Guide Evidence (ban Reports, Bug Reports, Etc.)

Spoiler: Updatelog

3-13-2016:
- Added Mac instructions for Screenshot section.
- Added OBS to the Video Recording Section
- Hyperlinked the suggestions in the Video Recording Section

This is a guide to help people understand what is considered enough evidence for an action or judgement to be made. A crucial thing to remember is that if you think you've found an issue report it even if you don't have enough evidence. It helps players/staff look out for it and be able to obtain better evidence, so by simply making a report you can start a chain of events that can end with a definitive result.

Rule-breaking Evidence - Evidence that can be used to ban or issue a warning on a rule breaker
Important rules when engaging a rule breaker

1. Do NOT engage the offender at first
   1. This gives a warning to hackers that a player is nearby and will make him turn off his hacks. Most of the time they're not going to say they're hacking and that's only enough proof for suspicious activity since many players say "I use the hacking" sarcastically
2. Screenshot ASAP
   1. With the plethora of usernames with numbers it can be hard to remember clearly if the offender's username was h4ker190 or haKe0192.
   2. If you can only see the first few letters of the offender's IGN (lets say it's hai120b95sl98f5) then type in "hai" into the chat and press Tab. This will show all the IGNs beginning with "hai" in alphabetic order and the offender's IGN should pop up. You should screenshot the suggested IGNs while the player tag is in view.
3. Identify the type of offense and choose the appropriate method of evidence gathering
   1. Pvp type hacks like Aimbot and KillAura are difficult to record with pictures as the blood particles can make you lag, and staff may think that lag caused the pictures to turn out as they are.
   2. Offenses involving chat such as spamming, cursing excessively, or advertising does not require the effort of using a screen capture software and can easily be caught with screenshots
4. Message a in-game Moderator
   1. This is to be done AFTER sufficient evidence has been acquired
   2. If the offender keeps breaking the rules blatantly and does not give any indication of stopping, message a Moderator what rule the person is breaking and where
   3. Remember to NOT spam a Moderator about this. They may be busy dealing with another issue

Video Recording
The overall best option for evidence is a video recording. This can be thoroughly analyzed and gives the most amount of information. Since Wynncraft isn't a PvP server where hackers kill and dash off before you can even start up a screen capture software, having a reliable screen capture software that you are comfortable using is very useful. Just get out of sight, take a couple minutes to set up the software, and beginning acquiring evidence. A great thing about this is that you can get close to hackers and record everything instead of trying to stay out of sight getting screenshots. A simple minute of steady direct recording is usually very conclusive. Some recommended screen recorders are:

• Fraps
• OBS
• Bandicam
• Action!

Screenshots

This is very useful as it is a quick easy way for anyone to acquire evidence without downloading anything. It's obvious downside is that it is very difficult to capture anything involving motion. By default taking a screenshot is F2; however, some keyboards (usually Windows) hotkey the function buttons. To press F2 and not change your brightness or sound on a Windows keyboard simply press "fn" and F2 at the same time. The "fn" key should be down by the Windows logo button.

Spoiler: How to access the screenshots folder

1. Press the Windows logo to access the Search Bar.
2. Type in "%Appdata%"
   1. This should bring up the "Roaming" folder
3. Open the "Roaming" folder
4. Open the ".minecraft" folder
5. The "screenshots" folder should be right inside.

Apple Instructions (Thanks to @goodytwoshoes0)

Logs
Not many casual players realize this, but Minecraft keeps a record of all chat and console inputs. This is used as a last resort when evidence cannot be obtained anymore such as being wrongfully being banned for Excessive Cursing or Advertising on 03-09-2016. As this is a log of only chat and inputs this can only be used for chat related evidence. The value of the evidence is weaker than the others as this can be modified, but is sufficient for bug reports and enough for Moderators to reevaluate a chat related ban as the Mod may have banned the wrong person by accident or the evidence given to the Moderator was forged.

Spoiler: How to access the logs folder

1. Press the Windows logo to access the Search Bar.
2. Type in "%Appdata%"
   1. This should bring up the "Roaming" folder
3. Open the "Roaming" folder
4. Open the ".minecraft" folder
5. Open up "logs"
   1. This may take some time to load depending on how many logs and how fast your computer is
6. Now you should see a bunch of .log files. They are all labelled by date, so just find the one when the offense occurred.
7. Unpack the desired file and extract the .txt file to another location

I hope this guide was helpful to players not familiar with reports and handling evidence. If you have any suggestions or comments feel free to post below! Here are some links to other helpful threads related to this topic:
OFFICIAL Game/Forums Rules
https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/game-forum-rules.111874/

OFFICIAL Appeals Submission Guide
https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/✎-appeal-submission-guide-✎.89247/

OFFICIAL List of Staff
https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/meet-the-wynncraft-staff.89162/

 

Bumping because I feel it's important that people see this.

 

Oh! Mac instruction, I can do that!
Most of the things are the same for Mac, except it's really challenging to find the Appdata folder (as in, you can't do it). So I recommend hitting Shift + Command + G which will open up the "Go to the folder" menu. You type in ~/library/Application Support/minecraft/ from there you click on the required folders with ease.

 

Add OBS to recommended recorders. It's really good.

 

I feel like this should be pinned

 

Might want to ask a mod if this thread doesn't count as mini modding. (Bannable offense).

 

Sorry I couldn't find "mini modding" in the rules. Mind explaining?

 

Mini modding is when you are acting like a mod, when you are infact, not a mod (attempting to enforce rules, etc.)

 

Well it's a guide that simply outlines some information. It's not really enforcing anything. It'd be kinda funny if Salted messaged me saying: "If you don't apply for Moderator and get accepted I'm gonna have to take down your threads for being too darn helpful D:<"

 

That was just an example, there are other things you can do which could be called mini modding

 

Added

Checked it out and it seems great! I'll add it to the guide.

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Well it's a guide that I formatted to be the most helpful it can be. Also are you SURE that's bannable. It isn't on the rules at all unless you count it as impersonating staff. Like if someone in the shoutbox spams "GREAT BIG BALLS AND C*** P**** *************" 100 times would saying "Hey dude spamming like that is against the rules and is annoying to other players. Would you mind taking it down a notch? It would really be appreciated :)" be mini-modding? A player in Detlas says "Uhh this is my first day on the server. I don't know the rules very well. Can anyone help me?" If I say "Sure feel free to check out the rules here: https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/game-forum-rules.111874/" and when there are 0 staff around am I banned for mini-modding? Mini-modding seems to be a dumb rules because it means the being nice, polite, and helpful to your fellow players is bannable. If that's true then I'm going to petition for that rule to be erased because that completely stupid since Moderators can be everywhere. Mini-modding should be encouraged because acting like a moderator is a great thing! As long as you don't try to pass yourself as staff it promotes great behavior. Also, if you allow players to mini-mod and they get used to it, they might even apply to be a Mod. I see 0 downsides to mini-modding and honestly find the idea that it's bannable a bit ridiculous.

 

mini modding isn't about being polite. I meant that you are giving advice about reporting and what to do and what not to do in order that your report will be valid.
this, to me, sounds like trespassing into moderator's territory. of course, I will leave this decision up to the moderation team.

________________________________

and about an example to mini modding I happen to know someone who got 2 permeant warning points for it. he showed me the pm the moderators sent him, I agree with them about how it shouldn't be encouraged.

________________________________

I covered up both the user's and the mod's name to keep their privacy.

 

This thread is not minimodding. To be honest, it's a thread which was very much needed.

As a side note, just because something isn't mentioned in the rules doesn't mean we are guaranteed to not have an issue with it (in this case minimodding comes under impersonation of staff).
(And also @DarkDemonDragon we don't have mod applications here).

 

Thanks for the approval!

Wait then how do players become a Moderator? o.O

 

moderators recommend players to grian and then he chooses them.

 

So basically, like contest where people would win? I can tell that mod that will recommend players to grian would be 10% or 15% chance at this rate, I don't know if how can mod find some players to recommend?

 

we are kinda hijacking this thread, if you want we can continue this on my profile.