Posted on 24 February 2015 - 08:59 PM

So in this post I am going to talk about some corruptions that I have recently seen around us. Badlion being a heavy practice server is based around other communities. Two of these communities are being taboo'd from Badlion from today forward. The decisions to remove the terms/phrases from Badlion is simple, we ask very little of other communities. In fact most of our work is based on other communities feedback and feedback from the players. When we see corrupt and bias'd staff members floating around these communities, we are simply disgusted.

Anyone who has been around here on the forums for a few months know that Archybot and myself are very active in the community. True we do not come on the servers as much as we used to because we are both busy, Archy in university and me at my day job (no we do not do Badlion for a living, we do not pay ourselves, we are volunteers here the same as the staff). We absolutely despise shitty moderation, flat out. We have both been part of communities with very corrupt and bias'd staff members and as a result always strive to make sure our staff is clean, not corrupt, and definitely not biased. We have overruled our trials, our moderators, our hosts, our senior moderators, and even our own administrators. Hell Archy and I have even overruled each other because one of us feels that the other is in the wrong (and we respectfully allow this form of a relationship).

Signs of a corrupt or bias'd community are communities are as follows:

1. Moderators hide behind anonymous behaviors. If a moderator declares that they wish to remain anonymous then they are a coward and not truly a representative of the community.
2. Moderators treat certain members with special treatment. If for instance someone calls someone a bad word (racist) and is not punished because they are liked in the community. Then another user who is a nobody says the same thing and is punished for it. This is what is known as "bias"
3. Moderators handle situations in an unprofessional manner. Simply put, someone who is doing their job but is doing it in a horrible manner. E.g. they moderate the server but are depicted as; rude, arrogant, and just a general dick.
4. Moderators who do what is convenient to/for them but do not do what is best for the community. An example of this is banning a player who is cheating just because their friend is in the match that is losing as a result. Or another example is deleting threads/posts off of a community site that they disagree with that the community agrees with.
5. Moderators who protect each other when someone is clearly in the wrong. The job comes first, always and foremost. If you side with someone who has done something wrong then you are just as corrupt as they are.

We at Badlion in some sense or another are a policing force for the PvP Community. It is not one I have tried to create, but one that rather got created as a result of our heavy moderation, our high moderator standards, and GCheat. I know there are plenty of communities out there that use our punishment pages to punish their own players/communities as a result of our high accuracy rate when it comes to cheaters. We do have plans to release a public plugin that can be utilized for other servers to disallow banned/muted players on badlion from joining/talking in other communities (this has been requested from us a few times).

As a result from these discussions we are taboo'ing the following words from our server as a result of poor administration/moderation on their behalves:

Overcast Network/octc. A long time ally to Badlion has shrunk over the course of the past couple of years due to poor moderation, corrupt staff decisions, and flat out not listening to the community. This is a perfect example of what we are not at Badlion. We are a community driven server, not a server that tries to force a certain type of community. Going from the above we feel they have violated bullets #2, 4, 5. Banning Archybot but protecting other members on the forums is what sparked this decision. Complete and utter bias. Removing another one of our administrators as a staff member from Overcast Network (ginie1) simply because he was promoted to Administrator on Badlion from moderator is another form of bias(Speculation).

Reddit UHC. Not as much of an ally but another community that we have tried to work with side by side when possible. The moderation team there is despised by quite a few well known members in the community who i shall leave anonymous for their own safety and concern. Going from the above we feel they have violated bullets #1, 2, 4, 5. A post that was made on their subreddit by myself and then later removed by a moderator who is too much of a coward to release his name, this post made by me is what sparked this decision. Please note at at the time of this post the post had a 100% approval rate from the community. The moderator did what he felt was the correct decision and removed a popular and approved post from the front page as a result for the following reason "i took this down because this is /r/ultra, and not /r/badlion or something and i dont see this belonging here at all" Examples of posts that were not removed that are a clear form of advertisement (which isn't even against their rules) post 1 post 2 post 3 post 4 Complete and utter bias

We at Badlion work hard with our staff team to make sure that we are doing what is best for the community, and definitely not what is best for ourselves. I personally cannot name any other networks/servers that are as large as us that have such active owners in the communtiy. Over 7000 posts combined since we launched our forums about 1.5 years ago. I also know very few servers that determine the direction they take their network by strawpolls and community forum posts. Badlion will always remain a network that is based on the community. We will shift our aims/goals based on the community also. We used to be strictly a potion practice server, but due to high demand added non-potion/soup ladders to our server based on feedback. We will always leave things open and public such as ban appeals, punishments and such. We will punish players/youtubers/staff members accordingly no matter who you are. I'd say we have fired almost a dozen of our staff members in the past 2 years for corrupt/bias'd/cheating behaviors. We literally do not give a shit who you are, everyone here is equal. @Pikaoku/@freekkiller are literally two pains in my ass when it comes to this area. They help to keep Archy and myself in line though and we are appreciative to them for that.

Going forward, we are ending our positive association with these two communities. We will no longer allow the promotion of these servers in any form. Attempting to promote or advertise these servers will result in the regular punishment for advertising. We still allow free discussion/promotion about HCF, Archon, & Kohi as we work closely with these communities.

EDIT - Continued Posts/Amendments
*Archy's ban so people will stop asking about it - https://www.badlion.net/forum/thread/28105/post/133491#133491
*Direct response to reddit thread - https://www.badlion.net/forum/thread/28105/post/134101#134101
*Official reddit sidebar link for PvP Arena Servers for people saying we have to follow the UBL - https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrahardcore/comments/28px9n/official_rultrahardcore_pvp_arena_list/ - "Please also remember that the UBL doesn't have to be enforced in arenas."

There are other posts that answer questions that were brought up in this topic further down.

Posted on 24 February 2015 - 11:31 PM

OCN ladders obviously being the most played ladders will stay, will you name change or anything of that nature?

Posted on 24 February 2015 - 11:35 PM

We will simply change the name of them in season 8. There are some small modifications we are making to them based on feedback (such as removing the bow and arrows from diamond)

Posted on 24 February 2015 - 11:47 PM

Not that I have done these, but can you clarify these under allowed/disallowed.

Videos of both servers are now not allows to be posted on forums?

If I was to talk about how the recent tourney is going, my team etc in global if I was having a casual chat with someone I recognised?

On two other notes:

What will the new OCN ladders change name to?

And why is the bow and arrows being removed from DOCN? It's an essential part, and otherwise the ladder wouldn't be nearly as diverse. That's like taking the sword out of IOCN because it's a more bow based ladder. From my thread, the majority seemed to want bows buffed (proj armor removed) and nobody, not even the people who didn't want them buffed, spoke of removing them.

Posted on 24 February 2015 - 11:48 PM

@MasterGberry thank you for giving your own personal time to explian us this things about those servers and about your moderation things.

This is why i love this community because you give your time to make this server a better place for us Thank you and Archy, and ginie1 <333

Posted on 24 February 2015 - 11:49 PM

Diamond OCN was never OCN really ( projectile? Really?)

Posted on 24 February 2015 - 11:50 PM

No we will not allow videos on the forums. We will not punish against general chat of the servers as long as it is quick and non-promotional. I simply suggest you discuss it in a PM.

The OCN ladders will be renamed to Diamond/Iron or DiamondPvP and IronPvP (not sure yet)

We are removing the arrows from Diamond because the Iron kit focuses more on the arrow/bow aspect. Our goal is to try and make very diverse ladders, and we feel these two are too similar at the moment.

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:02 AM

For what OCN used to be, it's disappointing to see the downward spiral it's taken recently. I'm truly upset by it.
Also, I don't think you should forget about the itsjhalt incident. While it may not be quite as recent as the corruption over at ocn and subreddit UHCs, maybe that's why it should be of an even larger concern. Do you plan to similarly taboo all talk of HCTeams/MineHQ? (MineHQ, right?)

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:06 AM

In some way shape or form this already is in affect.

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:07 AM

Sighhhh
Guess hackers are gonna be unbeatable in that ladder /:

Literally the only way to win is to kill them with fall damage, which violates a rule.

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:11 AM

hmmm. . . i dont understand why a Forum mod would take down that post, it actually supports UHC and people post their highlights on badlion UHC all of the time, I feel that the mod really had no business doing that. A bit meticulous if you ask me.

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:14 AM

IMHO minehq staff is far, far more corrupt than any member of the reddit UHC or ocn staff.

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:18 AM

Dang how am I going to make my OCN team now?!?!?! Also OCN has too much bias as I've been there a lot longed then most people. It's corrupt.

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:24 AM

Yeah, and also I feel like a melee no speed ladder is kinda bad. Blockhitting is already insanely powerful on the ladder, and a good way to combat them is to use the bow to get combos. Now it'll just be a battle of sword only, which is so limited IMO.

Edit: It would be like removing the sword from the UHC ladder, to focus it more on bow. That's not gonna happen so I don't see why bow should be removed from diamond ocn

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:26 AM

To you, maybe, but everybody has different opinions on how pvp should play. Imo, every ladder should be archer ladder where arrows don't do anything from <60 blocks away, but I don't think that would be very popular

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:28 AM

Would it be frowned upon if I just destroyed ocn by posting here a couple of absolutely corrupt ocn appeal links of my own? /me readies hands

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:30 AM

This is a reply to Hivlik, I just don't want to quote it becaus it would be obnoxiously long.

You say everyone has their preferences, hence why badlion offers a variety of ways you can change scenarios in every ladder. Do you being a bow to kohi? How many debuffs to vanilla? Are you gonna preserve your arrows in mcsg, or just shoot? Are you gonna instapearl in archer at risk of possible gaining, possibly losing?

The above analogies are to show that in each ladder you can adjust it to suit your own style of pvp. Not having the option for a bow is limiting, and severely diminishing the variety ( and therefore the skill) of the ladder. You don't want every match to be the exact same. With no speed, no bow, the strafing and sword encounters won't take as much skill, and will be repetitive.

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:31 AM

I want it to be that way ;-;

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:32 AM

@hive_raven I already have a few up my sleeve as well as Sunn

Posted on 25 February 2015 - 12:34 AM

As long as you don't mind getting any criticism back possibly *shrug*. We have stated our opinions as a network/staff team