4
Part 1.
Statistically speaking, the modal age of Minecraft players is in the young adult range (15-21)1. While the data given may be on the verge of getting too old for any extensive analysis, for now, it will suit the purpose of this blog post. Wait... what is the purpose, though, of this blog post? I've given you a pretty ambiguous title, started off with a statistic, and not much else. We'll get there though, I promise.
It is often considered irresponsible to use the above statistic as a generalisation to apply to Minecraft players as a whole, who, by virtue of an outspoken sample, are generally seen as immature, intolerant, and inconsiderate. Consider this2. The acquisition of Mojang by Microsoft late last year saw a sudden division of the Minecraft community, polarising those who saw it as a bad thing (dear Lord, the comments!), and those who saw it as a good thing. But rarely, if ever, is the situation analysed by looking at it in a similar, but fundamentally different way - as the divide between those who jump to conclusions, valid though they may be, and those who do not, preferring to simply enjoy the game without forming an opinion on an as-yet unchanged meta-environment. And it is the former that this blog post attempts to scrutinise. In what context? I hear you ask. I'll show you soon.
It may be a bit of a stretch to link the two points above together and form a coherent, if not complete, picture of the type of player that I feel dominates the scene I inhabit - namely, the smaller parts of Enjin where cracked servers reign over the shadowy masses of free players. Being a cracked player myself - though hopefully not for long - I've gotten quite used to the much lowered standards of these servers, many of which have no entry requirements and are rarely run by mature adults. I suspect that the shadier, free side of Minecraft holds many attractions for those who aren't completely willing to pay for a dedicated server and are willing to settle for more cracked players over trying to muscle into the premium scene, or those who started off with their friends, found out how easy running a server was, and decided to expand. Regardless, this is the environment that this blog post attempts to explore.
Having spent time on a couple of cracked servers over the past two years - and I can't speak for premium servers, as I'm not a premium player -, I've noticed two things that are relevant to this discussion.
Let's start with 1.
In my (not necessarily yours) near-perfect world for the sake of argument, a meritocracy synergising with the needs of the people would exist to govern a society. If you're good at teaching, and can prove it through inspiring your students, meeting and exceeding the curriculum standards, and working with other teachers to ensure the students are learning well, you'd be allowed to work as a teacher without any thought to your financial standing (though special consideration might apply), sexual orientation, or racial background. If you're not that great at bookkeeping, then you'd be given the position of an assistant financial officer at a company with your own set of responsibilities, but answerable to a source of professional development to help you on your way. If you're amazing at designing military aircraft, then heck, you'd be given the position of lead engineer at Lockheed Martin working on the next B-22 provided there isn't someone objectively more qualified.
The problem is the word 'objectively', and is also the reason why this near-perfect world isn't attainable yet. How often have you showed a friend a piece of music that has rocked your world, and they've gone, 'Meh. Not my thing.'? I mean, the cadence may be objectively suited for a certain type of person to appreciate in a neurological sense. The melody may be catchy to a large portion of the population. But it's the interpretation that messes things up big-time. Objectivity is hard to qualify in a piece of music. Is it even worth trying to pierce through subjective interpretations when it comes to people?
Sure, it's quite possible - and it happens, to an extent - to try and measure someone's leadership ability by putting them through real-time exercises. We can ask all sorts of questions to try and gauge how someone would act in a way that reflects the extent of their sense of responsibility. We can even throw a curveball here and there, ask someone 'why shouldn't we choose you?' to test their initiative and quick-thinking. There are a whole other bunch of words I could use to illustrate the relative futility of making such judgement calls when choosing staff members. But that's not necessarily the point.
But hold up a minute, Levistel. Why is this all even relevant? So long as my staff follow the rules and set a good example for the players, what do I have to worry about?
You've got a pretty good point there, mate. I can appreciate the purpose of staff being to oversee the server in the absence of the owner, and to make disciplinary decisions when a more immediate superior cannot be available. And sure, those two have covered pretty much the majority of what most staff will end up doing anyway - outside actually playing the game, too. But is that it? Is all you see in your staff the ability to work and fill a position? I personally am of the opinion that there should be more they could be doing - i.e. learning valuable skills through taking leadership in order to become better people. I mean, why not? They're in a position of power, and have the authority to make impacting and lasting decisions on the experience of other players. If we only chose those who fit the bill and no more, we'd have a legion of people who could follow instructions but would be useless in an emergency. Sometimes, that's enough. But it could be more - should be more, and that's why choosing staff needs to be so rigorous and reverent a process. To have one staff member who is able to adapt to whatever situation, weigh in responsibly in decisions for the future of the server, and foster relationships with players is infinitely more valuable than having a team who can enforce the rules. There's so much scope to staffing a server it would be a shame to waste the opportunities given.
Often, I see server owners and staff managers fall into the same pitfalls over and over again in their attempted management of what otherwise is a good server. Such examples include promoting personal friends or friends of existing staff members with no thought to how they handle responsibility, promoting others based on irrelevant criteria such as making staff members out of great builders, or even demoting staff members due to unpopular, but good decision-making or disagreements on an intellectual level. I shake my head at this type of behaviour, as it reflects a complacent or hostile environment that shouldn't be part of a team that runs what can be thought of as a legitimate community on the same order of importance as a local government.
The point then becomes, in light of the above, making the right choice based on the information you do have. In the absence of complete objectivity, what do we have? This is a question only the most successful of interviewers and, by analogy, staff managers, have contemplated. Treating all that I have said before with anything less than the consideration it deserves kinda dooms you to running a sub-optimal staff team and, by extension, server. Unfortunately, the best we can do is to try to gather as comprehensive a picture of a person as possible. As this is an open-ended question with no one defining answer, I'll offer a few guiding questions to consider when choosing staff members:
Part 2 to come.
References:
1. Minecraftforum.net. (2011). Demographics: Age Poll [Online]
[indent]Available: www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/discussion/129318-demographics-age-poll[/indent]
2. IGN.com (2014). Microsoft Officially Completes Acquisition of Mojang [Online]
[indent]au.ign.com/articles/2014/11/07/microsoft-officially-completes-acquisition-of-mojang[/indent]
Further Reading:
N. Garrelts. (2014). Understanding Minecraft: Essays on Play, Community, and Possiblities [Online]
[indent]Available: books.google.com.au/books?id=s7XZBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false[/indent]]
Statistically speaking, the modal age of Minecraft players is in the young adult range (15-21)1. While the data given may be on the verge of getting too old for any extensive analysis, for now, it will suit the purpose of this blog post. Wait... what is the purpose, though, of this blog post? I've given you a pretty ambiguous title, started off with a statistic, and not much else. We'll get there though, I promise.
It is often considered irresponsible to use the above statistic as a generalisation to apply to Minecraft players as a whole, who, by virtue of an outspoken sample, are generally seen as immature, intolerant, and inconsiderate. Consider this2. The acquisition of Mojang by Microsoft late last year saw a sudden division of the Minecraft community, polarising those who saw it as a bad thing (dear Lord, the comments!), and those who saw it as a good thing. But rarely, if ever, is the situation analysed by looking at it in a similar, but fundamentally different way - as the divide between those who jump to conclusions, valid though they may be, and those who do not, preferring to simply enjoy the game without forming an opinion on an as-yet unchanged meta-environment. And it is the former that this blog post attempts to scrutinise. In what context? I hear you ask. I'll show you soon.
It may be a bit of a stretch to link the two points above together and form a coherent, if not complete, picture of the type of player that I feel dominates the scene I inhabit - namely, the smaller parts of Enjin where cracked servers reign over the shadowy masses of free players. Being a cracked player myself - though hopefully not for long - I've gotten quite used to the much lowered standards of these servers, many of which have no entry requirements and are rarely run by mature adults. I suspect that the shadier, free side of Minecraft holds many attractions for those who aren't completely willing to pay for a dedicated server and are willing to settle for more cracked players over trying to muscle into the premium scene, or those who started off with their friends, found out how easy running a server was, and decided to expand. Regardless, this is the environment that this blog post attempts to explore.
Having spent time on a couple of cracked servers over the past two years - and I can't speak for premium servers, as I'm not a premium player -, I've noticed two things that are relevant to this discussion.
- Staff positions are not necessarily filled by those who are either deserving or competent.
- Staff positions are overrated and underappreciated.
Let's start with 1.
In my (not necessarily yours) near-perfect world for the sake of argument, a meritocracy synergising with the needs of the people would exist to govern a society. If you're good at teaching, and can prove it through inspiring your students, meeting and exceeding the curriculum standards, and working with other teachers to ensure the students are learning well, you'd be allowed to work as a teacher without any thought to your financial standing (though special consideration might apply), sexual orientation, or racial background. If you're not that great at bookkeeping, then you'd be given the position of an assistant financial officer at a company with your own set of responsibilities, but answerable to a source of professional development to help you on your way. If you're amazing at designing military aircraft, then heck, you'd be given the position of lead engineer at Lockheed Martin working on the next B-22 provided there isn't someone objectively more qualified.
The problem is the word 'objectively', and is also the reason why this near-perfect world isn't attainable yet. How often have you showed a friend a piece of music that has rocked your world, and they've gone, 'Meh. Not my thing.'? I mean, the cadence may be objectively suited for a certain type of person to appreciate in a neurological sense. The melody may be catchy to a large portion of the population. But it's the interpretation that messes things up big-time. Objectivity is hard to qualify in a piece of music. Is it even worth trying to pierce through subjective interpretations when it comes to people?
Sure, it's quite possible - and it happens, to an extent - to try and measure someone's leadership ability by putting them through real-time exercises. We can ask all sorts of questions to try and gauge how someone would act in a way that reflects the extent of their sense of responsibility. We can even throw a curveball here and there, ask someone 'why shouldn't we choose you?' to test their initiative and quick-thinking. There are a whole other bunch of words I could use to illustrate the relative futility of making such judgement calls when choosing staff members. But that's not necessarily the point.
But hold up a minute, Levistel. Why is this all even relevant? So long as my staff follow the rules and set a good example for the players, what do I have to worry about?
You've got a pretty good point there, mate. I can appreciate the purpose of staff being to oversee the server in the absence of the owner, and to make disciplinary decisions when a more immediate superior cannot be available. And sure, those two have covered pretty much the majority of what most staff will end up doing anyway - outside actually playing the game, too. But is that it? Is all you see in your staff the ability to work and fill a position? I personally am of the opinion that there should be more they could be doing - i.e. learning valuable skills through taking leadership in order to become better people. I mean, why not? They're in a position of power, and have the authority to make impacting and lasting decisions on the experience of other players. If we only chose those who fit the bill and no more, we'd have a legion of people who could follow instructions but would be useless in an emergency. Sometimes, that's enough. But it could be more - should be more, and that's why choosing staff needs to be so rigorous and reverent a process. To have one staff member who is able to adapt to whatever situation, weigh in responsibly in decisions for the future of the server, and foster relationships with players is infinitely more valuable than having a team who can enforce the rules. There's so much scope to staffing a server it would be a shame to waste the opportunities given.
Often, I see server owners and staff managers fall into the same pitfalls over and over again in their attempted management of what otherwise is a good server. Such examples include promoting personal friends or friends of existing staff members with no thought to how they handle responsibility, promoting others based on irrelevant criteria such as making staff members out of great builders, or even demoting staff members due to unpopular, but good decision-making or disagreements on an intellectual level. I shake my head at this type of behaviour, as it reflects a complacent or hostile environment that shouldn't be part of a team that runs what can be thought of as a legitimate community on the same order of importance as a local government.
The point then becomes, in light of the above, making the right choice based on the information you do have. In the absence of complete objectivity, what do we have? This is a question only the most successful of interviewers and, by analogy, staff managers, have contemplated. Treating all that I have said before with anything less than the consideration it deserves kinda dooms you to running a sub-optimal staff team and, by extension, server. Unfortunately, the best we can do is to try to gather as comprehensive a picture of a person as possible. As this is an open-ended question with no one defining answer, I'll offer a few guiding questions to consider when choosing staff members:
- Is there really a need for another staff member? Do you already have staff members filling most of the popular timezones? Are the responsibilities they're expected to take on already ably filled by others? What would change if they were to become a staff member?
- Are they applying for the right reasons? Do they themselves see a need for one more staff member, and what is it? Are they applying for the role or the responsiblities? Or neither?
- Do they understand the responsibilities of the position they're applying for? And no, I don't mean "do they understand the rules?". I mean "do they understand that they need to help make decisions for the server, or answer questions for players, or have a forum presence too?" How holistically can they envision their participation?
- Can they work well with others? Are they able to cooperate with other staff members in a professional sense? If they have issues with current staff members, are they able to work those out quickly and amicably? This does not mean that you should promote only friends, or disallow disagreements, but if they are clearly unable to work with other staff cooperatively then you'll have wasted time and effort into brewing drama.
- Are they paying for the rank? One of the worst motivations to donate is for a staff position. The acquisition of money has absolutely nothing to do with someone's ability to perform administrative or disciplinary duties, as is the duty of staff members. You can buy power, but you can't buy responsiblity, and the latter is by far the more important.
- Age. This has only a tangential relation to maturity, which is much more indicative of a person's ability to become a good staff member, and infinitely harder to quantify as well. Asking for age may be a good idea in some instances, but by no means should it be a limiting factor!
- Previous Experience. While definitely helpful to have someone familiar to a leadership role, it shouldn't be a necessity - after all, how 'elitist' can a server staff team be? If anything, as the server owner/staff manager, it is your responsibility to provide the training and tools to ensure your staff members have all they need to fulfil their duties.
- Time on Server. Also helpful, but again is no indicator of performance in a staff role. Maybe it demonstrates loyalty, but could also demonstrate the lack of a social life. Really not a good idea to make this a deciding factor.
- Possession of Teamspeak/Mumble/Skype/Vent/other VOIP program. I mean... why? Persistence of communication should be established after they are made a staff member, not before when considering them for the role.
- Word Limit. Open-ended questions are great for sorting the real applicants from the lazy ones, as well as providing deep insight into candidates. Limiting their expression could dampen this even if it makes the process more efficient. Efficiency of time isn't what we're aiming for here, it's quality of admissions.
- Previous Disciplinary Offences. Depending on the type of server being run, and how well-defined the rules are, this should be a factor of varying importance. While being banned before looks bad on an application (and lying about it even worse!) it's important to realise that if they are not a repeat offender, or just didn't understand the rules at the time, or had a legitimate disagreement with one, they aren't automatically a bad person. Being able to hear them out and justify their reasons will give a lot of insight into their motivations and potential.
- Try not to include humour in the staff application process. This just opens the door to casual banter that will only serve to blur the lines of professional respect and interfere with serious decision-making.
- Try to find a balance between democratic voting from all in the current staff team and a dictatorial approach from the server owner/staff manager. Going too far to either extreme is a recipe for disaster.
- Take your time debating the merits of a candidate. There's no rush to promote them, and being able to convince the other staff members of your position only cements the decision for the whole team.
Part 2 to come.
References:
1. Minecraftforum.net. (2011). Demographics: Age Poll [Online]
[indent]Available: www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/discussion/129318-demographics-age-poll[/indent]
2. IGN.com (2014). Microsoft Officially Completes Acquisition of Mojang [Online]
[indent]au.ign.com/articles/2014/11/07/microsoft-officially-completes-acquisition-of-mojang[/indent]
Further Reading:
N. Garrelts. (2014). Understanding Minecraft: Essays on Play, Community, and Possiblities [Online]
[indent]Available: books.google.com.au/books?id=s7XZBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false[/indent]]
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