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How Good/Bad does this server concept sound to you?

Travis's Avatar Travis2/26/17 9:01 pm
1 emeralds 1.4k 20
3/5/2017 4:47 pm
Travis's Avatar Travis
Muffin's MP 2.0 (A server I currently own) is set up with the main goal being a survival experience with heavy, heavy player involvement in "moderating". We hold monthly staff elections to see who goes and stays (except admins), on those elections, we also decide to add/remove plugins, commands, shop items, and rules. We also have a discord server on which the staff are constantly, and staff try to stay involved with the chat and play very often.


In my opinion, the advantages include:

-Dedicated staff as they want to be re-elected
-Players feel as though they have a say in how the server works
-Plugins can be added/removed based on community input
-Rules can change based on how the regulars feel
-Everybody knows everybody (at least for a while)

Obviously, this wouldn't work for an incredibly large server, but as a small or medium sized server, it's implementable.

How does this sound? Is it a bad idea entirely? A good idea? How likely would you be to join or stay?
Posted by Travis's Avatar
Travis
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
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1
03/05/2017 3:35 pm
Level 10 : Journeyman Artist
EvelynCookie
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i think its a great idea!
1
03/05/2017 2:18 pm
Level 16 : Journeyman Warrior
CaptainEvstike
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It seems to disorganised and changing. There's changing to be unique and never the same, and just a system falling apart. A server should stick to its structure, not have everything changed in the next while of time.
1
03/05/2017 2:50 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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We don't make drastic changes all the time, adding a plugin as a trial as per vote, then deciding whether or not to remove it next election.

The staff change just for the purpose of changing. We could do appointed staff, but we typically use the election as a selling point of our server.
1
03/05/2017 4:24 pm
Level 16 : Journeyman Warrior
CaptainEvstike
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It would never be a big professional type server because big servers have something they stick to.
1
03/05/2017 4:47 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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We don't plank on becoming a big professional type server, as I stated in the OP, this obviously wouldn't work on a large server.
1
03/05/2017 2:12 pm
Level 10 : Journeyman Engineer
DaniKandor
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One issue I can see with this is someone who is so dedicated they clearly deserve permanent staff membership but can only be staff for a certain period of time. Would there be a system in place so moderators could earn permanent moderator position?
Also, how would there be multiple moderators?

On a server I owned a while back we just had monthly staff reports where we would analyse and score them, and if they performed exceedingly bad they'd be demoted.
1
03/05/2017 2:49 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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Yes, me and the other owner periodically check if anybody deserves Admin in our opinion, and we'll then give them a trial run as Head-Mod (2 months, and above moderators) then, if we think they're good enough they become an admin.

To have multiple moderators, we have everybody vote once. In each cycle, the person with the most votes gets moderator, and second most gets helper. This means no single person can gain power over the whole server.
1
03/05/2017 1:41 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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bump
1
03/03/2017 6:38 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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bump
1
03/02/2017 4:45 pm
Level 49 : Master Wizard
Sammo346
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I can imagine people quitting after not getting reelected.

--
Frankly if someone meets the requirements for staff, then make them staff .
1
03/02/2017 4:02 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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bump
1
03/01/2017 3:40 pm
Level 1 : New Explorer
uvytcrtxtybiu
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I would likely check this server out, I would most likely if Minecraft would work again. It has not worked for three weeks. Great concept. I love it.
1
03/01/2017 3:41 pm
Level 1 : New Explorer
uvytcrtxtybiu
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1
03/01/2017 2:47 pm
Level 25 : Expert Dragonborn
NewSuperMario
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Sounds kind of like a system similar to StackExchange, great idea
1
03/01/2017 12:41 pm
Level 49 : Master Wizard
Sammo346
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Two main problems to consider:

You want to avoid players gaining power over other players (obviously unless you have hand picked staff members). It leads to all sorts of arguments/bullying/anger, as most people simply can't be trusted with any control. (Not to mention popularity contests for power are usually bad).

"You think you do, but you don't." - Honestly players don't know what's good for them a lot of the time. For example, ask your server if they want daily drop parties of rare gear and you bet they'll say yes; They don't care that it will ruin the economy, or make gear in general pointless because "Hey, its free gear!".

--

To expand on my first point, applying to all sizes of server: Its easy to fall into having an inner-circle of people and you find yourself only caring about their opinions. To you, the inner-circle are just your regulars, but to other players it will seem like favoritism.
1
03/01/2017 1:14 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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These are all interesting and valid points you bring up.

For the exact reason you specified (Most people can't be trusted with any power), the power of elected staff members is actually very low. Illustrating this requires explaining how I have changed the election system since I originally posted this.

Every three weeks hold elections. The ballot consists of anybody who meets the requirements, signed up to be on the ballot, and has no serious* history of punishment on the server.

The requirements to be put on the ballot are:
- You must have played on the server for at least 3 weeks
- You must have never received any punishment more than a warning
- Winning must not put you above the term limit (More on this later)
- You must be independently approved by 50% of the permanent staff members

The people elected in weekly elections receive a "Helper" rank as helper, they can:

- Directly contact permanent staff
- Vote on punishments for certain users
- Act as 1/2 of a vote on ballots regular users aren't trusted with
- Directly request questions be placed on next weeks ballot
- Jail users for up to 1 hour
- Mute users for up to 1 hour
- Kick users
- Join during whitelisted maintenance

Every other election (Once every 6 weeks), users can run for a moderator position. The requirements for this position are more stringent.

- Must have played on the server for at least 1 month
- Must have been elected for Helper position at least 1 time
- Being elected must not cause you to exceed any term limits.
- Must be approved by 60% of permanent staff members

The three top voted people in the election will be put on a staff only ballot. The current permanent staff members vote, and the winner becomes moderator after a briefing and short test on the rules, plus a stress test with a fake griefer and some fake rule breakers.

Term limits are as follows:

- You can't be Helper more than 3 elections in a row
- You can't be a Moderator more than 2 elections in a row
- If you have reached a term limit, a 3 election cool down is required before you can run for that cycle again (if you were Helper for 3 terms, you need to wait 3 elections before you can run again, if you were moderator, you need to wait 3 MODERATOR elections before you can run again (3*2 = 6 total elections))

This complex set is in place to prevent any one user from becoming vastly more powerful than any other good-standing community member.




Your second point: People don't actually know what they want

For decisions deemed too dangerous to give to the public (Anything that could drastically alter essentials parts of the game play (Economy, Valuable items, Game-Altering plugins, etc.) Is put on a ballot only accessible by permanent staff.

And for your third point, that favoritism is a serious problem.

That's really the purpose of the elections. Get the input of the people staff otherwise don't take the input of, and do something with that. It's not to put people in power, it's to find what the members of the community want, and do that, to keep as many people as possible interested and playing on the server.
1
02/27/2017 10:59 am
Level 22 : Expert Blockhead
raidarr
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The concept itself sounds good to me. I think the main problem would be properly designing the system to avoid some of the pitfalls that can come with entirely unregulated democracy on servers.
1
03/01/2017 11:59 am
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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It isn't entirely unregulated, the permanent staff still get the final say on whether or not somebody can become staff. If anybody has ever been punished (we keep very detailed records), they won't even be put on the ballot even if they meet all the other requirements and apply.
1
02/26/2017 9:17 pm
Level 29 : Expert Architect
Dras
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I find the staff elections and re-elections to be a great idea but removing plugins based on community input isn't a great idea in my opinion. That would make things messy, some people may like this and that plugin and hate it when it gets removed.

I'm all for adding plugins based on community input.

Also, to be able to easily change the rules won't help in the long run unless you have primary rules that can't be changed. No one wants to join a server that has no pvp and no griefing as a rule, and then later on have to put up with such things because the rules changed.
1
02/26/2017 9:50 pm
Level 24 : Expert Scribe
Travis
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We have a few rules that will never change, such as PG-13, No griefing, PVP has to be consensual etc,

Removing plugins requires a higher threshold than adding them, and some will never be removed.
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