Hello everyone!
Recently I decided to make a blog for Manacube. In this blog, I'll be discussing topics that are of interest to me relating to the server. I will also have a portion covering any other information I deem as important such as staff promotions, server resets etc. If you have any ideas, please feel free to message me on discord or the forums. Depending on what I'm discussing, I may ask for the community to pitch in. For this first blog post, I will be talking about mini-modding. Please also make sure to check out this other forum post on mini-modding! I believe people made some really good points! Why are mini mods hated so much?
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
I know a lot of you are probably going to call me biased, as I am the definition of a mini-mod. However, before you walk away, let me tell you what I believe mini-modding is and if I feel it's beneficial to the server or not.
What I believe mini-modding is
Mini-modding is when a player pretends to be a mod and does their job for them even if they are online. Overall, it's a player who tries to enforce the rules by giving people verbal warnings and beat mods to answer in chat.
How I feel about mini-modding
Now, you might be wondering why I didn't mention answering questions. While answering questions is part of a mod's job, players are still allowed and even encouraged to answer questions especially when there's no staff online or they're busy. The only time a player should avoid answering a question is if they don't know what they're talking about, or if it's a staff-related question. It's very important that players avoid giving out false information be it intentional or unintentional.
However, something a player should avoid in all circumstances is telling players what to do. What I mean by this is when a player breaks the rules-say spamming- don't tell the player to stop spamming, or to "calm the caps." This can lead to the person arguing, and starting flame wars. Overall, it can start causing more issues than it's actually fixing. If you see a player breaking the rules, it's best to just report and ignore them.
That leads me to my next point, which is reporting players. I don't believe this counts as mini-modding because we are told to report players who are breaking the rules. After talking to different mods, I've come to one conclusion: It's okay to report people for offences, but try to keep in mind how severe the rule break is, and if it's actually causing any problems. As a mini-mod myself, I need to remind myself of this often. I often jump to conclusions, screenshotting the offence and sending it to staff before thinking about it. I honestly believe it's important that the rules are enforced, and I think that if players are tactful in how they act towards rule breakers, and how they deal with these kinds of situations they can actually help instead of harming the community.
What the community thinks
In general, what are your thoughts on mini-modding?
Do you believe that mini-modding should be prohibited, and why?
Recently I decided to make a blog for Manacube. In this blog, I'll be discussing topics that are of interest to me relating to the server. I will also have a portion covering any other information I deem as important such as staff promotions, server resets etc. If you have any ideas, please feel free to message me on discord or the forums. Depending on what I'm discussing, I may ask for the community to pitch in. For this first blog post, I will be talking about mini-modding. Please also make sure to check out this other forum post on mini-modding! I believe people made some really good points! Why are mini mods hated so much?
Everything I talk about is personal opinions! This means that what I'm saying isn't true for everyone.
I know a lot of you are probably going to call me biased, as I am the definition of a mini-mod. However, before you walk away, let me tell you what I believe mini-modding is and if I feel it's beneficial to the server or not.
What I believe mini-modding is
Mini-modding is when a player pretends to be a mod and does their job for them even if they are online. Overall, it's a player who tries to enforce the rules by giving people verbal warnings and beat mods to answer in chat.
How I feel about mini-modding
Now, you might be wondering why I didn't mention answering questions. While answering questions is part of a mod's job, players are still allowed and even encouraged to answer questions especially when there's no staff online or they're busy. The only time a player should avoid answering a question is if they don't know what they're talking about, or if it's a staff-related question. It's very important that players avoid giving out false information be it intentional or unintentional.
However, something a player should avoid in all circumstances is telling players what to do. What I mean by this is when a player breaks the rules-say spamming- don't tell the player to stop spamming, or to "calm the caps." This can lead to the person arguing, and starting flame wars. Overall, it can start causing more issues than it's actually fixing. If you see a player breaking the rules, it's best to just report and ignore them.
That leads me to my next point, which is reporting players. I don't believe this counts as mini-modding because we are told to report players who are breaking the rules. After talking to different mods, I've come to one conclusion: It's okay to report people for offences, but try to keep in mind how severe the rule break is, and if it's actually causing any problems. As a mini-mod myself, I need to remind myself of this often. I often jump to conclusions, screenshotting the offence and sending it to staff before thinking about it. I honestly believe it's important that the rules are enforced, and I think that if players are tactful in how they act towards rule breakers, and how they deal with these kinds of situations they can actually help instead of harming the community.
What the community thinks
In general, what are your thoughts on mini-modding?
"I mean depends what they do. It's fine if they're helping people if there is no staff around to help them, but if there IS staff around, they should leave it up to them. Minimods should NOT try to moderate chat, even if there is no staff on. They can report it, but they shouldn't make it worse. Help is always appreciated, but use common sense!" -Sil
"Minimodding has two separate branches. The helpful branch and the useless branch. The helpful branch knows when and where to help, as well as how, and knows to stop if they see a mod responding, knows not to argue too often and knows to let the mods do their jobs, knows that sometimes, telling people off doesn't always work so its better to let the staff handle it. As for the useless branch, it's full of contradictions, ignorant players who wish to race the mods to be helpful. They're telling everyone off for the littlest of things and reporting every little thing they see, acting like they have more authority than they let off. Usually the latter is the most disliked of the server, even by staff as they make staff's job complicated and annoying." -Aurora
"Mini-modding, in my opinion, is when a player stops being a helpful member of the community and starts being an annoyance to the staff members trying to do their jobs. This may including racing staff to answer questions, interrupting staff when they’re helping someone, warning players when they haven’t broken any rule (is not familiar with the rules), etc." -kxie//lynnie
"deadass hella irritating" -Quick
"Idm/I perfer it if I'm in a high-stress situation. It actually helps someone like me who staffs(staff has mixed feelings if a person should help them but I like it). Also gives the person time to change their act before staff catch on." -Gap gap attack
"As a moderator, i appreciate it when other players help me out by reporting and answering questions when I am busy, but I feel as though there are times when a line is crossed and it gets in the way of me doing my job. For example, in the help channel once, skyblock staff were pinged and someone answered saying "how can I help" when they are not skyblock staff, and I was typing to answer." -pesto
"Nope. Without helpful minimods, the server would still have players be confused, always, always pinging staff, abusing commands or abusing an empty chat. Minimods help to teach new players to read the rules, and help to keep old players out of the boiling pot of punishment." -Aurora
"Yes. Based off my explanation above, mini-modding is nothing but a nuisance to the staff members and other players. Of course other’s definition of mini-modding may differ which may change the answer here. " -kxie/lynnie
"YES I DO. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING HELPFUL AND BEING A MINIMOD. IF YOU ARE CONSTANTLY REPORTING PEOPLE FOR SMALL THINGS AND BEING AN ASSHOLE WHEN YOU SAY SOMETHING SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC IN HELP CHANNELS, THAT SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED." -ILLEOID
"No but its still annoying asf" -Quick
"Na. People should be people if they wanna be people. I know they get hate but like eh they should still be able to help out if they want to." -Gap gap attack
"I don't think it should be prohibited, but I feel as though some players need to calm down a little bit in regards to how much they want to help. It just gets frustrating sometimes when 'mini-mods' get in the way of me actually moderating." -pesto