Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Moderators, chill out with the ban hammer.
Notimeforbs
Member CommonPosts: 346
Dear MMORPG Moderators,
I am writing because I want to bring up an issue I have with the way this site is run. If this isn't the right place to do that, please move this thread to where it belongs.
Please stop banning people who participate in legitimate discussion, just because someone else doesn't like what is being said. People who are successfully reporting other people as a "troll" or whatever else has gotten out of hand. And it's directly due to the lack of responsible leadership from the moderation team.
Too often, I'll make a post or a thread, there is always some person who comes in with an objection. And instead of just defending his/her case when I share my own ideas, or instead of just accepting the fact that I will defend my own case when they raise an objection to my ideas, they report me for "trolling" or whatever other nonsense they think of.
Normal conversation when discussing ideas will always lead to disagreements. This is because not everyone thinks alike. Disagreements are combative in their nature. Just because I am in disagreement with someone, it doesn't mean I am being mean. Just like how you're reading this topic right now like I'm some sort of a jerk? You're wrong. I'm just making a point. The reader has a responsibility in a forum just as a poster - and that responsibility requires them to approach every idea fairly, regardless of whether they agree or not. Just like you're not doing right now.
Here is my suggestion:
Stop censoring and banning people because they legitimately defend their points against people who constantly raise objections. Every "ban" or "warning" I've received from this site has happened due to someone constantly raising objections to what I write, about whatever my ideas of a certain subject are. And when they get tired of the back and forth, instead of just not responding... they report me for trolling. If readers didn't raise objections or ask questions, I wouldn't have to defend or clarify my points in the first place.
Banning someone for this sort of legitimate discussion encourages people to abuse the report feature. It allows them to justify their anger, when all they have to do is simply not respond. I have never forwardly attacked anyone on this site or any other. Every ban I've received has been a result of an otherwise normal conversation on any given topic. Except at some point, the other person gets tired of me not accepting their ideas. And instead of simply not responding to me, they report me out of anger. I then watch to see the entire dialogue between myself and the other person, removed.
I don't participate on this site just to have all of my ideas and conversations deleted whenever some random person gets mad when I don't see things their way.
Sincerely,
Notimeforbs
Comments
"Every ban I've received has been a result of an otherwise normal conversation on any given topic"
sure :P.... and for nothavingtimeforbs u sure write a lot!Strangely, I have never been banned as a result of my posting efforts on any site. I have received a few warnings though (very few), and those were well-deserved in retrospect.
It's not what you say, it's how you say it...
Case in point...
Skuall, please feel free to quote an entire thought. This will reduce the risk of raising a strawman argument - which you have already done. For anyone else keeping count - this is called troll bait. Which I could report, but I will instead engage in proper discussion of the objection. I bet $10 I'll get a ban for this conversation...
I write a lot because I am expressing myself as clearly as possible. This way I reduce the BS I have to deal with - because I don't have time for it. And besides that, how much I write is no concern of yours when you don't have to read it or respond to it.
It's pretty well known around the internet that this site has the worst moderation and even gives out bans for posting meme pictures because they think that it is trolling. I saw some hilarious screenshots of conversations where people got banned for just making a joke.
They don't want negative threads because they rely on advertisement and no one likes to advertise on a site that is the top Google hit for "Game x sucks so bad i want to shoot myself". So they desperately try to keep these forums positive.
It's a form of censorship which they are entitled too since they own the site. You can either live with it or leave, there is no point in fighting it because the money will always win and that comes from the advertisers, not from you.
I've had warnings too.
Can you give examples?
This is a fair point.
The examples were deleted.
Not always. It's rare they delete an entire thread. You'll find a number of threads here with mod edits.
I did not know this, actually.
To be fair, I didn't call or threaten anyone. I merely highlighted for people to recognize the bigger picture. Not that that will matter, and I usually don't go to such lengths to illustrate these sorts of thing. However, given the nature of this thread, I'll take the heat for the greater cause if it comes to that.
Thanks for the heads-up.
True, but the edit is usually entire paragraphs and responses in my case. I guess by "deleted" I meant that. As for other peoples' experiences, I couldn't comment on that.
It's not all the time - it's just noticeably frequent. And whenever I review what might have happened, I'm always left scratching my head wondering how it needed to be moderated. This is the third account I've had to create over the years. due to these sorts of issues. And every single time, I cannot for the life of me figure out why anything was moderated, edited, deleted, locked, or whatever else except that someone else got tired of me responding to them when they brought up objections in the first place.
All it takes is a little reader/posting responsibility. If you don't want to talk to someone... then don't. I'm not speaking directly to you - I mean that in general.
I´ve been warned & banned a few times now, sometimes I could not understand it, and other times I most certainly could understand it lol
.
Despite the fact they can be a little fast to hammer you, they do so with the intent that everyone can partake in the discussions we have here, without all the very hateful and sometimes very personal attacks you find in other places unmoderated.
----------
And this makes for for an overall positive time spent here, for the majority.
so i see this actually as a positive thing.
In my humble opinion
Go to any random MMO thread, I would recommend a certain Blizzard mmo if you want to test it, say that you are not impressed by new patch notes, post exactly why with valid reasons without insulting the game and it's community and just wait for that community to rage "HOW DARE HE TO QUESTION THE QUALITY OF MY GAMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" ,spamming the report button like mad and wait for the mail to kick in.
"You have been warned for trolling".
:P
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I don't have a problem with moderation as a concept. I think having an authoritative policing system to sustain order is very necessary. But I think this site in particular is a little too sensitive to what constitutes inappropriate behavior and discussion, and it seems to come around and bite me in the *butt* more than it should.
I'm a reasonable person. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with me about anything. I'll even admit I'm wrong about something if someone can explain to me how I am wrong, instead of just asserting it. I don't even have a problem with people who get too emotional about things.
What I have a problem with is being punished for not accepting bad behavior from other posters when and even if that situation occurs. If there is a topic that I am speaking about that for whatever reason is important to me at that time, I shouldn't have to wonder if I'm going to get banned for defending my perspective from objections someone raised just because they got emotional.
When you get emotional, anything and everything can be counted as hateful. troll-ish, or whatever else, for any reason that person thinks up. But emotion does not rule over reason and logic. And no one should be held accountable to the standards set by someone else's unreasonable frame of mind. That is exactly why I've been warned and banned, over and over again. Because the moderators seem to side with the ones who are being unreasonable.
And... I do worry every time I post, because I've been burned in the past over and over for this very same reason.
I think there are a lot of people who participate on this site who feel exactly the same way. Personally, I'm sick of it. The only reason I bring it up is because I figured I'd give it one last Hail Mary attempt to reconcile my distaste for how this site is managed. Otherwise... I'll just not visit here any more. I realize my singular participation doesn't matter. And that's okay. But at least I tried.
This is exactly what has happened to me in the GW2 forums and the Wildstar forums.
A year and a half here and you haven't read the Rules of Conduct especially after being banned?
What good are rules when you aren't told how you broke them in the first place?
"Hey, you're banned. Read the rules."
"Ah... sure... which rule did I break?"
"You broke the rules."
"Yeah... which one - how did I break it?"
"You're banned."
"Thanks... but why?"
"You broke the rules."
"Right... I got that already - which one and how?"
"You're banned."
"Okay... well can I at least review my message so I can see how I broke--"
"--Mod Edit."
"Oh... right... of course."
Forgive me for missing one of the rules, sir. But I don't operate in this world with the notion that I might get in trouble for calling an orange a fruit when I see it. It goes against my normal sense of what is a reasonable expectation.
Still, i guess you're correct. I admit that I didn't know about a rule I've never broken in the first place and is also not what this thread is about.
They sent you the deleted/banned message by PM.
Heres my latest out of 40.
This ban was generated from the following post on our discussion forum:
Thread: ARR exceeds SEs expectations
Below is the content of the post:
Wish it exceeded mine.
I don't know what you were banned or warned for. I don't care. I do know that emails detailing what rules were broken with a copy & paste of the post that caused the warning or ban. You receive two emails. One at the email address here and one at the email address you used to register here.
I've received two erroneous bans that were immediately rescinded because they accidentally banned me instead of the spammer I reported.
I've been here 11 years and have less than 20 warnings. All of them were earned.
As the rules changed over the years I've adapted my posting style. Try it.
Edited::
I removed my example here because I don't want the thread to be confused. I'm not upset about a particular moderation I've received. I just wanted to speak on moderation in general and I want to try to keep things that will cause problems out of the thread.
Edited for continuity...
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Well, at least that's information I can use. But this isn't really about a particular moderation - it's about moderation in general. All of my moderations are done and over with. I merely posted what I did as an example of what I am talking about, since people asked for examples.
Either way, thanks for the information.