Questions for the Community Team/Mods

#2 - Sept. 18, 2013, 1:39 p.m.

Greetings Dream,

Allow me to take a moment to answer some of your questions and hopefully alleviate your concerns. In regards to your first question concerning posts and threads being removed, allow me to quote another member of our Community team who addressed this concern earlier this month:

CC Danicia.1394:

Our Forum Code of Conduct is very clear regarding what is acceptable discussion. It’s true; we do not allow “I quit” threads or threads created simply to complain. We DO allow negative threads, as long as it remains constructive and respectful. Not just respectful towards each other, but also to our staff, which includes the Moderation Team, Dev Team, and more.

…

Our goal is to allow our community to express their thoughts and desires for the game, but not at the expense of our welcoming and respectful spaces.

That said, threads and posts are removed because they violate the forum code of conduct. We do not remove posts simply because we don’t like what people are saying. In short, it’s not what people say, but how they say it. As long as people engage in critical discussions in a way that treats developers and community members respectfully, there should not be an issue.

However, we are human and we do make mistakes. Which is why we encourage you to email [email protected] if you believe a moderation action was made in error.

We are always seeking to improve with moderation on the forums and having the opportunity to correct mistakes and educate those involved is the first step towards doing so.

In response to your question about how we collect and pass on feedback, the simple answer is “yes”. We have a rotating schedule of all the subforums, ensuring that each subforum is reviewed regularly and feedback from each subforum is passed on to the developers. Additionally, after an update, feedback is gathered from forums most affected by the update. In the case of the most recent update, WvW made up a significant amount of the feedback, and yes the negative feedback was included as part of that report. To be frank, I personally spent my entire afternoon yesterday reading and gathering feedback from the WvW subforum for yesterday’s report.

I cannot make promises regarding what actions the development teams will take based on the feedback we provide, but I can promise that they do hear your feedback, either by reading it directly here on the forums or through the reports we send them each day.

As part of the Community team, communication with players is always at the forefront of our minds and we’re always looking at methods to make improvements in that field. That said, we will leave this thread open today, so you can ask further questions, and share your concerns. Please note that if the discussion does not stay civil or constructive, we’ll close the thread.

Our hope is that by leaving this open for discussion, we can show that we are listening and working to improve our processes.

#9 - Sept. 18, 2013, 2:10 p.m.

We hold our staff members to the same standards as the players when posting on the forums and encourage them to exceed those standards. That said, developers are real people too and we prefer that our staff members post with their own personalities and not just rehash marketing speak. If a developer is not abiding by our standards we work with them to improve how they communicate on the forums.

#20 - Sept. 18, 2013, 2:40 p.m.

Safire.9143:

Tons of suggestions for Housing/Dueling/New pvp modes/GvG/fishing, did u pass these suggestions to devs ? i think they really didnt care about what ppls want, better make new pvp modes, because last update completly ruined wvw… WHY u make that ? WHY u didnt make something ppls want ?

Suggestions are passed on the same as other feedback. Something to keep in mind is that many of the types of suggestions in your examples are things that take significant development time. For example, at the same time there were many requests for an LFG tool here on the forums, the team was working hard behind the scenes to make it happen. We are working to improve transparency, but at the same time we try to avoid making promises until we are sure we can keep them.

etiolate.9185:

Mark,

You guys always list [email protected] as a way to contact the community team about issues, but none of the emails I have sent there have been replied to. In my experience, this is simply a black hole to swallow valid complaints.

Also, can the forum team lay off of the constant thread moving and merging? Every day I post, I log in the next day to find my post was moved to another subforum or merged into another thread. When I go back to the conversation I was having, it’s either dead from the move or lost in the merge. More often than not, each thread that gets merged is a separate line of discussion than the thread its merged into. So while three threads may have the same general vague topic, they are three distinctly different conversations. When these threads are merged, it destroys the conversation. This leads your playerbase to believe you are trying to end critical conversations by sweeping them under the rug.

I know there was a GvG thread that I posted in that got moved to three different forums over a period of time. Eventually, it ended up in the same place it began. If your team members are not sure if a thread belongs where its put, then I advise you to trust your playerbase. If someone posts a link that raises a topic and then has the thread for the community to discuss that topic, it doesn’t belong in the links thread. It’s not a thread to share links. It’s a thread about a topic that is illustrated at said link.

I can assure you that we do read all emails sent to [email protected], and with the exception of simple apologies or insults, we do respond. As a matter of curiosity, I did check our ticket database against your email address, etiolate, and came up with no results. I can only surmise that your emails were lost somehow in transit to our inbox.

As for thread moving and merging, these are unfortunately a necessary evil of forum management. Threads are regularly moved to the proper subforum not because we’re trying to hide them, but because we are trying to keep the forums topical. If we ceased moving threads, over 50% of all discussion on the forums would end up in Guild Wars 2 Discussion and the smaller subforums, like BLTC and the race/profession forums would dry up entirely.

On the topic of merging, I have noticed the impression that we merge to hide discussion, and this could not be further from the truth. As I mentioned previously, we pass on feedback to the development team regularly. What makes that more difficult is having anywhere from 5 to 50 threads on a single topic. I understand that each thread may have its own sub-conversations taking place, but when it comes to being able to parse and provide feedback to the developers, one thread per topic is best. I disagree with your stance that merging destroys conversations. I encourage everybody to use quote tags to keep a conversation going post-merge by quoting the posts you are replying to.

In response to your final point, our moderation team is still getting used to the changes in how we handle GvG threads, and mistakes can be made occasionally. We are working hard to get everybody up to speed on the new policies regarding those threads. As for threads being moved to Linksville, I touched on this briefly not too long ago but I will repeat myself here. If the primary focus point of a new thread is a link, it will be moved to Linksville. If you, or anybody else is providing a link with the intention of holding a discussion related to its content, please provide your discussion points in the thread with the link. If a new thread contains only a link and the word “discuss” it will always be moved to Linksville.

#26 - Sept. 18, 2013, 3:36 p.m.

Joey.2769:

Mark,
Thank you very much for taking the time to open up and communicate with us. I do have to ask is there a vague timeline you and the team are aiming for to collect the feedback necessary from the latest patch. The blowout matchups are now way worse for those on less WvW populated servers. The friends I have on the game and guild I am in are discussing leaving for good. I enjoy this game very much but I too share their concerns about the buffs.

We don’t have a strict timeline on these matters. As I mentioned earlier, we regularly send feedback on all aspects of the game over to the teams. We don’t have a timeline where we only focus on the latest update. It’s true the latest update is a heavy focus in the days following, but we also keep an eye out for any feedback that we feel should be raised, regardless of how long ago that content was updated or what aspect of the game it covers. I can assure you, we will be keeping an eye out for WvW feedback regarding matchups, the upcoming season and any other concerns that may crop up.

#28 - Sept. 18, 2013, 3:44 p.m.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

Mark, since you seem to be monitoring this thread…

Many people have requested separate Suggestion sub-forums under main Forum areas (PvP, WvW, PvE, Crafting, etc) – Can we please get that implemented as I see it only helping everybody:

• Devs can focus on Suggestions for the areas they work on
• People can post Suggestions where they can be seen by others interested in the same area/topic
• Mods would have less threads to move around as people would be most often posting in the correct place to begin with

I can bring this up with the rest of the team and affected development teams to see if/how helpful this would be to them. No promises though.

#29 - Sept. 18, 2013, 3:54 p.m.

Luna.9640:

There is 1 rule of the “Forum Code of Conduct” that literally gets abused by every mod and used to censorship – “not leading to constructive discussion”

Can you please work it to be more specific/clear and when a certain topic gets deleted the mods should 100% clearly state what word/sentence w/e part of the thread/post is against the rules exactly.

I’ve my topic deleted just because someone else that posted there was breaking the rules.However i got my topic deleted without this “little” detail pointed so i had to go through mailing [email protected] waste time and get upset just because your mods are too lazy to point out the real reason for their action or hide it under a totally not specific – “not leading to constructive discussion”

Like you devs/mods are human we forum community are human as well but the only difference is we are costumers on top of that so this should never be forgotten.

We are currently working with our mod team to improve moderation responses and communication. Please email any issues you have with moderation to [email protected]. I know some of you feel that’s a tired response, but in addition to fielding appeals, emailing us there helps us to identify where the mods could use improvement and communicate this information back to the team. Since we’re not omniscient, we depend on you guys to let us know when mistakes are being made.

The reason we typically don’t allow discussion of moderation actions on the forums is because threads of that type can quickly get out of hand with 100 people jumping in to complain about their personal experiences with colorful adjectives and insults.

#32 - Sept. 18, 2013, 4:23 p.m.

Luna.9640:

Big shoutout to [CC] Danicia for the great job and working to improve the forum and mods/cc team. (the “Gaile” of the community!)

Thanks! I enjoy working on the Community Team and working to improve processes. I"m kinda nerdy that way.

We absolutely appreciate everyone who’s stayed on topic here, and has been incredibly patient and giving positive criticism.

#34 - Sept. 18, 2013, 4:28 p.m.

Burnfall.9573:

(I understand what you’re saying mark and I Promise i will behave.)

My only question to you is that, is it in Arena.net vision in having un-fair class mechanics dictate gw2 game play?

Like for example’ how un-counterable perma-steath and perma-stun are controlling gw2 world.

I’m looking forward to your answer since you’re encuraging us to do so.

Also, it is tbe question that the majoirty of foum players had continiouslly been asking since day 1,

Thanks in advance.

This thread is in regards to forums, moderation and the like. I don’t have answers to questions on bugs, profession mechanics or future design plans. If you would like answers to those questions, I recommend you spin up a new thread in the appropriate subforum.

#39 - Sept. 18, 2013, 5:56 p.m.

Valik Shin.9027:

I can understand the need to merge threads and delete some but sometimes it gets out of hand. There are many times the op post is very simular to another but it becomes a completely different conversation after 10 posters. When these threads get merged they kill the conversation. Some of the best discussion I have seen is 2 or 3 people just hashing back and forth ideas on a very specific part of something. When the threads are merged and there is 3 or 4 conversations going on all but one tends to die out and the comuity and the devs have lost out on what could be a very interesting and helpful conversation. That’s not to say it always happends and I know people can be very busy. But sometimes there needs to be more thought on what threads need merged

I get your concern, but please understand that if we left every slightly divergent topic with 2-3 people having a discussion, it can dominate the page and detract from people trying to participate in other topics. For example, yesterday bloodlust topics dominated more than half of the topics on the front page. We have to consider all the players on the forum, not just those participating in threads being merged together.

That said, we will try to be more careful in what does and does not get merged, but we do have to decide based on what’s best for the forums as a whole and not just the players participating in the affected threads.