Notes

There will be an Appeals Process

Players can now report chat messages in multiplayer games with the new system, but the community is concerned about the consequences.



Mojang's community manager said that the company is not going to reverse its controversial player reporting system and demanded that the harassment stop of Mojang employees.



MojangMeesh has posted on Reddit to clarify that although the company is committed to valuing feedback from players, it won't necessarily change the design principles Mojang Studios follows-this includes the new report system. They also asked upset players to cease "following Mojang employees around here on Reddit" to harass them in unrelated threads. The post received close to 2000 downvotes at the time of writing.



Minecraft players have been arguing about the new player reporting system since it was announced about a month ago but it was finally implemented as part of yesterday's 1.19.1 update. It allows players on both private and Mojang-hosted multiplayer servers to report inappropriate messages in chat to be reviewed by Mojang investigators, potentially resulting in suspensions and bans for players who violate Minecraft's community guidelines even on servers hosted by self-hosted players. Fans are worried that the system will cause bans on players for messages that are taken out of context, and that it gives Microsoft too much power to control the content of discussions on its platform.



Although some players might be acting in a negative manner about it, I don't believe their argument is unfounded. It's difficult to imagine a world in which this system doesn’t ban people for making jokes between friends. Although there will be appeals, it is also true that there are many misconceptions about how the system works. BENGA WAN Browse through any discussion on the matter and it won't take long before you find people complaining about having their private server's chat 'monitored by Microsoft, or worried that they'll be banned for cursing. Both is possible, according to Mojang's own FAQ on the reporting system.



Mojang is in a an impasse on this issue. A thread from Stuart Duncan-who manages a Minecraft server for children with autism-shows how much vile stuff Minecraft hosts regularly. Duncan presents studies and reports from the ADL, the BBC and others that recount the stories of predators and racists who play Minecraft in a way that is abominable. Offering tools to combat this behaviour seems important. While it's true that 'think of the children" and other scary stories are often used to justify reactionary policies in real life and a tool that lets users report dodgy chat messages in Minecraft isn't the end of a severe wedge.



When you say "no one ever asked" for this, "the entire community hates this" or "no-one needs this", please stop trying to be a spokesperson for everyone. "If you're worried about the possibility of exploits you're welcome to do so. I'm too. It's not perfect, but real people can be saved by it. July 27, 2022



In other Minecraft news, Mojang has declared that the game wouldn't be featuring NFTs because they're at odds with its "values of creative inclusion". The move at least seemed to garner enthusiastic support from the playerbase however there's no confirmation yet as to what that AI they developed to play Minecraft thinks about it.



One of Josh's earliest memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer at a time when he was too young to be playing this and he's been irreparably game-trained since then. His writing has been published in Vice and Fanbyte as well as the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything and has written too many on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Clead. His most profound loves are CRPGs, absorbing simulations, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.


Homepage: https://bengawan.org/