The issue is fundamental. It is like creating a plane that has a billion controls, all of which must be carefully managed to make a safe flight. The plane may be fantastic, perhaps it can fly around the globe on CO2 free fuel. But it is fundamentally floored, humans simply cannot manage that many controls.
The issue with MCBans is anyone can sign up and start banning. Sure they have an appeal system but that doesn't help- the issue is only going to get worse. I can think of numerous much better alternatives to the system they use.
It will always rely on good people behind it. People who will not alter the system for their own personal reasons. Imagine if Jeb got into an argument with a guy on the forums, and then wrote a script so that that guy would be given an update that was actually a virus. Which once again brings us to the killer card against MCBans:
The Zoridian affair.
i dont use mcbans. but mcbans isnt stupid. like 95% of the time someone that already has been banned on previous servers will end up causing problems anyway. mcban doesnt start automatically banning you from servers until you have like 10 bans. so many people cause problems on minecraft, sure you can be fair and waste most your time banning trouble makers. or just use mcbans and most the work is done. yea its unfair, but people want to play minecraft not run a daycare center. sure there are a lot of immature server admins that will ban you wrongfully which sucks, but theres a mcban website where you can dispute your bans.
The thing is, if you have been banned 30+ times (believe me, ive seen 50+), you should be autobanned. It saves the admins time, and most of those bans WILL be real, and they deserve being blacklisted for being an annoying troll.
DziNeIT's argument seems stronger to me.Claiming that you find 99.99% of all forged proof is complete nonsense, I'm pretty sure someone who owned a server and happened to be a little bit dandy with java could easily fake logblock proof and get people who connected, legit players, banned, even if they only connected a few times.Not only that, they could request an ip change, change their account and do it over and over and over again.So, saying you find "99.99%" of all forged proof(while I know this is hyperbole, I'm going to expand on it anyways) is, with respect, complete and utter nonsense.
It is not hard for us to investigate matters when forgery comes into play. If we see or suspect forgery of any kind many of the staff get involved and we investigate. As Guyag said, we use many different ways to catch people in lies, and have had a high success rate in it.
Perhaps not 99.9% of all actual proof, but when the time comes that someone makes an appeal, I can guess/assume they would check their own logs (such as IPs of the user, the banner, other miscellanious details).
My own personal question for you is how did you go about allowing such things to occur in the first place? Surely, if someone was abusing the service as such (This is in regard to backdoors) you had a duty to either correct the situation or inform the ones in harm's way. While the motive may have been honest, there was neither. Furthermore, if there is any sort of bogging, shouldn't you of hired people sooner (as you are going about doing now).
I understand that what server owners do is not directly your fault, but you should at least accept the fact that your are responsible for what rep people have, in regard to the fact that you are the one who reports the number in the end. If there is false information or appeals, they should be dealt with immediately (and that's improving ^_^).
Overall, I think things are improving at McBans, but there are still things that need to be openly addressed and dealt with, and not covered up.
Perhaps not 99.9% of all actual proof, but when the time comes that someone makes an appeal, I can guess/assume they would check their own logs (such as IPs of the user, the banner, other miscellanious details).
My own personal question for you is how did you go about allowing such things to occur in the first place? Surely, if someone was abusing the service as such (This is in regard to backdoors) you had a duty to either correct the situation or inform the ones in harm's way. While the motive may have been honest, there was neither. Furthermore, if there is any sort of bogging, shouldn't you of hired people sooner (as you are going about doing now).
I understand that what server owners do is not directly your fault, but you should at least accept the fact that your are responsible for what rep people have, in regard to the fact that you are the one who reports the number in the end. If there is false information or appeals, they should be dealt with immediately (and that's improving ).
Overall, I think things are improving at McBans, but there are still things that need to be openly addressed and dealt with, and not covered up.
The Doridian situation, nothing negative happened due to having Doridian on the team. If he made any changes to MCBans plugin I would be able to see it as would anyone else through the github. I won't comment on Doridian anymore as it is not relevant to MCBans, as once again, nothing negative occurred due to Doridian being on the team. It was a group that has been removed from MCBans staff positions. ( The backdoor was in mcadmin, not mcbans to clarify. )
Any system has its flaws to attempt anything more than what MCBans has is making it more difficult for server owners for only the illusion of a more fair or balanced system. Minecraft is meant for the majority. MCBans is tuned to work in that environment. The main goal of disputes is to find offending servers, which is why it is key for people to open disputes when they feel they have been wronged.
I have accepted from day 1 of starting mcbans that reputation for players is the most important part of mcbans, which is the reason why we have a dispute system, disabling of servers, each server having its own rep (less reliable servers normally have low rep), reporting of bans, and of course banning those players that have attempted to abuse mcbans in a way that negatively impact other players ability to play on other servers in the mcbans system. This entire system is maintained by a team of volunteers that investigate disputes, answer support tickets and other community based actions, they keep the system clean of abusers, they are very good at it :3.
Disputes take a while to be handled mainly due to the fact that not everyone has just minecraft to deal with, server owners, mcbans staff, even the players disputing, have lives outside minecraft and as such disputes are given a 1 week appeal time and a 1 week dispute time. but it can be completed in less time ( Most often it is ).
As for fake ban data, we have always taken a strong stance against faking log data, if it is discovered the server is disabled, even at times banning the server owner that attempted to fake logs.
MCBans is never a stale project, either the site is being updated or the plugin. We take suggestions and serious criticism and try to improve mcbans. This being the case, not everyone will be happy with results and you have to realize that attempting to appease everyone's demands can be impossible. Using video proof can be forged, using screenshots ( those can be forged, we recently caught someone attempting to do that. ). As I said earlier attempting to make any system completely foolproof is a delusional idea in a game as open as minecraft. There will always be holes in any system, the only way to curb that is by community involvement, reporting bans or disputing bans.
If anyone has any other questions you can, I'm guessing, post here.
Or if you want to ask about mcbans you can join irc.freenode.net/#mcbans generally there is always someone on who can answer questions regarding mcbans.
Regardless of the fact that I believe McBans is a **** system, that second post really opened my eyes.
That second post has misinformation all over it, and irrelevant information that has nothing to do with how mcbans works or operates, its drama in the purest of forms.
Also, just doing a fetch of bans for Notch gives and example of how badly misused MCBans is.
MCBans
219 bans
MCBouncer
7 bans
Glizer
No bans found
Minebans
No bans
As you can see MCBans has 219 bans for "Notch", now either Notch is a griefer or your system is flawed to the point you have 219 bans for Notch. I know your going to comeback and explain offline mode and all that, the reality is that those bans still exist. What has happened above could happen to any player, from what I understand you cannot even appeal to bans older than 2 or 1 months. In which case many of those bans (for Notch) would be permanent.
Let me get this clear. The issue is not you, rather your businesses model. It relies on 7 year old children acting like mature 30+ year old adults. Which is why I include "-mcbans" when Googling for servers.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Terminator like robots may one day rule the world, as long as they don't run Windows Vista"
I am not a fan of MCBans, however I would not go out and say it is stupid. The concept and the goal MCBans has is good, and personally I do like having such a system, to which can warn admins of previous bans from servers to know if they are known to just be griefers or not, however it is how people use this system that causes problems with people.
For starters, you have to blame the community, not the software. The community decides who to add to this list, and so it is the community that ends up making these bans that are not sense-worthy or even fake. You cannot blame MCbans for that. Yes, they can try to verify each and every ban that comes across and require server owners to transmit tons of data to verify a ban, but then you are putting more pressure and work-load on a player-ran system. MCBans is not a company that has money they can use to just get more people to help balance the load, it is a collection of people who do this on their own time and with little compensation. This is like blaming the staff of MCF for the stupidity that occurs on the forums. You cannot blame the system for something the community causes. It is not right, and is also quite simply pointless.
MCBans does have ways to appeal bans and to make sure you have a clean record in case of false bans. They give you 2 months to appeal a ban, which is plenty of time for one to notice they have it and appeal it. It is not their fault you did not notice it. You should be aware of what happens with your account. We even have a link in the Survival Section that will let you check your reputation and make sure it is good. It is not their fault you are not making sure your account is clean.
The issue with the people here is that they blame MCBans for stuff they cannot control, or to control would require more man-power and resources than they have. It is not just not possible for them to keep track of every ban that comes though and handle it. You should watch your account and check on it. Do not blame the plugin.
And it is completely optional. If you do not want to play on servers that use it, then don't. It is not a completely common plugin that it is hard to find a server not using it. In fact, I would guess quite a few larger servers do not use it. Stop complaining really. No one forces you to use it or to join a server that uses it.
Firestar, you said it yourself, there is no real way of ensuring that the ban is fully legitimate, so why not just stop the plugin?If it's flawed fundamentally, then why bother continue with it?All that happens is you get abuse for a flawed plugin.Now, it DOES have a good aspect, the idea that people can't just get away with what they are doing is fine and dandy, but the collateral, the people who are banned in the wrong(they are there, you cannot deny that)is there and they are affected.
I realize that the whole "doridian" thing is complete ********, people can change and you clearly have.Mcbans is obviously getting a lot better than it was before, however, it is not perfect nor will it ever be, which is why I think it shouldn't be there in the first place.
I also think it would be a better system if it was all local bans and it just listed players who were banned and why, rather than labeling everyone as the same forever, why?Because, people change, as has your plugin.Simply sending someone to a life sentence is crude.
Essentials is flawed with the its compatibility to handle other plugins, does that mean it should not exist?
iConomy has bugs, should it not exist?
Minecraft has bugs, should it not exist?
In order for a plugin to really be fair and accurate to do what MCBans does, it would have to just send the entire server over so that any possible proof is there. I don't see any plugin, or anything doing that.
MCBans has an appeal system which has a generous time-line for one to appeal the ban. If people fail to bother looking at it, then that is their fault, not MCBans.
And on the thing of abusive admins, you would see they banned you. You can easily just go to MCBans and appeal, and even complain. They can revoke the key and shut that down for the server. It is not that hard. They do have things to help people prevent this, but it is not their fault people do not use them.
They do their best to make sure the bans are legit by offering a few things people can do to make sure they are not being banned by the system unjustly. It is not the fault of MCBan. It is the fault of the community.
Like making a new power-source that is powerful, but eventually is used to cause destruction for millions. Do you blame the power-source, or the people who use it in the unjust way?
Firestar, you said it yourself, there is no real way of ensuring that the ban is fully legitimate, so why not just stop the plugin?If it's flawed fundamentally, then why bother continue with it?All that happens is you get abuse for a flawed plugin.Now, it DOES have a good aspect, the idea that people can't just get away with what they are doing is fine and dandy, but the collateral, the people who are banned in the wrong(they are there, you cannot deny that)is there and they are affected.
I realize that the whole "doridian" thing is complete @#!*% , people can change and you clearly have.Mcbans is obviously getting a lot better than it was before, however, it is not perfect nor will it ever be, which is why I think it shouldn't be there in the first place.
The main point is, the system is only as flawed as a user allows it to be. If you use it as a point of reference, and take the information with a pinch of salt, you can get a somewhat better idea of what is and isn't concerning. As always, you shouldn't base an opinion off of it.
One thing to consider is possibly being able to report false bans (these being separate from appeals, as an experiment). I forgot my other idea, but if I remember it, I'll post it.
I also think it would be a better system if it was all local bans and it just listed players who were banned and why, rather than labeling everyone as the same forever, why?Because, people change, as has your plugin.Simply sending someone to a life sentence is crude.
I may be incorrect in saying this, but don't bans eventually expire?
If not, a good system would be a server that has been offline for a long time should have the bans cleared (as they are most likely not applicable or irrelevant at that point). Some exceptions could be made for either some obvious bans or some bans on a larger server (one with 10000+ bans, say).
That second post has misinformation all over it, and irrelevant information that has nothing to do with how mcbans works or operates, its drama in the purest of forms.
Would you like to explain yourself how the McBans system works then?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Accepting donations for a new creative server! Donators will recieve an honarary rank when the server starts up!
I may be incorrect in saying this, but don't bans eventually expire?
If not, a good system would be a server that has been offline for a long time should have the bans cleared (as they are most likely not applicable or irrelevant at that point). Some exceptions could be made for either some obvious bans or some bans on a larger server (one with 10000+ bans, say).
I don't think so, I still have a lol-worthy local ban from about 9 months ago on a server that stopped existing about 7 months ago. (I think the owner has been prevented from using mcbans anymore, but this ban is still kicking around...)
I don't think so, I still have a lol-worthy local ban from about 9 months ago on a server that stopped existing about 7 months ago. (I think the owner has been prevented from using mcbans anymore, but this ban is still kicking around...)
Hmm, I used to have a flyhacking one, but it went away o.O
Still people describe MCBans as being "crap" flawed, a bad way about going though a global ban.
Still people describe the faults of the user and not the fault of the plug-in. Please tell me why they plug-in is bad. To do this you cannot describe user experience with it, or any user interactions. To do so is describing a bad user and not the plug-in itself.
I will agree that the majority of the ban were first played by angry kids that have a troll mask on with a shot of power high right into their arms. However, this is the person not the plug-in, nor is the person that get's banned.
Conclusion:
If you want a reliable maintained anti-cheat / global banning system that is both effective and responsible. You need to be willing to pay for that service, or start up your own service like Punk buster did. The tool is great, and no system is perfect.
You are playing a game made for kids, played by kids, and in some cases, run by kids. Expect that kids will do kid things and be unexpected and without merit. Again that is the truth of it all, if you are looking so hard to point a finger to excuse the problem, you can point to nobody but the kids, and sometimes yourself for not paying attention to trolling/griefing.
P.S. To anybody who use to play AlterIW I was their head anti-cheat and handled the vast majority of their appeals for 'un-rightful' bans. Let me tell you what. Maybe... MAYBE 10% of those who appealed were indeed wrongfully accused but out of the thousands that came up, it is safe to say, the user is at fault. Not the system, people cheat, troll, grief then come around screaming it wasn't mean and here's why... (fill in lame excuse here) (old name: aIW|SmokeScreen)
Look, the thing is McBans wouldn't be so terrible if those who used the service weren't inept. If there were no bias and servers handed out punishment justly there'd be no problem.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Accepting donations for a new creative server! Donators will recieve an honarary rank when the server starts up!
I don't think so, I still have a lol-worthy local ban from about 9 months ago on a server that stopped existing about 7 months ago. (I think the owner has been prevented from using mcbans anymore, but this ban is still kicking around...)
Local bans are bans that are essentially just bans that a server would make without even having mcbans. They are bans that just say, hey this person was banned on this server. Global bans, if invalid, are changed to local bans. This means we do not handle local bans, servers should also ignore these local bans. The next version of the plugin (which has its first release for 4.1 bukkit) only shows globals on login, as it should.
Local bans remain forever, as they are just the same as banned-players. If a server owner looks at an improper local ban and decides you do not belong on their server due to it....then that is probably not the server for you. Global bans, if the server is innactive, decay over time.
The number of local bans is irrelevant to anything more than information for other server owners, Global bans add up to removal of access to servers on mcbans.
This topic seems to have really been drug out, but since McBans staff have actually taken notice of it, I would like to share my experience, which is closer to a book than a post.
I am a server administrator, and we use Mcbans because it saves us more headaches than what we may be gaining in zero rep players. We like having control over our server, because grief is a very ugly sight for new players. However, it has always been our policy to take previous bans "with a grain of salt." We never ban someone from our server that hasn't actually done something that was against our rules, or truly wronged us. I'm disgusted whenever I see a local ban on someone that says "too many previous bans." Sure, that user is much more likely to just come on our server and grief, but we are willing to give them a chance because people do change, and mistakes do happen. But having some context for the player is nice in seeing if they are going to be a problem-riddled user, and how much attention we need to pay to them. On local bans I feel like it is important to give an accurate reason for banning them, since its visible to other servers. For what McBans does for us, I'm fairly happy, even if it is far from perfect.
I do think that a global ban from one single server has far more power than it should, as it is very easy to make a server and start global banning, along with the fact that its a bit difficult to interpret all screen-shot evidence as undeniable proof. It seems now that one of the natures of Minecraft seems to be young players and young admins, and young generally means inexperienced. Overreactions happen.
It seems strange to me that global ban rules aren't more specific and streamlined for ease of legitimating bans. Does proof of one block being griefed, and proof of ten thousand blocks being griefed both warrant a global ban? I'm glad that on our server we make try to make sure our ban types fit the situation.
However, for McBans and their guidelines, I don't think I could come up with a better system than what is in place.
----
My major problem is my experience with McBans support as a server admin. In February we were having problems with our McBans API key, and honestly I don't know exactly what the problem was because of a lack of cooperation with McBans support. The only real information I was able to get out of the support ticket was that there may have been some sort of "API lock" on our key.
The issue had been going on for at least a week before I reported it to support, as I had assumed McBans was just having their usual server problems. After submitting the ticket, I was almost immediately directed to their IRC chat. After a week of many attempts to get a staff member's attention in IRC, trying both Firestar, who pretty much ignored me, or perhaps never even noticed both my in-channel requests and private messages, and Stracci. I finally got Stracci's attention, who was very polite and understanding, although claimed they were busy but would take care of my issue as soon as they could. Content with this answer, I waited a few days, but the problem still persisted. After a few more days of trying to get a staff member's attention, I once again gained Stracci's attention, who like before said they were busy and would take care of it.
Again, nothing came of this assurance. After nearly two weeks from my initial ticket, I submitted a ticket with my disapproval, which I have included below, along with all of my other tickets submitted, with personal information redacted.
At this point I just gave up. I received no reply to this message, no fix, nothing. It was easier for me to give up and start new than to continue trying to get any sort of support. All our previous bans were abandoned.
Today, after seeing this topic, I attempted to login to both my McBans.com and support.McBans.com accounts (because for some reason they are different logins? A strange quirk...) and at this point neither account works. The support account no longer exists, and the regular account appears to not exist, but my old login name is not available to register. It is a good thing I took a screenshot of the ticket, because any record of it seems to be completely gone. No "our bads", no acknowledgement, nothing.
So even after 5 months, this issue is still hurting me because the ticket doesn't even seem to exist anymore, and my account no longer exists.
No, why are people using this ******** cop-out excuse "Blame the user, not the plugin".Sure, that may be the case with say A GUN, however, One does not simply download a gun and start shooting people, one does simply download mcbans and start banning people in the wrong.
Difficulty of using something is totally irrelevant. your analogy with the gun stands. You can simply get a gun and shoot people. This being said the analogy is exaggerated, as a gun is to kill as MCBans is to banning an account. All you need to do is report the ban as a dispute, and if it was wrongfully given, it will be changed to a local and the server would lose rep. Really is not that hard to understand, if you don't like the system, its as simple as not using it. It is an optional plugin made to help server admins administrate servers.
Everything is flawed, to think otherwise, is delusional. That is why things are constantly improved.
The issue with MCBans is anyone can sign up and start banning. Sure they have an appeal system but that doesn't help- the issue is only going to get worse. I can think of numerous much better alternatives to the system they use.
It will always rely on good people behind it. People who will not alter the system for their own personal reasons. Imagine if Jeb got into an argument with a guy on the forums, and then wrote a script so that that guy would be given an update that was actually a virus. Which once again brings us to the killer card against MCBans:
The Zoridian affair.
http://dev.bukkit.or...ightning-death/
It is not hard for us to investigate matters when forgery comes into play. If we see or suspect forgery of any kind many of the staff get involved and we investigate. As Guyag said, we use many different ways to catch people in lies, and have had a high success rate in it.
My own personal question for you is how did you go about allowing such things to occur in the first place? Surely, if someone was abusing the service as such (This is in regard to backdoors) you had a duty to either correct the situation or inform the ones in harm's way. While the motive may have been honest, there was neither. Furthermore, if there is any sort of bogging, shouldn't you of hired people sooner (as you are going about doing now).
I understand that what server owners do is not directly your fault, but you should at least accept the fact that your are responsible for what rep people have, in regard to the fact that you are the one who reports the number in the end. If there is false information or appeals, they should be dealt with immediately (and that's improving ^_^).
Overall, I think things are improving at McBans, but there are still things that need to be openly addressed and dealt with, and not covered up.
The Doridian situation, nothing negative happened due to having Doridian on the team. If he made any changes to MCBans plugin I would be able to see it as would anyone else through the github. I won't comment on Doridian anymore as it is not relevant to MCBans, as once again, nothing negative occurred due to Doridian being on the team. It was a group that has been removed from MCBans staff positions. ( The backdoor was in mcadmin, not mcbans to clarify. )
Any system has its flaws to attempt anything more than what MCBans has is making it more difficult for server owners for only the illusion of a more fair or balanced system. Minecraft is meant for the majority. MCBans is tuned to work in that environment. The main goal of disputes is to find offending servers, which is why it is key for people to open disputes when they feel they have been wronged.
I have accepted from day 1 of starting mcbans that reputation for players is the most important part of mcbans, which is the reason why we have a dispute system, disabling of servers, each server having its own rep (less reliable servers normally have low rep), reporting of bans, and of course banning those players that have attempted to abuse mcbans in a way that negatively impact other players ability to play on other servers in the mcbans system. This entire system is maintained by a team of volunteers that investigate disputes, answer support tickets and other community based actions, they keep the system clean of abusers, they are very good at it :3.
Disputes take a while to be handled mainly due to the fact that not everyone has just minecraft to deal with, server owners, mcbans staff, even the players disputing, have lives outside minecraft and as such disputes are given a 1 week appeal time and a 1 week dispute time. but it can be completed in less time ( Most often it is ).
As for fake ban data, we have always taken a strong stance against faking log data, if it is discovered the server is disabled, even at times banning the server owner that attempted to fake logs.
MCBans is never a stale project, either the site is being updated or the plugin. We take suggestions and serious criticism and try to improve mcbans. This being the case, not everyone will be happy with results and you have to realize that attempting to appease everyone's demands can be impossible. Using video proof can be forged, using screenshots ( those can be forged, we recently caught someone attempting to do that. ). As I said earlier attempting to make any system completely foolproof is a delusional idea in a game as open as minecraft. There will always be holes in any system, the only way to curb that is by community involvement, reporting bans or disputing bans.
If anyone has any other questions you can, I'm guessing, post here.
Or if you want to ask about mcbans you can join irc.freenode.net/#mcbans generally there is always someone on who can answer questions regarding mcbans.
That second post has misinformation all over it, and irrelevant information that has nothing to do with how mcbans works or operates, its drama in the purest of forms.
MCBans
219 bans
MCBouncer
7 bans
Glizer
No bans found
Minebans
No bans
As you can see MCBans has 219 bans for "Notch", now either Notch is a griefer or your system is flawed to the point you have 219 bans for Notch. I know your going to comeback and explain offline mode and all that, the reality is that those bans still exist. What has happened above could happen to any player, from what I understand you cannot even appeal to bans older than 2 or 1 months. In which case many of those bans (for Notch) would be permanent.
Let me get this clear. The issue is not you, rather your businesses model. It relies on 7 year old children acting like mature 30+ year old adults. Which is why I include "-mcbans" when Googling for servers.
I am not a fan of MCBans, however I would not go out and say it is stupid. The concept and the goal MCBans has is good, and personally I do like having such a system, to which can warn admins of previous bans from servers to know if they are known to just be griefers or not, however it is how people use this system that causes problems with people.
For starters, you have to blame the community, not the software. The community decides who to add to this list, and so it is the community that ends up making these bans that are not sense-worthy or even fake. You cannot blame MCbans for that. Yes, they can try to verify each and every ban that comes across and require server owners to transmit tons of data to verify a ban, but then you are putting more pressure and work-load on a player-ran system. MCBans is not a company that has money they can use to just get more people to help balance the load, it is a collection of people who do this on their own time and with little compensation. This is like blaming the staff of MCF for the stupidity that occurs on the forums. You cannot blame the system for something the community causes. It is not right, and is also quite simply pointless.
MCBans does have ways to appeal bans and to make sure you have a clean record in case of false bans. They give you 2 months to appeal a ban, which is plenty of time for one to notice they have it and appeal it. It is not their fault you did not notice it. You should be aware of what happens with your account. We even have a link in the Survival Section that will let you check your reputation and make sure it is good. It is not their fault you are not making sure your account is clean.
The issue with the people here is that they blame MCBans for stuff they cannot control, or to control would require more man-power and resources than they have. It is not just not possible for them to keep track of every ban that comes though and handle it. You should watch your account and check on it. Do not blame the plugin.
And it is completely optional. If you do not want to play on servers that use it, then don't. It is not a completely common plugin that it is hard to find a server not using it. In fact, I would guess quite a few larger servers do not use it. Stop complaining really. No one forces you to use it or to join a server that uses it.
Essentials is flawed with the its compatibility to handle other plugins, does that mean it should not exist?
iConomy has bugs, should it not exist?
Minecraft has bugs, should it not exist?
In order for a plugin to really be fair and accurate to do what MCBans does, it would have to just send the entire server over so that any possible proof is there. I don't see any plugin, or anything doing that.
MCBans has an appeal system which has a generous time-line for one to appeal the ban. If people fail to bother looking at it, then that is their fault, not MCBans.
And on the thing of abusive admins, you would see they banned you. You can easily just go to MCBans and appeal, and even complain. They can revoke the key and shut that down for the server. It is not that hard. They do have things to help people prevent this, but it is not their fault people do not use them.
They do their best to make sure the bans are legit by offering a few things people can do to make sure they are not being banned by the system unjustly. It is not the fault of MCBan. It is the fault of the community.
Like making a new power-source that is powerful, but eventually is used to cause destruction for millions. Do you blame the power-source, or the people who use it in the unjust way?
The main point is, the system is only as flawed as a user allows it to be. If you use it as a point of reference, and take the information with a pinch of salt, you can get a somewhat better idea of what is and isn't concerning. As always, you shouldn't base an opinion off of it.
One thing to consider is possibly being able to report false bans (these being separate from appeals, as an experiment). I forgot my other idea, but if I remember it, I'll post it.
I may be incorrect in saying this, but don't bans eventually expire?
If not, a good system would be a server that has been offline for a long time should have the bans cleared (as they are most likely not applicable or irrelevant at that point). Some exceptions could be made for either some obvious bans or some bans on a larger server (one with 10000+ bans, say).
Edit: ffffff Ralex.
Would you like to explain yourself how the McBans system works then?
I don't think so, I still have a lol-worthy local ban from about 9 months ago on a server that stopped existing about 7 months ago. (I think the owner has been prevented from using mcbans anymore, but this ban is still kicking around...)
Hmm, I used to have a flyhacking one, but it went away o.O
Still people describe the faults of the user and not the fault of the plug-in. Please tell me why they plug-in is bad. To do this you cannot describe user experience with it, or any user interactions. To do so is describing a bad user and not the plug-in itself.
I will agree that the majority of the ban were first played by angry kids that have a troll mask on with a shot of power high right into their arms. However, this is the person not the plug-in, nor is the person that get's banned.
Conclusion:
If you want a reliable maintained anti-cheat / global banning system that is both effective and responsible. You need to be willing to pay for that service, or start up your own service like Punk buster did. The tool is great, and no system is perfect.
You are playing a game made for kids, played by kids, and in some cases, run by kids. Expect that kids will do kid things and be unexpected and without merit. Again that is the truth of it all, if you are looking so hard to point a finger to excuse the problem, you can point to nobody but the kids, and sometimes yourself for not paying attention to trolling/griefing.
P.S. To anybody who use to play AlterIW I was their head anti-cheat and handled the vast majority of their appeals for 'un-rightful' bans. Let me tell you what. Maybe... MAYBE 10% of those who appealed were indeed wrongfully accused but out of the thousands that came up, it is safe to say, the user is at fault. Not the system, people cheat, troll, grief then come around screaming it wasn't mean and here's why... (fill in lame excuse here) (old name: aIW|SmokeScreen)
Cheers,
-Java
Local bans are bans that are essentially just bans that a server would make without even having mcbans. They are bans that just say, hey this person was banned on this server. Global bans, if invalid, are changed to local bans. This means we do not handle local bans, servers should also ignore these local bans. The next version of the plugin (which has its first release for 4.1 bukkit) only shows globals on login, as it should.
Local bans remain forever, as they are just the same as banned-players. If a server owner looks at an improper local ban and decides you do not belong on their server due to it....then that is probably not the server for you. Global bans, if the server is innactive, decay over time.
The number of local bans is irrelevant to anything more than information for other server owners, Global bans add up to removal of access to servers on mcbans.
I am a server administrator, and we use Mcbans because it saves us more headaches than what we may be gaining in zero rep players. We like having control over our server, because grief is a very ugly sight for new players. However, it has always been our policy to take previous bans "with a grain of salt." We never ban someone from our server that hasn't actually done something that was against our rules, or truly wronged us. I'm disgusted whenever I see a local ban on someone that says "too many previous bans." Sure, that user is much more likely to just come on our server and grief, but we are willing to give them a chance because people do change, and mistakes do happen. But having some context for the player is nice in seeing if they are going to be a problem-riddled user, and how much attention we need to pay to them. On local bans I feel like it is important to give an accurate reason for banning them, since its visible to other servers. For what McBans does for us, I'm fairly happy, even if it is far from perfect.
I do think that a global ban from one single server has far more power than it should, as it is very easy to make a server and start global banning, along with the fact that its a bit difficult to interpret all screen-shot evidence as undeniable proof. It seems now that one of the natures of Minecraft seems to be young players and young admins, and young generally means inexperienced. Overreactions happen.
It seems strange to me that global ban rules aren't more specific and streamlined for ease of legitimating bans. Does proof of one block being griefed, and proof of ten thousand blocks being griefed both warrant a global ban? I'm glad that on our server we make try to make sure our ban types fit the situation.
However, for McBans and their guidelines, I don't think I could come up with a better system than what is in place.
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My major problem is my experience with McBans support as a server admin. In February we were having problems with our McBans API key, and honestly I don't know exactly what the problem was because of a lack of cooperation with McBans support. The only real information I was able to get out of the support ticket was that there may have been some sort of "API lock" on our key.
The issue had been going on for at least a week before I reported it to support, as I had assumed McBans was just having their usual server problems. After submitting the ticket, I was almost immediately directed to their IRC chat. After a week of many attempts to get a staff member's attention in IRC, trying both Firestar, who pretty much ignored me, or perhaps never even noticed both my in-channel requests and private messages, and Stracci. I finally got Stracci's attention, who was very polite and understanding, although claimed they were busy but would take care of my issue as soon as they could. Content with this answer, I waited a few days, but the problem still persisted. After a few more days of trying to get a staff member's attention, I once again gained Stracci's attention, who like before said they were busy and would take care of it.
Again, nothing came of this assurance. After nearly two weeks from my initial ticket, I submitted a ticket with my disapproval, which I have included below, along with all of my other tickets submitted, with personal information redacted.
At this point I just gave up. I received no reply to this message, no fix, nothing. It was easier for me to give up and start new than to continue trying to get any sort of support. All our previous bans were abandoned.
Today, after seeing this topic, I attempted to login to both my McBans.com and support.McBans.com accounts (because for some reason they are different logins? A strange quirk...) and at this point neither account works. The support account no longer exists, and the regular account appears to not exist, but my old login name is not available to register. It is a good thing I took a screenshot of the ticket, because any record of it seems to be completely gone. No "our bads", no acknowledgement, nothing.
So even after 5 months, this issue is still hurting me because the ticket doesn't even seem to exist anymore, and my account no longer exists.
Ticket screenshot: https://dl.dropbox.c...Dissapoint3.png
Difficulty of using something is totally irrelevant. your analogy with the gun stands. You can simply get a gun and shoot people. This being said the analogy is exaggerated, as a gun is to kill as MCBans is to banning an account. All you need to do is report the ban as a dispute, and if it was wrongfully given, it will be changed to a local and the server would lose rep. Really is not that hard to understand, if you don't like the system, its as simple as not using it. It is an optional plugin made to help server admins administrate servers.
Everything is flawed, to think otherwise, is delusional. That is why things are constantly improved.