author: Bart Swiatek
Stricter Bans in Minecraft Bedrock Spark Controversy
Minecraft Bedrock is undergoing important changes - moderators have received a set of new tools that will enable them to permaban users for breaking community rules. The ideas of devs at Mojang Studios stirred considerable controversy among the players.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- Changes in Minecraft (Bedrock) enable moderators to ban users for breaking community rules
- The penalty can be received for comments, as well as messages on boards or in books;
- The ban applies to Realms modes and Featured Servers on Windows 10, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Android, iOS;
- The ban may be permanent;
- According to some users, the developers have gone too far.
Developers at Mojang Studios have informed about changes that have been implemented in Minecraft Bedrock. These include new tools that enable moderators to ban players who don't comply with the community rules by sending messages and communicating through boards and books.
It's worth noting that bans can be permanent and will apply to Realms and Featured Servers, in all Minecraft editions (except Minecraft Dungeons, which is considered a separate game), on Windows 10, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android platforms.
Punished users will be informed what was the reason for the ban, as well as a tip on how they can deactivate their Realms subscription. It will not be possible to appeal against the moderator's decision.
Controversial changes in Minecraft Bedrock - community response
Some members of the community are not delighted with the changes introduced by the devs. In their opinion, banning a player everywhere for misconduct on one server is unfair.
"So am I reading all of this correctly? That if you get banned from one server or in one instance youre locked out of all multiplayer functionality of the game/any servers?
If that's the case that needs to be reversed immediately. That's just asking for trouble and is gonna cause all kinds of issues. What about anarchy servers, more mature servers that're fine with language and all that sorta stuff, what about your own realms. Feels like that's a bit overreaching to be able to ban someone from all multiplayer because of the actions on 1 server," PossessedRyd argues.
Minecraft's community manager on Reddit MC_Raijinn also referred to the issue. He specified that permabans will be reserved for the most serious offenses.
"The main focus of these bans really is on some of the worst offenses out there. We have highly trained moderators who review the content and we have a review process within the team to ensure accuracy. These aren't going to be questionable situations that we're talking about, think racial hate speech, threats of violence, and many other clear cut situations. That's why there's no appeal process.
Exploiting and cheating in a way that disrupts the gameplay and game enjoyment of others is going to fall into this category for sure.
As far as threats of violence, we have to consider all threats to be serious and credible ones simply because the way the internet works these days. If you say your intent, day, and place that some form of violence is going to occur, there's a high likelihood for banning and have the local authorities involved. People's safety and wellbeing is not something that you can take lightly," we read.
Unfortunately, these comments have not dispelled all doubts. Some of them indicate that some of the offenses mentioned in the rules seem trivial, and in many situations it can be difficult to assess the actual context of a message when we only have a log of the conversation. For this reason, among other things, the lack of possibility to appeal may prove to be a big problem. And what do you think about this? Are the steps taken by Mojang correct? Or is it spilling of the proverbial baby with the bathwater?
