Just Some Feelings

markbyron Windows I would like to see your opinions on this. I'm not stating that this is all fact, this is just my opinion on what is hurting the server.

TLDR: More admins = Less players. More admins = more drama. More admins = more rogues. More rogues = less players. The server is structured to be a community for admins, when it should be geared towards the actual players.

KANYECRAFT DOESN'T EXIST IT'S A REPRESENTATION OF THE AVERAGE SERVER

I'LL PROBABLY ADD TO THIS OVER TIME

Disclaimer: I wrote this in an hour at school so there's probably errors, and I didn't include as much as I would have liked to. So first of all, there's definitely issues effecting this server. You're right that it's not too late, and that there isn't any easy solution. To be clear, I do think there is a solution to the problem, however it would be very hard to properly implement, simply because of how much we rely on it. But if people really want this server to survive, I think it should be considered.

Now to start off, lets think of a normal minecraft server, we'll call it KanyeCraft. I'll use Kanyecraft as a reference between the average minecraft server and TotalFreedom. On this KanyeCraft, players probably have the incentive to keep coming back for a few obvious reasons: maybe because there's a real sense of community, they find it a lot of fun, or their friends play on it. Pretty similar to TotalFreedom. However, TF has one big difference: the incentive of becoming an admin. On KanyeCraft, less than 1% of the playerbase are admins, and the 99% are normal players who have no chance of becoming admin; this is fine for the players, because the server already fills up all their needs, and there is no incentive of becoming an admin.

This is where my issue is. On TotalFreedom, there is a HUGE incentive to become admin. Now let's look at the possible reasons a normal player wants admin, and relate it to KanyeCraft player incentives I listed earlier:

• There is almost no OP community on TF. No, seriously, it's almost non existent. In huge contrast to the admin community, which is actually rather large, and is growing. So as the OP community shrinks, the admin community grows. I will touch on this later.
• Being an admin is simply far more fun than being an OP. Just objectively, being an OP is just a bare bones experience when compared to the admin experience. And the players definitely know this.
• If their friend referred them to the server, their friend is probably an admin. And guess what? If their friend happens to be telnet or above, they can instantly make them an admin. So why stay an OP when every single sign points towards becoming an admin, which is objectively more fun?

So there's the problem. There's no point in staying a normal player when becoming an admin is more fun and easy. Whereas on KanyeCraft, becoming an admin is extremely hard, and probably less fun than being a normal player. So what causes becoming an admin on TF so easy while on KanyeCraft it's so hard? Four things: Admin applications, *PAS, ranking up, and admin culture. These four things are huge parts of TotalFreedom. I'll now compare and contrast all of these issues individually with TotalFreedom and the average server.

Admin Applications:

• TotalFreedom: Admin applications are opened almost the entire year. There is no real limit as to how many can be open, and there's never really a reason as to why they should be open. Now let's be clear, admin applications almost always fail, mostly because the applicant doesn't know what they're doing. But even if applications only succeed 5% of the time, considering how many applications there are, a considerable amount succeed. Especially when you consider that people can just try, over and over again until they eventually succeed. So now that dude is an admin, but did we really gain anything from that?
  
• KanyeCraft: Admin applications are either: nonexistent, almost never opened, only when they really need a new admin, or always open, but extremely strict. So let's suppose that the latter is true, and that applications are just really strict. Like, so strict that even if someone deserves admin, they won't get it because the server doesn't actually need any new admins. No one will become admin simply because they applied so many times that they finally succeeded.
  

*PAS:

• TotalFreedom: *PAS (tpas, spas, opas, etc) was originally a good idea when a very small amount of people could do it. It used to be limited to just seniors, and there was way less seniors back then. When you have so many people that can do this, you'll find that you get more and more admins exponentially. It's just an outdated concept, and promotes nepotism.
  
• KanyeCraft: It either doesn't exist, or there's a similar concept where higher executives or the owner can choose an admin. But it's probably not really a thing.
  

Ranking up:

• TotalFreedom: Ranking up is a huge part of the admin process on TotalFreedom. It does give an incentive to admins to work harder, but it also promotes power hungry admins, and it ultimately gives a reason to be an admin that has nothing to do with even the server itself. The ranking process creates a cultural divide even between the admins of the same server. This is almost entirely unheard of in other servers, but it's a huge problem here simply because of how many admins there are. And since there are multiple layers to being an admin, we're more likely to promote someone to super admin, because the rank means less.
  
• KanyeCraft: Ranking up exists, but it's probably only done when someone really deserves it, not because they've waited their turn. This still creates power hungry admins, but since there are far less admins than on TotalFreedom, it's not really an issue. It's not really a formal process like TotalFreedom has.
  

Admin culture:

• TotalFreedom: Oh boy, this is a big problem. We've tried reinforcing the idea that more admins equals less downtime for many years, and I think at this point it's just objectively false. The idea of having an admin on 24/7 is just a fundamentally impossible goal, and has been the excuse for having far more admins than we really need, to the point where we almost have more admins than players. The idea that we should shoot for quantity over quality is really a root cause of many issues we're currently facing. 
  
• KanyeCraft: There probably isn't any admin culture. Admin culture only exists on TF because it's evolved to this point after so many years.
  

Another issue that I think is hurting the server a lot is how poorly we treat our players. The divide between the admins of the server and the players of this server is just intense. I've seen on very many occasions where OPs are just openly treated like garbage, simply because they're a lower rank. I have experienced this personally, when I wasn't an admin for a bit. Admins that did not know I was a past senior almost always treated me like shit, like I was subhuman. Dare question authority? Too bad. Admin disrespected you? Oh get over it. But no disrespecting admins! This also contributes to more people wanting to become admin, just so they actually feel respected. And if they don't decide to become an admin, they might just leave the server because it's just so hostile. So what does that mean? More admins, less players.

So with all of this being said, how does more admins mean less players? Here's my little feedback loop to explain it. 

When a new player joins the server, here are the possibilities of things they will do next:

• Player joins the server and never becomes an admin, but stays: This is the ideal situation, and the situation that should be promoted more. However, it is being increasingly less common, which is TERRIBLE for the server.
  
• Player joins the server and becomes an admin: This is the less ideal situation, and I think it's being promoted far more than it should be. When a player becomes an admin, you have one less player.
• Player becomes admin and goes rogue: This is a cause and affect of the player having become admin. If he simply stayed a player all along, this scenario would have never occurred. And he probably caused some players to leave while he was at it.
  
• Player joins the server and leaves: If a player can't become admin, they might just leave. This is the worst possible scenario.
  

How do I propose we fix this?

So if you've read this far, perhaps you agree with me, perhaps you don't. Regardless, here are my pretty controversial suggestions, that you may or may not agree with:

1. Indefinitely close admin applications. Do this until we actually really need a new admin.

2. Stop giving rogue admins their power back so easily. If someone really proves they deserve it after a long time, maybe. But if we just keep giving people more and more chances, it just does so much harm to the server, and results in more drama.

3. Work to develop the community for the players. Advertise the server, give new opportunities for players, find a way to give a lasting sense of community, etc. Stop focusing on the admin community so much.

4. Admin purge. Purge a large amount of admins that simply aren't living up to the job. If that definition happens to include me, so be it.

5. Remove all applications for being promoted. Admins should be handpicked on who is best for the job, and then can be voted on. No more pity promotions.

6. Stop treating players like dogshit. You see it every day, even on the forum. Stop acting like admins are more entitled to respect, everyone deserves the same respect.

7. Just start gradually moving towards acting like a normal server. If we really want this server to survive, we need to do what works.
8. Freeze *PAS indefinitely. I don't have a complete solution on this, because it seems like it's not a completely dead concept, but it's also just so fundamentally broken in correspondence to my suggestions. Perhaps in the future allow only the executives to do it with limits, but many just remove it entirely.
9. Work towards quality over quantity. 
10. Improve communication and transparency from executives and the owner. 
11. Increase OP voting rights. Allow them to vote on permban appeals. Allow them to vote on new admins. 

Now these changes would only work if we actually committed to them. No half measures. I think these changes are worth trying, but that really falls to the owner to decide. Now obviously more would be needed to, but this is just a start.

 

I completely agree with zekurt. I've been a super admin since 2014, and never saw any benefits of telnet+. if i need to be on without the client, MCConsoleClient works basically as well as telnet.
i think that admin apps should be closed completely, and when i ran fuse networks there never were admin apps. i've also been dissatisfied with the development of TFM, where it seems as if we're taking an add features, ignore bugs and plugin compatibility but thats just my opinion

I will be making a suggestion thread regarding this topic and what @zegandhi said. Be prepared for it, I won´t be taking this lightly. 

I admire your lack of ambition for a higher rank. Very few people in this world have the courage to deny more power. I wish I could be as content as you. 

That's because the conduct policy is, dare I say, illegible if your English skills are not that impressive. The reason this didn't use to be a problem is that there has been a shift in admin punishment: it's been a very long time since I've seen someone other than an old Senior give a friendly warning without a smite, explaining to the OP what the rule is they broke. I have never been trained, because others getting smitten during my time as an OP told me exactly what was not allowed under what conditions, much more valuable than the walls of text that are the policies.

Staff are there to help. Never have I looked at someone's potential to administrate in determining my vote, because as Melendo once put it: "I'll be TPaSing my asshole, because with some training it could become a good admin." We are in need of admins who have the patience (a word I've not seen nearly enough in applications) to help OPs, because friendly staff members are what you keep in mind about a server.

The funny thing about this is that everyone I've heard say this does not actively play Minecraft anymore, whereas everyone who does says that it's not dying at all.

I think it should be the admin experience that is bare-bones, moving the fun over to the OPs. I applied for admin because I take joy in administrating itself: flying around the world looking for griefs while listening to music, and answering questions from OPs and other admins. I believe that if you see those points as side issues, you were not actually suitable for your rank despite the vouches or *PaS.

It's not too hard to figure out why they are still open at (almost) all times: there still aren't admins online 24/7, and I agree with that goal. However, that is apparently considered no good reason to filter applicants by their online times.

The Super Admin rank meaning less is related to what you said about unqualified admins. As horrible as it sounds, weighing their votes less in applications may currently be the only way to get a useful outcome, though we can obviously put that on experience as well. If you are a Super Admin: I am not trying to say that you don't think over your vote, but there is a real chance that a few are ruining it for the rest.

(For both quotes) A while ago, I was administrating on the server, when I noticed an OP doing suspicious WorldEdits. Obviously, I teleported to them in spectator mode. There, I was greeted by another admin whose name I will not name, who told me, I quote: "get out steven I was here first". It is an insult? No. It is rude? Depending on who you ask. But in this case, I am the only one who should be asked, and I found it rude because I did not know that admin well enough to see it as joke from a friend.

This looks like the easiest one to start with because it affects few people. As much as I should keep my mouth shut because I am one, the final say on reinstatements has always been held by red tags.

We have not one, but two executives that were appointed specifically for these tasks. Maybe we could introduce some kind of progress report.

This is the red button of our server, and I think we should exercise caution in pressing it. Not because it's not necessary, but because I think that they would leave by themselves if they did not need the admin rank to have fun.

All users are equal, but some users are more equal than others.

*PaS itself is not the problem, the problem is that it allows positions to be filled that are already filled. I am not talking about a quota, but about the timezone selection I mentioned above.

The OPs are doing that because we have become gods: we enforce the Holy Conduct Policy, striking heretics from the sky, and sometimes an oracle reveals a wise lesson about not using your left mouse button inside someone else's build. One does not simply have a chat with gods, and if a god comes down to do just that, the mortals will be too afraid to answer. Many refuse to live in a country that forces TotalFreedomianism upon its inhabitants.
Now, I am mocking the situation, but it's not entirely a joke. Admins enjoy their power.

Yeah I completely agree, our server currently has far too much focus on the admin experience. We need to delegate those resources towards the OP experience. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough on that in my original post, I was in a rush. 
Yeah so while I've always been a supporter of quality over quantity, I understand the reasoning behind why we have so many admins. The point being that more admins is equal to admins being online more. And to be honest, I think that's sort of been proven to be false at this point. I think having a few extremely specialized and skilled admins could work just as well, if done right.
Actually, I agree with you here, but also think my suggestion helps fix this. Super admin currently means pretty little, but if we had less super admins, but they were all hand picked and extremely qualified, the rank could actually mean a lot more. As it stands it's super over inflated, and to be blunt, full of people unqualified for the job. And really we shouldn't have unqualified admins. Kind of a tangent, but I think a lot of admins here are scared of the idea of having less admins; at present time, admins almost solely speak with other admins, and the idea of admins having an open community with ops is kinda foreign.
Yeah a lot of the admins really just go out of their way to find any reason to punish players. Problem is, for many admins, they get the fun from punishing players, which is a huge conflict of interest when admins are supposed to be helping the players. Admins ban players simply because they might have broken some obscure little conduct issue, but that player didn't do anything to disrupt the server. I experienced this personally when I was an OP a while back.
I actually disagree with your idea that as an executive you should keep your mouth shut. As an executive, you have the highest potential to get good ideas through. In fact, I think if you truly believe something is wrong, you should do your absolute more to try and get it fixed.
I honestly don't think this executive role is living up to what it's supposed to be doing. And if they are, it's clearly yielding no results. I think advertising the server should be a serverwide goal, and perhaps we could find to encourage voting for our server.