Thread locking and deleting

I feel moderation is crucial to any forum. And to put it crudely there will always be black sheep who like to stir the **** pot for **** sake. However, I feel strongly negative criticism cannot be a bad thing. Negative criticism is the best thing a customer can give to any company. Portalarium does listen and I really appreciate the consideration they give to each post. Players have to care enough to actually express their dissatisfaction about the game. On the other hand, yes players can be a lot more detrimental to the success of the game, blinded in their adoration. If anyone feel this game is perfect and nothing can be improve. There can be nothing further from the truth. The perils of group think. Of course, a little encouragement goes a long way.

First, my concerns are our post are moderated base mostly on 1 person judgement call. Everyone has their bias and predisposition. How do we ensure our post are not wrongfully deleted or locked?

Second, sota own this forum. There is never a true freedom of speech as ones freedom is only as good as if it does not intrude on another person. A job is only as good as the performer. I feel a moderator should get evaluated and moderated by the forum users. Like in a school, students get evaluated by the teachers, likewise the teacher get evaluated and appraise by the students too. This way, there are checks and balances and power are kept from abuse. In addition, this gives us a feedback loop to assess if the person is actually doing a good job. Appraisals should not be only top down, but side way or even in this case bottom up.

A company is only as good as the employees. To ensure the success of this game, good staff is critical. We hope we are able to contribute in more ways then just deleted post and locked threads.

 

Not enough is deleted on these forums ^^

Agree on success of the game being the goal!

 

Absolutely! Negative criticism is not a bad thing, we definitely accept it openly here. Plese keep in mind though on 'how' you say something. It's not exactly 'what' you say.

As noted in past concerns, we rarely lock threads and remove posts. This is only a few times a week, at most. When that happens, the thread is always responded too, or when a post is removed or moderated, the person is always informed automatically through the system on what and why.

If anyone has questions on a particular moderation issue, please feel free to PM me!

 

While I sometimes feel moderation can be heavy handed as of late.. there's one thing that seems to escape the attention of many..

This is not a public space!

We have no guaranteed rights here. Only privileges granted by Portalarium. We are guests in their house while we are here. For a good many of us.. we did not purchase a product.. we pledged our support. (Arguable if your game account came directly through purchasing a bundle from the store etc.. but most of us long timers got a pledge).

Portarlium's house.. Portalarium's rules. Room for improvement? Of course, nobody's perfect.. but that criticism is openly allowed at all and even encouraged is too often taken for granted.

 

I'm not trying to stir the pot here, and I honestly have a lot of respect for you and your position, Berek (I know moderation is not an easy job!)

That being said, locking posts and removing threads "a few times a week" doesn't really ring true being labeled as "rarely". To be brutally honest, it feels like it happens all the time.

 

Lol, I see the post that @Addison put up for @Vallo Frostbane got deleted...we all knew that was coming lol...

 

We can understand that. When something is moderated, it will naturally feel in the spotlight and taken as "happening all the time". Trust me, we don't moderate nearly as much as other game forums can and do, and probably should.

I've taken a moderate approach to our community here, due partly because of so many different play types. That's also a conflict in itself though, that we HAVE to moderate due to so many play types. As you've seen this week, sometimes different types of players don't mesh well with overall understanding of community rules and conduct, or respect for other player types, and action needs to be taken to preserve the community as a whole. Thankfully this is rare and usually very isolated cases, ones I'm happy to work with to resolve. At the end of the day though it's those causing issues, how they take responsibility for their actions and respond to reasons for moderation, that need to be taken into account.

If everyone could live happily with each other, well, then I would have a lot more time to play the game with you guys, for starters .

 

This topic was talked about before.

Ive said it once and ill say it agian, ive found the moderation excessive with obvious shows of favortism to not only high level pledgers, but in general defense of criticism, regardless of how constructive.

I got guildies and friends who bailed outa these forums a long time ago because of these reasons.

While berek is proffessional and i dont envy his job, moderation is an old and worn out complaint agianst the SoTA forums. Heh

 

Actually, constructive criticism is technically the best thing a customer can give to any company. Why anyone would think negativity is good for anything in life is beyond my ability to comprehend.

I've been a supporter of having a section for rants since I came here and first saw the state of these forums, which I believe would cancel the need for many threads to be locked. Moderation however would persist, as it only happens when there are personal attacks or flamebaiting. Still, even though some would disagree with having a section for rants, I believe giving it a test run would be beneficial for all to see how it would go for themselves.

There's nothing to lose, and without a rants section, it seems like we've lost a few players haven't we.

 

I have no opinion really on a separate rant section... however I think everyone knows that the above statement isn't true. Moderation happens a lot here even without personal attacks or flamebaiting.

EDIT: That being said, I respect Berek's assertion that it could be worse.

 

I have to say there is no favoritism with high level pledgers not being moderated. Last week I was moderated. I have a Duke pledge. I've learned and moved forward.

 

You're correct. There are other rules, but they are much less often enforced likely because they're much less often reported.

 

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/05/06/the-wisdom-of-crowds

 

Negative input although positive for the development of the game, sometimes is negative for the short term to public relations.
Wonderful overblown public relations is sometimes more harmful than good, those that see some things as not true will sometimes look at all of this type of info as untrue.

I see a lot that could be improved but not without stepping on others toes so I wont comment on it.

Hope that the new players coming into the game for E1 are not savvy seasoned players.

3 things i can say is this.

1) To expect people to help in the development of the game by submitting bugs ect and then saying you have to pay X amount of $ to get into the DEV forum to post I find a bit weird.
2) A big draw will be vending and again the ones that can afford it are tax free but the ones that cant are taxed is not a good draw for those that have limited funds and want to compete
I think your going to lose some people here I mean why bother when you can be undercut by 10% over going rate. POP a non taxed vendor for sale for 20 bucks and boom you will sell a lot of them.
3) Attempts to push and heard people to guilds and other activities in the game usually does just the opposite.

 

I'm not sure that creating a separate rant section is a workable solution, though it can work for other game types. Either these community members can continue to post criticism and concerns in a responsible way in official areas, or they are completely free to create a site for whatever purposes they wish... as long as it isn't impacting the community at large and causing disruptions in some other way.

That certainly is the case at times. If we don't know about it, we can't do anything about it either!

 

I dont know what it is all about, but what about constructive critic instead or ranting?

If people cannot get over it, well...
A lot of people are fine with the game and development and Moderation and all.

I was 2 or 3 times deleted and it was ok to me.

 

I have a Duke or two on my block list specifically because they seemed far less likely to be moderated than I. It's hard to have a spirited discussion with someone when they seem to have far more latitude when it comes to personal attacks and the like than you do.

 

And i have watched, seen favortism, and examples have been given in previous threads.. which lead to mass amounts of shadow deleting and banning.

Simply put - It was, (perhaps isnt as bad anymore? or maybe a lot of the people countering them are gone) most definitly happening. Its also something that (if you go on anywhere that discuss's sota that isnt official forums) comes up quite often with examples.

So im glad that you have not received special treatment, but i still hold to my comment.

I think lately the amount of locked threads has died down, which is a plus. But theres also some big names no longer presant anymore in the discussions. I dont know if some people have just given up hope, or the overall debates are getting more productive and less *close the thready* . *Shrug*

 

"How do we get out of this sewer"

"and back to the game?"
~TL~