I used to run a Minecraft server and always gave admins OP. I have seen many abusing it, but when I deopped the best admins, they complained about not having enough rights.
Giving OP to someone is a big risk. Though when giving OP it can also be a big advantage.
So my question is: is it smart to give admins OP? Do they really need it? Of course only when you trust them?
Best Answer
This boils down all to the result of trust. I once administrated a server and encountered much of such issue. Primarily with my first batch of recruitments. What there occurred is that they abused the rights to their own benefits. I would recommend you to better understand who you are recruiting before giving them the rights.
As you have mentioned you already have a permissions plugin. I would also suggest that you create a tiered hierarchy. It should have similarities to the following model:
What this allows is for you to observe your moderators/admins through ghosting. Either being
/vanishor other means. If you then deem them of a poor admin/mod, you then are free to demote them under such rules. As the owner of the server, you have the final judgement of who should be an admin and receive such rights.Down to your question for whether admins require OP. I would answer NO. Admins never need OP. OP grants them full autonomy of the server except in some cases such as PEX or GM, where permissions have to be granted specifically. Admins should also NEVER require the
*node in permissions. You should only grant the permissions they really require and if they bring up that they require more permissions, fully consider the repercussions of granting such commands and give them to the appropriate ranks.The following section shows how you can slowly move over to this system if you already have an existing hierarchy. First lay out a message of similar contents to the following:
Following this, create a tiered hierarchy that have only what they need to resolve issues. If a mod is there to provide basic support such as LogBlock query and not rollbacks, only give such permission and nothing more. If they complain, remind them the issue you have faced and they have to earn your trust to gain more power.
Pick out a few of the admins you think that does not abuse the power and give them the permission they required permissions. They would respond to issues brought up by the mods and perform the required tasks.
In this hierarchy, The moderators have permissions to do basic checking and not any form of changing(check for griefing and not rollback) and respond to basic questions by the community. If more pressing matters arise, it should be sent to the admins and they should follow up. As for the trial-mod, they would only answer questions and if something does actually fall into the category of admin, alert the mod or admin to settle the issue.
What is happening here is that you should only give permissions to those that you trust and even so only permissions that they require to solve the issue. A mod should not have worldedit commands neither should admins have the permission to kill the server. The most critical of issues such as crashes should only be solved by you and a handful you really trust.
After reading your comments, I have seen that the reason you are reluctant to do so is due to the configuring of the permission nodes. I would give a suggestion as a person who once administered a server.
You always want to do permissions even though its the hardest to do. It may be the most tedious, but when you set up a proper hierarchy, with inheritance and the such, not much is really needed in there. After considering everything. I did not have much in my permissions of the admin as most of it is inherited from the moderator. The tediousness of configuring the permissions actually results in an amazing result and reduces complains from the user of abused commands. Spend 2 hours sitting down and do the configs would not hurt. After that you can relax from the quietness of having issues solved by admins and no complains from the users.
In all its entirety, it is NEVER recommended to give admins OP unless you fully and utterly trust them. By giving OP, you give them your server. If they world edit away the whole map (as has happened before because someone I trust forgot to move a corner of the selection and deleted the whole map, crashing the server in the process) you are toast. You may still have control over the machine but your community is gone.