Forum Moderation - clarification please

#4 - Oct. 16, 2013, 4:40 p.m.

locoman.1974:

I’m of course no dev or mod or anything, but the way I understand it is just that, criticism is welcome, as long as they don’t end up being disguised attacks, just use common sense (the most uncommon of senses, sadly).

For example (again, the way I understand it), things like “I don’t like the way Anet is handling the game”, “I find this new dungeon path boring because XXXX”, “I think these armor/weapon designs are ugly” are probably ok, but things like (another example), “Anet isn’t competent enough with this game”, “Anet lied to us”, “Fire whoever designed this dungeon/weapon/armor”, “whoever designes this dungeon/weapon/armor clearly has no clue” and things like that will probably (and IMHO with reason) be considered “cleverly disguised” attacks and acted upon.

This is pretty comprehensive. We absolutely allow constructive criticism. We do not allow insults & rude comments directed towards our staff. This has always been the case.

That all being said, we absolutely do not tolerate personal attacks towards our staff on the forums, in PM, nor in the Appeals system. Profanity, name-calling, and the like will quickly lead up to your forum privileges being revoked permanently.

#20 - Oct. 16, 2013, 5:17 p.m.

Niim.9260:

You did not answer the overall question. Profanity, name-calling pretty easy to define. The issue is the vagueness of the term ‘personal attack’ in light of the fact that the moderation team has a rather…. random approach to moderation.

Also for the record ‘you have been warned’ comment makes people take the official post…. probably in a different direction than intended.

We’re definitely working on retooling and improving Moderation and messaging.
Using locoman.1974’s post to reiterate:

Constructive:
“I don’t like the way Anet is handling the game”
“I find this new dungeon path boring because XXXX”
“I think these armor/weapon designs are ugly”

Insulting & non-constructive:
“Anet isn’t competent enough with this game”
“Anet lied to us”
“Fire whoever designed this dungeon/weapon/armor”
“whoever designes this dungeon/weapon/armor clearly has no clue”

You can discuss things we’ve said (manifesto, dev posts, blog posts, interviews) and disagree with them or even criticize. We’re okay with that. When it crosses over to insults is where we draw the line.

#24 - Oct. 16, 2013, 5:21 p.m.

daimasei.4091:

I will like another clarification please:

Will you apply infractions (and bans) to those who call other persons “whiners” or “crybabies” just because they complain (or give their opinion) about something they consider “too hard” or “badly designed” (sometimes, certain persons start to insulting even if nobody has complaining yet)?

Or if you praise ArenaNet (and any new content/change in the game), you’ll have a free ticket to insult anyone who disagree?

We already give infractions for name-calling, so this doesn’t change. If someone calls you or other players “crybabies”, “trolls”, or whatnot, that is infraction worthy. Calling something badly designed is not wrong. Saying that ArenaNet is dumb for a design is wrong.

And no, just because you say something nice, doesn’t mean that you get a free pass.

#29 - Oct. 16, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

Without knowing the post in question, I cannot say. If the OP submitted an appeal, or if you had the account, I could look it up.

#59 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:30 p.m.

Our Moderation Team removed content which was off-topic to the thread. We’d like to keep this open for discussion, but we would also like it to stay on-topic.

#63 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:33 p.m.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

It was off-topic, and according to the new rules, I’m guessing it was insulting and a personal attack on that particular person.

Nope, just plain ol’ off-topic. No infractions were given; the team simply cleaned up the off-topic like we normally do.

#69 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:38 p.m.

Nike.2631:

CC Danicia.1394:

Our Moderation Team removed content which was off-topic to the thread. We’d like to keep this open for discussion, but we would also like it to stay on-topic.

The topic being how best to observe that the new policy is draconian and delivered in threatening/amateurish tone without ever implying that the people who would initiate such a policy are by extension draconian or threating/amateurish.

Its like waltzing in a minefield .

To be fair to everyone, the only thing which has changed in our policy is the insulting of our staff.

Be respectful, be critical. Don’t be rude = Normal forum rules we already have in place.

Name-calling, threats (via forums/PMs/appeals tickets) = 2 week suspension for first offense, permanent ban for the second offense.

#74 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:44 p.m.

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

I love how forthcoming you are Danicia. I’m scared for your job, or the backlash though :P

I worked in IT doing tech support for 14 years before going into the games industry. And I love it so much more. I think that a thread like this, discussing Moderation & changes, can help bring us all together.

My goal is to continually gather this feedback, express it to the teams, and work with the Moderation Team to improve. My hope is that with some hard work on everyone’s part, we can foster a greater community together.

#78 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:48 p.m.

Lonesamurai.4852:

Totally good with that Danicia, and none of you guys deserve some of the bile, BUT it is very difficult getting a straight answer in the last year or so
Surely this can be seen as a reason for some of the anger towards the company and those representing it?

I think we all agree that communication needs to be better all around. And yes, we can certainly understand folks frustrations & disappointments.

Moving forward, I believe we /can/ make this better.

#81 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:52 p.m.

Nike.2631:

You changed the entire tone of these boards, whether you meant to or not.

Frankly? It needs to change so we can move forward together to make a more positive environment for us all. We’re committed to this whole process and we know that folks are going to to have difficulties.

Our team believes that if we can get everyone on track, up the communication all around, and make it more welcoming for the lurkers, it will be come a place where we really can have conversations with each other.

#84 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:55 p.m.

Clark Skinner.4902:

I asked a rather important question above that got merged in this thread and wasn’t answered.

Does ArenaNet feel that it is more wrong for an ArenaNet employee to be insulted than anyone else?

No. Unfortunately, we do have to infract, suspend, and ban numerous folks from the forums, who have never once insulted our team. They’ve been rude, insulting, conducted attacks via PM and worse, to other players.

We really do like it when the community reports threads so our team can review. You can even report an individual directly, if they’re harassing you via PM.

#87 - Oct. 16, 2013, 6:57 p.m.

Lonesamurai.4852:

However deleting OPINIONS will not communicate what people think

If they are angry, they are angry for a reason

You can be angry. You can state your opinions. You can say how frustrated you are. We ask that you are respectful towards each other, as well as our staff.

#101 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:11 p.m.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

On the other note, the amount of mistakes, condescending comments and trigger happy responses from the black post mods at times is disappointing. There have been plenty of times I have seen threads closed when they were not doing any harm or worse, when developers were posting and discussing things with users…

If you want to achieve a better community environment, it needs to come from both sides and ensuring those mods treat customers with respect. Sure, a game forum harbors negative attitudes, but Chris’s posts from last week are defiantly an improvement. Look at my post history for example – I was ‘infracted’ for posting a thread saying that on my server, gold sellers had gotten around your flood control and had been spamming for hours on end even after being reported frequently. The entire mapchat was, for hours, gold seller spam. My thread was infracted and deleted for including an image as proof that it was occuring. How is that supposed to make someone feel? They go out of their way to try to let you know a problem and that is how your mods respond? Even if including a picture was bad in their eyes, removing it would have taken far less time than it does to delete a thread/infract/post notification etc.

Common respect goes both ways. Posting ‘you have been warned’ does not exemplify a respectful or mature environment. Please don’t ban me for having an opinion. I go out of my way to try to help you guys out (I made the original suggestion for the way of gathering feedback on the forum Chris said they are looking to implement), but sometimes trying to be calm and respectful is hard with the nature of how your mods treat people…

It is explicitly against the forum Code of Conduct to report in-game violations on the forums. While we appreciate the assistance, reports about gold sellers should go through the proper channels, through Customer Support, and not on the forums. Forum moderators are not able to ban gold sellers from the game. I understand that it can be upsetting to receive a warning when you were just trying to help. We need to keep the forums clean so that discussion can take place and it’s not disrupted by reports that don’t belong there. I’m sorry that you were upset, but it is the moderators’ role to remove threads that go against the Code of Conduct. Providing a warning to forum users is just a heads-up to not do it again.

#105 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:16 p.m.

Niim.9260:

My appeal to the listed email, never received a response.

I have responded to every appeal sent in since I started working here in May, unless someone has responded with profanity or name-calling. If you have the ticket#, you can reply to it or email directly to [email protected] and I’ll take a look.

#109 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:19 p.m.

Nike.2631:

Then why did you just say “Nothing’s changed”? Why the placating language when the goal is direct, hopefully positive change?

The “Nothing’s Changed” is response to all the rest of the forum rules.

#112 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:24 p.m.

Tekyn.5376:

So my question is if this were to happen again today with the new policy would I be banned for 2 weeks? If I write a post that has the target audience of the ArenaNet developers and the post is 100% constructive and helpful will that post be removed and will I get banned?

Thank you.

Nope, you wouldn’t be banned at all. We do have it in the forum rules about staff call outs, using “Hey ArenaNet or Hey DevName”. We tend to send warning infractions on that, to point folks to the Code of Conduct.

A 2-week suspension would be if you said “Hey ArenaNet/DevName, kitten kitten kitten and kitten you”.

#114 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:27 p.m.

Harper.4173:

One of the things players have asked for was the return of GW1 skins in the gem store or in the game – through other means of obtaining them.
To this day I don’t know of any official response or stance on the matter – all that feedback, all those suggestions , all those individuals asking for something they love ( and something that they would probably pay for) completely disregarded – it feels like nobody is even listening.

A simple " These will be coming in the future " or " We do not plan to implement them any time soon " would have alleviated a lot of stress and even if the answer was a plain " no" it would still have been better since we would have seen that somebody actually listened to us – and took the time to acknowledge us.

These are issues that need to be addressed before we can move on and have more constructive communication.

We absolutely agree! You can see Chris’ follow up about working on those sorts of plans here: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development/page/22#post3008586

#117 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:29 p.m.

Karizee.8076:

Danica, could you folks look into the +1 function to see if it’s working properly? I’m seeing many posts here with the +1 grayed out as if I upvoted it when I clearly did not.

Can do. I’ll pass it to Mark to check on the back end.

#120 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:31 p.m.

Karizee.8076:

Danica, could you folks look into the +1 function to see if it’s working properly? I’m seeing many posts here with the +1 grayed out as if I upvoted it when I clearly did not.

This is a javascript issue and only affects the display and not the actual vote. This is on our list to fix, but we do have some higher priority forum issues ahead of it.

#121 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:32 p.m.

Skan.5301:

CC Danicia.1394:

Tekyn.5376:

So my question is if this were to happen again today with the new policy would I be banned for 2 weeks? If I write a post that has the target audience of the ArenaNet developers and the post is 100% constructive and helpful will that post be removed and will I get banned?

Thank you.

Nope, you wouldn’t be banned at all. We do have it in the forum rules about staff call outs, using “Hey ArenaNet or Hey DevName”. We tend to send warning infractions on that, to point folks to the Code of Conduct.

A 2-week suspension would be if you said “Hey ArenaNet/DevName, kitten kitten kitten and kitten you”.

Can I get a clarification on what kind of kitten or kittens each of the staff members like?

On topic:
Swearing at a dev or staff member is something that I agree should be punishable with a ban.

Rescue kittens are the best kittens. And on-topic, that is something I think we all agree on. At least, that is our hope.

#138 - Oct. 16, 2013, 7:57 p.m.

Hello again all!

Thanks so much for having this conversation with us today. The whole Community Team has been reading this thread, and we will gather up all the feedback (positive & negative) to discuss.

I’m closing the thread now; if you have further questions, you can email us directly at [email protected]. Thanks again for participating.