Grief

An example of grief to the Flippeh Statue at spawn by defacing others work in the form of adding blocks

"well if this is the way you treat people who grief then i promise i wont do it again" - RiskyCraft

"I break some glowstone and lapis blocks and every staff member in the game converges on my location." - SleekHank

"Sleek, if we ignored that it would be like a police officer ignoring gunshots in the distance." - AgentMuu

"a grief is break a thing" - JoseSlime14

MinecraftOnline's Definition

While other servers may have their own definitions of what the term "Grief" (noun) or "Griefing" (verb) may mean, what they all have in common is the damaging of other players' work in-game. It is important to realize that, not matter how other servers may define or deal with griefing, MinecraftOnline has its own definition which its staffmembers are tasked with enforcing.

On MinecraftOnline, Grief is defined as

• The breaking of any block or blocks belonging to another player without that player's permission, or
• The addition of any block or blocks to another player's build without that player's permission.

Griefing is the one principle bannable offence at MinecraftOnline.

A typical griefer

Examples of grief

"Griefers ran over my cat with a lawnmower :(" - AgentMuu

"why'd you break that sign." - Kittyboy666
"i wanted it" - 0gabbagabba

"why did you break this mushroom oso?" - Draglide12
"I have to do something fun in my long life" - oso24

"why did you break that jukebox back there?" - treepuncher755
"cause i like to party and you cant party without music am i right" -- AppleWorm5796

"ZoxieLP, why did you break this cobblestone?" - LewisD95
"because i needed one cobblestone…" -- ZoxieLP

"hey, that's prehistoric property you are breaking right there!" - caisworld

"GIVE ME diamonds and i dont break block.OK?" - tondataaa

Specifically, any of the following count as griefing:

• Breaking any blocks, even single blocks, intentionally placed by another player in the course of construction, e.g.:
  • Breaking windows;
  • Breaking torches;
  • Breaking signs;
  • Breaking paintings, item frames, armor stands, or leads;
  • Breaking blocks placed to prevent chests from opening;
  • Breaking and subsequently replacing blocks in order to gain access to a locked building.
• Breaking any natural blocks that can be reasonably said to form an integral part of another player's construction, e.g.:
  • Breaking logs or other naturally-occurring blocks that are used as part of buildings
  • Breaking purposefully-planted trees or grass or other plants used as decoration
  • Breaking natural walls of underground dwellings;
  • Removing or blocking decorative water/lava blocks
  • Digging up ground under houses.
• Placing any blocks on or around another player's work that affect it undesirably (desirability is determined by the owning player), e.g.:
  • Blocking entrances;
  • Placing dirt or other undesirable blocks on buildings;
  • Placing ladders or stacks of blocks to bypass walls
  • Building bridges to bypass moats
  • Placing water or lava buckets on others' work or near their work in such a way that the flow of lava or water affects their work.
  • Placing torches or other blocks to impede the construction of a build
  • Surrounding a town or structure with unsightly builds
• Destroying 'abandoned' buildings not owned by you without specific Admin permission, e.g.:
  • Creations owned by players who are now banned
  • Creations built in a town you created. You still did not create that building. (see "Permissions in relation to cooperative builds or towns" below)
  • Creations built by players who have not been on the server for a long time
• Breaking a block and then putting it back afterward., e.g.:
  • removing locking blocks over chests in order to access them and then relocking
  • removing blocks to allow access through walls or floors or ceilings and then replacing them
  • removing and then replacing any block not originally placed by you
• Using pistons to "move" a block not owned by you, e.g.:
  • using a sticky piston to shift a locking block off a chest, and then shift it back again
  • using a piston to open a doorway through a wall or ceiling that isn't yours
  • using pistons to modify, move, shift, damage or in any way alter someone else's constructions
• Fishing items out of places, e.g.:
  • fishing items out of item frames

What is not grief

"greef meens donot brace blocks that dint plase" - EnderKid007

Grief is NOT any of the following:

• Stealing from exposed chests, as long as no blocks were broken to gain access;
• Killing players in PVP, but ensure it does not descend into bullying;
• Killing or in any way interacting with mobs;
• Changing mob spawner types;
• Connecting to a piece of public infrastructure, such as a road or pathway. (Note that this means simply placing blocks to directly connect to the road. Breaking blocks or placing blocks/obstructing the road is grief.)
• Harvesting crops, so long as crops that are not naturally occurring are subsequently replanted;
• Eating cake, even if it is the last slice;
• Using anvils, even if that breaks the anvil;
• Breaking or placing boats or minecarts;
• Activating or deactivating redstone creations (via levers, buttons, pressure plates, CraftBook, etc.);
• Opening and closing doors;
• Adjusting repeaters and the orientation of objects inside item frames;
• Placing traps designed to kill players on one's own constructions;
• Assisting other players in building with their consent;
• Approved modification or takeover of confirmed abandoned buildings, only when an admin has given prior approval for the action. So no, moderators cannot give that sort of permission.
• Modifying or destroying natural constructions - anything generated by the server without player intervention. However, you should make 100% sure that the NPC village you are modifying was not really built by a player; otherwise you will face the consequences for grief as normal. If in doubt, it is a good idea to leave it alone.
• Making a build on land that was only modified by scattering blocks such as signs or torches, without any other builds.
• Attempting to break or modify blocks within protected areas. However, if you are not sure if it is protected, and it breaks, you will face the consequences for grief as normal. Again, if in doubt, it is a good idea to leave it alone.
• Cleaning up after addition-grief a griefer caused to your own build. If someone adds to your build without your permission, you are, of course, permitted to break the unwanted blocks without penalty.
• Placing and breaking your own Shulkers to access its contents. The nature of a Shulker requires it to be placed to access its contents, unless it is intentionally left behind then it is not grief to temporarily place a Shulker.

Bear in mind that many of the destructive actions listed above, such as breaking minecarts - while not strictly grief - are broadly considered "a dick move". If a player persists in carrying them out with malicious intent, that player may attract staff intervention of some form.

Permissions in relation to cooperative builds or towns

We only officially recognize permissions to builds through signs at the build, or through signed books relevant to the build. In the case that you believe you have perms to a banned players' builds or whatnot, wait until an admin has given you the go ahead to the relevant permissions.

The only time a player has perms to a banned player's things is when they had permissions before the ban. If a builds' owner is banned, you do not gain higher levels of permissions than what you had prior unless an admin has clearly told you otherwise

In terms of permissions within a town or a settlement, the title of “mayor” or “town owner” carries no weight in light of the server rules, as they too are regular players that must abide by them. In general, if the “town owner” wishes to remove a build that is not theirs in their town, then they cannot modify that build in any way as that would be grief, nor could they ask another player who is not the owner of the build to demolish it. The next step in this would be to contact the player who built it to ask for permission. If they so choose, they can contact an administrator who may or may not decide to move the build.

There are methods that allow a “town owner” to get tangible permission to modify the player’s build. The most clear way for both players and staff to identify permissions within towns would be signs stating who has ownership/permissions to which builds. A town member can place a sign, which can be verified by an admin if a dispute were to arise, stating that they give the “town owner” permission to remove the build.

Another common method to implement town permissions is the use of signed books. Signed books that are clear as to what rules are within a town can adequately allow the player to agree to them in a tangible format. With the book, they can agree to rules such as that the owner has permission over anything they build within their town, and can serve the same purpose as the aforementioned signs. If a town owner wishes to use signed books, it's recommended that they store the books in a safe place & make copies of them so that if a staff member needs to access the information, it can be accessed without struggle. Then they and their builds are subject to those town rules.

However, a town owner cannot under any circumstances add or change any rules that a player has agreed to in the past. If a player agrees to a rule set, then any rules added after they have agreed do not apply to them, unless they once again agree to them. If you have any questions about towns or establishing rules within a town, please feel free to contact either a moderator or an administrator.

Why not use editing protection?

We would rather have a server with players we can trust to respect each others' work, than force players to protect their work in neat partitioned boxes to avoid grief. Therefore we choose to invest in building up an amazing community and highly reliable moderator team, rather than using such artificially restrictive modifications. As a result, we choose to permanently exclude harmful elements from the community, and ensure we maintain a trustworthy playerbase with whom you can enjoy sharing a world.

We have occasionally had players log on and break blocks, then claim they were "helping" us by checking to see if something was protected so they could warn the owner.

As we don't utilize editing protection, obviously they'll not find anything protected, and we don't need or want this kind of "help".

This is not a valid exception to our Grief rule because our rule does not have exceptions.

Regardless of your claims of intention, breaking others' blocks without permission is still grief and still bannable. Don't do it.

What if you see someone griefing?

"Don't break those blocks! I'm reporting you!" - Cvd12

If you see someone griefing (or you see that there has been a grief going on) you can contact a staff member ingame or use: /greport description

For example: /greport someone griefed my house because half of my house is gone

Alternatively if you are unsure if something is already reported, (you found it inside Spawn for example), you should use the /greportsnear command to check for nearby grief reports and then proceed to report if there is no currently existing /greport for your problem.

"Feel free to kill them to slow down their ability to grief" -  Krenath