Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lallara zhuul]

To me, it seems that there is a moderator approved way of telling people that they are wrong.

You just have to be polite about it.

Which to me, seems like all you have to do is learn the forum-fu of spitting snakes while being polite to be a total asshat on these forums without getting modded.

[Lyn Farel]

I know these cases are borderline though.

Sometimes I wonder if that part of the forum is not more of just a way to ask why people get moderated and get an answer than a way to contest in a constructive and contributive fashion a moderation decision that you disagree with (in the hope to learn from it for the future, whatever the final decision is). That way, it sometimes just looks like a way for the moderation to legitimize themselves more than an actual way to have a constructive discussion.

I was the first one to ask for a stricter moderation again and again, but that is not that kind of things that I had in mind.

I am not really sure why I was mostly fine with the moderation before and why it has started to change over time. We start to see people being moderated more on a "this is offensive" basis than more objective judgement based on more universal values. Cf Pieter answer to me asking if I could lend him my own eyes since he obviously sees something offensive where I can't. So it becomes more a matter of "hoping that the mods will find it offensive too" than anything else to me. Then you just cross your fingers hoping for your report to get taken in account by a mod sharing the same feelings.

I would really like to see a stricter moderation on the obvious cases of breaking the rules where people get too much leeway, and less witch hunt based on highly subjective feelings such as hidden offensive messages often coming from the inability of the medium to carry tone, voice, and expressions (so people naturally replace them by their own imagination and percieve things differently depending on the individual).

I would also really like to see a less aggressive moderation when they are criticized or when they have to explain themselves. The smallest criticism we do almost always causes drama and outrage from the mod team itself. Reading Morwen inflammatory posts telling people to go do what you know if they are not happy, comforts me in saying that the mod team systematically feels aggressed or persecuted (and sometimes they probably are).

Eventually people on both sides seem to take it more personnally than it should.

That aside, personally I fail to see how using some bits and bobs of a language ( especially since it is essentially a mixup of finnish and japanese or asian elements ) counts as "trying to play asians" and, furthermore, "failing at it.".

That's another matter.

[Ciarente]

I know these cases are borderline though.

....  We start to see people being moderated more on a "this is offensive" basis than more objective judgement based on more universal values.

Q: Isn't all this subjective?
A: Yes. The Mods do their best to be fair, but inevitably, this is a subjective standard. Another thing for you to Deal With.

[Lyn Farel]

Obviously you didn't get my point.

Which is as much as anything will eventually be subjectively judged, some are always going to be extremely subjective compared to others, and thus, providing to be a can of worms.

[Ciarente]

No, I don't get your point. Is it that all judgments are inevitably subjective, and, as clearly stated in the FAQ written when this forum was set up, this includes moderation decisions on this forum?  I'm afraid I don't understand your distinction between 'subjective' and 'extremely subjective', perhaps you could clarify?  Also, what does 'objective judgment based on more universal values' mean in the contexts of decisions which, by their nature, are subjective? And could you define 'universal values' in this context?

[Morwen Lagann]

Sometimes I wonder if that part of the forum is not more of just a way to ask why people get moderated and get an answer than a way to contest in a constructive and contributive fashion a moderation decision that you disagree with (in the hope to learn from it for the future, whatever the final decision is). That way, it sometimes just looks like a way for the moderation to legitimize themselves more than an actual way to have a constructive discussion.

When people try to accuse us of having certain motivations behind our moderation decisions, you're not stepping up to the plate in good faith, and you're forcing us into a catch-22. Either we ignore the bait and get yelled at for not answering, or we explain that no, in fact, we didn't just mod someone because they're a goon, we modded them because they broke a rule (if you want to get technical, using Katrina's provided definition of scrublord, we actually modded a goon for bashing goons among others), and get yelled at because you don't like our answer.

When a constructive response is given to a question in this forum, the response is almost NEVER "oh, okay, I won't do that again, thanks". It's almost always "RAWR RAWR RAWR HISS SPIT RAGE MODS SUCK". If you think we're going to tolerate that in response to every single moderation action taken, you are sorely mistaken.

The smallest criticism we do almost always causes drama and outrage from the mod team itself.

This works exactly the same in the opposite direction: The smallest amount of moderation, however valid and in line with the policies stated in the FAQ and Rules, always results in drama and outrage from a certain subset of posters. Funny enough, it also works that way ingame; apparently threatening to ban - or actually banning - someone who's effectively dodging a ban is bad moderation, who knew?

For the record: dodging a ban or mute by using an alt is an instant permaban from both channels, according to Graelyn. I suggest not testing the ingame mods on that.

Likewise, in case it needs to be made clear: multiple accounts on Backstage will not allow you to avoid moderation by posting with another account. While we understand people might want to have a couple different posting identities for various reasons, which is perfectly acceptable, when it comes to moderation, we're going to ignore your account names and go by the user behind those accounts.

That aside, personally I fail to see how using some bits and bobs of a language ( especially since it is essentially a mixup of finnish and japanese or asian elements ) counts as "trying to play asians" and, furthermore, "failing at it.".

That's another matter.

No, it's not. It's exactly why his post was moderated, as Desi and orange have both noted. I understand and sympathize with Dav's sentiment, but it is still not an appropriate way to express that sentiment, and it was moderated as a result.

Furthermore, your insinuations that reports don't make it to the moderation team are utterly ridiculous. There are only two reasons your report wouldn't make it to us: You didn't hit the submit button, or you didn't report the post at all.

I will repeat: just because reporting a post does not result in moderator action being taken does not mean that the report didn't make it to us, or that we ignored the report. The report made it to our forum, and we saw it, and subsequently decided not to take action.

We are not going to act on every report.

We do perform some level of report triage, and decide which ones need to wait for more input (which can consist of additional reports, input from moderators or both), and which ones can or need to be dealt with immediately. In some cases, if we're getting a bunch of reports for different posts in one thread, we may wait for a while to deal with them all at once.

People who demonstrate a history and habit of rule-breaking that merits moderation get more attention than others. They may get moderated for smaller infractions compared to others because they have already had it made clear to them multiple times where the line is.

People who are given a formal warning, and told to review the rules and FAQ, who then almost immediately go and post something else that merits moderation, are more likely to get moderated for smaller infractions than others because they were just warned, and clearly did not follow the instructions given to them in their warning. (If you're warned, you are not only told to re-read the rules and FAQ, you are also clearly instructed to contact a moderator if you have questions, and not necessarily the one that sent the warning. Warnings are never sent without checking with other moderators first. If you get warned, every moderator will know about it.)

In short, the number and severity of infractions determine how long your rope will be. YDIW is low on the 'severity' scale, but doing it repeatedly will put you in the mods' crosshairs. Reposting after a post was moderated, without changing what got it moderated in the first place, or posting links to porn, or things of that nature, will put you in the mods' crosshairs on the very first incident, and will typically result in a warning straight away.

And yes, moderation is subjective. We're not going to agree with you on everything you report. We're not going to agree with you on everything you don't report, either. Doesn't mean you're doing it wrong: it means we disagree. Nothing more, nothing less. (If you're using the report tool wrong, and it's bothering us, you will find out because we will tell you, or make a post reminding people to use it properly.)

[Lyn Farel]

No, I don't get your point. Is it that all judgments are inevitably subjective, and, as clearly stated in the FAQ written when this forum was set up, this includes moderation decisions on this forum?  I'm afraid I don't understand your distinction between 'subjective' and 'extremely subjective', perhaps you could clarify?  Also, what does 'objective judgment based on more universal values' mean in the contexts of decisions which, by their nature, are subjective? And could you define 'universal values' in this context?

I think I should rephrase it with an example.

1) Someone writes "You are doing it wrong but that's not surprising coming from someone like you". Nobody is ever going to contest the moderation here. The mod will be subjective since we all are subjective. This is maybe why people like Ghost will do it with images when others will do it with a formal warning, or whatever.

2) Someone writes something like Davlos here, which can be interpretated in a fuckload of different ways. Some are negative, others are totally harmless. Some people will subjectively see it as negative while others will not, and that becomes extremely subjective when the latter actually think there is an injustice.

Of course though, case 2) can be rephrased by the OP to prevent that, but what we basically are asking is that people, who are in the second category and will not see anything harmful in their post, to actually be aware of it nevertheless, unless they want to get catacombed.

Well then, it makes me nervous thinking that any of my posts could be subject to the same random pattern that I can't even always discern - due to that high degree of subjectivity. It makes the atmosphere oppressive.

What I call "more universal" is something that very few people will actually contest. If a mod has a problem with something highly subjective, I would suggest to first contact the user to sort things out before, or discuss it between the mod team (though that last solution does not always seem to be enough apparently).

[Lyn Farel]

Sometimes I wonder if that part of the forum is not more of just a way to ask why people get moderated and get an answer than a way to contest in a constructive and contributive fashion a moderation decision that you disagree with (in the hope to learn from it for the future, whatever the final decision is). That way, it sometimes just looks like a way for the moderation to legitimize themselves more than an actual way to have a constructive discussion.

When people try to accuse us of having certain motivations behind our moderation decisions, you're not stepping up to the plate in good faith, and you're forcing us into a catch-22. Either we ignore the bait and get yelled at for not answering, or we explain that no, in fact, we didn't just mod someone because they're a goon, we modded them because they broke a rule (if you want to get technical, using Katrina's provided definition of scrublord, we actually modded a goon for bashing goons among others), and get yelled at because you don't like our answer.

When a constructive response is given to a question in this forum, the response is almost NEVER "oh, okay, I won't do that again, thanks". It's almost always "RAWR RAWR RAWR HISS SPIT RAGE MODS SUCK". If you think we're going to tolerate that in response to every single moderation action taken, you are sorely mistaken.

I think you may be talking to the wrong person here.

I do not think I ever accused someone of the mod team to have an agenda behind. There is a lot of users that are regularily moderated complaining about mod bias and so on, but I am not sure what I did to be put in the same basket. And if you refer to my "it almost looks like it is a way to legitimize themselves", you will note the "it is almost like". What something might look like is not necessarily by definition.

The issue I have Morwen, is that half of the time I make criticism, the answer you give me is about someone else.

The smallest criticism we do almost always causes drama and outrage from the mod team itself.

This works exactly the same in the opposite direction: The smallest amount of moderation, however valid and in line with the policies stated in the FAQ and Rules, always results in drama and outrage from a certain subset of posters. Funny enough, it also works that way ingame; apparently threatening to ban - or actually banning - someone who's effectively dodging a ban is bad moderation, who knew?

For the record: dodging a ban or mute by using an alt is an instant permaban from both channels, according to Graelyn. I suggest not testing the ingame mods on that.

Likewise, in case it needs to be made clear: multiple accounts on Backstage will not allow you to avoid moderation by posting with another account. While we understand people might want to have a couple different posting identities for various reasons, which is perfectly acceptable, when it comes to moderation, we're going to ignore your account names and go by the user behind those accounts.

Same here ? Why are you bringing up what happens ingame on the Summit or OOC ? Why are you telling me all this about people creating alts to bypass bans or whatever ? I do not feel especially concerned...

Are you actually answering to me ? I am a little confused. :/

No, it's not. It's exactly why his post was moderated, as Desi and orange have both noted.

I understand and sympathize with Dav's sentiment, but it is still not an appropriate way to express that sentiment, and it was moderated as a result.

Ah so now there was something to be noted ? The people who didnt notice that subjective bit are utter idiots or something for missing it ?

That's what I find annoying. You state it like if it was a fact.

It is not to me, period.

Furthermore, your insinuations that reports don't make it to the moderation team are utterly ridiculous. There are only two reasons your report wouldn't make it to us: You didn't hit the submit button, or you didn't report the post at all.

I will repeat: just because reporting a post does not result in moderator action being taken does not mean that the report didn't make it to us, or that we ignored the report. The report made it to our forum, and we saw it, and subsequently decided not to take action.

We are not going to act on every report.

That post has been reported by myself at least once after Silver and I talked about it. I was not sure to have reported you the first time, but you can be sure that I did the second time. Your post has yet to go in the catacombs, and that's my main issue atm which made me lose a good chunk of faith in the mod team in the process.

Not that you care anyway, but I am not going to let it go until something is done about it since apparently other people like Jekat acknowledged it too just here (or the other post about Isis).

I am not putting in question the fact that some reports are not going to be followed. That's quite obvious, no ?

[Morwen Lagann]

I think you may be talking to the wrong person here.

I do not think I ever accused someone of the mod team to have an agenda behind. There is a lot of users that are regularily moderated complaining about mod bias and so on, but I am not sure what I did to be put in the same basket. And if you refer to my "it almost looks like it is a way to legitimize themselves", you will note the "it is almost like". What something might look like is not necessarily by definition.

The issue I have Morwen, is that half of the time I make criticism, the answer you give me is about someone else.

Just because the post is written in response to yours does not mean that the points address you specifically. In this case, the 'you' is directed at posters in general, and Vikarion is the un-named specific example. You still brought up the point that was being addressed by the example.

Same here ? Why are you bringing up what happens ingame on the Summit or OOC ? Why are you telling me all this about people creating alts to bypass bans or whatever ? I do not feel especially concerned...

Are you actually answering to me ? I am a little confused. :/

Because it is provided as an example in response to your statement. It is an issue that has cropped up in the past multiple times.

Ah so now there was something to be noted ? The people who didnt notice that subjective bit are utter idiots or something for missing it ?

That's what I find annoying. You state it like if it was a fact.

It is not to me, period.

I didn't say you had to notice it in Dav's post. I was pointing out that Desi and orange had explicitly stated the same logic the moderation team applied in this case and was drawing attention to that fact.

That post has been reported by myself at least once after Silver and I talked about it. I was not sure to have reported you the first time, but you can be sure that I did the second time. Your post has yet to go in the catacombs, and that's my main issue atm which made me lose a good chunk of faith in the mod team in the process.

Not that you care anyway, but I am not going to let it go until something is done about it since apparently other people like Jekat acknowledged it too just here (or the other post about Isis).

I am not putting in question the fact that some reports are not going to be followed. That's quite obvious, no ?

This was the only section where I was specifically talking to and about you.

Worth noting here, a key word: After you talked about it. At which point you had responded to the post already. Which made your report invalid. Or would have, if not for the fact that you never reported a single post in that entire thread. At all. (In fact, there's only one reported post attributed to that thread in the mod forums, and it was someone reporting themselves to get an accidental double-post removed.)

And yes, I did go back just now and double-check, just as Silver did back then.

[Lyn Farel]

I think you may be talking to the wrong person here.

I do not think I ever accused someone of the mod team to have an agenda behind. There is a lot of users that are regularily moderated complaining about mod bias and so on, but I am not sure what I did to be put in the same basket. And if you refer to my "it almost looks like it is a way to legitimize themselves", you will note the "it is almost like". What something might look like is not necessarily by definition.

The issue I have Morwen, is that half of the time I make criticism, the answer you give me is about someone else.

Just because the post is written in response to yours does not mean that the points address you specifically. In this case, the 'you' is directed at posters in general, and Vikarion is the un-named specific example. You still brought up the point that was being addressed by the example.

Same here ? Why are you bringing up what happens ingame on the Summit or OOC ? Why are you telling me all this about people creating alts to bypass bans or whatever ? I do not feel especially concerned...

Are you actually answering to me ? I am a little confused. :/

Because it is provided as an example in response to your statement. It is an issue that has cropped up in the past multiple times.

Then could you please no quote me like that when adressing the masses ?

It is highly confusing.

Ah so now there was something to be noted ? The people who didnt notice that subjective bit are utter idiots or something for missing it ?

That's what I find annoying. You state it like if it was a fact.

It is not to me, period.

I didn't say you had to notice it in Dav's post. I was pointing out that Desi and orange had explicitly stated the same logic the moderation team applied in this case and was drawing attention to that fact.

What does that prove ?

That post has been reported by myself at least once after Silver and I talked about it. I was not sure to have reported you the first time, but you can be sure that I did the second time. Your post has yet to go in the catacombs, and that's my main issue atm which made me lose a good chunk of faith in the mod team in the process.

Not that you care anyway, but I am not going to let it go until something is done about it since apparently other people like Jekat acknowledged it too just here (or the other post about Isis).

I am not putting in question the fact that some reports are not going to be followed. That's quite obvious, no ?

This was the only section where I was specifically talking to and about you.

Worth noting here, a key word: After you talked about it. At which point you had responded to the post already. Which made your report invalid. Or would have, if not for the fact that you never reported a single post in that entire thread. At all. (In fact, there's only one reported post attributed to that thread in the mod forums, and it was someone reporting themselves to get an accidental double-post removed.)

And yes, I did go back just now and double-check, just as Silver did back then.

I reported it the second time, after I talked about it. Are you telling me I did not ? I specifically made sure I did, since I was not sure of myself for the first time, and even if I have a hard time believing you on this, I trust Silver that I may have made a mistake.

The first time, not the second time.

Also, may I point out the fact that someone answering to a post he reports nevertheless somehow makes the report invalid is a huge fallacy in itself ?

So, let's say, if someone screws up by reporting someone else and yet, answers to it, the reported post will not get moderated ?

Edit : what I mean is that even if someone answers to a post he has reported does not make the report suddenly lose its meaning. Not that I am encouraging doing so, since you will get moderated if you answer to it anyway.

[Ciarente]

If a mod has a problem with something highly subjective, I would suggest to first contact the user to sort things out before, or discuss it between the mod team (though that last solution does not always seem to be enough apparently).

Well, actually, we pretty much always discuss things between the mod team. Which is why I find people singling out one moderator or another fairly hilarious. In both the instances under discussion at the moment, there was a consensus reached between mods before action was taken.

As for the suggestion that the mod team should contact the user, well, for one thing, that leaves a reported post up while reports continue to come in, for another it is an additional impost of time and work on volunteer and uncompensated moderators, for another, the end result would be that the original post would be gone and an acceptable post in its place (if the post could be made acceptable) which is an option to anyone who has a post moved to the catacombs already.

The final argument against it is that in the past, when the forum was new and we did try to talk problem posters through the standards, rules, guidelines and FAQ privately, there were instances where those individuals misquoted (and I don't mean 'out of context' either) and/or paraphrased what mods said in those conversations to misrepresent the moderation team and 'score points' in discussions of moderation.

Now we discuss things within the moderation team, and take action.  As a result, FYI, the moderator who catacombs a post may not, and in fact probably is not, the first moderator to either flag a post for moderator discussion or note on a report thread that they think action should be taken.

[Davlos]

I don't mind and I'm not surprised at all, because I'm fully aware that I'm being profiled.

[Nmaro Makari]

In this specific case, the moderation was heavy handed.

I acknowledge, Davlos' post had a quip and nothing particularly constructive.

However, if forum posts were modded on the condition that they must be purely constructive, hundreds of posts would be in the catacombs that aren't currently.

Also, this thread risks becoming a lolworthy, and some "critics" of the mod team do disservice to themselves and the community with their protests.

[Ciarente]

However, if forum posts were modded on the condition that they must be purely constructive, hundreds of posts would be in the catacombs that aren't currently.

Just to clarify, as it seems to have gotten lost, as Morwen specifically said in the moderation note, and has been repeated here by mods and other forum members, the post was not modded for 'not being purely constructive',  it was modded for 'urdoingitwrong', which is something that is going to attract moderator action when it comes to our attention.

[Davlos]

Nobody in this forum takes my opinions seriously and the mods are very fond of relegating almost all of my posts to post hell anyway, so why should I bother substantiating my opinion?

I generally disapprove of Napanii because a) it is redundant as automatic translators in the NEOCOM automatically parse everything into standard language anyway, and takes all native affectations into account b) while players may think that the use of Napanii gives it flavor, I think it serves to intimidate newer Caldari RPers who are starting out and may think that they're doing it wrong because they don't know anything about Napanii and there is no reliable nor comprehensive reference/source for it c) I readily admit that it smells of weeaboo, and it makes me laugh. Is that a thought crime?

I come from a state where thought crime is a real and tangible crime that can get me incarcerated indefinitely without trial, and if this forum wants to have a cadre of Internal Security Department operatives, I'd rather not have anything to do with it.