Minecraft Realms - The Sandlot's Position

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by LifeLearner, Dec 24, 2015.

  1. LifeLearner

    LifeLearner The One Who Knows Moderator Elder VIP

    Do not discuss Realms on The Sandlot. Realms are not moderated and could place players in an unsafe environment. Please help us to support internet safety by not discussing Realms on The Sandlot, not inviting others to your Realm, and not accepting a Realms invitation unless you know the owner in real life.

    More than 1 1/2 years ago, cheracc made an announcement about the dangers of Minecraft Realms. I am republishing his content here. Since the free Realms trials started, we have seen an increase in players discussing this service. All of the content below is from cheracc, the owner of The Sandlot.

    For Parents:

    We (The Sandlot) have always had, as a part of our rules, a restriction on sharing personal information and account names for other services, including other private or public Minecraft servers. This is done solely for the protection of our players, as we cannot control what is done, said, or asked on any server other than ours.

    However, with the introduction of Minecraft Realms, we are encountered with a service that we cannot block or restrict. Any player with a Minecraft Realms subscription can “invite” any other player to play on their “server”. This can be done completely without our knowledge – a player can send invitations to everybody on our online players list, and we would never know they were sent. This is important, because your son, daughter, or other relative could be invited to a private server by anybody that has their player name. And we don’t know about it, so we can’t tell you.

    We are thus forced to make you aware and ask you, as parents, to speak with your kids about joining Realms servers that they may be invited to. We would like to officially encourage you to disallow your children from joining any Minecraft Realms server that does not belong to someone that you or your family knows intimately in real life. Kids don’t understand that the “12 year old girl named Savanna” that they have been playing with for the past week could really be “Rufus the 44 year old creep”. And once they are on Rufus’s server, his messages and actions are no longer being logged and supervised by someone that could turn that information over to you or the authorities as we are able to.

    So we ask you, please have this conversation with your kids/loved ones. Please urge them to not accept invitations or join Minecraft Realms servers that belong to people they don’t know in real life.


    For Our Younger Players:


    I am intentionally going to make this sound scary. Because it IS scary.

    You may get invitations from your “friends” to play on Minecraft Realms servers with them. These may be “friends” that you have played with, built with, teamed with, etc., over the last days, weeks, or months. You have invited them to live with you, kill others in Hunger Games, build fantastical things in Creative, or shared your Skyblock island with them.

    The important information that is lacking here is that you have never met this person in real life. It is a fact that there are grown adults out on the internet whose sole driving force is to hurt kids your age. These people are smart, and they are very good at tricking you into thinking they are somebody they are not. They know how to talk to you to make them believe they are a boy or girl your age. They may pretend to be multiple different kids, to trick you even further into thinking that they are trustworthy, since you might know Suzy, Roger, and Caroline, and they all know each other, leading you to think that you can trust any of them. They could all be the same person. You would probably never know the difference until it is too late. All a person like this needs from you is some minor information, like what school you go to, what street you live on, what mall you like to shop at, etc., and all of a sudden they know where to find you.

    There are lots of tricks that the staff of The Sandlot know to look out for. If something bad ever did happen, we have logs of who you talked to and where they connected from. We can give these to the police, and this information can help to find you. These creeps know that they are being watched while on our server, which hopefully deters them from even being here in the first place.

    But if they invite you to a Minecraft Realms server, we have no way of knowing who it was and nothing to provide to your parents or the police in the event that something bad happens.

    I do not mean to imply that every person on our server is definitely a creep of some kind and you shouldn’t talk to anybody. That is certainly not true. But we also cannot guarantee that everybody here is who they say they are. And more than anything, we want you to be safe. For this reason, we very strongly urge you not to connect or accept invitations to a Minecraft Realms server from people that you do not know in real life. Similarly, if you have your own Minecraft Realms subscription, please share it with your real-life friends, and don’t try to invite people you only know from online – you also don’t know who they are. It isn’t safe. Don’t do it!

    I am going to reiterate that one more time, because it is very important:

    Do not connect to, send, or accept invitations to a Minecraft Realms server to or from anybody that you do not know in real life. It is not safe.

    Please help us to discourage others from doing so. If you see or hear people talking about their Realms server, urge them to use it to play with their real-life friends from school, church, camp, etc. Be nice, but encourage them not to invite other kids from The Sandlot, and share with them that it isn’t safe. We aren’t going to make it against the rules to do so, simply because we have no way to enforce it. It is up to you to protect yourself, and we hope we can rely on everyone to help keep The Sandlot a safe place for all of our players.

    -cheracc (April 2014)
     
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  2. TheAfkOne

    TheAfkOne something amusing VIP

    Like this.
    Guys, just a heads up, realms is another part of Minecraft, so it's basicly another server.
    That breaks rules :p.
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2016
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  3. ishx_

    ishx_ Inscrutible VIP

    Thank you Life. Many players from the Sandlot have invited me to their realms before. At least 3 have, and if you would like to know who, I can let you know via forums conversation. However I do not know them IRL. I only know 2 people IRL that play here, each of them VERY rarely.
     
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  4. THE_GLOSS

    THE_GLOSS Expert Helper

    Thanks Life. It's important to spread the word to everyone that whilst lots of fun, playing online must be regarded with caution. Connecting to a server you do not recognize can be dangerous. It is much, much safer to stick to playing on servers you both know and trust, like Sandlot.

    Be sensible, have fun. ;)
     
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  5. TrueVioletMU

    TrueVioletMU Adept

    yeah, I was talking about the trials on another thread.
    Lifey here has been helpin' meh out a lot in a convo, and we chatted about the creeps and the kiddies.
    Im going to officially call anyone over 40 "Rufus" now. (jk, jk, don't do that pls... unless their name is actually Rufus)

    My mom walks by my screen and goes, "who ya talkin' to?"
    I'd reply, "Kyukuro" or somethin. (Kyukuro remembers this... @Kyukuro >:3 )
    and she'd say, "ok, is he being nice?"
    and i said, "yup. he helps me with projects n' sturf"
    and she said, "ok, have fun with- k-... ka-...? what's his name again?"
    "mom," i said, "his name is Kyukuro."
    she said something like, "ok, well have fun with Kookaburra"
    (if that wasnt the K bird name that she said, Kyu, lemme know. it was something similar.)

    and yes, I did correct her on that.
    she's always worrying so much about what players I'm hanging around with.
    (kyu, I hope this doesn't upset you, because she honestly meant it as a joke!)

    Be VERY. CAREFUL. about who you talk to on the internet.
    And NO, I am not saying Kyukuro is Rufus. I'm not pointing any fingers, because I got no idea who's a Rufus!
    It was only a small joke, mostly because my mom asks me the same thing with any other player I hang out with, even if it's a little kid.

    Well, I gotta go wake little bro and sis up for xmas presents. 6:00 AM for me!
    Cya, guys! :D
     
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  6. Kyukuro

    Kyukuro Elegant Builder of Pointy Structures Moderator Elder Helper VIP

    About the bird, Yes, I remember that, I think it was Kookaburra, but I could be wrong.
    I don't think anything (or anyone) has upset me here on Sandlot, so don't worry -- It's funny. Your mother has a right to be vigilant about who you're talking to here, the seriousness of the situation was explained by Cheracc.
     
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  7. c0wg0d

    c0wg0d Master Owner Moderator Helper VIP

    Thank you for posting this, @LifeLearner. I have promoted it to the front page of the website for higher visibility.
     
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  8. LifeLearner

    LifeLearner The One Who Knows Moderator Elder VIP

    Thanks @c0wg0d. Now guests and parents might have a better chance to see it.
     
  9. TheAfkOne

    TheAfkOne something amusing VIP

    Last edited: Dec 27, 2015
    • Like Like x 1
  10. MJRminer

    MJRminer Major Miner, (Re)Tired Mod Elder VIP

    MineAidan - a good suggestion and one we have thought about. Unfortunately it really won't make much difference because you don't ever have to mention "realms" - the invitation process does not require any communication on Sandlot, so it would not do much to keep us safe. My daughter had a dozen invites the day she signed up and no one asked her in game.

    Be smart, ask your parents about who you can play with, and tell staff if anyone from Sandlot is doing anything that seems innapropriate.
     
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  11. A sandlot player did invite me to me should I report the person? It is a rule violation so I think I should but just to make sure.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2015
  12. OllieBartel

    OllieBartel Journeyman

    I think that reporting wouldn't do any good as the Sandlot staff can't stop he/she from sending invites to other players, and if you accept and go onto that Realms, Sandlot staff still can't do anything about it. So, Just decline the realm invite.
     
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  13. _Onion

    _Onion Farm Fresh Onions! Helper VIP

    If you see a person mention realms contact a helper or mod. @OllieBartel reportong will do good because sandlot can tell the parent the player is playing on a realm.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  14. OllieBartel

    OllieBartel Journeyman

    You're right...
     
  15. He invited me from knowing me on the server. No in game mention
     
  16. FastPablo1

    FastPablo1 Faster than a speeding Pablo! Helper

    Correct.
     
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  17. Crab_Rangoon_

    Crab_Rangoon_ Artisan

    I've already been invited to multiple Realms- accepted 0
    It's the whole reason I downloaded Optimize for 1.8.7 and not 1.8.8.
    I can no longer receive invites, because it is an earlier version. I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't want to receive invites anymore.
     
  18. rraaiinn

    rraaiinn Master Helper

    This is for the people who are confused about why you shouldn't accept realms invite.

    So many of you are getting understandably upset after coming back from offensive servers that are not like the sandlot & many of you feel surprised that people you say were your friends told you about the server. The problem with calling these people your friends concerns me. Are these people really your friends, after all some of you have only known them for a short time. As with anyone we meet we have to remember that anytime we meet someone new it's like, in fact even all of my close friends on this forums & That play w me on the Sandlot even fall under this example, none of us truly know each other. For any of us when we met it's kinda like picking up a book that we've decided to read, but instead of opening it at the beginning we open it 2/3rds of the way thru. you can all guess the confusion that would come as you tried to understand the characters in the book & their choices. you'd be lost. you might even get frustrated w a character if did something bad that surprised you. This is exactly what you should be aware of when you meet anyone new in life. You don't truly know someone until you know their past. That's why we should all give friendships time to grow. Just be cautious and know that just because you've played or talked with someone over the Internet, school, church or other avenues doesn't mean you know them. So this is why you shouldn't always accept a realms Invite unless you know them closely in real life

    & thanks life for making this thread.
     
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  19. Be Safe people!
    Being Safe makes u happy
    Being Happy makes life AWESOME!
     
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  20. trubuhl

    trubuhl The Stinky Sock Moderator Elder VIP

    Clearly you have a smart mom who cares about you True. :56::14::129:
     
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