Hey,
I was on the Payload+ US clusterfuck last night with the mic spammers (I was the one who ended up bringing an admin on to deal with it). Here are a few things you guys could really do to help us to help you keep these servers clean:
1) Friending admins and calling them on is great, but it's very difficult because admins aren't easy to identify by name. A tag or ID mark in their screen name would make it much easier.
When I need to call an admin, I have to check my friends list - and I have no idea which of these guys is Skial admins. People change their names all the time and I've been playing for years - so I don't recognize most of my Steam friends. I certainly won't recognize a Skial admin since - by definition - I don't play with them often. Cross-checking with a separate, outdated list of Skial Admins is onerous and prone to failure.
But if your admins had "SkialAdmin", "SA", or something else in their name, it'd be a lot easier to call them up when needed.
2) The "Votemenu" policies make it quite difficult to deal with a spammer situation. For one, when the map changes, you can't start a vote for several minutes - this makes no sense (especially since Payload+ US changes maps every half hour or so), so a spammer has free reign.
It used to be that Skial regulars could start votes quicker - but this has gone away. I don't understand why you would take away this self-policing power from regular players, given that you don't have enough admins to staff the servers all the time.
3) Furthermore, even if you successfully votemute someone, you can't votemute anyone else for some time after. Why is this?
Take last night for example - two mic spammers log on at the same time. One started spamming, so he got muted. Instantly after, his partner takes over - and we're stuck with this guy for a while because we can't start a second votemute. So one spammer takes the bullet for his friend, leaving the other to have free reign.
And if you don't successfully votemute someone? That guy is immune to votemutes for a while. Why is this? Often the first votemute on a server will fail, but in my experience, a real spammer can often get nailed by a swift follow-up repeat vote.
I think the Skial servers would be well-served to:
A) Not prevent a second votemute from being called if the prior votemute on a different target was successful
B) Not prevent a second votemute from being called on the same target if the prior votemute failed but passed at least a 40 or 50% threshold.
4) The 90% threshold for votebanning hackers almost never passes. All it takes is a hacker to bring one or two friends and he's immune - and you know how hard it can be for a team to voteban their own hacking teammates (since they aren't the victim, some don't notice or "believe" their teammate is a hacker).