Community Standards?

[Malp12]

This question is aimed towards the forum moderators, but I'd be interested in the thoughts of other server owners and community managers.

What is the point of this (https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/server-posts.83222/) post, if FTB will take no action towards investigating violations of servers that are publicly listed on this site?

FTB, you obviously can't be Mojang, you're not responsible for prosecuting server owners. But doesn't listing our servers on the FTB lists mean something? Shouldn't there be a sort of community among this site and the server communities who choose to list here?

Prosecution, ligitation...shutting down of servers, that's not what I'm talking about. Obviously Mojang investigates reports on their own initiative, and takes whatever action. Sure, there are probably many hundreds of servers that violate the EULA, and Mojang will never do anything about it. But just because Mojang won't do anything about it doesn't justify promoting the practice.

FTB, you are in material cooperation with a EULA violation by allowing these servers to appear on your list. If the matter is brought to your attention and you do nothing, this becomes formal cooperation with a EULA violation.

 

[grandrolf]

What is the point of this (https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/server-posts.83222/) post, if FTB will take no action towards investigating violations of servers that are publicly listed on this site?

This have been mentioned a few times on different posts around the forum - there's no active search for rule breakers - someone need to report the server via the report functions.

And also - how would you know, as there's no report back to the one that reports on what's being done / not being done?

FTB, you are in material cooperation with a EULA violation by allowing these servers to appear on your list. If the matter is brought to your attention and you do nothing, this becomes formal cooperation with a EULA violation.

There's actually nothing in the EULA pointing to that having listings for servers breaking the EULA would in anyway break the EULA - even if this of course should be frowned upon.

With that said - this is my opinion on the matter: all servers that are going for pay-to-win should be removed as soon as possible on report and checkup/investigation shown that it's also the case. A report to Mojang should also be done.

 

[Malp12]

Sure, the EULA isn't worried about formal/material cooperation. But, what's legal and what's "right" are two different things, the latter is definitely fraught with all sorts of modern problems in terms of ethical debates.

IMHO it's common sense. If Mojang is serious about commercial use and it's EULA, and though ultimately it falls on the server operators to be in compliance, meta-server communities like FTB do have some kind of responsibility. To me, it's more like a responsibility to the FTB community.

 

[grandrolf]

But, what's legal and what's "right" are two different things

Breaking the EULA isn't necessary against the law, breaking the EULA is a breach of contract. Depending on what part of the EULA you violated, where in the world you live - that could mean different things.

meta-server communities like FTB do have some kind of responsibility. To me, it's more like a responsibility to the FTB community.

Like I already stated, I agree that pay-to-win servers should be removed.

But I'm curious on why it's a responsibility to do so - don't get me wrong, I agree that it's the "right thing to do" - but I'm having a hard time seeing that it's a responsibility.

 

[Malp12]

Hehe, this is all a really interesting conversation. If we create the ethic around law enforcement and splash in a dash of relativism...then sure, we could, with great probability of immunity, run our server in Antarctica, make tons of cash and not have any fear of Mojang's attorneys.

If we're fishing at the bottom of the barrel here, then yeah, do whatever you want.

First, and this is just a basic philosophical ethics, articulated law does not exhaust ethics. Particular law is only a partial expression and cannot cover all cases, it is by its very definition, limited. Thus the ethical question may not be determined by appeal to legality.

If FTB only published modpacks, but didn't run a site where servers could advertise (and publish their own internal rules about server publishing, as linked in the first post), then this entire conversation would be moot. You cannot stop a server from being listed publicly in Minecraft multiplayer...that's the Mojang level. But, by allowing server's to post an advertisement of their server on the FTB website, FTB is giving an implicit endorsement to the site. It's not explicit endorsement, but allowing it's existence is endorsement.

Furthermore, and along different lines, it is clear from Mojang's statements that their desire in their guidelines and EULA is to protect players from true abuse. As a community of server owners and operators, of community managers and people helpers...we all should have a care for the common good of our FTB community. We should all agree upon transparently following the standards of excellence as set out by Mojang.

The true difficulty is in making the counter-argument, the one of why we should allow or even tolerate EULA violating servers to exist within the same community.

 

[grandrolf]

It's not a matter of fishing at the bottom of the barrel - I'm just pointing out that EULA isn't law - something that seem to be a misconception in general.

The true difficulty is in making the counter-argument, the one of why we should allow or even tolerate EULA violating servers to exist within the same community.

No one in this thread has made the counter-argument about the "should" - as in of course those should be removed, because most off us agree that's the right thing to do. But that doesn't explain the "responsibility" - I still don't see how that responsibility can be put on this forum or the team.

Should and responsibility is two very different things.