An Open Dialogue Regarding Forum Moderation

Fair enough. I actually took no issue with your points. But it has all been stated and hopefully taken into account where it needs to be. Anything can be misconstrued at any time. I really try to look for the positive in a post before I head south. Doesn't always work but for the most part it serves me.

No problem, Nick. I am glad we could work it out.

hahaha!

The subforum removals. We had no communication on yet some very important subforums were removed all of a sudden. This leaves us wondering whats going on? They completely giving up on PvP and oh the lore forums are gone, is the game over? Lore is the heart of the game and those forums are gone?

I've seen some posts from him removed that I didn't feel were all that bad. I can't remember what they were but he wasn't attacking someone or anything of the like. This has made me feel I can't speak my mind. We are all bound to emotions and we care about certain things. Our voices may get a bit passionate at times. But I think if they are within reason I don't see the harm in them being there. There are both negative and positive voices, we should not be afraid to share either.

We know Feldon isn't above moderation. But we all recognize a permanent ban was perhaps too much? No matter who they are, me, Caethre, Wanderingbat, etc. We understand if we may deserve a slap on the wrist or a cool down period if we push things too far and sometimes it is easy to let the passion slip away and say something maybe we shouldn't.

A permanent ban on someone who is clearly obsessed with offending someone or being nasty with everyone repeatedly is more understandable than say someone who's posted off topic in thread several times over the year. Just an example.

When some of your most supportive players fear a permanent ban or getting in trouble for asking a question, it does not give a cushy feeling of a welcoming community.

I was afraid of posting in here in fear of it affecting me but have decided I love the community and it's a time to speak no matter what effect that has on me.

Nolus wrote:

"The community took a large hit when all the employees were let go, staff as well I'm sure. We understand that, but you should be a bit more delicate with us right now. If a topic goes off topic, or doesn't fit exactly as long as people aren't biting at each others throat let it slide. We do care about the game and having several not so bad conversations shut down doesn't let us feel we are speaking freely."

I agree that the moderation of these forums is capricious and quite often unnecessary. We are, for the most part, older adults who know how to behave.

I fail to understand why we are being sent to other sites for information or to post feedback. It is hard enough keeping up with this forum.

I went to Reddit and was totally unimpressed. I couldn't find any of the information I was looking for. I have no idea how Devs are suppose to glean information from that site.

I also don't like the voting up or down business. It just makes it harder to locate information and it has no validity in ranking information as it is open to people who have no real interest in the game or even play it.

Like many other players, I am anxious about the future of this game. Right now, we need transparency and open communication between the company and players.

I have to admit I am shocked by your banning Feldon. Feldon has been your biggest supporter, by far, and if he wrote something that caused him to be perma-banned it makes me worry about what I write--even though you reversed his ban.

I can't always remember the many rules of the forums, due to Parkinson's, so I've received a couple of notices, over the years, that I had written something unacceptable. I personally thought it was nit-picking but didn't argue.

If these forums aren't being used to their full potential I suspect it is the moderation that is deterring people. I think if you all would just reinstate Flames you would see a resurgence in interest in the forums. Lightening up on the moderation would also be a huge help in bringing back players who have lost faith in these forums.

I think that might have been me, iirc. This is another one of those posts that can be misunderstood. I didn't convey my thought process on that very well. Sorry about that. My thinking was really about the spammers and trollers not really the FTP and to be fair I did say allow them a board. Unfortunately for FTP folks this is also how the spammers and trollers access the boards easier. It's not their only way, but it is the shorter route. Sorry for the misunderstanding,

I lost track around page 20 and don't have the time or patience to catch up. So here's my feedback in a nutshell before bowing out of this thread:

1) Be consistent in your moderation. As it stands it's largely inconsistent. I still cannot fathom why me saying archeage is a crappy game triggered a warning to tack into my previous warnings and this get me banned. It's still hilarious to me.
2) Take yourself out of the shoes of the moderator and put youself in the shoes of the poster.
3) Consider "Is banning someone for quoting a post really fair, even if their typed out response is legitamate?"
4) Consider making the user experience for the banned individual better, like allowing then to log out of their account at the very least.
5) Follow up on your own posts. If you (collective you, not Radar specifically) make a post in the scout forums wanting feedback, take the time to acknowledge that feedback. All in all I'm quite impressed with how much time and effort Radar has taken to respond to a thread of his own creation. Now if only everyone else can get on board and do the same.
6) In relation to above, if you ask for feedback on the forums and in Reddit then follow up on both, not just Reddit because you don't have the responsibility of modding it.
7) No appeals process? Fine. Change the message that tells a banned individual of an appeals process and take out the broken email address if you haven't already. Don't false advertise information telling people one thing and then tell them another on Twitter or buried under pages and pages of a thread a very small fraction will read.
8) If you truly wish to start a dialogue with someone, then do two things: Give them a means to respond and follow up. The latter is extremely important. SoEMods hardly responded, if ever. (I was lucky enough to get a response a couple times but other times I received nothing if I PM'd them.) If open dialogue is the true intent, then people on your side of things need to make the time to respond. And if open dialogue is not the intent, then it needs to be spelled outright.
9) Citing other communities probably doesn't make you guys look good. I can't name another company where the forums aren't littered with **** and probably could benefit from a forum nuke. You guys look over zealous in your moderation compared to what's considered acceptable around the gaming community.

I'll close with this: Radars title might be community manager but there's probably a metric **** ton of other responsibilities he has. As a veterinary technician, I certainly know what that's like. A lot of times, your responsibilities in your actual job goes way outside your job description. And if you haven't experienced that, consider yourselves lucky and consider yourselves in the minority.

Edit: These forums have a Like system. There's also a Dislike system. I know because the EQN forums had dislike enabled. If up voting/down voting is the reason for the switch to Reddit (as Dexella has tried to sell the EQN people), then it's a bad reason. Sorry. Your forums already have that in place and for some reason they are not being utilized.

I appreciate the feedback but given you have never as far as I can tell even been touched by moderation actions (sometimes we remove post responses to violations) I'm not sure why such trepidation. While I can certainly understand it from folks who have had run ins with us or are a little aggressive, your fear just doesn't make sense to me.

The rest of your post I get and I agree with most of it.

Nested comments with voting, yes we do have this tech enabled for our Roadmap forums. While I feel in general they work effectively in those discussions I think using them on every thread people might find unappealing. We certainly aren't opposed to the idea.

Not sure if you noticed (as there are 5,670,388 posts in this thread), but I did have a question for you earlier in the thread, RadarX. I'll repost if you have the time or inkling to address it.

You just brought up a great point! A while back I quoted a post without realizing that the post quoted was a violation of the forums. I get this message in the message section (I receive maybe a couple messages a year) and it warns me that I violated the rules. I responded back to the Mod and was relieved to discover that it was pretty much a canned message, nothing to worry about, no harm, no foul.

I have to tell you though it was like getting a letter from some official source and opening it with great trepidation, only to discover it's a form letter.

Digging back through here seems like a bad idea so yes please feel free to reask it. It wasn't the "What do I hope to get out of this thread?" was it? I feel like I answered that somewhere but I might not have.

That was poor communication on our part and I can fully admit we had to do some training in the past. Removing posts because they quote a violation isn't a violation. Obviously we want to train folks not to quote violations, but counting those towards a suspension isn't beneficial to anyone.

It was... maybe I missed your answer. Lemme go sifting.

I probably didn't respond to you directly so I'll reiterate. My goals were:

• Provide very frank and transparent answers regarding policy to those who wanted them.
• Identify the largest friction points in our system with the EQ2 community.
• Humanize myself as a real person who will admit our system will never be perfect.
• Diffuse and clarify common misnomers I see regarding how we moderate.
• Evaluate opportunities to mitigate negative perception where possible.

Does that mean people with warnings for quoting a violation back when that happened have had those warnings removed from their record now then?

Unfortunately no. I'm not even sure where I'd begin trying to resolve that. What I can do is assure you when a suspension happens, we review the warnings and those are not considered.

I don't mean this in a sarcastic tone of voice so please don't read it that way. Are you serious? To use an extreme analogy, that's like telling someone that you don't understand why they are nervous about walking in a dangerous neighborhood at night because they themselves have never been shot there before.

Those folks who have had run ins with you had not had any of those run ins until they happened. There was a first time for them as well and a time before they had had those run ins.

People see it happening to others. You see regular complaints. Getting suspended here is a bit different than getting suspended elsewhere since a suspension here also has the ability to give you a free vacation from playing the actual game, not just posting on the forums.

So people see this happening to others and hear from others that they don't even know what it was that they did wrong to get suspended (whether that is true or not doesn't matter, that's the public perception of many). But you seriously don't understand the trepidation and fear some people have of posting their honest opinion here when doing so may result in repercussions beyond the scope of these forums? When they've heard/seen examples, i.e. those folks that have had run ins with you?

I've even been guilty of it myself. There have been many messages that I've written and deleted before ever posting because I don't want my ability to play the game impacted by the mood of whoever happens to be moderating the forums this week. And I don't mean that as an off the cuff statement. Over the years, I've seen the same kind of posts be replied to by a mod, warned by a mod, locked by a mod, removed by a mod, and result in a suspension by a mod. Depends on who's doing it as to the response you'll get. But you seriously don't understand people's fears on this matter?

So Tony,

We've had email discussions in the past about both Forum Administration and Forum Moderation ( I do both, and am the Super Moderator at a forum that had well over 40,000 members in its heyday).

But I'd like you to comment on the picture below.



I made a post, and when it was finished I noticed that your forum software had a hiccup and double posted. I removed the text from the second (double post) wrote "Double Post" in its place and then sen't your moderation team a report so they could fix it.

You know, what is the normal practice at I'd say 99.99999% of the forums out there where the users can not remove their own posts.

What I expected was for Mod Random # to remove the double post. What I didn't expect was a warning.

I had always been of the opinion that your team could seriously spend some time at "Forum Moderation 101" but this proved it to me beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It is this lack of professionalism that irks many of us who also work as Forum Moderators and Administrators. And also causes unneeded friction with the rest of your user base.

None of my team would have sent that warning, since we all know that double posts happen time to time and are thankful when a poster brings it to our attention so we can fix it.

Now I don't know if Mod # 4 still works for you, but if they do, it might be time to sit down together and go over standard forum etiquette with them.

It is never too late to improve the service you offer to your paying customers.

Sincerely,

Shawn

RadarX, do the moderators ever take into consideration the current level of anxiety the playerbase has when deciding whether to delete a post or suspend someone? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the level of anxiety people are feeling makes it harder to remain positive. Once the sale to Daybreak was announced, I feared the servers were going to be shut down and started looking for any sign of stability. Instead of stability, there were massive staff cuts, forum culling, and a move to Reddit. Having a place to vent about this stuff is probably healthy (within reason). Does this ever play into the decision making process, or is it always just a pure application of the moderation rules without considering how anxious people are?

Just to backup Dethdlr, when I was banned in February 2012 for 3 days, the suspension included my access to the EQ2 game. It's not an imagined threat.



Unfortunately I do not have a screenshot of the launchpad showing that I was banned.