RE: Increased Incendiary Behaviour on the Forums.

GothicKratos

Going forward I will begin enacting a four step program: I will begin issuing a verbal warning (publicly), followed by a formal private warning, followed by an official profile warning, and if further action needs to take place it will be moved directly to a temporary ban (24 hour) for any user that choices to "troll" a topic or user. Further actions will be addressed on a case-by-case basis. This includes, but is not limited to;

• Direct, or indirect, attacks on a person's opinion, character, or otherwise. An "attack" being defined as a post whom the main concern is to negatively combat a user, his opinion, or his ability to have an opinion. Example: "You don't shield hop, so you don't understand how Shield Cooldowns will affect the metagame." In this example, there is no counter-point, it simply exists to defame the other user and remove their ability to have an opinion - the 'attacker' in this scenario disregards the other users' ability to have an opinion based solely because they do not play the game the same way. There are no qualifiers to have any opinion.
• Off-topic or non-contributing posts (examples: image macros, memes, or quips used in such a way that add they nothing to the conversation at hand [in an effort to derail or otherwise devalue the conversation]). The posting of an image macro or meme does not automatically mean you're doing something wrong, but if you are using them to harbor negative emotions or reactions, then you shall receive a penalty.
• Intentional argumentative behaviour or other such means that only serve to create tension and not discussion. Examples: Circular or Repetitive Arguments. Please note the keyword "intentional". Simply using something like a strawman argument will not automatically incur a penalty, however, if we feel you are doing so on purpose, to negatively impact the conversation or a user, you shall receive a penalty.
• Intentional ploys for argumentative behaviour. Examples: flame baiting (making a post specifically to garner arguments), general trolling, and outwardly negative engagements (such as direct snark, belittlement, etc). We're all a little sarcastic sometimes, and that's okay - we're all human beings here - but please, try to avoid making statements that have the sole repercussion of stirring up an argument.
• Any form of harassment. Please note that I do not personally take this allegation lightly and will thoroughly investigate each event on a case-by-case basis. Users "playing the victim" will be aptly punished, just as users that choice to try and "punish" users.

I will give approximately a week before I start handing out 'official first warnings' to any users, as to give everyone a chance to see this post, but going forward, I won't blindly ignore any mean behaviour between users. You do not have to respect someone's opinion to be humane to someone, nor do you need to "like" their personality to treat them with respect.

If you see a post that you feel is overtly confrontational, aggressive, or otherwise inappropriate do not hesitate to press the "Report" button. I will address each Report individually and responsibly. In the majority of cases, I will not proceed with any official actions without talking to all parties involved first. If you do not trust that your Report will be properly handled, please feel free to send myself, and of the other green names, or any of the red names (list of red and green names here) with your concerns.

Finally, this is not to attempt to silence naysayers, nor snuff out discussion or debate, however, the forums have taken a particularly nasty turn within the last two or three months, and rather than continuing to put faith that things will turn themselves around through self-moderation, I am greasing the wheels myself, 'cause letting it be is just not working.

In closing, if you can't state your opinion without being nasty; don't. Feel free to believe I am being heavy handed, but if you talk to the folks I have actually spoken to about rule infringements - I'm very casual and easy going about it. I've never processed a single profile warning, nor have I ever banned anyone - just a few simple PMs (or the occasional Line message if I think that would be easier). I'm not one to shot first and ask questions later. It's just not my style.

Zen808

I don't think "incredulous" is quite the word you're looking for.

*Cue Inigo Montoya*

Unknown

We are so lucky to have you on this forum Gothic...

It's so relevant to think that the problem comes from the forum and not the game...

Thank you for this analysis.

Thank you for being the figure of authority we need so badly because we are so ill-behaved.

You take your moderator status way too seriously.

[sigh...]

P.S. : thankfully you won't be able to downvote me for once.

TheOncomingStorm

I'm impressed. You typed all this on your phone?

GothicKratos

808SpicyToro wrote:

I don't think "incredulous" is quite the word you're looking for.

*Cue Inigo Montoya*

I fixed the typo, but yeah, maybe incredulous is probably not the best word, but you get the drift (though, I do feel a lot of the behaviour is rather incredulous, since sometimes I am rather unwilling to accept what some people think it okay to post).

How about incontinent? International? Interloping? Ichthyoacanthotoxism?

How about illinition?

Unknown

Irrelevant ?

GothicKratos

@arktos: Sassy, as usual, but, I'm not saying that the forumers are a source of a problem. I'm saying that you don't have to carry yourself like a middle school child (and if you do so choose to do so, you now know the consequences). I have no intention to prevent people from speaking their mind. I have every intention of preventing people from talking down to one another.

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

I'm impressed. You typed all this on your phone?

Nah, most of this was pre-typed. I had made a post for the other moderators to comb over before I actually posted it. I just had to get home to actually post it.

TheOncomingStorm

Observation: things were not THIS bad before downvoting was removed.

Either get rid of the ppl (besides me) posting dumb stuff, or may want to consider bringing downvoting back.

GothicKratos

The overall consensus is that we're going to stick to our guns on removing downvoting for the time being. It generally caused a lot of issues and served no real benefit to the player base.

Yeah, it was convenient to just downtick a post you thought was poor or you disagreed with, but it was just too easy to abuse, and it was a real pain to investigate (and ultimately undo) abuses to the system. It was also a big can of worms because "it's my opinion, stop silencing my voice". We have maybe four or five guys that would just mass downvote each other like at least once a month.

We might revisit it in a little bit, if things don't level out in a couple of weeks, but honestly, no matter what the choice, I'll stick by what I'm saying here. If you're being a bag of you-know-what (it starts with a 'd'), it doesn't matter if you're doing it on the front-facing comment, or the equally public, but slightly more hidden comment. It's not okay behaviour and it happened a lot in comments.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

@arktos: Sassy, as usual, but, I'm not saying that the forumers are a source of a problem. I'm saying that you don't have to carry yourself like a middle school child (and if you do so choose to do so, you now know the consequences). I have no intention to prevent people from speaking their mind. I have every intention of preventing people from talking down to one another.

I tend to think that the game improved more because of some riots because many concerns had been ignored for months, rather than the "polite behaviours" (though some "rational" contributions were way above the rest).

You seem to forget, and it is a pity (as you are a moderator), that a forum is more excesses than rational behaviours. Trolling always brings people to read.

Some people were saying that the forum was dying recently, and your latest "policy" will just increase this fact.

But if it makes you happy to be our savior, our father... It will make at least someone happy.

This forum has been deadly boring lately, just because many of us don't have much to complain about anymore. The current situation is just appalling.

Der_Lex

Gothic, I think your intentions are good and an increase in moderation is a good thing, but I think it would have been a better choice to simply re-post the official forum rules with the message that they will be enforced more strictly from now on, because the list you have posted seems like it includes things that really shouldn't be on there if your forum wants to have some semblance of free expression. And although I don't want to toot my own horn (insert obligatory innuendo here), this is coming from someone who has been a volunteer moderator of another video game developer's forum for over 7 years, and is currently tied with one of the devs for most permabans handed out on there. But there's a line between a firm hand and a smothering chokehold, and I would like to give you my perspective on things in the hope to be of some help in staying on the right side of that line.

First of all, although nobody will disagree that ad hominems are bannable offenses, what defines an 'attack on an opinion', and isn't that an essential part of a discussion anyway? I agree with you that disagreement should be expressed civilly (as I am doing now, or at least trying to), but a person should be able to say 'I think what you just posted is utter nonsense, because (insert well-constructed argument here). Nobody should be attacked for having an opinion, but that opinion itself should be open for any and all kinds of reasonable criticism. Your current phrasing of the rules implies that this is not okay, and although it's probably not intended that broadly, that's how I read it.

Likewise, circular arguments are a very slippery slope. Not everyone is a master debater (again, insert obligatory innuendo here), and what might seem like deliberate trolling will often be a user debating to the best of his/her ability, which unfortunately for a lot of people means repeating their original point (ad nauseam). As a moderator, it's your job to ensure that the tone of the discussion remains civil, not to ensure the quality of that discussion. Trying to do the latter often leads to appearing overly subjective, and doesn't help the credibility of the moderators.

A general ban on image macros, memes and quips is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, since the right joke at the right time can add some levity to threads that desperately need it, and can often diffuse a heated argument a lot better than a moderator comment can. Sure, these things can be used in a disruptive manner, and that's definitely something that warrants a warning, but not allowing them in any situation, which is what the current phrasing implies, really is way too heavy-handed.

Speaking of phrasing, 'incredulous' means 'sceptical'... so you might want to re-phrase that, because I don't think you want to punish people for being sceptics. There's a perfect meme for this, but well, see my former point.

Then a note not for the mods, but for the devs: you guys need to have your mods' backs more. Whenever a dev announcement hits, it seems to come as much to the surprise of the volunteer mods as it does to the rest of the community, and more often than not further dev follow-up is limited, leaving you guys to deal with the mess. On the forum I moderate, we have a separate section for mods/devs where volunteer mods are informed well in advance of any major announcements (we've all signed an NDA, so no risk of spoilers there), especially ones that the devs know will not go over well in the community. This allows us to ask questions we might have about things that are unclear in the announcement (which leads to better announcements after additions/adjustments based on our feedback) and gives us the information we need to further clarify things for users if any of the community people are unable to stick around after the announcement is posted. This helps make the jobs of both the mods and the devs a lot easier, and since communication is self-admittedly a thing Demiurge and D3 really need to work on, it would be a good place to practice that. It will also provide a place for mods to discuss moderation issues amongst themselves if there's any disagreement.

Finally, speaking of those announcements that will not go over well: the devs I mod for recognize this when it happens, and although civility is still enforced, we do give the community some time to vent, because we feel it is justified ( a sucky decision made for all kinds of logical, practica reasons will still suck for (part of) your playerbase). The current negative atmosphere on the forums did not appear out of thin air: as I mentioned in the locked pvp change thread, a series of changes have been made in the past months that all have a negative effect (how negative is open to discussion) on the playing experience of the hardcore top level players, who will also make up the majority of your active forum users. They should certainly not be the only voice that is listened to, but they should have the impression that their voice is heard, and that's certainly not the case on here, which leads to all the negativity. This is something only the devs can fix, either by vastly improving communication and/or throwing vets the occasional bone as well, if they feel it's worth their while enough to do so.

Either way, Gothic, I want to re-emphasize that I truly appreciate what you and the other volunteer mods do on here. Moderation is often a thankless job, so I hope D3 is showing you lots of love and throws the occasionaly freebie your way to compensate you for your time and effort (and if not, they should stop being stingy, because these guys are doing part of what is actually their job for free, and a happy mod that feels appreciated is worth his/her weight in gold/ISO/HP.). Hopefully this way too long rant is of some use to you guys, and if not, just hit me an additional time in PvP or something for wasting your time.

SnowcaTT

Thanks for your hard work GothicKratos. A bummer that the removal of downvotes (?) made it come to this.

A little sad to see issue #2 (meme's) get a warning, those are often not attacking and a bright funny spot in some of the posts - even though they are off topic.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

mean behaviour

yey

Jasonzakibe

Top posts intended to specifically troll forum users:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29861
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30171
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30147
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29462

So it begins...In other words stop criticizing the game. The game is obviously broken, and the developers have arrogantly released content they knew was broken. Can someone name the last non broken thing released? Are you ashamed you had to go back so far?

Being told not to criticize a clearly flawed game obviously comes from the companies involved. It's a shame they've exerted their influence on the mods, but there's no other explanation for this behavior.

I've already been warned, by a separate mod, not to have a different opinion then the mods. (Yes really) I'm just not the kind of person that gives in to this. If I get banned, then I get banned.

Just know, what you're doing is reprehensible.

Unknown

Jasonzakibe wrote:

So it begins...In other words stop criticizing the game. The game is obviously broken, and the developers have arrogantly released content they knew was broken. Can someone name the last non broken thing released? Are you ashamed you had to go back so far?

Being told not to criticize a clearly flawed game obviously comes from the companies involved. It's a shame they've exerted their influence on the mods, but there's no other explanation for this behavior.

He's not saying you can't have a different opinion. He's saying the name calling and completely immature behavior that has been going on is getting old and tiresome. Why can't people disagree with one another without sniping or name calling? Why is that so much to ask. You have a difference of opinion, great, share it, but politely.

This has nothing to do with complaining about how the Devs are destroying the game this week. This has to do with presumably grown people talking to each other in a way that words of war start. I don't think it is too much to ask to have civil debate about why we have differences.

Jasonzakibe wrote:

Just know, what you're doing is reprehensible.

He is doing what he volunteered to do when signing up to be a Mod. He is doing his best to keep the Forums civil. And I would do the exact same thing.

How is trying to get people to be nice to each other reprehensible?

Dauthi

You might as well go all in for alliteration in the title : Increased Incredulous Intentions are Igniting in our Forums.

fmftint

Dauthi wrote:

You might as well go all in for alliteration in the title : Increased Incredulous Intentions are Igniting in our Forums.

Violation of rule 1

Wonko33

As for Mod involvement I liked the cooling period and a chance to recover the thread that GothicKratos did in the "new point system thread". It was frustrating that some posts just get shut down because 2 people start going at each other (like the one announcing the removal of downvoting), it might not work but it's better than an immediate close the thread ruling.

Dauthi

fmftint wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

You might as well go all in for alliteration in the title : Increased Incredulous Intentions are Igniting in our Forums.

Violation of rule 1

Rule 1?

D3PADMIN wrote:

1. By posting on our forums, you agree to have read and understood the terms and conditions outlined in our Terms of Use (http://www.d3publisher.us/TermsOfUse.asp) and our Privacy Policy (http://www.d3publisher.us/PrivacyPolicy.asp).

How did you know I didn't agree to that! NooooO!

GothicKratos

Dauthi wrote:

fmftint wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

You might as well go all in for alliteration in the title : Increased Incredulous Intentions are Igniting in our Forums.

Violation of rule 1

Rule 1?

D3PADMIN wrote:

1. By posting on our forums, you agree to have read and understood the terms and conditions outlined in our Terms of Use (http://www.d3publisher.us/TermsOfUse.asp) and our Privacy Policy (http://www.d3publisher.us/PrivacyPolicy.asp).

How did you know I didn't agree to that! NooooO!

He meant my "rules", and it's cute, but Dauthi's post wasn't any form of degradation to a user or the thread. It was funny.

I'll try and post a more lengthy thing later, but I'm cooking dinner right now. I knew people would intentionally try and torll this to make a point, but to accuse me of trying to create a totalitarian state? Whew.

whitecat31

As long as we can argue civilly about the merits of a change to the game by the dev team, than all is good.
Thank you for moderating. I know it is basically free time you donate to this game.