Bans
"im going to ban you now... is that ok?" - 
Tu4tle
"what a banhammer?" -
Rachupranger
"The sentence of this court is that you be strike by the banhammer until you are banned. Banned. Banned. And may 
Notch have mercy upon your account." -
Bonn8 when someone got questioned
MinecraftOnline is a server with zero tolerance for grief, and a highly effective moderator team. As a result, this server has a large (and constantly growing) number of bans.
However, bannable offences are very strictly limited, and moderators and admins are given no opportunity to abuse their power. This server has an important focus on absolute free speech. Although some players may find themselves offended as a result, we feel this is much better than the alternative - a repressive society where everyone fears to express themselves in case they find themselves excluded from the community by an angry moderator.
What can get you banned
But how do you know?
MinecraftOnline logs every occurrence of any player breaking/placing any man-made block, as well as some naturally occurring ones. All moderators online are notified instantly of any such breakage. Even if a moderator does not catch the event at the time, when grief is later discovered or reported, an admin will always locate and ban the culprit after the event based on log evidence.
What can not get you banned
MinecraftOnline is proud of its absolute free speech rule. It is not possible to get banned for:
- Anything you say, aside from spamming. This includes:
- Swearing
- Personal attacks
- Racial or cultural insults
- Asking to be banned
- Killing other players in PVP (as long as it does not degenerate into bullying).
- Stealing items from chests (as long as access is not obtained through griefing).
- Using modifications that do not provide an unfair advantage or allow for cheating.
Automated Banning
The server previously featured an automated kick system for individuals detected as using a flymod to fly around, although this is currently disabled due to too many false positives.
However there is no automated ban mechanism in place protecting individual structures, the reasoning behind this is:
"Autobans... we'd prefer not to, it's something that's been discussed before. But there have been cases of people fixing things and getting pulled up as griefers, etc. It does need a layer of human sanity checking to prevent any accidental autobans. The idea that people could be banned automatically kind of undermines the credibility of our entire ban system. Although it's a lot more work, this [existing manual] way we can say that each of our bans have been signed off and checked by a genuine approved human being, who can be held accountable for them afterwards. So nobody can claim they were banned in error by a faulty robot. The other problem with this is the potential reliability of any such system. But I am considering an interrogation holding system that people could be automatically assigned to pending an interview with a moderator... although I'm not sure I'd want to automatically deal with that either." - SlowRiot 16th April 2011
Appeals
"ihave a question... when ur banned... do u lose all ur stuff?" -
Mewtolvlx
If a player feels they have been banned wrongly - either through a moderator error, or due to a mistake on their part as opposed to malicious action - then that player may appeal their case to an admin on IRC, Discord #ingame channel, or the MCO Telegram group. All appeals must be conducted only via these platforms and by the banned player him/herself.
We will not accept appeals
- By email.
- In-game by friends of the banned player.
- In IRC, Discord, or Telegram by friends of the banned player.
- In direct messages to staff members.
- In-game by the banned player through an alternate account.
- This will most likely result in the alternate account being banned as well.
NOTE: An appeal is not the same thing as a “second chance”! Appeals are only given out if an admin feels like the player deserves one and will no longer produce malicious intent in the server.
Success
The administrative team aim to be reasonable with all of their bans, and invite open dialogue. An appeal will always be heard in full, as long as it is presented in a civilised fashion. However, an appeal is subject to whether the original ban may have been in error, or if it was for genuine grief. Only a minority of appeals are accepted - specifically, those where the admins are convinced that the player in question acted in good faith and without malicious intent, and will not pose a risk to others' work if allowed back on to the server.
If a player was banned via Logcheck, which means that they were never given a chance to speak their case, then if these players choose to appeal, the appeal process will also serve as an interrogation. Unlike those banned via interrogation, though, Logcheck-banned players have a higher chance of successfully winning an appeal, due to the fact that it is their first time stating their case.
Vouching
|
This article refers to a MinecraftOnline server feature which is no longer available. This wiki page has been maintained in order to preserve the legacy of the server. |
In borderline cases, an admin may ask for a banned player to find another player in-game to vouch for them. In this case, the vouching player would be required to accept responsibility for all actions by the player to be unbanned. If the unbanned player were to grief again, both they and the player who vouched for them would be banned. As a result, it is very rare that anyone opts to vouch for a banned player. This is usually a very effective litmus test of an individual's true colours, and their friends' faith in them as a trustworthy individual. Vouches are no longer used/recognized as of 2021.
What doesn't work
<Jakrispenis> WHAT THE FUCK <Jakrispenis> UNBAN ME U FUCKJ I APPEAKL <Jakrispenis> NOT SPAM FUCK U <Jakrispenis> APPEAL APPEAL APPEAL techkid6 kicked Jakrispenis from #minecraftonline: spam
Begging, threats, talk of "hacked accounts" and denial of log evidence are the four top ways to have a ban appeal rejected.
Banhammer
The Banhammer is the colloquial term for the abstract metaphorical instrument with which griefers are banned.
Bans are announced both in game chat and in IRC, with a current ban count.
Common misconceptions
- "Logging off will prevent me from being banned" - Although true of the vanilla server, this has not been the case at MinecraftOnline for a very long time.
- "If you ignore them, they'll go away" - This is bad advice in life as well as Minecraft. It doesn't work for bullies on the school bus, and it doesn't work for moderators checking out a grief alert. If you do not respond when questioned about something you broke, a moderator is likely to assume malicious intent.
- "If I just kill this guy, he won't come back" - See above. Although moderators are mortal and will not ban for PVP kills, it is not particularly wise to attack someone who has just teleported over to investigate an alert you caused.
- "If I run away / hide, he won't catch me" - See above. Running away when questioned is a brilliant way to admit guilt.
- "If I insult an admin, i'll get banned" - This may be true on every other server, but not here. Absolute free speech is very important to us.
- "I got banned for no reason!" - Although often stated this way, it is dubious as to whether anyone saying this truly believes it. All bans at MinecraftOnline are fully accountable, and even if the moderator responsible cannot remember why he or she banned you, the logs certainly will.
- "If I appeal they have to let me back in" - Sorry, but no... the majority of ban appeals are rejected, because the original reason for the ban still stands, and the culprit has done nothing to convince us they will not grief again.
Is n banned?
- Use the command /isplayerbanned player in-game to find out whether player is currently on our ban list.
- The /banwhy player command is used to search for a player's ban reason.
- The IRC and Discord equivalent command is !why player.
- Ban info is also shown on the Control Panel
Trivia
- The player with the most bans and unbans is
Otis_Wong, with 6 bans and 5 unbans. Players 
itachi0501 and 
dethshok and have been banned and unbanned the second most times, with 4 successful appeals each. 
snakyman and 
44trent3, both with 3 bans and successful appeals each, just fall short of this. The amount of bans these players have may indicate erroneous / duplicate bans. - Admins are sometimes "banned" while training new moderators, for example,
Eclypto18 has been banned and unbanned 4 times, which technically gives him a spot here as well. - Banned player
Githis has attempted to connect more times than any other after being banned, with 8529 connection attempts, with each attempt telling clearly that they are permanently banned. - Bans have been made UUID-based as of 2 April 2021, making name-change evasions impossible.