First off this is not directed at anyone, many people are guilty of this. I feel like its time to remind people what an opinion is, and is not. First off everyone is entitled to there own opinion. I have lots of them, and no one should stop you from having them. However you are not entitled to sharing them. Just because you have them does not mean people want to here them, nor is it appropriate at times to share them. This is a common misconception amongst people in our society. Just because you have an opinion does not mean you can expresses it. "But what about the first amendment?" The first amendment applies to GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP. The first amendment says that you can freely and openly criticize the US government with out being jailed or killed, or fined. And as long as the speech does not full under unprotected (ie Liable, slander, invasion of privacy, threats to national security, obscene material, false light, copywrite infringement, incitement to lawless action) the government can not create laws that punish you for using that. HOWEVER private entities can, and absolutely will, punish you if you make comments that do not align with there beliefs. An example of this is Curt Schilling. He was a analyst for ESPN, an american sports network. He was suspended multiple times, and then fired by ESPN for making homophobic and racist comments on Twitter. Did he ever get arrested, no. However he did get fired and lost his job. That brings me to another point: Expressing your opinion is not exempt form consequences. Yes the government can't arrest you. However you can loose your job, loose your friends. Most things you do have some sort of consequence regardless, good or bad. Opinions are no different. For example last fall I made a few comments, that while were not warnable, but were probably not the smartest things to say. Even though I did not get punished by the staff team with a warn or a ban, I still had other consequences, such as isolating a good group of people on the server, and probably hurting my chances of being staff. Its also important to point out this sever is very open to opinions of the staff team, compared to other servers. Alot of the threads y'all made would of gotten you serious ban time on alot on other servers. And even this server has its limits, people have gotten banned off before for causing trouble, even if its your opinion, and yes even friends of staff. No one is that exempt from the rules. "So am I supposed to not say anything" While that's a hard part. In some cases yes, it's best kept to your self. However there are some ways to tell if its a good idea or a bad idea to post an opinion Here are somethings that I ask my self or consider: What has happend before with similar opinions? If similar threads have been locked, probably should not make it. Am I being productive or destructive? Am I providing a call to action, and giving advice, and using an opinion as analysis, or am I ranting about something. Will this reasonably offend a large group of people? If its something that can probably hurt alot of people, and reasonably, probably should not do it. How am I expressing my self? This is a big one. No one wants to be attacked, targeting people will not work. However providing a respectful, logical, argument, is better. Am I willing to face the consequences of this? If you think that you wont get any blowback from posting, then you should not be posting. Opinions will always have blowback to some degree. Is this a well calculated, and a well thought out thread, or heat of the moment? Often times people make a decision in the heat of a moment, and maybe say things they dont want to say. Is this welcomed? Sometimes a staff member will open the door to discussion, which almost always means that its okay to post your opinion. I realize this might be hypocritical coming for me. And while I have made stupid posts in the past, I have learned from my mistakes. There has been many a time where I wanted to post something, but decided not to, because I knew it would cause problems. Realistically we all have to get a job at some point, and we have to work with people. Constantly bashing them will not get you far. Sometimes you have to bite your tongue. So there is my two cents. What you do with it does not matter to me. If you think Im talking out of my ass, and dont want to hear it, that's fine. Im just giving my insight to something, and maybe it will help some of you guys.
This is the best thread I've seen in a while in server discussion. Very relatable and I completely agree.
This feels very directed at me, but I digress. I still liked your post regardless. Good thread if I say so myself. I.E, I basically agree with almost everything you have said.
People need to understand the idea of discretion. I've kept my opinions and criticisms in private chat, and if you read what I typed, you'd understand that I basically want to do mass genocide on the forums and most of the internet. But before I go on a tangent about how murder is fun, I'd just like to point out myself as an example. People like @Sirius, @Venom_Snake, and @StarlightFox know the full extent of my opinions and criticisms on most of the community, yet I haven't made a single thread about it in the past month. The last thread I made was back in April, where I was tired of the treatment of Survival, and decided to make a noise about it. And prepare for contradictions, because although I just talked about discretion and keeping things in private chats, there is a little thing called making noise. Back when a ton of the community was fed up with the low staff etiquette, tons of threads were made smashing staff, because at the time, many community members felt like staff were treating them as lesser people, and not as equals when refering to humane treatment. That was a time to make a noise about that problem. But, the thread Joseph made is an example of what NOT to do. Now, before I continue, please understand that I respect Joseph as a person, but that doesn't mean I can't challenge his views. Respect =/= getting in line. That being said, his thread tackled the problem of staff looking down on people. Ok, fair arguement, Y'know, but we already tackled that problem a while ago, and(from what I've seen) his thread didn't match the cries of the community. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and keep Joseph's arguement going, but please realize that his thread was an example of how NOT to make a noise. Thanks for reading, if this post made any sense. It's your opinion, I suppose. .
Through our Skype conversations I can admit you're a bit hectic (and so am I) but you seem to understand right from wrong. You may use some derogatory terms, but in the end, you mean well, and your opinions are definitely precise. I don't necessarily prefer to trash talk a member in general, but really, problems won't be solved unless we speak out against them or find a solution to them. It's actually amazing that you've been able to learn to express yourself and not care of everyone's opinion.
what even are these forums anymore imo this thread is so off-topic and unneeded. honestly if you don't do the 7 things you're asking us to do on this thread, than you don't have any common sense. period. also I don't see how saying that you don't like the staff of a minecraft forum could make you lose your job lol, the worse that could happen is a warn, or maybe even a ban. that's a minecraft server lol
Idk what thread you read man, but he didn't say that. He compared a job and a server in terms of free speech. Your employers can fire you for saying certain opinions, while a server can punish you for saying certain opinions. Simple as that Your job can't fire you for what happens on a Minecraft sever (unless it's like something I shouldn't really have to mention)
Sorry I didn't understand the meaning of the thread however I still think this is off-topic and unneeded
Well sense the thread's topic is about opinions, this is perfectly on topic. However I'm not sure how it's unneeded.
