The Art of No – Within a Gaming Community

That’s right, I’m talking about getting into that situation where you didn’t say no (when you should, but were just being friendly or trying to keep the peace) to a member and now they’re hanging around you. . Early in being a mod/admin/owner you learn that life lesson of not being too nice. There will always be members who ask for an inch and take a mile, so you will have to give the mile to all other players/members for fear it will look like favoritism. It’s a mistake I’ve made many times over the years.

The difficult thing is to be firm but not distance yourself from the rest of the players. The best way to do this is to be firm BUT right from the start, don’t let yourself be turned into a soft apple. Don’t take this to mean that you need to become this stone cold mother… you get what I mean. Just realize that you need to put on the admin/owner/moderator hat and deal with people that way. Not the way you would treat a friend.

All members/mods and admins know when it comes to community issues, I speak as an owner. It is not your internet friend or even your personal friend.

Let’s say one of our Minecraft server members asks me if he can set up a warp. (Being able to set up a non-Minecraft teleport for you) Well, on our Minecraft server we don’t allow normal non-donating members to have that ability. I would tell them no, why I said no, and any other information that might be helpful to that member at the time.

I would download something like this.

Member: Can I have a warp set please?

Me: No, sorry, we don’t allow it. [member] ranked players to be able to set a warp. This is because we don’t want to have hundreds of warps on the server and we want people to move around and see the full map. However [VIP] range has the ability to set 1 public warp, to get [VIP] you can donate money or donate some of your time to basic jobs we need help with.

Never just say “No”, always back it up with reason. It will make the player understand that you are not just being mean. That’s the reason why you say “No” and don’t treat them differently than any other member/player.

Learn from an old man, don’t say yes when inside you want to say no.