An Open Dialogue Regarding Forum Moderation

I did not mean it to sound like denial, I had the same concern a while ago and asked about 10 years ago. We've had a lot of CM's over 10 years. Moving on. My apologies.

You really don't understand the ramifications of the ban, the fear it creates and then don't understand why only certain people's feedback gets heard? Many that play RPG's are non combative in real life.

Your moderation is hostile, and it removes feedback from some of your best customers through fear. Your primary customer. After reading this statement, how you guys run things makes it a lot clearer as to why we get what we get.

This is why so many people with an 'axe' to grind create free accounts to not jeopardize their gameplay and then run off at the mouth. And a majority of real honest caring players who don't 'work around the system' don't get their feedback heard because they are afraid to express it when you can get a ban for saying "This is going the wrong direction."

Your speed limit example assumes that everyone speeds unless they are caught, and some part of your customer base is the person going 10 under because they are afraid of the police. Those people exist.

Now I wish that I could 'delete' this post because it won't matter and I will just have irritated someone.

I would tend to disagree with this, starting with the fact that there should be no fear in what you just posted since it expresses your opinion in a very civil manner.

There will always be "rage" posts made by people that are in a heated spur of the moment situation. If I'm correct, what RadarX has implied is that they are aware that there has also been some over zealous moderation at times. Cases will now that will be looked into and weighed against the general history of the person's infractions, as well as the severity of the current offense.

That said, many of the violations that I have observed in the forums are usually by people that are aware of what they are doing. They often involve creative spelling to circumvent filters, calling specific players and/or guild out, referring to the actions taken by a GM or Mod, direct insults to another poster, describing an exploit or just plain trolling for the sake of being a troll. When people go out of the way to stretch the boundaries, they often find that the boundaries were not as broad as they hoped them to be.

I had an old drill sergeant back in the day who was famed for saying "It's worse; because you're wrong, and you knew what you did was wrong"; basically, an intentional foul should carry more weight than an unintentional foul in a heated moment.

It's really not all that difficult to be civil and get the same point across. You can state "Have you really done any research into the claim you're making, because it seems you are ignoring the facts?" as opposed to "Only a complete idiot would say what it is you said!" The former can also be easily supported/accepted by others if you then provide the basis of your argument. You also just might sway their opinion by enlightening them with facts.

Often, people that reinforce their infractions here with the claim "We're all adults and should be able to speak freely as we like" tend to forget that as adults, we should be able to adhere to the rules of a privately run forum or accept the consequences.

I agree very much with this, and it ties in with the point Pipsi was making previously about the importance of how the Customer Support team acts when things are going wrong, rather than how it acts when things are going well. The reason some people fear moderation is because they've heard about some players being banned from playing the game as well as posting on the forum, for example. They've read the forum rules, and they know they don't intend to break them and would be mortified if they were held to have done so, but they've seen those rules enforced randomly and inconsistently, often by an anonymous group of people they can neither identify nor indentify with, because they are called names like SOE_MOD_X (frankly it had never occurred to me before that they were not in fact individual moderators but teams of moderators sharing such robotic identities, and I find that discovery profoundly depressing). They've seen moderation based on what the company rules to be "off-topic" just because from the company's point of view it is "off-message".

I appreciate that most of these fears and criticisms relate to a former era under a different team, and I applaud Radar for taking the present team in a fresh direction, and using this thread to invite the community to play a part in setting that direction. If nothing else, I hope that when a summary is made of what has been learnt from this exchange of views, it will highlight the need for openness, consistency, and professionalism in the moderation, a full explanation of the reason for any disciplinary action (to be restricted to the forum only rather than including the game), with accessibility for a suspended player to respond to the moderator or higher authority, and that it gives an assurance that the previous practice of using anonymous moderators will never be repeated. Those are, of course, my personal thoughts and I wouldn't for a moment suggest the summary shouldn't also include a number of the other points that have been raised here.

Finally, thanks Radar for having the balls to launch the thread and for staying so long and contributing so much during its course.

But if you saw a post like that removed, what would you think?

I was participating in some threads with Feldon, and we seem to have some similar views. I saw some of his posts get removed that were civil and I stopped participating because I figured I would get in trouble too.

"Fear" is a little much, imo. Maybe anxiety. You don't need very thick skin to deal with being moderated. It's not like someone comes into the room and screams at you. You get a mostly standardized PM and then it's over. If you keep getting them, then maybe you are doing something wrong and look at adjusting your style.

I'm sure there are many gamers that aren't combative or confrontational. But there are just as many, as seen in this thread and others, that are. Moderators have to deal with both types and everything in between.

I'm sure a lot of EQ2's best customers don't even post here and their primary customer, whoever that is, probably enjoys the game so much they are willing to sink a mother lode of $$ into it.

As for the moderation, I don;t see how it could be any less hostile. That statement seems to be a bit over the top, to me. Getting a PM from SOE-MOD-## saying I broke a forum rule and shouldn't do it again seems pretty gentle to me.

People make aliases on all types of forums regardless of the level of moderation because a lot of people like to test limits on the intertubes & when they have to suffer the consequences, they get mad. Aliases help them have their internet "tantrum" I guess, but they also serve to disrupt forums even more.
Again, saying that someone could or would think they'd get banned for saying "This is going the wrong direction" is a little over the top. If that has happened I'm sure it represents about 0.01% of the number of bans handed out or it was prefaced by a lot of other stupidity.

Those people exist and most of them have a suspended license or something not so legal in their vehicle. Otherwise, people don;t fear the police when they are driving, they just don't want to have to pay $100 for a ticket. Unless they live in Missouri, then everyone should be afraid of the police.

I have nothing constructive to add to these 30+ pages other than to add this observation:

These forums are now, technically, owned by Soviets. Beware.

Soviets of Stalin's period or Brezhnev's Before Gorbachev though
My grandparents lived through the first mentioned times in constant fear to be executed. My parents lived through Brezhnev time in fear to be locked in mental institutions for speaking up their minds.

We youngsters were hoping for the better with Gorbachev. Eltsin basically ruined this hope.

There are so many things wrong with this post I can't work out where to begin. To be honest, I can't be bothered here, I said all I needed to say on this subject in the official thread about SOE becoming DBG.

I just had to comment to express my distaste as there is no /facepalm (or at the least a /dislike) button, and to distance myself from it as far as is possible.

He was talking about a constant fear to speak up minds without grave consequances. He is metaphorically correct.

I think I was mostly joking. But if the zeitgeist demands a hero, I will be that hero.

So here goes.

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the progression of guilds can only strengthen the cause of peace on Norrath. There is one sign the Moderators can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. Forum Moderator Radarx, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Moderators and Forum Posters, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Radarx, open this gate. Mr. Radarx, tear down this wall!

The 'technically owned by' phrase implied to me that he was referring the supposed (and not surprising in the slightest) connection of CN to various Russian companies - a detail that a surprisingly large number of predominantly American players seem obsessed with (and still keep bringing up in game chat, and saying 'Soviet'), despite the Cold War ending some time ago now.

Different interpretations of the same post I guess.

This is equally as off topic as your message above, but you were right in your first six words so well done for being self aware and continuing with that premise. Your observation indeed added absolutely nothing constructive. That said, neither does this one and is a perfect example of what the mod team in DBG have to usually deal with to keep threads on topic sometimes. (Does that make it on-topic he asked hopefully?)

Apologies to Radar X for the slight derailment.

I really don't understand this fixation that US players have with the fact that DBG are owned by CN that has a Russian parent company. If you look hard enough you'll see the Russian investment monies have spread far and wide since the 2008 economic crisis.

If you want to go far enough back in history, no one would have any dealings with anyone. We seem to conveniently forgot the periods of time when we were all allies - and that includes when the US were allies with "the Soviets".

We Brits still haven't forgiven you colonials for ruining a shipment of perfectly good tea in 1773!

Having indulged in the "looser moderation standards on this particular thread, I now urge you to hopefully return to the topic in hand - forum moderation!

Tell that to the Ukraine, Komrade.

a) It's Ukraine, not the Ukraine - they are their own country now.
b) What is happening over there is not Cold War, its just war. Please check your definitions.

c) None of this has ANY bearing on the moderation in these forums and would have been removed pages ago.

Can we get back on topic please?

Anyone who has raided eq2 for a long time knows how notorious Russians have been in this game regarding all things cheating, and the endless jokes to that extent. Don't stress it. It is a longstanding tradition of attempting to compensate for the failures of cosmonauts and their inability to win the arms race.

Other than personally suggesting that you obtain a really good history textbook as lots of unrelated periods in history seem to be merging in your viewpoint, I'll point out once again that this is off topic.

Edit - Ninj'd by Pipsi

Edit2 - Yes, those cosmonauts really failed didn't they?

• 957: First intercontinental ballistic missile and orbital launch vehicle, the R-7 Semyorka
• 1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1
• 1957: First animal in Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2
• 1959: First rocket ignition in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's gravity, Luna 1
• 1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1.
• 1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Heliocentric orbit, Luna 1
• 1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2
• 1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3
• 1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5.
• 1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1
• 1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok programme
• 1961: First person to spend over 24 hours in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).
• 1962: First dual manned spaceflight, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4
• 1962: First probe launched to Mars, Mars 1
• 1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6
• 1964: First multi-person crew (3), Voskhod 1
• 1965: First extra-vehicular activity (EVA), by Aleksei Leonov,[19] Voskhod 2
• 1965: First probe to hit another planet of the Solar system (Venus), Venera 3
• 1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the moon, Luna 9
• 1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10
• 1967: First unmanned rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188.
• 1968: First living beings to reach the Moon (circumlunar flights) and return unharmed to Earth, Russian tortoises on Zond 5
• 1969: First docking between two manned craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5
• 1970: First soil samples automatically extracted and returned to Earth from another celestial body, Luna 16
• 1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1 on the Moon.
• 1970: First data received from the surface of another planet of the Solar system (Venus), Venera 7
• 1971: First space station, Salyut 1
• 1971: First probe to impact the surface of Mars, Mars 2
• 1971: First probe to land on Mars, Mars 3
• 1975: First probe to orbit Venus, to make soft landing on Venus, first photos from surface of Venus, Venera 9
• 1980: First Hispanic and Black person in space, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez on Soyuz 38
• 1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station)
• 1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7)
• 1986: First probes to deploy robotic balloons into Venus atmosphere and to return pictures of a comet during close flyby Vega 1, Vega 2
• 1986: First permanently manned space station, Mir, 1986–2001, with permanent presence on board (1989–1999)
• 1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of Soyuz TM-4 - Mir

Remind me again on how we get to the International Space Station? Oh yes, the Russians have to take everyone up as there isn't a shuttle anymore.

Actually, I think the above few posts do actually bring up a valid point about forum moderation.

What do we do when a few people demonstrate they have massive gaping sticks up their behinds and throw a fuss about silly comments made by others, attempting to police the forums as if say, this were Soviet Russia?

I think in general, the forum moderators don't have time for people who get off the wall irritated or mad about silly innocuous comments that really do not impact them.

We aren't in charge for policing the forums. I can't tell you what to do, you can't tell me what to do. I appreciate if we try and keep a topic on track so it doesn't get locked or deleted otherwise all I've contributed is gone. But, I cannot control anyone what happens, happens.

The irony though is it devolves even further when people respond more on both sides. I usually just ignore it and try and keep my next post more on topic if I have anything to add. Otherwise I move on all together. But that's me.