Moderator Problems

[Captain Pickle]

Me and several others have discussed this and have noticed something off on this forum as some moderators (not all) have been using there power on the forum to cause problems for members for example a friend i know of on naval action has been harassed because of a post i made on here and the person harassing him seen this post and be-leaves it is him so i attempted to go to the post and remove it however the ruling monarch of a moderator had locked it preventing its removal from the forum to help better the situation in game.

to make matters worse when asked to ether remove the post or the lock he issued me a warning i know this post will most likely cause tensions however something must be done to better the future of this forum as i have seen others go through greater hardships than this over topic's such as this.

 

some people i have talked to have suggested that the forum be re worked to limit the power of moderators by initially removing the ability to issue the warnings and the locks all together allowing the poster to remove it if it is necessary.

 

i would love to hear the opinions of other posters to hear there stories.

 

 

update 8/15/16

my friend refuses to join the form as he has been harassed by others so that is the reason he does not post we are two different people of both two different nation's.

 

this is Captain Pickle of the Royal British Navy and now envoy to those who wish not to join the forum for various reasons.

also leave a like on my page boost my rating on this one or my other account which i cant share due to certain problems.

 

Edited August 21, 2016 by Captain Pickle

[_Masterviolin]

So, because a moderator locked a post and hence prevented you from removing a reply which was causing trouble with a friend, the moderators are in the wrong and should have their powers limited? Am I missing something here?

 

In addition, the moderators are simply trying to promote a civil and mature community, organized discussion and player input. Our community is quite special in that a vast majority of the game's features came directly from player input and suggestions, and the devs have maintained contact with the community to gauge updates. And part of that is thanks to the moderators and their work here.  

[Captain Boneboys]

Forums are well moderated and members in general are appreciative of the time and effort put in by the staff.

In your case (locked Topic) the instructions were clear and precise.

 

Move on...

Edited August 11, 2016 by Captain Boneboys

[Loco Bandito]

If your friend is upset why doesnt he post? Or does friend = you?

[Ashcanibics]

Have you considered to stop posting on behalf of your "friend"? Let them to deal with their own issues would leave you out of the equation altogether. Let the friend receive the warnings if they're unjust.

[Oliver H. Perry]

 

F R E E D O M

O F

S P E E C H

-

F R E E D O M

 

 

What are you even talking about?  These are Game Labs private forums, not a US government controlled/funded property.  There are no free speech rights on private property - these forums.  The owner of the property can ask that you stop or be removed at any time.

 

If you want to use the forums, you have to agree to follow the rules.

[CeltiberoCaesar]

Hey! I said it! But they don't want to face it... 

Banned in 3...2...1...

 

PD: free speech is not a US liberty, is a fundamental, human right. 

The right to freedom of expression is recognized as a human right under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Edited August 11, 2016 by CeltiberoCaesar

[Vernon Merrill]

Something tells me Game Labs is not a signatory to that....    So many SJW's that grew up thinking they can do/say whatever they want without consequences...

Edited August 11, 2016 by Vernon Merrill

[CeltiberoCaesar]

Something tells me Game Labs is not a signatory to that....    So many SJW's that grew up thinking they can do/say whatever they want without consequences...

It's called oppression when those consequences have no legitimate cause.

Edited August 11, 2016 by CeltiberoCaesar

[Vernon Merrill]

Understood.  However, as OH Perry stated, this is a private entity.  You cannot just walk into the Headquarters of Apple or Telefonica and start yelling at them about how much their employees suck.  You WILL be removed and/or prosecuted.

[Iroquois Confederacy]

Please read the documents that you want to quote out of context.

Article 29 (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

[CeltiberoCaesar]

But you can go and tell their boss politely how bad are they employees. Once the customer is pissed off they might start yelling and finally everything will explode and someone will ask "What just happened?" or "Did we made anything wrong?". But I'm not a customer service quality  guys, I'm just another man with a long run in internet forums and who has to deal his own forum. 

Edited August 11, 2016 by CeltiberoCaesar

[maturin]

It's called oppression when those consequences have no legitimate cause.

Go read the forum rules. That's your legitimate cause.

[CeltiberoCaesar]

Please read the documents that you want to quote out of context.

 

I don't see where that contradict what is being discussed. Here there are not rights violations, just an oppressive rule being questioned and a bunch of users complaining about being censured without a legitimate cause.

[Oliver H. Perry]

I don't see where that contradict what is being discussed. Here there are not rights violations, just an oppressive rule being questioned and a bunch of users complaining about being censured without a legitimate cause.

 

"A bunch".  3??  Out of how many thousands of users?

 

Perhaps you should focus less on your "rights" and more on being respectful to your fellow forumers and the staff/developers.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Me and several others have discussed this and have noticed something off on this forum as some moderators (not all) have been using there power on the forum to cause problems for members for example a friend i know of on naval action has been harassed because of a post i made on here and the person harassing him seen this post and be-leaves it is him so i attempted to go to the post and remove it however the ruling monarch of a moderator had locked it preventing its removal from the forum to help better the situation in game.

to make matters worse when asked to ether remove the post or the lock he issued me a warning i know this post will most likely cause tensions however something must be done to better the future of this forum as i have seen others go through greater hardships than this over topic's such as this.

 

some people i have talked to have suggested that the forum be re worked to limit the power of moderators by initially removing the ability to issue the warnings and the locks all together allowing the poster to remove it if it is necessary.

 

i would love to hear the opinions of other posters to hear there stories.

 

So, since we're actually leaving this open and discussing it, perhaps you can link specifics for us?

 

Have you requested that the thread be hidden?

Have you PM'd the moderator that locked it and requested changes or discussed your issue?

[Prater]

Fact of the matter is, Game Labs pays for the forum.  They can run it how they want.  You can't walk into someone's home and demand things.  Or, I guess you can, but good luck demanding the police to respect "your basic rights of free speech" when they remove you from the property.

 

 

some people i have talked to have suggested that the forum be re worked to limit the power of moderators by initially removing the ability to issue the warnings and the locks all together allowing the poster to remove it if it is necessary.

 

Game Labs have made people moderators to take care of these things so that they can spend less time on it and more time developing the game.  If you want the game to take 5 more years to be made so that admin can moderate the forums alone, I guess that is your opinion, but I don't like it.

[CeltiberoCaesar]

Go read the forum rules. That's your legitimate cause.13. Off-topic posting is prohibited.

....

Off-topic posting is permitted within reason. Deliberate attempts to derail a discussion may result in deletion of comments.

In other words. Off-topic, a common issue in all the forums shall be controlled by the moderators when and only when there is an intention to derail the OP topic into something else. In any case, everything is up to the personal interpretation by the moderator. 

Usually, this means that the moderator will ask the player to go back to the topic, then, if the user don't pay attention to the moderator, warn him by PM him and finally, if the user still don't give a *****, some more severe measures are taken. This is how in other forums is driven in a more "reasonable" way.

Here is the first time that I see that messages are deleted without a legitime reason, without a proper attempt to re-rail (go back to the topic, sorry if is wrong) the topic and when you ask for reason you are answered with the other "polemic" rule.

 

8. Discussion of moderation, warnings and bans is not allowed.

Such matters shall remain private between Game-Labs and users. The discussion of forum moderation actions usually leads to flaming and trolling. That is why this type of discussion is strictly prohibited under the forum rules. During the development of the game there is usually no way to appeal.

 

 

I can get the reason they gave, this kind of topic might "leads to flaming and trolling". Easy, create a section where user can only create topics but can't answer, only moderators and/or admins would be able to answer there. And I won't say anything else, probably someone would think I'm asking for the right to insult the moderators. Let's say I just think a lot of them are not good candidates to be moderators. 

I won't comment "During the development of the game there is usually no way to appeal.", it's just incomprehensible for me and I'm sure for most of the users. It's your product, you should take care of it.

 

 

A bunch".  3??  Out of how many thousands of users?

 

Perhaps you should focus less on your "rights" and more on being respectful to your fellow forumers and the staff/developers.

 

 

My friend... most of the complaining threads have been removed (they call it "hidden"), most of the players don't make use of the forum and most of those that do use the forum are afraid of saying anything against those rules. Trust me, I'm an engineer. 

Edited August 11, 2016 by CeltiberoCaesar

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

In nearly two years of moderating this forum, I can count on one hand the number of threads that have been flat out removed for discussing moderation.  It's less than 10.  Maybe 15 if you count locked threads.

 

15....in two years.

 

I'll also note that I personally reached out to you, Caesar, two days ago asking why you were so angry and asking you to discuss your specific complaints with me so that I could better understand your point of view.  Your response was an insult to my "moderation abilities", and a flat refusal to discuss your grievances with me.  Now you're here, trying to have that discussion.  That's fine with me, we can have it here.

 

So let's open up the curtains and reveal a little of what goes on behind the scenes.

 

I'll agree, posts are more often hidden than edited (when they are completely bereft of content that furthers the purposes of the forum) on these forums.  To be honest, it takes a lot more effort (and therefore time) to edit the post than to just remove it.  But why edit/remove it in the first place?  Most often we remove content because it will (and does) lead to post after post after post that has nothing to do with that thread, or that contains insults or other violations that are not constructive and that do not help the developers to make the game.  Perhaps we should more often edit the post, removing all of its content, and leave a message as to why it was moderated.  This means that users will have visible "hand slaps" that are visible to all.  Or maybe, it's better that the content just disappears and the forum at large isn't any the wiser.  Would you, as a community, like to see less hiding and more edits with reasons as to why the post was edited, or should we continue to hide?  Bear in mind if we decide to do more editing, and less hiding, if someone posts outside the rules, and then 20 people respond and start flaming, that's 21 posts of moderated content that you now have to wade through while trying to get to a point where you can respond (on topic) to the thread itself.  Hidden posts don't take up any room on your threads.

 

We also moderate different boards differently.  Developer News and Patch Notes is more closely moderated than Open World and Combat Mechanics Discussions, which are more closely moderated than the rest of the boards (except for National News), and then you have National News where we rarely step in - because the forums at large requested a "free for all" space where they could be disrespectful to each other (within reason).  Finally there is the language based forums.  Users in some of these forums are far more likely to take an anything goes approach to posting I've noticed.  We have national news content in these areas - some users think that's ok, others send reports in pointing out that we're not following the rules by leaving those posts in there.  Would you, as a non-English speaking community, like for us to allow National News style posts in the foreign language forums (maybe with a suitable tag in the subject line so people who don't want to be insulted can avoid them), or moderate those forums as we would the rest of the forums?

 

Finally, to avoid a lot more typing, I'll repost some prior thoughts I have shared regarding moderation.  In addition to the two, underlined, questions I've posted above, I'd like to hear from the community at large with their thoughts on moderation style and approach based on my thoughts below.  The quote ends with a question - please take a moment to answer that question in this thread.

 

The Developers have changed many hundreds of features and mechanics in the game based on user feedback.  The key word is feedback, which is always constructive and well reasoned.  Just because they do not want to change a particular item you want changed doesn't mean that they aren't listening, it means they aren't convinced by your arguments, or that their vision for their game conflicts with your vision for their game.  Sometimes they (and we) even agree with your complaint, and discussions occur nearly daily behind the scenes where users' complaints are reviewed, and suggestions for changes are made, and eventually implemented.  Some features can't be changed quickly, they must be prioritized and worked on when they come to the top of the list.  

 

Posts are removed because they conflict with the rules, are off topic, insulting, abusive, or nonconstructive.  The moderation staff represents players of most of the nations in the game, and represent a large cross section of play styles and player types - from economy, to hard core PvP, to PvE, casual, constantly playing, etc.  We watch each other, and Admin watches us.  If you have a specific complaint about a specific post that was hidden, or a thread that was closed, you can always message myself, or any other moderator and ask "why?".  We'll be happy to answer you, as I'm doing now.  I'm considered one of the Senior Moderators. I usually step in when things are starting to drift out of control or become a serious issue.  I don't bear you or anyone else any ill-will, my job is to make the forums a pleasant place for the players, as well as keep them useful as a tool for the developers to receive constructive, targeted feedback on the game.  My job is also to protect the development staff from demoralizing, abusive posts that serve no purpose but to be mean spirited.  Posts that clutter the forums with duplicate complaints, or that are insulting or abusive do not serve the purposes for which the forum exists in the first place.

 

So, with all of that said, what specifically are your complaints that I can address?  

What specific posts or actions have been taken recently that have upset you?  

What questions can I answer to allow you to better understand what has been going on, and to perhaps make you feel more valued and respected?

Edit - This is your opportunity to ask us why? To discuss what you don't like about moderation - specifically. As long as you're respectful, no warnings, no sanctions, we'll answer your questions. The current assertion is that there are hundreds of you out there upset with our moderation. Let's hear it! Tell us why! I'm dead serious about this.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Henry d'Esterre Darby

[Powderhorn]

I wanted to add something I wrote up as while between patients:

Forum moderation will always result in some people feeling unduly censored. Sometimes, in fact, that IS the case. We're not perfect, but we do strive to be fair.

There is often feedback on moderating in general. We try to be responsive to it. Some changes you may have noticed, some you likely would not have. For example, some may have noticed warning points that expire over a period of time. We needed something between a PM and a permanent warning point, and this was one solution. Another example is that when discussing how to resolve an issue, we generally settle on the least proposed punishment.

The discussions are a constant thing for the moderators. It is rare that there are not at least two of us online, and we often discuss what is most appropriate.

That said, moderating takes time. I personally spend about one to two hours a day at it, and I know for a fact that others spend even more time than that. That time could not realistically be spent by the developers while still building the game, so we have taken that task. That is not to say that there is no oversight. There is both laterally between the moderators and vertically between the moderators and developers.

We welcome the discussion, and we hope that this might help bring further understanding for the community. That said, we must maintain good order and discipline so that discussions can actually be had over the forums, for a good signal:noise ratio.

[CeltiberoCaesar]

Lets do it then...

 

In nearly two years of moderating this forum, I can count on one hand the number of threads that have been flat out removed for discussing moderation.  It's less than 10.  Maybe 15 if you count locked threads.

 

15....in two years.

In the few months, yes just few, that I have been here I have seen more than just 15 post that have been hidden/removed or closed directly, without any explanation,not even a "Duplicated issue" or "Close because of XXXX". Change that would be welcomed.

I'll also note that I personally reached out to you, Caesar, two days ago asking why you were so angry and asking you to discuss your specific complaints with me so that I could better understand your point of view.  Your response was an insult to my "moderation abilities", and a flat refusal to discuss your grievances with me.  Now you're here, trying to have that discussion.  That's fine with me, we can have it here.

As far as I know the English language this is not an insult, just an opinion of your moderator skills. 

You just show again you are not prepared to be a moderator... and you don't read almost anything (or anything at all) before I felt pissed off with all this topic, the admin abuse of the moderators, the bad judgment of them, the "now I want to follow the rules but not then".... And I can be critical with my friends, the devs or your and nothing should justify how the moderators (you and some, not all, of your partners) have behave.

BTW, if you have read any of my "normal" message, I reject long texts... so don't feel offended when you send me such long texts and I don't read it deeply, sorry if you felt like that. It's just a personal position hahahaha This message is an exception

 

I'll agree, posts are more often hidden than edited (when they are completely bereft of content that furthers the purposes of the forum) on these forums.  To be honest, it takes a lot more effort (and therefore time) to edit the post than to just remove it.  But why edit/remove it in the first place?  Most often we remove content because it will (and does) lead to post after post after post that has nothing to do with that thread, or that contains insults or other violations that are not constructive and that do not help the developers to make the game.  Perhaps we should more often edit the post, removing all of its content, and leave a message as to why it was moderated.  This means that users will have visible "hand slaps" that are visible to all.  Or maybe, it's better that the content just disappears and the forum at large isn't any the wiser.  Would you, as a community, like to see less hiding and more edits with reasons as to why the post was edited, or should we continue to hide?  Bear in mind if we decide to do more editing, and less hiding, if someone posts outside the rules, and then 20 people respond and start flaming, that's 21 posts of moderated content that you now have to wade through while trying to get to a point where you can respond (on topic) to the thread itself.  Hidden posts don't take up any room on your threads.

 

 

You are right about the reasons you give but, IMO, you are not right about the consequence of those reasons. If you don't edit their comment with a moderator comment/warning the following user won't get the message and that user will feel offended as it has happened so many times... I personally just get pissed off this and I adapt this "behavior" to make it clear. 

So, answering you question, YES, I would prefer you edit the comments with a proper reason/warning about why those message are being edited. And yes, I know how "time demanding" it might be, but that's part of the moderator task. 

 

We also moderate different boards differently.  Developer News and Patch Notes is more closely moderated than Open World and Combat Mechanics Discussions, which are more closely moderated than the rest of the boards (except for National News), and then you have National News where we rarely step in - because the forums at large requested a "free for all" space where they could be disrespectful to each other (within reason).  Finally there is the language based forums.  Users in some of these forums are far more likely to take an anything goes approach to posting I've noticed.  We have national news content in these areas - some users think that's ok, others send reports in pointing out that we're not following the rules by leaving those posts in there.  Would you, as a non-English speaking community, like for us to allow National News style posts in the foreign language forums (maybe with a suitable tag in the subject line so people who don't want to be insulted can avoid them), or moderate those forums as we would the rest of the forums?

 

 

I would prefer that the rest of the forum is moderated like "National news", with a reasonable space for role playing (not insults) and less strict rules punishment. IMO. In the rest of the forum I include our "non-english speaking" subsections where, thankfully, I have direct contact with its moderator and He seems a reasonable guy even-though he seems jailed by those "polemic" rules I posted above and he seems forced to apply those rules.... sometimes.

 

The Developers have changed many hundreds of features and mechanics in the game based on user feedback.  The key word is feedback, which is always constructive and well reasoned.  Just because they do not want to change a particular item you want changed doesn't mean that they aren't listening, it means they aren't convinced by your arguments, or that their vision for their game conflicts with your vision for their game.  Sometimes they (and we) even agree with your complaint, and discussions occur nearly daily behind the scenes where users' complaints are reviewed, and suggestions for changes are made, and eventually implemented.  Some features can't be changed quickly, they must be prioritized and worked on when they come to the top of the list.  

 

I, as a dev, know quite well what you are talking about... But I've never complain about not including a specific feature. I have complain about:

- Unreasonable decisions that "help" some nations right when they need but not when it might harm them. It has happened several times since I arrived. The measure might be reasonable, the specific moment of those changes seems suspicious.

- Not getting ANY answer from devs about the ideas given nor the reasons why they were rejected. Sometimes I have seem answers, with whom I might or no agree, from the devs.

Both of them make me, and many other users, get pissed off with devs and the game. Some just leave the game. 

 

Posts are removed because they conflict with the rules, are off topic, insulting, abusive, or nonconstructive.  The moderation staff represents players of most of the nations in the game, and represent a large cross section of play styles and player types - from economy, to hard core PvP, to PvE, casual, constantly playing, etc.  We watch each other, and Admin watches us.  If you have a specific complaint about a specific post that was hidden, or a thread that was closed, you can always message myself, or any other moderator and ask "why?".  We'll be happy to answer you, as I'm doing now.  I'm considered one of the Senior Moderators. I usually step in when things are starting to drift out of control or become a serious issue.  I don't bear you or anyone else any ill-will, my job is to make the forums a pleasant place for the players, as well as keep them useful as a tool for the developers to receive constructive, targeted feedback on the game.  My job is also to protect the development staff from demoralizing, abusive posts that serve no purpose but to be mean spirited.  Posts that clutter the forums with duplicate complaints, or that are insulting or abusive do not serve the purposes for which the forum exists in the first place.

I already say what I think about deleting messages. About demoralizing the team... The messages we are talking about are not against the devs but about the "admin abuse" that some moderators make. The bad opinions about the game and some of the features shouldn't be "hidden", they should be read carefully to get what deserved to be read. A lot of "unrespectful" comments have legitime complains and things to be consider in order to improve the product, not always a rude comment is a useless comment.

 

So, with all of that said, what specifically are your complaints that I can address?  

Already answered.

What specific posts or actions have been taken recently that have upset you?  

Many "offtopic" posts were "hidden" after an arbitrary decision. Since I'm against that politic of "hide" comments, all "hidden" post upset me... of course there are exceptions where the only measure is to hide it or remove some specific parts of the post.

What questions can I answer to allow you to better understand what has been going on, and to perhaps make you feel more valued and respected?

I might suggest the following points in order to improve how we, pissed off users, feel and how the forum might improve itself. 

• Give reasons when measure are taken and posts need to be edited or hidden
• Move the request to the devs of answering to the proposals and questions from the section created for such purpose (I asked some questions months ago and I haven't get an answer yet). This is not a "make what I said" request, is "pay me attention and say something when I make the effort to think and suggest things".
• Make it clear that not only the real "testers" (we are not, at least the common player) have an influence on the outcome of the game and not always those changes are made once a specific nation need them. Make me feel I'm a tester and my opinions are taken into consideration. 
• Create a section in the Tribunal where the users can complain about moderators abuse in public so others can get the feeling that those complains are taken seriously and they are not just ignored. 

 

Cheers

Edited August 11, 2016 by CeltiberoCaesar

[Chimera]

It's called oppression when those consequences have no legitimate cause.

 

lol...your being oppressed on these forums? seriously?

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

First of all, bad opinions of the game are NEVER hidden.  Ever.  People who are jerks are sometimes hidden, but people are highly critical of the game and features on these forums every day, and to claim that criticism of the game or its features are hidden is completely unfounded.

 

My comments regarding 15 posts in two years is solely regarding threads that criticized the moderators.  I'll restate it again - In two years, I have only seen 10-15 posts total that were locked or hidden due to the discussion of moderation rule.  Given what has happened in the Spanish forum recently, that number is now closer to 20 (though many of those posts were mainly off topic).

 

We even have a user that has a torture device from the inquisition being pictured as our idea of moderation.  He hasn't been sanctioned.

 

I've noted your request to edit more, hide less.  I'd like to see if other users agree.

 

Finally, moderating the forums like National News would make them completely unusable for the Developers.  They spend too much time already trying to sort through the mess that exists now - moderating the entire forum like NN would mean that no one's ideas would be considered for the game, because they'd be buried under a gigantic pile of, as Admin would say, "shitposts".

[_Alucard_]

The Spanish forum needs new moderators and it doesn't need Henry whatever Darby doing as he wants there...

We want a public poll, new names and the option to chose who we want as a moderator there.

[SteelSandwich]

The Spanish forum needs new moderators and it doesn't need Henry whatever Darby doing as he wants there...

We want a public poll, new names and the option to chose who we want as a moderator there.

Ok, this is something i don't understand though. There is a lot of hostility towards a moderator whom tries here to explain his motives and wants feedback on our moderating as a whole.

Instead of utilizing that, you just blur out a statement that is lacking of sense as much as it is rude.