Why all the Moderating

I find the moderation on the forums to be very fair. I've sometimes been notified if something of mine was removed, and sometimes I was not (usually a result of a chain being removed). I've been spoken to about other things once or twice. It was respectful, and deserved.

(BTW, I prefer "Shroud of the Realtor", myself.)

There are many threads that express dissent with the development. I've found them to be VERY fair in allowing this. It is exactly as others have stated - in the delivery. Be respectful. Not hateful. No threats. No lies. No insults. Not against the rules FireLotus posted (even if you are respectful, you need to fall in line with the rules!) Be objective. At the same time, also know that others can disagree with your dissenting opinion, and that is not being 'intolerant' as long as they too are being respectful.

I also wouldn't take it personally if off-topic posts are cleaned up. The developers use the forums as a tool for improving the game. They would not be able to do so if threads were allowed to run rampant.

 

Do you guys not see Captain Jack's perplexity? My topic was in an exact opposite of the thread in which it was merged into. Captain Jack's topic of support asking a user to stay and having the community get behind him to stay was merged into a topic in which this user had posted his intent to leave. This destroyed Captain Jack's poll and probably the main point for posting what he did. I can accept, if you personally say that you did this and it was not with bias, that it wasn't done with bias. If you can tell Captain Jack that you did not merge this topic personally, then Captain Jack is more than happy and will submit a complaint to support@portalarium.com

Though if you did merge this topic yourself considering it's opposite nature of the thread it was merged into, then Captain Jack believes he has the right to post what he is posting here, because it is on topic. Either way Captain Jack can *sigh* about it, because he is the one done wrong by!

*sigh*

 

One thing is for sure from my experience: they don't warn backers because of "negative" posts toward an aspect of the game. I've written some pretty scathing posts about the upcoming card combat system and the now deceased 2d overhead map. So negative, in fact, that I felt bad about some of my posts and wish I had worded them differently or not posted them at all. Even after some over-the-top posts.. not once have I been warned about anything. Not one of my posts were ever deleted.

If you have a bone to pick with an aspect of development.. go for it. That's what makes this game so special... the devs listen and often change the course of the game from criticism. If you, however, throw in profanity, personal attacks or are writing in Troll-anese while critiquing the game and get warned about it.. you shouldn't be surprised.

 

I want to toss my hat in here, but I am afraid I will just get banned... again...

 

Feel free to say something constructive (positive or negative) and on topic... That's what these forums are for. But something vague and passive aggressive that doesn't add to the conversation, those are the kinds of things that end up getting moderated.

 

I have one small comment on this -- it might be nice if, when a poll thread is merged to an older topic thread, the poll numbers are at least tallied and posted with the thread being merged. I know some of the polls are written with a certain bias in the language, but not carrying the poll results over during the merge is a loss of information, which is probably pertinent to the discussion of the poll thread.

 

The thread where that user had expressed his intent to leave very quickly turned into a thread supporting him and asking him to stay. Under other conditions I might agree with you, but that thread took on that topic even by the second post and kept it throughout.

 

But if that were the case Lord Trenyc, Captain Jack thinks that the Goodbye post wouldn't have been locked. You are correct, there are positive comments in there, but also hard trolling too. Also Jack could not have created a poll in someone else's thread. I believe now that my topic was merged into another one with the planned excuse of it being "like" and then the post it was merged into closed due to any other reason they wanted.

Two birds with one stone, clearly it was not enjoyed that Captain Jack created a poll in support of getting a community member to stay. Captain Jack will not be doing that again, he don't want to get banned!

 

That post was locked for reasons that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. It's unfortunate, but the nature of the situation that frustrated that user was controversial, to say the least. Another discussion on the same topic is only likely to produce that same situation. A lot of good feedback was given in that thread, and by the time it was closed, it had become something ridiculous and unnecessary. It was being maintained only by someone's suggestion that a particular feature of the forum be disabled. While I do believe the discussions had in that thread were valuable, it's not something anyone with whom I've spoken or I would like to repeat.

That said, the mods usually do post in a thread right before locking it explaining why it's being locked. It's highly ironic that that was missed in this case.

 

Months ago I got too involved in a topic, and found the answer was to just step back and take a break. At the time, I was concerned over the principal of "the noisy axle gets the grease". Ie, there was a very noisy minority pushing for one thing, and I thought "heck, we need to show this is just a minority or were going to get a lemon". It was frustrating and not at all fun.

But, I didn't have to do any of that. Port are great game designers who know their trade. On the things that count, they make the common sense choices regardless of where the noise is coming from. I realised dealing with the noisy peeps with obvious agendas was Ports job, not mine. I get to skip over all the politics and just home in on the fun topics/threads.

Much much better this way

 

*The moderators have always been decent to me even when they believed I was in the wrong.

So with all the problems and concerns that go with going off-topic, why wouldn't having an "Off-Topic" section be acceptable?
I understand this game is in development and as such there is no room for frivolity and general, loose friendly interaction.
I also have heard that it would misappropriat precious time and recourses that could be better spent doing important things.

In Cpt. Jacks threads people were generally getting along and interacting with eachother in a respectful and pleasant manner, in those threads people were making friends and getting to know eachother. Even differing oppinions weren't being handled in a rough or unpleasant way. There was room for every participant to have fun .

We, at this time, really have no option for just general free chat, this being the case, when the game goes out there will be a lot of "friends only on-line" instances with nobody but one person in them. We've been at this over a year now and this isn't the regular alpha/beta set up.
I have asked about it several times over the last year, and other community members have not been kind in saying NO on behalf of the dev team (I don't think they were doing it on order of the devs or even with their knowlege).
I think it would be good, and it's about time to have an officialy sanctioned "Off-Topic" thread somewhere, this would also allow moderators to have a place to shuffle things around without comming under fire for hiding/deleting/closing topics or "doing crazy things in the dark of the night".

*Moderating is tough, and I'd offer to help, but then the community would have a legitimate problem to deal with.

 

"Same topic" seems to be applied in cases where it is not perceived to be the same topic by the poster. I have seen posts merged in this forum that barely had any connection to each other and articulated quite different thoughts. It seems better to point out other existing threads and leave it up to the OP if this is the topic he or she wanted to talk about or not. This creates more confusion and frustration in a quite unnecessary way and is one of the many examples where less moderation is more useful.

 

Actually, I didn't know that. That explains a lot. Since I've seen a guild tell one another, in their own forum, to come here and like as many guild member posts as possible, I can only assume they are advising the same for reporting posts.

In other words, people can be ganked in the forums that don't agree with what a guild or team of friends want?

Really?

 

Seems like these shotgun weddings of forum posts are the perfect example of bad practice to avoid, where moderating creates more issues than it solves. It also takes people's conversation out of context.

 

I find I can only repeat what already been said and yet I'm compelled to do so anyway. It's not always what you say.. but it is always how you say it. Can't be stressed enough.

I am constantly baffled when someone claimed they were moderated purely for expressing a dissenting opinion. Heck I've been doing that off and on now on a number of different subjects for over a year now. I've never once been moderated for it and I'm pretty sure someone has noticed by now. Even on some things important to Richard himself that are key to his vision of the game.. I just shake my head.. Richard.. you can't force players to think that way. It's just not possible. Sure the people who want to go along with it will.. everyone else?

Now I can think of any number of ways to say more or less the same thing that will be guaranteed to get me moderated in less than 30 minutes.

I can only say to those who complain about being moderated "unfairly" check thyself before blaming moderators.

 

I believe the key here is "until reviewed". If the moderator finds nothing wrong with the post it will be unhidden. I would expect that if certain people made regular practice of reporting someone for anything other than legitimate reasons than moderators would take notice.. "hmm this is the 3rd time the same 5 people have reported on posts with nothing wrong" That would certainly set off a few red flags for me.

 

Deliberate derailment would require knowing intent, which is very hard even under the best of circumstances.
You seem to suggest that there is a reliable way to frequently identify such intent correctly.

But good to know that we can not hide our contempt behind sarcasm.

 

When I looked in that forum, that is now locked, and saw how many likes I had, I was blown away. When I got in there and found it locked with no explanation, I wondered what happened in the hours I wasn't around. No explanation? I didn't think the thread had degenerated, nor did it seem off topic to me? I must have not seen any deleted posts. I felt most people were being pretty civil?

 

I honestly can't offer an interpretation without diving deep into the realm of speculation. I was being quite frank when I said it would have been nice if a mod had posted explaining why. The ironic part comes from FireLotus having mentioned in that very thread that she'd remind the moderators to let users know when a thread or post is moderated.

 

Oh there are occasions where this is possible. I've seen it happen recently where someone entered a thread and deliberately attempted to take it over to push their own agenda. If you understood the context it was more than blatantly obvious (and for the record I wasn't the only one who noticed).

Your statement implies there is some hard, fast rule that is used all the time. I think that's a little unfair. However it's also unfair to suggest that a person can never know. Moderators can be clever folks too.