PSA: Updates to Forum Rules (5/1/17)

DrDevilDinosaur

Reading through the updates,

13. All polls must be unbiased. They must contain at least one neutral option, and an equal amount of opposing options. (For example: Yes, Neutral, No) *New Update*

Uh oh! Everyone is gonna get banned!

Punisher5784

DrDevilDinosaur said:

Reading through the updates,

13. All polls must be unbiased. They must contain at least one neutral option, and an equal amount of opposing options. (For example: Yes, Neutral, No) *New Update*

Uh oh! Everyone is gonna get banned!

I agree with this. There are so many polls that really only give us 1 option (despite more than 3 choices). We need fair polls so everyone can properly participate.

@brigby, one of the issues with creating polls is when you change or add choices, it erases the responses. Is there any way to allow us to make tweaks without losing the responses?

fight4thedream

Punisher5784 said:

The new changes are fair and make sense. Now it depends on how they're handled. There have been a few occasions in the past where players received warnings/bans based on the Mods emotions (being in a bad mood) or the player feels like a constant target. It's fine to give the Mods slightly more power but I do not see anywhere for the players to report Mod abuse or the right to fight a warning/ban. It is my understanding that a warning cannot be removed once it's given to you.

I mean this in a respectful matter because all the Mods, overall, do a great job and oftentimes they are unappreciated, but other times their actions go too far or are very questionable. 

I share Punisher's concern that it is not clear in the rules how a user is supposed to appeal a mod decision nor report abuse and think it would be beneficial to include the process in the rules.

For those that are curious about appealing a mod decision:

1. Contact the mod who moderated your post via PM and explain why you disagree with the mod action. 
2. In the case where you do not feel comfortable communicating with said mod or you have not received a timely response, you are free to contact another mod who will bring up your case to "Mod Court" where all the mods will weigh in on what course of action will be taken in regards to your appeal. Both the user and Brigby will be informed of the Mod Squad's decision.
3. If you are still dissatisfied with decision reached by the mod or the Mod Squad, you may contact Brigby via PM for your final appeal. 
4. Please refrain from making topics on the forum regarding moderation of posts as such posts are off-topic.

In regards to mod abuse or harassment, please contact Brigby directly.

And as Punisher and others have pointed out, it is not clear whether warnings/being jailed expire over a certain period of time or are permanent. 

JVReal

When I see forumites with jail bars over their icons... is that an indication that a person has been jailed?

mohio

JVReal said:

When I see forumites with jail bars over their icons... is that an indication that a person has been jailed?

Yup

To make my post less lame...So I read through the rules (mostly) and I'm curious about this "strict point system". It literally means nothing to us to say what these points mean from our end (i.e. warning, jail, ban) if there is no guide/legend/chart/whatever telling us what rules are worth what points. If I make a terrible poll that's 100% biased and type in all caps while doing it I've broken 2 rules. Is that worth 2 points? Or maybe two rules broken at one time is really worth 3 points? Or maybe it's all subject to the mod that sees it first and how annoyed they are at whiny forum users? Apparently saying what everyone knew (that Star Lord would be the next 5* and would come out around the time the movie did) was revealing spoiled info 3-4 weeks ago and got me 3 points, but if I actually did have spoiled/data mined info and chose to share it (I dunno, move sets or additional characters or something) would that have been worthy of more points or still just 3 since it's the same infraction?

DeNappa

Vhailorx said:

It is interesting to ban discussion of CS conversations.  Guess they really value the freedom to deal with everyone indvidually and keep us from comparing notes.

Also, we are really supposed to search through a month's worth of posts before starting a new thread?  That seems like a pretty heavy burden on posters.  But also in line with the relatively aggresive mod style here re: post consolidation.

The way I read this is they won't remove CS conversation content posted to forums by default, but may do so for whatever reason they see fit (as per Brigby's later statement, for example if it's placed out of context or maybe selectively quoted; )

11. Please don’t restart discussions that already exist. Before starting a new thread, search our forums to see if a similar topic already exists. If you find one, contribute your content to the thread that is already established.

• This rule only applies if the already-created discussion's most recent post was within the last month. If over a month has passed since the last comment, then please start another thread. *New Update*

Uhm, this doesn't really seem like a good idea, considering there are quite a few topics that are low-traffic but still useful, for example topics covering the various characters in Character Discussion forum. I bet you don't want a new spider-man topic every 2 months

DrDevilDinosaur

DeNappa said:

11. Please don’t restart discussions that already exist. Before starting a new thread, search our forums to see if a similar topic already exists. If you find one, contribute your content to the thread that is already established.

• This rule only applies if the already-created discussion's most recent post was within the last month. If over a month has passed since the last comment, then please start another thread. *New Update*

Uhm, this doesn't really seem like a good idea, considering there are quite a few topics that are low-traffic but still useful, for example topics covering the various characters in Character Discussion forum. I bet you don't want a new spider-man topic every 2 months

Well, rules are rules - and that one looks pretty clear cut.

Jaedenkaal

mohio said:

To make my post less lame...So I read through the rules (mostly) and I'm curious about this "strict point system". It literally means nothing to us to say what these points mean from our end (i.e. warning, jail, ban) if there is no guide/legend/chart/whatever telling us what rules are worth what points. If I make a terrible poll that's 100% biased and type in all caps while doing it I've broken 2 rules. Is that worth 2 points?

I would suggest doing neither (posting a biased poll or making a post in all-caps) and netting a fairly confident 0 points. I suspect this is not a "You're allowed 3 points of bad decisions every month, so make them count" sort of system.

liminal_lad

DrDevilDinosaur said:

DeNappa said:

11. Please don’t restart discussions that already exist. Before starting a new thread, search our forums to see if a similar topic already exists. If you find one, contribute your content to the thread that is already established.

• This rule only applies if the already-created discussion's most recent post was within the last month. If over a month has passed since the last comment, then please start another thread. *New Update*

Uhm, this doesn't really seem like a good idea, considering there are quite a few topics that are low-traffic but still useful, for example topics covering the various characters in Character Discussion forum. I bet you don't want a new spider-man topic every 2 months

Well, rules are rules - and that one looks pretty clear cut.

This seems like an obvious case for an exception. The character threads are evergreen content, and can tell newbies a lot about ways to play a particular character.

Or I guess we can just "bump" each of them every 30 days.

Brigby

DFiPL said:

Brigby said:

@MarkersMake

You should be able to see any warning points you accrued next to your name in your profile. You currently do not have any, MarkersMake. 

Brigby so 'warning points' go next to the username in the profile, and whatever's under "Points" is something else entirely?

Yes, that's correct. "Warning Points" and "Points" are two different entities.

Punisher5784 said:

brigby, one of the issues with creating polls is when you change or add choices, it erases the responses. Is there any way to allow us to make tweaks without losing the responses?

Unfortunately I am unaware of a method to edit choices without losing responses. Apologies for the inconvenience.

This seems like an obvious case for an exception. The character threads are evergreen content, and can tell newbies a lot about ways to play a particular character.
Or I guess we can just "bump" each of them every 30 days.

Yes. This would be one of those exceptions to the rule since it is clearly a guide that anyone can benefit from at any time. So long as the information within them are up-to-date and relevant, then I see no reason that the 1 month rule needs to apply to a long-standing guide.

Alsmir

Nice, we're on the good way to throwing bans for any form of criticism.

Creating even more loopholes in forum rules that mods can use to pretty much delete anything is a welcome change. I patiently await throwing warning points for using sarcasm (or maybe "being a jerk" will cover it? We'll see).

Ducky

I am just going to make this abundantly clear, we will not tolerate any type of attacks on people or comic book characters as a result of their race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. You will get jailed at a minimum, if not banned immediately.

If you don't like certain characters for whatever reason, choke it down and vent elsewhere. We will not tolerate that sort of thing on the forums.

Alsmir

But can I dislike characters in MPQ based on their useless powers?

Ducky

Alsmir said:

But can I dislike characters in MPQ based on their useless powers?

Of course. That's game based and totally viable. Continue to hate on Mordo for having weak powers, lol. 

Syleye

@Ducky
don't have a problem with that rule but has it actually been an issue? Just curious as I haven't ever seen it. Kind of sad if it has

Ducky

There are lots of infractions that are never seen by most of the forumites because we remove them as soon as they are spotted/reported. I'll leave it at that.

liminal_lad

This forum has always seemed very kind. I'm glad for that.

Alsmir

So I guess the lates poll about vaulting was biased and thread desrved to get closed (instead of just removing the poll), but when a lead designer just tells us that vaulting is fine, while ignoring player feedback, we're supposed to be happy and pretend everything is fine.

What a lovely place these forums turn into.

Starfury

No need to connect this with the 8 answers thread in any way, but the vaulting poll shows the problem with the rule about polls..

What are you supposed to do if you want to give participants a slightly more granular choice than good/bad?


The poll in question offered the options (boiled down):

• bad, scrap it
• needs major changes
• needs minor changes
• ok, could still use some work
• fine, doesn't need change
  

So 3 bad, 2 good. Would the poll be ok with a sixth option?

• awesome, definitely doesn't need change
  

DeNappa

I know that @Ducky cited the 'poll choices must be unbiased'-rule when closing that thread, but when I look at it, in my opinion it's more that the question was formulated tendentious(ly?), and not so much the options. "Do you still hate..." assumes that you hated it in the first place.