Checkmate128
commented
2 years ago I frequently send long messages but they are always part of an intellectual conversation and not just random spam. As long as Minehut sets the limit to whatever their mod team has agreed is the limit, this would be a good feature.
Checklist
Affected Platform?
Java
What is the feature you are requesting?
Suggestion: Set the max message length in lobby to 80 Characters, or however long Minehut staff sees fit, to prevent players from "Flooding", an actual rule violation you can apparently do in the lobby just by typing enough characters in a single message. This is a ridiculously easy way to prevent rule breaking and reduce the need for punishment, and I don't see why it isn't already a feature.
How it could work is if players write a message that goes past the limit in characters, the message will be blocked and they will be sent "The message is too long, please try writing shorter messages to prevent flooding" or "Message is too long".
How is this feature useful for Minehut?
Player Benefits:
It would reduce rule violation, making players not rack up punishments based on subjective interpretation on what does or doesn't break the rules. Rather than leaving it up to mods' opinion, what counts as flooding would be enforced by the chat filter, and be more or less objective fact.
Players do care if they receive a mute for many days, and receiving that mute means the next mute will be many days longer. This suggestion could reduce players' irritation with the moderation system on Minehut and keep more customers happy. Especially if they bought a rank! Ranks lower your /ad cooldown, and getting a mute can mean you cannot advertise your own server for weeks, potentially putting money you spent on a server plan down the drain. I spent money on VIP and MH75, and now I can't utilize my shorter /ad cooldown or promote my MH75 server all because some moderator decided my reply to someone was too long, even though it was roughly half the vanilla character limit.
The flood punishment also seems somewhat biased against older players, by only taking into account the spamming behavior of younger players. Younger players tend to write shorter messages, but are more likely to spam long chains of random characters thinking it is funny, which is exactly what can be problematic in the lobby. Older players tend to write longer messages as part of regular conversation if necessary, yet they do not spam random characters as a joke, as that's childish and not funny. Yet people who rarely reply to a conversation with a very long message are equally able to get muted as deliberate rule breakers spamming random characters.
This automated system could stop actual deliberate spam when moderators aren't around, while informing well intending players that they should write a shorter message.
Moderation Benefits:
Rather than making moderators do all the work in preventing Flooding, Minehut could auto-limit how long players' messages can be, and moderators would only mute for "Spamming" or "Flooding" in extreme repeated cases. This would let players auto-moderate themselves more, by instantly getting told their message is too long and being able to adjust and trim it, breaking it up into multiple messages. Moderators would only need to deal with rare and likely deliberate cases rather than muting players commonly for misunderstanding what is the invisible max message length.
Example of how this affects players:
Note: I'm not making a report or appeal here, so I'm going to redact the other player's name, but I feel it is a good example relevant to the discussion given it is about moderation and the flooding rule.
I've gotten several mutes before for having a too long message in the lobby, even though it was within vanilla Minecraft's limits, without intending to flood.
What counts as "Flooding" is subjective, and seems to be up to moderators' discretion. Just saying three short sentences got me muted for 2 Weeks today, after being falsely accused of running a server that breaks Minehut's ToS.
The player who accused me was mad that my anarchy server had an anticheat to prevent fly and crashing, like all the most popular anarchy servers in Minecraft, so they felt scammed, and they lied in the lobby that I was spamming the N word and ran a racist server in the lobby and nobody should join.
They called me a swear word in /msg bypassing the swear filter, and repeatedly accused me in the lobby telling players not to join my server, and I tried to calm them down. They then lied in the lobby that they never accused me at all in the lobby and that I am the one who needed to calm down, effectively gaslighting me, while continuing to pretend to be upset about racist servers. After failing to get them to relax, I roughly told this person I was not going to reply further, and if I accused them of anything or called them any names, I could get muted for it so was not going to further engage. My exact message was "ok [player], well keep it up buddy! you're gonna get muted insulting people. I'm not gonna say anything back, because even if it's true, I could get muted for it". ~160 characters in a single reply rather than 3 messages in a drawn out reply. The plan was to stop replying there, de-escalate entirely and not insult them back which would break the rules, but I got muted just based on this message for 2 Weeks for "Flooding". Meanwhile the other player received no mute at all and continued to talk, while my friends tried /msging me asking me to do stuff together, not knowing I am now muted for a long time.
The moderator seems to have not kept track of the conversation or realized that the other person lied, accused me of doing things breaking Minehut's ToS, told players not to join my server, and gaslit me beforehand. FYI I've gotten muted for being "Argumentative" before for warning players about a legitimate abusive/rule breaking server, so apparently that's against the rules. Instead of muting them for being argumentative, they were only focused on my message length being past some invisible limit.
I've often said equally long messages in the chat without getting muted, so for a player that sometimes types longer messages, it is vague and confusing on what is and isn't allowed, and what does or doesn't break Minehut's rules.
I have the idea in my head that one message is often better than two, because seeing your name before two messages takes up more text in the lobby than having your name before one message. Writing shorter and more frequent messages fills the chat up more. Yet to someone else this is "Flooding" at some times, and at other times not. Moderators do not explain to me in the mute what the max limit is or how I should better avoid it. I'm just told "Flooding the lobby chat violates our rules", which I already know and don't do.
Moderators often seem to fail to look at the context and reasoning behind a player writing a long message, and instead only look at the length, gauge if it's "too long", and mute based on that. Players don't know what is "too long".
Potential Downsides
Players might complain about this being a new chat restriction, however I think they'll eventually get over it and will generally be less bothered about a message not being sent than getting muted, and having their mute duration going up irreversibly unless they appeal using a Support ticket. I would be incredibly thankful for a message to be blocked rather than being muted for twice as long as the last mute.
Third Party Mod
If this feature is not added eventually I will probably publish a mod for players to use that auto-moderates their chat in the Minehut lobby, and reduces the max message length, given how easy it would be to code, and to politely prove a point. Players shouldn't have to use a third-party mod just to block messages that are too long to be allowed by Minehut's rules. Nor should they constantly have to remember "okay, make sure to count this isn't more than 80 characters before I hit return". It should be a base feature on Minehut.