You do not need a moderation plugin on day one. Minecraft ships with everything a small server needs, and knowing the built-in commands means you are never stuck waiting for a plugin to install.
The commands
| Command | Does |
|---|---|
kick <name> <reason> | Disconnects them now. They can come straight back. |
ban <name> <reason> | Bans the account. The reason is shown to them. |
ban-ip <address> | Bans a connection. Use sparingly — addresses are shared and change. |
pardon <name> | Unbans. pardon-ip for the address version. |
banlist | Who is banned, and why. |
whitelist on | Only listed accounts can join at all. |
Handling an incident calmly
- Stop the damage first
Kick or ban before investigating. You can always undo a ban; you cannot undo another ten minutes of griefing while you gather evidence.
- Write the reason down
The reason field is shown to the player and stored in
banned-players.json. «Grief at spawn, 14 March» is worth a hundred times more in three months than «no». - Look before you rebuild
If you have a backup from before the incident, restoring the affected area is faster and more accurate than repairing by hand.
- Say something publicly
One sentence in chat prevents the rumour version. People fill silence with worse stories than the truth.
Households share an address, phones rotate them, and whole neighbourhoods sit behind one carrier address. A ban on the account is precise; a ban on the address is a wide net you cannot see the edges of.
whitelist on plus whitelist add <name> means nobody you did not invite can even connect. It removes the entire category of problem rather than reacting to it, and it costs nothing.