Forums-->Off-game forum-->
<<|<|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|>|>>
| Author | Discussion polygon: LWM Staff - Moderators |
|---|
| The ban duration should not only reflect the offense but how many relapses and other ban history. I look at everything when considering ban length . I have even requested blocks for some from Arctic with reasons and facts and they were done without hesitation. Mods got to keep in mind that some people have nothing better to do than log in to an online game and be stupid . Yes I am being blunt no need to beat around the bush :P | That kind of attitude shouldnt exist.
I agree it shouldnt, but some people get their kicks from acting like that I guess. There will always be people like that however sad it is.
for Queen_Amanda:
You are completely right, there are a few factors to take into account. I think Mods do a good job of this. Everyone should remember Mods are players also, they should have fun, joke, and enjoy themselves, and they can get upset and angry and have a bad day. But when it comes to their job duties it should be done professionally, and uninfluenced by their emotions. And most often it is. | I find myself agreeing once again with nearly all the Halvspak has said in his previous few posts. Bans should be issued in a very neutral and matter of fact manner, without comment except where necessary to indicate the reason for the ban. Such comments should remain professional, courteous, and businesslike.
Mods are expected to be role models for the community and will always be held to a higher standard than the routine player. This is not to say they cannot make mistakes. Mistakes happen, we all make them. The handling of any mistakes made should be undertaken again with courtesy and professionalism. A public accounting of all mistakes is not required or beneficial.
The above all said, I feel that by and large, our mods have mostly adhered to these standards. There may well have been slips and those should be discussed internally with an eye toward improving future performance.
This thread has had a LOT of input, but what I have not seen so far is a huge public outcry from a great number of regular users stating they were abused by mods. There have certainly been some such complaints, but given a community of several hundred, I don't think we have seen even 1% come to complain. A 99% success rate is pretty good by even the most stringent of customer service measurements.
Granted, the above is merely an unscientific observation and this thread could very well be flooded with abuse reports tomorrow, but so far they have come from very few players. | for Slynky:
Yes yes, the Halvspak has spoken. hehe sorry couldnt resist.
I think for the most part it is safe to say that mistakes/abuse of Mods is near 1%, even if it was 5% not a big problem. But that does not mean we should then ignore the 1% and pass it off as insignificant.
Even if we had an evil Mod such as #192, what is the most they can do? Mods do have power, but it is rather limited. But that still doesnt mean that we shouldnt attempt to correct the 1% or 5% of mistakes/abuse.
Mods provide a needed service, they are rarely if ever praised, and only here comments when people have something bad to say. The fact that admin has little to nothing to do with us only adds more pressure on them. We need to be understanding of this and cut them some slack.
But they also need to understand the fact that if a player feels a Mod is unjustly punishing them there is absolutely nothing that player can do.
1.5. Moderator's actions can be disputed by putting in an application to the game Secretary (thread link and detailed description of the application cause required).
Seriously, this is the only way a player can talk about or question what a Mod does or says? Is not secretary same people as admin? Has anything ever been done about anything sent to secretary? Does anyone even read anything sent to secretary? Seems pretty much like a black hole, everything that goes there is never seen from or heard from again. Further more I really lose all respect for any Mod that suggests people to send complaints to secretary knowing full well nothing will come from it. If I am wrong here please correct me, but until someone can show me that secretary is functioning like it was went to my beliefs remain the same.
If secretary is broken, or same status as admin, then we need some other way for players to dispute/question Mods when that 1% of mistakes/abuse takes place. I see no other way than to allow players to discuss it openly on the forums. As long as they can do so politely and intelligently whats the problem. I think it should be rather easy to distinguish what could possibly fall into the 1% of valid complaints/questions, and the other 99% that dont deserve comment. | | #205
Very sound system, would function great. Not sure if we have enough people for it. And it somehow feels like it is more than we need. But it is the best option anyone has presented so far. Perhaps it could be simplified, or reduced somewhat. It is a great approach and if not implemented exactly it is still a good place to start to think about how things could be improved. | | Agreed. it is merely intended as one potential starting point. The approach would almost certainly need to be tweaked and tailored to fit this community. | | [Post deleted by moderator Sven91 // on request] | apologies for the double post. Silly browser refresh error on my handheld.
would a mod be so kind as to remove one, please? | In response to Post # 172.
Actually, it's sometimes very hard to provide the "proof" that you request, because the proof has been deleted by moderators, and I have been told it is not possible to restore that information once deleted.
Almost a year ago I lodged a comlaint about Pangs moderation of a thread. Unfortunately the posts with important evidence regarding the matter were deleted by another moderator. Naturally, I have heard nothing more of this since.
It can be hard to provide evidence when that evidence can be deleted at the whim of those who have may not want the information used against them.
Grunge | 210
Well, there's really nothing within our power that can be done to change that. I see your point, but it seems outside the scope of what we could accomplish in any new moderation approach. Extra tools and coding would seem to be required to allow for the recovery of deleted posts and it seems unlikely that those would be provided.
This leaves us with trying to establish a viable appeals process and a methodology by which complaints can be heard and addressed. We seem limited to working with the tools currently at our disposal. The approach outlined above is far from perfect, but it should be readily possible to implement within the existing framework. It cannot possibly capture every contingency, but perhaps it improves things enough to make the effort worthwhile.
Off-Topic:
Thanks for cleaning up my mess, Sven. | | Post # 212 is actually in response to post # 211.
Sorry for the double post.
Grunge | so, thing start redirected on me? hmm...
post 205>
beside the 'appeal', we mods already got the rest. your so called 'super mod' is the staff department in respective clan.
i m sure mod educate is much more important than mods quality and passed history. it is the way to ensure mods can perform the duty correctly.
well, i m 1 of the oldest mod which still around. but, from the day i was recruited as mod, Arctic was the one in-charged and he did give a few of guidance on moderation. i m quite confident that i didnt make too much mistakes while moderate LOL
yet, i m not sure how the forum mod recruitment. i wasnt a boss at forum mod before. guess what happen in chat mod recruitment while i was the boss?
i did the same thing like what Arctic did. but, even more, i gave some training, case study and simulate on some rules, enforcement and gray area. perhaps that's why we dont get much 'complaints' on chat mod in public. you can ask Dan about what i did on him ;)
i try to ensure what candidate did is correct while moderate before assign them as official chat mod. yet, i did receive the PM about complaint on chat mod. i did investigate and respond. i didnt protect my team like someone mention in previous posts.
i m not pointing on forum mod recruitment is bad. i m just telling the public that mod recruitment did went into afew procedures to ensure the correct candidates to perform the duty.
for the new rules part, before any rules set up on the forum or sub forum as local rules, we mods WILL discuss whether is it suitable and vote for it. it wasnt like what you think as 'we mods set it up just when we like it.' | | \\part 2\\
Later on I've posted a suggestion that the players have a right to know what's going on behind those scenes and that this information shouldn't be hidden from them (https://www.lordswm.com/forum_messages.php?tid=1864025&page=6#315710). And guess what? Yes, sir! That 'moderator' showed up again and banned me for 'flooding'.
That was it. I've copied all the evidence and sent it to the Secretary and to Administration and once again no actions were taken to punish that 'moderator' FaithBringer.
That was the last drop. I've composed my declaration that's currently in my personal info and banned FaithBringer and his clanmates from my services as a renter until that guy gets punished for all of his violations as a mod.
Best wishes,
cantbstopped | [q]The interesting part is that ALL claims of abuses except B can be very easily checked by facts - not by indirect reports of a chat conversation taking place somewhere in december 2009, or the eerie feeling that "mods are after me". I would not even count disclosed private messages on that one: it's too easy to report only part of a conversation.
Any complaint from anyone against anyone and not bringing these basic elements of proof is just scandal mongering. [/q]
Above I have posted an earlier post by Kotrin (post # 172).
I would just like to ask - how can we present proof that Mods have incorrectly deleted posts when the posts apparently cannot be recovered? It's fairly self-evident that deleted posts are difficult to dispute because the content has been removed.
IMO Mods are too "trigger-happy" with the delete "button". One possiblity they do this is because their action is then rendered unable to be disputed. Personally I think that Mods should only be permitted to delete the full content of a post when it involves direct insults/pronographic material/offensive material. Deleting posts because they are allegedly "off topic" renders their decision immune to disputes and doesn't actually teach the public at large the lesson of what is and what is not on topic.
In cases where it is a minor infringement, by all means apply an appropriate ban, but unless the content is particularly objectionable, leave it as a warning for those that later view the thread as to what is not permissable. And, importantly, it allows posters to have the opportunity to dispute the decision by the Mod in question, rather than being allowed to delete any incriminating evidence and then point their hapless victim to the Secretary with the full knowledge that nothing will be able to be done, even should the Admins take any notice of the post.
Really the current situation allows the Mods to run the Forum the way they want to, should they choose to do so. And there is no real appeal process (especially with post deletions happening with free abandon). And this is not really the Mods fault. It is a result of the Admins (not Arctic, who doesn't have full Admin privileges), who should be looking over the Mods shoulder to keep them honest, being inactive for such long periods of time and choosing not to intervene when they are present.
So, I say again, deleting posts should be the *exception*, not the rule. Leave offending posts intact (barring obviously offensive content) so that others can learn what they shouldn't be doing.
Grunge | I would just like to ask - how can we present proof that Mods have incorrectly deleted posts when the posts apparently cannot be recovered?
Ahem! That's exactly what I mentioned by telling "ALL claims of abuses except [abusively deleted threads]".
I'm SURE Arctic is able to see those deleted posts and threads, for example if someone complains that a post has been abusively deleted.
I think it's a good practice to leave content in place as a warning to others. It's not always possible, often for the most common offense - foul language. The point is not to have such things displayed in the forum at all.
Often, people also write things expecting a ban, but hoping their message to stay in place nonetheless. Like, I'm flaming you and expect a well-deserved ban, but at least all the smear I've thrown at you stays available for everyone to see. In these cases of "deliberate ban seeking" deleting the message is another way of thwarting the offender, and hopefully discourage other forum users to indulge in the same tactic.
I too think that given these remarks, deleting posts (and threads) should be as restrained as possible. | Case in point in Elven_Lord's album:
https://www.lordswm.com/photo_pl_albums.php?id=193802
Note that I'm not even the one who deleted the thread. | I abhor bad language and I can assure you that I have never blatantly insulted anyone (except perhaps in PM). Yet I have hed several posts deleted in the past. Particularly the ones that were deleted with an "Off-Topic" warning spring to mind, when IMO they were certainly not off-topic.
I would be glad to provide links to these threads and I can provide the approximate text of what I wrote, in some case even that of other posts that were deleted. I also have responses from yourself (regarding Pang's Moderation) and another incident from MasterTi ackonwledging that he made a mistake in deleting a post. I still have copies of all the PMs regarding this if you are interested.
I repeat, in my experience many Mods have a tendency to delete first and merely commenting and penalising seems to be the exception these days. And it is entirely possible that this may be because deleting a message makes it difficult to dispute a penalty with the proper authorities (much cleaner, don't you know). I don't think it would be hard for people to come up with instances of these delete-fests. I have a tendency not to bother posting often (except in CaA to report cheaters) because I know that if a Mod decides what I have written isn't up to scratch (in their opinion) my message is more likely to be deleted than commented+banned.
Grunge |
<<|<|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|>|>>Back to topics list
|
