. I've heard the argument that it's okay to give them out since it's a vanilla item anyone can get in-game (it's not like giving out a sharp VI sword, for instance), but there's literally not enough mansions on the map to provide totems for everybody. In that sense, it might be even worse to give out totems than god gear (which I think everyone can agree is too powerful to put in craftycrates).

these arrows especially confuse me. It feels like one day Baron gets in trouble for giving out fortune cookies to everyone on the server (since they can be used to harvest crops) and another day a stack of fortune arrows are given out to vip+

My basemates and I used items similar to this on the last map, abusing the smite V at zombie and skeleton grinders. However small an advantage a custom, normally unobtainable item like this can give you, I believe it's wholly unnecessary and makes the game worse overall. Also, this could theoretically be used in pvp to create separation from the attacker without having to carry a second sword since most people don't put knockback on their pvp swords.

In addition, I believe Ina's birthday gift of a knock back 4 bone is unacceptable to be given out. Don't misunderstand me, I know Ina would never abuse it in pvp, but she could easily be raided/killed and have it fall into the hands of pvpers. It also sets the precedent that it's okay to give out potentially OP items that are not possible to create by survival players, which is something I'm starkly against. Here's her item:

Finally, a creative player recently spawned an evoker in my base just for fun, but the fact that I was able to kill it and keep the totem of undying is unacceptable. The totem is currently in my ender chest, although I'm willing to return or destroy it if asked.

admin heads
While we're on the topic of unfair items being given out, I still hold that the fact that admin heads being able to drop is the biggest "accident waiting to happen" for the economy on CraftyMynes. I would personally value rnc2011's head at 640 diamond blocks, and I would pay that in a second if I found out someone had one. Therefore, if he was ever careless enough to let someone kill him and get his head, it would be pretty much equivalent to him giving 640 diamond blocks to the player. Since I believe that all wealth on the server should be earned using traditional techniques (mining, farming, setting up shops, etc), I think it's unacceptable that someone's net worth could skyrocket in such a manner with only 1 or 2 swings of the sword.
Before anyone says that admins never get killed by players, I was able to kill rnc2011 recently when he went into survival at my base, but unlucky for me a head did not drop.
Obviously I am not intimately familiar with how head drops are run through the panel, but unless I hear otherwise I'm assuming it's relatively easy to just blacklist a few names so that admin heads can't drop, and I don't understand why it hasn't been done already.

Helping new staff learn the ropes

• Possibly the hardest thing to be consistent on for new and old staff alike is giving warnings on borderline names. I've heard from a LOT of staff members that when confronted with a borderline name they're even too intimidated to ask about it in staff chat in fear of looking like an idiot, even though that's exactly the type of thing that staff chat should be used for. Staff desparately needs a list of all names that have been deemed unacceptable, as well as some that have been allowed (neonjews, tacojesus, angeldust, b0xmuncher, intheA, bipolarmonkey, yomamabich come to mind). This is the type of thing I would've loved to help compile when I was staff, and I'm sure some of the remaining staff would gladly help do the same.
• In addition to borderline names, the staff (and the server) desparately need a list of some words that are allowed, are never allowed, and are allowed in only some contexts (e.g. "fuck" only allowed in non-sexual terms). Obviously some racial slurs are never allowed, but I STILL am not sure even after almost 6 months of being staff whether "bitch" or "dick" are allowed in any circumstances. The admins routinely contradict each other about both words, some saying they're allowed in come contexts and others completely banning them. It's extremely confusing and wholly unnecessary, I personally don't care whether they're allowed or not, but crafty and the admins MUST come to a consensus about these and other words.
• I also feel like the "orientation" for new staff is lacking a bit. Maybe it is just a "learn as you go" experience, but I do feel like new helpers need a little bit more help knowing the kick/ban process. It took me a month as staff before someone told me it's 3 kicks you give someone before asking for a ban. Maybe it just slipped my mentor's mind, but in the current state it really feels like it's on other staff online to walk new helpers through kicking and banning rule breakers as it's not explained well enough when they first get staff. I've seen this a bit in helpers promoted after myself, and I did my best to help them learn by walking them through the process of kicking people instead of just handling it myself. I'm not sure if it's a byproduct of the admins being so far removed from being a new staff that they forget that everything that's obvious to them isn't so obvious to a day 1 helper, but some things could definitely be improved.
• There are things you're not allowed to ask about once you get staff that nobody tells you about. Obviously I'm not going to spill any staff secrets, but when I first got staff I was very curious about how staff and the server worked. Nobody told me that there's some things that you just don't really ask about, and I felt like an idiot more than once trying to find out more about the server and it's staff because nobody told me that there's some things you just don't ask about, and just because you're staff doesn't mean that you get to know everything.
• In addition, people need to know what they are allowed to talk about publicly. I never knew that we were allowed to talk about the staff room publicly until Nysic gave a helper orientation in all chat, including what buttons helpers can/can't push. I also never knew that we could talk about the diamond test until players were being told their current score in all chat, along with how many more they needed to be #1 (although I guess some old ban appeals contain screenshots of diamond tests so I guess that's public knowledge).

Secrets
Obviously some secrets regarding the safety of the server/catching hackers/upcoming projects/etc. are completely necessary in order to keep CraftyMynes running without a hitch. However, for some reason there is an epidemic of secrets going on between staff members that I really don't understand or think are necessary. The amount of gossip and shit-talking of both other staff members and community members is insane, even though not everybody might see it. It took me a long time to build a lot of relationships on the server, but the more I learned about staff and the server the more these secrets kept popping up. This is obviously a very hard section for me to write without either spilling a bunch of secrets or just saying "trust me guys, it's a problem," but I've heard secrets that my basemates can't know about, secrets that some admins tell me but other admins aren't allowed to know (some significant ones of these even before I got staff myself), secrets where staff say how upset they are with another staff member and how they do their job (a ton of these), secrets about upcoming projects, and so many more. I'm expecting some measure of pushback against this section since I can't provide hard evidence without betraying trust, but just because not everyone hears these types of things doesn't mean they don't exist. I got pretty deep into the staff of CM before I started seeing a lot of these myself. I really hope in the future the staff of CraftyMynes can be more transparent and be more honest with the community as well as opening up more of the staff to constructive criticism instead of having staff members shit-talk each other behind closed doors.

sknup's base
For reference: Skup's Base Protection
One secret that's now public that I can talk about is sknup's base. I personally don't give a shit about sknup having admin protection of his base, but the way it was handled by the admins is pretty unexcusable in my eyes. Some of the admins act like there was no problem with protecting his base, but if there really was no problem, then why was his protection kept so secret that even many staff members (including myself) weren't allowed to know about it. As far as I'm concerned, the only 2 reasonable ways to handle his protection were:

1. Inform the community from the beginning that sknup's base is both unraidable and will carry over between servers. This way people are at least aware of the rules of the server they're playing on, voting for, and donating for
2. Once his base was discovered to have protection, remove the protection and admit that a mistake had been made (even move it first so it wouldn't immediately be raided, I don't really care)

Ultimately this is Crafty's server and he can make the rules as he sees fit, but the community absolutely has a right to know those rules and the exceptions. In my eyes, it gets more complicated when people are voting and donating for a server and then realize that they've been duped to some extent by the admins making exceptions to the rules. Everyone should ideally play by the same rules, but in the case that they don't the community has a right to know. I'll reiterate: I personally don't care that sknup has base protection, and for all I care he can be given creative to help him build better. However, what I disagree vehemently with is how the admins kept it a secret and expected no backlash.

Confusing rules
I want some more consistency with the explanations of some of the rules. For the last 6 months I've been trying to figure out whether things like pumpkin edits, low fire, low shield, or ore highlighter edits to texture packs are allowed but can never sem to get a straight answer. Even the other day I responded to this post trying to bait an answer from the admins about pumpkin edits to no avail. this post suggests that low fire and low shield edits are unfair in pvp an therefore aren't allowed, but people seem to post screenshots of pvp-edit packs on the forum every day and don't get in trouble. Apparently batty's coordinates plus was allowed on the basis that the same effect is possible through optifine but that effect isn't possible through optifine leaving me confused why this mod is still allowed. In addition, Forge has been repeatedly denied , but if someone can figure out a way to use batty's coordinates plus without forge please let me know, because I can't get it to work and I think batty's mod is pretty insane in some settings.
As with a lot of other things in this post, I don't particularly care what is and isn't allowed, but I do care about consistency. I just want crafty/the admins to have clearer rules to make it easier for players to figure out what they can/can't do and also for staff members to answer questions about such things (I had a few players ask about pumpkin edit and low fire texture packs when I was staff and I struggled to answer their questions, even after asking in staff chat).

Double Standards
At this point, I believe OtherGreenGamer will never be considered by the admins to become a staff member. Normally I'd be fine with that, there's a reason that only admins have a say in who becomes staff, as there's many factors to consider and obviously not everyone who applies can be accepted. However, my issue is that I believe Green will not be considered ONLY because he has hacked in the past. I think this is a double standard since Tezzer has xrayed in the past and was able to remain as helper (at the time) on a new account.
Either ALL hackers are able to be redeemed in such a fashion, or NONE of them are. Personally I don't care which way the admins decide to go, but I think that it is unfair to set such a double standard. I just want everyone to be considered in a fair manner, and I think the community of CraftyMynes deserves such.
I apologize in advance if I'm completely misrepresenting the admins here. For all I know, Green will either get the rank of helper or is/will be rejected for other reasons (in which case I'm way out of line) now that he's old enough to get the rank. I understand that some players should never be staff, and others will be capped at never getting past helper/mod2/etc for certain legitimate reasons that only the admins should decide upon, and that's fine. However, I have seen considerable evidence to support the notion that he can never get staff, as I'm not the type of person to take this public if I wasn't 99% sure.

Bad decisions
Over the last 6 months or so, as far as I can see 2Chill has contributed more to the server than ANYone else, even more than any of the admins (with the sole exception of maybe Crafty). Even though he's severely under-credited, I see all the things he's done for the server behind the scenes, including getting bows working in the arena, suggesting both the lottery and the community piggy bank, spending more time doing staff related things (like catching hackers rather than working on his own base) than any other staff, and so much more (a lot of which i can't even talk about). I have tremendous respect for all he's done for the community I've cared so much about, and he certainly sets a good example for what staff members SHOULD be like (although obviously not everyone can commit the same amount of time to CM). With that in mind, I can't understand to promote R4 to mod 3 over 2Chill. I'm not posting this to disrespect R4, and I think it's perfectly reasonable to have them both as mod 3, but I really cannot follow the admins' thought process on this one. In his recent absence CM has lost their single most consistent and best staff member, and the community has certainly suffered because of it. For any staff member there's only 2 valid reasons to not promote someone: 1. they haven't proven themselves yet, or 2. they're not mature enough or for whatever reason they have hit their limit of how high they can go. Normally I respect the admin's exclusivity on these decisions, but in this scenario it's just absurd to think 2Chill has anything left to prove, and it's equally ridiculous to think that he isn't a good fit for mod 3. Since he hasn't been promoted I have to assume he isn't wanted at higher ranks. I can't imagine a server that would reject a staff member as effective as 2Chill is a server I'm interested in playing on.
To the admins: please just admit you made a mistake. I'd have tremendous respect to the admins if they could just admit an oversight and promote 2Chill to mod 3 as well, it's certainly the right decision for CraftyMynes as a whole.

Refusing to admit mistakes
Unfortunately, like in 2Chill's case the admin's not admitting to any mistakes seems to be a serious trend. I first saw this all the way back when the casino opened and I was begging people for 8 hours to change something, but nobody admitted any problem until I farmed 30+ stacks of coins. There's always going to be bad decisions being made, but I wish I played on a server where the admins were able to own up to their mistakes and fix them. The admins stuck with the OP villagers at spawn despite significant pushback , and the hostile environment toward suggestions directly delayed my reset post . Perhaps the most straightforward example of this was with the wool trader that was implemented. When it was found to be overpowered, I thought it would've been easily handled by just saying "hey guys, sorry I fucked up this one. It won't happen again." but instead the admins didn't admit any wrongdoing:

Sorry to particularly single out Baron on this one, I think it's a problem most if not all of the admins can have at times, but I really don't think it's unreasonable to expect the admins to just admit a small mistake, it would certainly earn my respect more and make CraftyMynes better as a whole.

Other significant cases of refusing to admit mistakes include the handling of sknup's base (keeping it a closely guarded secret) and not promoting 2Chill. It would be extremely refreshing for the admins to bridge the gap between themselves and the rest of the playerbase, because currently it feels to me like the players are more separated than ever from the admins.

Staff's resistance to suggestions
Perhaps my biggest gripe with the staff on CraftyMynes, I think too often suggestions from the community are simply rejected without any though or real consideration. While I understand that not all suggestions are good suggestions or can possibly be implemented, it's important to listen to the community at times since the survival players are the ones most affected by many decisions being made. There are good and bad reasons to reject suggestions, but I think it's important to keep in mind that respected players can have terrible suggestions, and stupid players can have amazing suggestions. Every post should be taken for what it is and judged on whether it's a positive move for CraftyMynes as a whole and not just the feelings of a few players. Too often suggestions are met with anger or just disregarded, which I can't stand.
more reading on this topic:
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3889-the-future-of-spawn-eggs
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3325-mob-griefing-and-fire-spreading
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3656-remove-or-nerf-all-spawn-villager-trader
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3254-allowing-cheaters-to-play-on-alts

Conclusion
Ever since I began to get more involved in the CraftyMynes community I've seen problems with how the server operates, especially with regards to the economy (which I am very passionate about). When I applied for staff, it was my goal to use a slightly higher position in the community to attempt and influence the changes that I thought were necessary. This goal was always more important to me than simply enforcing chat rules, although I certainly tried my best to improve on that aspect of being staff as well. It is one of my beliefs both inside and outside minecraft that sometimes in order to earn the respect of your superiors you have to (tactfully) step on their toes a bit and disagree with them. Ultimately some of my strong beliefs about how staff members should be allowed to behave combined with my stubbornness to relinquish said beliefs lead to me being demoted. Only time can tell whether demoting me was the right decision for CraftyMynes, but in the time since one thing has become crystal clear to me: I can never be satisfied playing here as a rank lower than staff since I'll always want to make changes to the server but I'll have zero influence in actually making those changes. Therefore, I've already begun playing on the server less, and i feel that trend will continue unless things change. Maybe with time I'll learn to just live with some level of disappointment and feeling like I failed, but it will take some getting used to.

Closing thought: at this time I've provided more public constructive criticism for the server than possibly anyone else. I hope going forward staff will be able to respond better to criticism . I think the behavior of a lot of staff members needs to be changed, and I hope it can be done peacefully without hurting anybody's feelings, as we all want CraftyMynes to be as good as it can be, even if I may decide to leave soon.

I have a lot more I want to talk about, and I may also edit this post and/or make more comments to contribute more. For instance, I don't think CraftyMynes can ever be the #1 vanilla server in the long run with the current voting system as the current system is non-competitive and the wrong types of solutions are being pursued.

Preach.

Just when I wanted to study, this goes in. Fantastic;

When it comes to CraftyCrates= I'm surprised that you didn't know that it's me that handles them/makes them. If I can't make them, the other admins do and then I approve them, and then they get approval from Crafty. If this was such a concern, you should've brought it up. That totem is from February, I've heard absolutely nothing in the staff chat, in which you were actively in; nor anyone, in fact.

For being someone who has such an opinion of themselves of "I want to help the server improve", it's odd that I only hear these concerns about the weapons given now , after no longer being staff.

When it comes to new staff members, it certainly depends on who teaches you. Some admins forget to say something; hence the reason why staff chat exist and why I add every single staff member to my contact list, I don't do it for shits and giggles; it's for the new helpers to ask questions.

Secrets- I don't remember any of them but since they're secrets I'm assuming it's about others that I can't comment on.

As for the promotion for mod 3, it's okay not to agree with our decision over 2Chill, but if that's the only reason why he hasn't been on, then he definitely doesn't deserve it. I'm sorry, but when it comes to staff promotions, I don't care for someone who gets upset that they didn't get it instead of being happy that someone has proven themselves enough to earn the promotion; if you're trying to help @2Chill to get a promotion, this certainly doesn't show him in a very good light.

@OtherGreenGamer';s promotion is delayed solely on the fact that every time he has applied, he was younger than the age requirement, you are indeed extremely out of line and I wish you would've approached me with concerns.

I wasted 30 mins of my life reading this...
But I agree with ceph.
CraftyCrates are specifically stated by Crafty to give out only "Harmless items that will not break the economy"

*Varrick voice from Legend of Korra*

Good Day Crafty mYNES. Looks like today is turning out to be a wild one.

aND The Blackened Dawn is the first to hit the scene, coming back with some very good points and even crippling cephid with a snarky recmark on ceph's sudden "I want to help the server improve" attitude calling HIM out on it being after being demoted.

Now Ms. @Blackened_Dawn my question is. If you are the one in charge of it then why did you not realize this becoming a conundrum?

moving on to her next point is how staff maybe forgets to say thing, well in my personal unecessary-and-most-likely-to-be-ignored opinion I say there should be a set goal of things for new members of each teir of staff should be told.

it also appears there is drama between staff members that will not be discussed and I assume will never be discussed. Well folks respect the peoples' privacy and don't try and pry it from them.

Lmao oh dear

@GrinningBobcat for the crates? I was mostly focused on eggs, and making sure the eggs weren't too op; the weapons were the least of my concerns

@Blackened_Dawn @GrinningBobcat for the crates? I was mostly focused on eggs, and making sure the eggs weren't too op; the weapons were the least of my concerns

will you promise us those will be regulated too I suppose?

Drama between staff?

Oh dear.

That should be solved, if you are disgruntled with how a separate staff does things or just have a problem with them maybe you should confront them about it.

Hmm, didn't expect my name to pop up.

As is right now: Every time I applied (After the age limit was created) I indeed as Dawn said was under the age limit. While there may be obvious bias with some; I feel like they are in the minority. Who knows, if I apply again: there may be another reason completely if I don't get accepted.

As for the other stuff, the rules should be clearly stated.

*Are PVP oriented texture packs allowed?

*Which names are and aren't allowed?
and examples

Those are the ones that confuse me.

To preface my own lengthy post, I'm responding not only because I'm a staff member but because I'm named directly and indirectly multiple times in this post.
I feel this post is also more a personal attack rather than constructive criticism since as dawn pointed out you did not raise these as they happened and the fact you have seemingly cut ties with CM altogether.

@cepheid CraftyCrates, heads, and other overpowered items

The creeper heads (there were in 2 in the crate and I gave 1 away, iirc) and the sponges I believe are too difficult to obtain in-game to give out to players for free. Creeper heads especially would have a high value and it would be very difficult to find a seller and come to a price agreement if it wasn't for craftycrates ruining the market.

As far as I'm concerned, giving out totems of undying (not to mention 2 in one craftycrate) are similar to giving out god swords or god armor. I've heard the argument that it's okay to give them out since it's a vanilla item anyone can get in-game (it's not like giving out a sharp VI sword, for instance), but there's literally not enough mansions on the map to provide totems for everybody. In that sense, it might be even worse to give out totems than god gear (which I think everyone can agree is too powerful to put in craftycrates).

these arrows especially confuse me. It feels like one day Baron gets in trouble for giving out fortune cookies to everyone on the server (since they can be used to harvest crops) and another day a stack of fortune arrows are given out to vip+

My basemates and I used items similar to this on the last map, abusing the smite V at zombie and skeleton grinders. However small an advantage a custom, normally unobtainable item like this can give you, I believe it's wholly unnecessary and makes the game worse overall. Also, this could theoretically be used in pvp to create separation from the attacker without having to carry a second sword since most people don't put knockback on their pvp swords.

In addition, I believe Ina's birthday gift of a knock back 4 bone is unacceptable to be given out. Don't misunderstand me, I know Ina would never abuse it in pvp, but she could easily be raided/killed and have it fall into the hands of pvpers. It also sets the precedent that it's okay to give out potentially OP items that are not possible to create by survival players, which is something I'm starkly against. Here's her item:

Creeper heads are an almost solely cosmetic item, I'm not aware of anyone farming them nor should that be our primary concern, to get people to donate to keep the server alive we need to give them something they couldn't have obtained otherwise yet does not provide a serious advantages over others, Creeper heads fit perfectly in this category as they are cosmetic items and a determined player can also access them in survival. A slight distortion in the price of creeper heads is not really a bad price.
As for sponges, they from my own experience are relatively easy to obtain in monuments, if players wish to obtain this item they only need visit one and clear it which is trivial for god armoured players.

As for totems I agree they are harder to obtain but they are still obtainable nonetheless and while it certainly could be argued 2 was too much, that concern should have been raised when they came out not months later as some sort of leaving post.

Now to custom spawned items true fortune 4 can be used too farm crops and I can actually understand this point, in fact the only one that makes sense to me is this but at the same time staff like to add a bit of fun to the server, vanilla gets boring and I don;t think this is a huge issue.

I gave Shiba the bone as you are surely aware being in attendance there, I did this because I count here as a close friend and a huge contributor to the server, the bone was given vanishing after the event so your concerns about it falling into other hands are null and void unless they figure out how to steal it from an Echest or Inven.

@cepheid Finally, a creative player recently spawned an evoker in my base just for fun, but the fact that I was able to kill it and keep the totem of undying is unacceptable. The totem is currently in my ender chest, although I'm willing to return or destroy it if asked.

I did ask for all the items to be destroyed and being in a base compromised solely of staff or former staff I assumed it was safe to trust you guys. Clearly this was not the case and It disappoints me that you then tried used this as some criticism of staff.

@cepheid admin heads
While we're on the topic of unfair items being given out, I still hold that the fact that admin heads being able to drop is the biggest "accident waiting to happen" for the economy on CraftyMynes. I would personally value rnc2011's head at 640 diamond blocks, and I would pay that in a second if I found out someone had one. Therefore, if he was ever careless enough to let someone kill him and get his head, it would be pretty much equivalent to him giving 640 diamond blocks to the player. Since I believe that all wealth on the server should be earned using traditional techniques (mining, farming, setting up shops, etc), I think it's unacceptable that someone's net worth could skyrocket in such a manner with only 1 or 2 swings of the sword.
Before anyone says that admins never get killed by players, I was able to kill rnc2011 recently when he went into survival at my base, but unlucky for me a head did not drop.
Obviously I am not intimately familiar with how head drops are run through the panel, but unless I hear otherwise I'm assuming it's relatively easy to just blacklist a few names so that admin heads can't drop, and I don't understand why it hasn't been done already.

This is completely out of line, staff are players too even admins if they choose to give their head away no matter how valuable it is, that's their choice. Like any other player.
Using your logic we should blacklist anyones head who is popular and therefore in anyway valuable, players that have died very little and are hated or popular have heads that could be valued in stacks of DB too.
PVPing to get someones head is traditional even if it's an admin.

@cepheid Helping new staff learn the ropes

• Possibly the hardest thing to be consistent on for new and old staff alike is giving warnings on borderline names. I've heard from a LOT of staff members that when confronted with a borderline name they're even too intimidated to ask about it in staff chat in fear of looking like an idiot, even though that's exactly the type of thing that staff chat should be used for. Staff desparately needs a list of all names that have been deemed unacceptable, as well as some that have been allowed (neonjews, tacojesus, angeldust, b0xmuncher, intheA, bipolarmonkey, yomamabich come to mind). This is the type of thing I would've loved to help compile when I was staff, and I'm sure some of the remaining staff would gladly help do the same.
• In addition to borderline names, the staff (and the server) desparately need a list of some words that are allowed, are never allowed, and are allowed in only some contexts (e.g. "fuck" only allowed in non-sexual terms). Obviously some racial slurs are never allowed, but I STILL am not sure even after almost 6 months of being staff whether "bitch" or "dick" are allowed in any circumstances. The admins routinely contradict each other about both words, some saying they're allowed in come contexts and others completely banning them. It's extremely confusing and wholly unnecessary, I personally don't care whether they're allowed or not, but crafty and the admins MUST come to a consensus about these and other words.
• I also feel like the "orientation" for new staff is lacking a bit. Maybe it is just a "learn as you go" experience, but I do feel like new helpers need a little bit more help knowing the kick/ban process. It took me a month as staff before someone told me it's 3 kicks you give someone before asking for a ban. Maybe it just slipped my mentor's mind, but in the current state it really feels like it's on other staff online to walk new helpers through kicking and banning rule breakers as it's not explained well enough when they first get staff. I've seen this a bit in helpers promoted after myself, and I did my best to help them learn by walking them through the process of kicking people instead of just handling it myself. I'm not sure if it's a byproduct of the admins being so far removed from being a new staff that they forget that everything that's obvious to them isn't so obvious to a day 1 helper, but some things could definitely be improved.
• There are things you're not allowed to ask about once you get staff that nobody tells you about. Obviously I'm not going to spill any staff secrets, but when I first got staff I was very curious about how staff and the server worked. Nobody told me that there's some things that you just don't really ask about, and I felt like an idiot more than once trying to find out more about the server and it's staff because nobody told me that there's some things you just don't ask about, and just because you're staff doesn't mean that you get to know everything.
• In addition, people need to know what they are allowed to talk about publicly. I never knew that we were allowed to talk about the staff room publicly until Nysic gave a helper orientation in all chat, including what buttons helpers can/can't push. I also never knew that we could talk about the diamond test until players were being told their current score in all chat, along with how many more they needed to be #1 (although I guess some old ban appeals contain screenshots of diamond tests so I guess that's public knowledge).

-Such a list is unnecessary if someone wants to compile one they can go ahead however, the decision to blacklist a name is not solely based on it's content but the reaction of the community, the behavior of said player and whether we feel it represents an infraction.
Therefore a compendium of names would be pretty useless on it's own, players can always ask in Staff chat or direct concerns to specific staff if they like.
I'm always on Skype mobile except when asleep so anyone can feel free to message me as the highest ranked non admin if they feel not like bothering an admin for fear of being seen as an idiot.

-Words, bitch and dick depend on the context really, making a blanket ruling for something that varies is not a good idea.

-Kicking is ultimately down to your judgement, we can't teach good judgement unfortunately only give you the guidelines and common situations, we can't anticipate every outcome and teach you the right response. If you are promoted to helper it means we think you have the potential to do so.
That's not to say you can't ask if you have an issue but we can't help you if you don't tell us theirs a problem, staff are always open to questions.

-Well I don't see the issue here to be honest, did you really feel the need to talk about the contents of the staff room ?
Is there any real need ?

@cepheid Secrets
Obviously some secrets regarding the safety of the server/catching hackers/upcoming projects/etc. are completely necessary in order to keep CraftyMynes running without a hitch. However, for some reason there is an epidemic of secrets going on between staff members that I really don't understand or think are necessary. The amount of gossip and shit-talking of both other staff members and community members is insane, even though not everybody might see it. It took me a long time to build a lot of relationships on the server, but the more I learned about staff and the server the more these secrets kept popping up. This is obviously a very hard section for me to write without either spilling a bunch of secrets or just saying "trust me guys, it's a problem," but I've heard secrets that my basemates can't know about, secrets that some admins tell me but other admins aren't allowed to know (some significant ones of these even before I got staff myself), secrets where staff say how upset they are with another staff member and how they do their job (a ton of these), secrets about upcoming projects, and so many more. I'm expecting some measure of pushback against this section since I can't provide hard evidence without betraying trust, but just because not everyone hears these types of things doesn't mean they don't exist. I got pretty deep into the staff of CM before I started seeing a lot of these myself. I really hope in the future the staff of CraftyMynes can be more transparent and be more honest with the community as well as opening up more of the staff to constructive criticism instead of having staff members shit-talk each other behind closed doors.

-I don't understand what you mean by secrets, in my over 2 years on the server and coming on 2 year anniversary of being staff, I've only witnessed staff shit talking each-other twice both incidents of which were dealt with by admins in the utmost sincerity.
As for players, yes sometimes a player does get a roasting by certain staff but we are allowed to have opinions too just as other players can provided they keep it off server.
The only secrets I can think of are the details of certain incidents such as what lead to demotions of various staff or work in progress features, as a helper it is not realistic to expect to be given out every secret or be consulted on every change.
Security is important to a good staff team, to avoid accidental or deliberate leaking of info which should not be in the public domain, we tell staff everything they need know to do their jobs but we don't reveal info about demotions etc just because someone wants to know.
We aren't wikileaks we can't be expected to reveal info that could cause huge in server drama just for the sake of transparency.

@cepheid sknup's base
For reference: Skup's Base Protection
One secret that's now public that I can talk about is sknup's base. I personally don't give a shit about sknup having admin protection of his base, but the way it was handled by the admins is pretty unexcusable in my eyes. Some of the admins act like there was no problem with protecting his base, but if there really was no problem, then why was his protection kept so secret that even many staff members (including myself) weren't allowed to know about it. As far as I'm concerned, the only 2 reasonable ways to handle his protection were:

1. Inform the community from the beginning that sknup's base is both unraidable and will carry over between servers. This way people are at least aware of the rules of the server they're playing on, voting for, and donating for
2. Once his base was discovered to have protection, remove the protection and admit that a mistake had been made (even move it first so it wouldn't immediately be raided, I don't really care)

Ultimately this is Crafty's server and he can make the rules as he sees fit, but the community absolutely has a right to know those rules and the exceptions. In my eyes, it gets more complicated when people are voting and donating for a server and then realize that they've been duped to some extent by the admins making exceptions to the rules. Everyone should ideally play by the same rules, but in the case that they don't the community has a right to know. I'll reiterate: I personally don't care that sknup has base protection, and for all I care he can be given creative to help him build better. However, what I disagree vehemently with is how the admins kept it a secret and expected no backlash.

Once again you are a helper we aren't required to detail every action to you.
There is nothing inexcusable about not telling you, in fact what is inexcusable is thinking you are entitled to know when it was quite frankly none of your business.
Secondly you are wrong in stating it had protection, the protection was only added straight after known hackers of which I caught 2 but couldn't get evidence for the rest gained access to his base.
Like we would have done with any other base we then decided to protect it given the work that went into it, If I saw the towel gangs base being raided by people we know are hackers but can't fully prove yet then I would put protection over it without hesitation.
Secondly the protection is only temporary until the threat is gone, which it is unfortunately not.

We aren't required to explain anything to you or any player, if we decide a player needs protection from hackers we can enact that without informing players, this is in no way duping players but common sense.
Its his server he can decide what to tell people and what to not tell people, it can clearly be seen that it was a wise decision to keep it secret while it was enacted given the drama and shouting match it caused.

@cepheid Double Standards
At this point, I believe OtherGreenGamer will never be considered by the admins to become a staff member. Normally I'd be fine with that, there's a reason that only admins have a say in who becomes staff, as there's many factors to consider and obviously not everyone who applies can be accepted. However, my issue is that I believe Green will not be considered ONLY because he has hacked in the past. I think this is a double standard since Tezzer has xrayed in the past and was able to remain as helper (at the time) on a new account.
Either ALL hackers are able to be redeemed in such a fashion, or NONE of them are. Personally I don't care which way the admins decide to go, but I think that it is unfair to set such a double standard. I just want everyone to be considered in a fair manner, and I think the community of CraftyMynes deserves such.
I apologize in advance if I'm completely misrepresenting the admins here. For all I know, Green will either get the rank of helper or is/will be rejected for other reasons (in which case I'm way out of line) now that he's old enough to get the rank. I understand that some players should never be staff, and others will be capped at never getting past helper/mod2/etc for certain legitimate reasons that only the admins should decide upon, and that's fine. However, I have seen considerable evidence to support the notion that he can never get staff, as I'm not the type of person to take this public if I wasn't 99% sure.

Well you are incorrect to put it quite simply, the staff that actually have a say in things have a number of reasons including his age why he hasn't been made staff as of yet.
So you are incorrect in labeling it a double standard which you should well know.
The fact that you need to apologize in advance should tell you that this is not an issue for a public forum nor is it your place to comment on given you have virtually no info on the situation. It's just innuendo and speculation, not criticism.

@cepheid Bad decisions
Over the last 6 months or so, as far as I can see 2Chill has contributed more to the server than ANYone else, even more than any of the admins (with the sole exception of maybe Crafty). Even though he's severely under-credited, I see all the things he's done for the server behind the scenes, including getting bows working in the arena, suggesting both the lottery and the community piggy bank, spending more time doing staff related things (like catching hackers rather than working on his own base) than any other staff, and so much more (a lot of which i can't even talk about). I have tremendous respect for all he's done for the community I've cared so much about, and he certainly sets a good example for what staff members SHOULD be like (although obviously not everyone can commit the same amount of time to CM). With that in mind, I can't understand to promote R4 to mod 3 over 2Chill. I'm not posting this to disrespect R4, and I think it's perfectly reasonable to have them both as mod 3, but I really cannot follow the admins' thought process on this one. In his recent absence CM has lost their single most consistent and best staff member, and the community has certainly suffered because of it. For any staff member there's only 2 valid reasons to not promote someone: 1. they haven't proven themselves yet, or 2. they're not mature enough or for whatever reason they have hit their limit of how high they can go. Normally I respect the admin's exclusivity on these decisions, but in this scenario it's just absurd to think 2Chill has anything left to prove, and it's equally ridiculous to think that he isn't a good fit for mod 3. Since he hasn't been promoted I have to assume he isn't wanted at higher ranks. I can't imagine a server that would reject a staff member as effective as 2Chill is a server I'm interested in playing on.
To the admins: please just admit you made a mistake. I'd have tremendous respect to the admins if they could just admit an oversight and promote 2Chill to mod 3 as well, it's certainly the right decision for CraftyMynes as a whole.

It's interesting how you tried to make this out to not be a personal post yet put crap like this in, it is quite simply disrespecting to have you try claim my achievements are somehow less.
I don't understand what you tried to achieve here, you are a helper you do not see even a faction of the work that goes into the server and I certainly agree 2chill has probably done more than me in 6 months in public but I have been here nearly 2 years as staff and I have put a lot of work into the server and I think the admins respected this and decided to promote me based on this.
Mod 3 is a limited post for a reason, it's an admin without OP essentially which is why it's limited to one as an evaluation, due to unfortunate incidents in the past. 2chill not getting mod 3 is not an insult nor admins not wanting him on the staff team but simply that they felt their was another more qualified user at the time.
The fact you are trying to make this out to be a mistake is extremely insulting and dismissive of any of the work I have done for the server in the past and since then which is why I labeled this post more an attack post than actual criticism.
Like above it's innuendo and based on a knowing lack of information about the decision.

@cepheid Refusing to admit mistakes
Unfortunately, like in 2Chill's case the admin's not admitting to any mistakes seems to be a serious trend. I first saw this all the way back when the casino opened and I was begging people for 8 hours to change something, but nobody admitted any problem until I farmed 30+ stacks of coins. There's always going to be bad decisions being made, but I wish I played on a server where the admins were able to own up to their mistakes and fix them. The admins stuck with the OP villagers at spawn despite significant pushback , and the hostile environment toward suggestions directly delayed my reset post . Perhaps the most straightforward example of this was with the wool trader that was implemented. When it was found to be overpowered, I thought it would've been easily handled by just saying "hey guys, sorry I fucked up this one. It won't happen again." but instead the admins didn't admit any wrongdoing:

Sorry to particularly single out Baron on this one, I think it's a problem most if not all of the admins can have at times, but I really don't think it's unreasonable to expect the admins to just admit a small mistake, it would certainly earn my respect more and make CraftyMynes better as a whole.

Other significant cases of refusing to admit mistakes include the handling of sknup's base (keeping it a closely guarded secret) and not promoting 2Chill. It would be extremely refreshing for the admins to bridge the gap between themselves and the rest of the playerbase, because currently it feels to me like the players are more separated than ever from the admins.

Well as for the so called trading mistakes, what should we apologise for ?
We apologize for thinking better of CM's playerbase and trusting them not to exploit tools added for the fun of server ? Is that what you want ?
Should we always assume the worst of the playerbase ?

Keeping it a secret was not a mistake nor was the promotion one as explained above.
Admins should be separated from the players to a degree, we are supposed to be unbiased arbitrators, this is different to a helper that can play survival.

@cepheid Staff's resistance to suggestions
Perhaps my biggest gripe with the staff on CraftyMynes, I think too often suggestions from the community are simply rejected without any though or real consideration. While I understand that not all suggestions are good suggestions or can possibly be implemented, it's important to listen to the community at times since the survival players are the ones most affected by many decisions being made. There are good and bad reasons to reject suggestions, but I think it's important to keep in mind that respected players can have terrible suggestions, and stupid players can have amazing suggestions. Every post should be taken for what it is and judged on whether it's a positive move for CraftyMynes as a whole and not just the feelings of a few players. Too often suggestions are met with anger or just disregarded, which I can't stand.
more reading on this topic:
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3889-the-future-of-spawn-eggs
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3325-mob-griefing-and-fire-spreading
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3656-remove-or-nerf-all-spawn-villager-trader
https://forum.craftymynes.com/3254-allowing-cheaters-to-play-on-alts

We do allow suggestions hence why this forum exists but we have never dismissed one without thought, every thread you put there has had detailed posts by me and other staff as to why we oppose said measures, in fact some of my posts there exceed the length of this one, so to suggest no thought was put in is ridiculous.

@cepheid Closing thought: at this time I've provided more public constructive criticism for the server than possibly anyone else. I hope going forward staff will be able to respond better to criticism . I think the behavior of a lot of staff members needs to be changed, and I hope it can be done peacefully without hurting anybody's feelings, as we all want CraftyMynes to be as good as it can be, even if I may decide to leave soon.

I have a lot more I want to talk about, and I may also edit this post and/or make more comments to contribute more. For instance, I don't think CraftyMynes can ever be the #1 vanilla server in the long run with the current voting system as the current system is non-competitive and the wrong types of solutions are being pursued.

I wouldn't describe most of the thinly vieled insults and personal attacks in this as criticism sure you have made some constructive points in this thread but they would have been better served without the attacks.

Well given we have twice the playerbase of the nearest competitor and are constantly innovating I believe we can stay on top.

@CraftyMyner I would like to say no, as they break the "Nothing to give you an advantage" However, I am not able to detect them so that hurts the players that follow the rules and have a disadvantage to the ones that do use it.

This one is difficult, there are so many words that are obvious and so many that are not. Some older or more cultured staff might recognize words or sayings that would cause a name to break the rules while others wouldn't. Not everyone is the same and has the same experience, that causes discrepancies between staff and their opinion on names.

Here's a list of bad names:
420B0nerHitler 420BLAZE_IT 420_BLAZE_IT_MLG 69DeezNutz69 AdolfHitler88PvP AdolfPutin Adolf_did_Autism Aid_stain_jane AlabamaN1gger AnotherBongHit AnusInvader Anyl AssEatingContest AutismBenefits AutismKawaiism AyeeNxgga A_JewMonkey bang_ganger BasedDonaldTrump BigSexyBastard Big_Ballsack_Boy big_black_nigger BokoHaramArmy BoobsNbeer81 BraidedAnalHair BreastFeedinq BringMeDatPussy bubbakush CancerPatient69 captainfaqqot Captain_Autism ChocolateNigger Christ_Our_King CletusTheFetus69 CondomSmuggler CripplingAutism2 D34TH2N1GG3RS dickdude DickenCider dirty_slut_sammi DoctorCockter Dope_Fiend dramaqueer DrPenetrator drpoonhammer DykeNoggin420 eBraZZers EthnicCleansing Exciting_Clobe Fapmyzerg FAPPINGMYWAYOUT FartRetardd FirecumHD fkmedaddy FoxCondom FurfagsFuckDogs g4yh0m0 GayDanishMan GayKy GayRoebot GayveCokk Gay_Birb GGFAGGOT gimpyg4y GloriousTrump GodEmperor_Trump GoldenCannabis Grumpy_Hitler harambedaapa1337 Hentai1080p highassnigga HitlerTheHonest Hoemosexual iBurnHomosexuals IDDoSServers iFHRITP Im_gay_u_racist iSlideOnCum IsraelDid911 iThoughtSheWaz18 ItzObama I_Like_Cumshots JamaicanNigger KawaiiObama KickAssPvP killcameron Kim_Jong_Meme KingAntiChrist KKKCEO Klu_Klucks_Klan KneeGrow69 LeafyIsQueefy_ lesb_ian Liqqmyass LongDongGong LSD_25 LyndonsFatC0ck MeowMeowNigguhh MexicanHolocaust Moderator_18 NecrofiliacPuke NIGER_ NiggaMan Niggazz Nipplebanged NippleJuice_8D Niqqerman NoHaxJustKYS NuckingFuts NukeLeJews NuttedOnYourLip NuTzInUrAss Osamabin_Lada P3n1s_Fcuk3R PabloEscobar69 PapaDogSucker Penguin_Fetish PinkyInMyStinky pnussman Poonslayer8_half popezombiejesus PossibleHacker90 probablylesbian PussyDestroyer17 PussySlayer107 PussySlayer9000 puwssib0ss QueenObama RageNjenitals Rapedcow ReadyAndLubed RedAnus refused rekt_Yourmainhoe RUSTYNUTSACKZ SasquatchCum ShadySlutz SheepDid911 shootout99999999 Sir_CumAlot SmallDongTaiquan smallmidget StalinsBanana stefaanthefag sterlingk steve_is_stupid StonerMajik Suck_My_Deck SuicidalBlub Suicidal_Note teroristbomb TheBrownNigga TheFuckIsYou TheGaymer212 TheLightedHemp TheMindOfAStoner TheMourningWood theWeedWizard420 TickyFutter tomgadeincestfam towelhead TOXICNIGHTMARE50 Trump_Scks urASSisGRASS69 VapeLife420 VoteTrump2k16 WeedxLion WetPussyCat WhyNiqqa wwwMineplexCom xNiggrzZ xPurpleKush420x xXx__Harambe__xX x_FaZe_Cumshot_x Y0uNeedaSpankin YouNeedDeezNutz YourBoiKKKarma YourFuckedM8 yourmotherjew YungLoli _letaphatnigafuq __Donald_Trump__ _____Out4Harambe

I see now, thanks for the response.

One thing I would love to see though is the texture pack part as a note in the rules. That would help newer people a lot I think. Thanks!

gotta say, some of them names are hilarious, hats off for some people's creativity

Mother of god what has this turned into

@GrinningBobcat Mother of god what has this turned into

Drama.

Something that @Cephid addressed as a problem.

@Sofatroll gotta say, some of them names are hilarious, hats off for some people's creativity

The stale meme names are the best.

@cepheid a creative player recently spawned an evoker in my base just for fun, but the fact that I was able to kill it and keep the totem of undying is unacceptable. The totem is currently in my ender chest, although I'm willing to return or destroy it if asked.

This really concerns me because I've also heard of players who have had withers spawned by admins, which drop nehter stars which, as you might know, are farely valueable. Now, if the items are requested to be destroyed as r4 said, there shouldn't be a problem

HI Ceph,

Quite the exposé.

CraftyCrates, heads, and other overpowered items
I feel like you are making a bigger deal out of this then it actually merits. Having some sort of perks is necessary to run the server. Giving out a fortune III arrow is not a big deal. Even if donors were getting a fortune X arrow it's still just another cool item in line with the whole point of having Crafty Crates. Heaven forbid people get a few more potatoes.

You and I have talked in detail about the selling of rare items (dragon egg, heads, etc.). I'm kind of horrified by the idea of you or other people trading the fruits of so many hours of gameplay for one cosmetic item. However, I don't blame Crafty for what Mojang implemented. There's room for improvement, but I'm not shocked or offended that these game mechanics were left standing.

Secrets
If there's some invisible toxic culture among staff, it's none of my business, but I wish you all the best of luck in sorting that out. A public thread might not have been in the best taste.

sknup's base
It's Crafty's Server. He can do what he wants. No one is getting hurt by this. Get over it.

Confusing rules
Suggestions on how to make the rules more clear? Sounds great. Let's do it.

Refusing to admit mistakes / Staff's resistance to suggestions
There's some room for constructive feedback here for staff but I don't have any more time right now to write, sorry.