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Over-moderation


Draekyn

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Moderation is necessary on these forums as our player-base is likely to be rather young.

However, I would make the case that over-moderation can turn out to be worse than under-moderation, leading to dull, uninteresting discussions.

I'm well aware that the staff team will moderate their forums as it pleases their overlords, these are a few suggestions and comments from my point of view that you might want to bring up.

I'd also like to point out that moderators do what they do on a voluntary basis, and they put in a good amount of work, this isn't in any way an attack on the moderating team, moreso a message to their overseers on the way to form them.

 

I'm assuming that the admins allow for strict moderation. This, to me, leads to a plethora of issues:

  • The stricter the moderation, the more room given for moderator bias. This is our biggest problem, a user's views might not coincide with a moderator's, and that's fine, as long as the moderation isn't so strict as to make visiting the forums and keeping up with the community a tedious, boring and unpleasant endeavor.
  • Choice of moderators: Our selection process has lead to increasingly young and inexperienced picks. Each time, they seem to be more and more unknown by the community (thus not respected). These young moderators are placed in a difficult situation, wanting to prove themselves to their superiors, and concurrently to find a place in the community. This leads to zealous moderation. I am not aware of the current state of the applications you get, but if the applications' quality decreases, you might want to contact former moderators or better known players. I should probably point out that I don't have any quarrels with the current moderators, I hardly even know who some of them are at this point.

 

Communication: Moderators aren't mind-readers, they might not be in on an inside joke. We've sadly, in the recent past, witnessed quite a few instances of unwarranted verbal warnings or hidden posts simply because the moderator did not understand the topic at hand:

 

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Now this was a mild occurence, I don't believe any sanctions were put on anyone, but unwarranted verbal warnings and hidden posts happen quite frequently.

It shows that a moderator might misunderstand the tone of a conversation and see it as going against the rules when it is simply an attempt to make these forums more fun. Communication is the answer to this kind of issue, "what is this about?", "is this serious?", this kind of things.

 

Post removal and consistency: Recently, it seems that posts are being removed willy-nilly. The consensus among the community seems to be that post removal has become inconsistent and poorly explained, if the moderator is even able to explain when prompted. The inconsistency is the worst part. Though perfect consistency isn't possible, the more uniformity in the way you deal with players as a moderator, the less likely you are to be accused of bias. This lack of consistency stems from the over-moderation we have seen.

 

All that being said, I do appreciate the fact that warning points seem harder to get. But this leads me to my next point:

 

Turning a blind eye to a certain kind of troublemakers: Linked to consistency, we are well aware of several individuals who make the forums a harder place to read through. The fact that they might be socially inadequate shouldn't entitle them to moderation immunity. If you want your forums to have more success, consistency is key. Warning points should not be given to a user if another has said the same thing two post prior and is left warning points free. This goes for post hiding.

 

The way I see it, in the past few months we have seen a great deal of over-moderation on these forums.

The degree of moderation should be directly correlated to the atmosphere you as a staff team want to give to these forums, which have been on a low but steady decline for a while. Make them fun to be a part of, moderate disputes harshly if need be, try not to moderate the fun too much. I do appreciate the relative freedom we are given in PSL threads for example.

 

On another note, quid of Value Discussion?

 

@Noad and co, this is mostly for you guys, do whatever you wish with my ramblings.

Edited by Draekyn
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25 minutes ago, Draekyn said:

Turning a blind eye to a certain kind of troublemakers: Linked to consistency, we are well aware of several individuals who make the forums a harder place to read through. The fact that they might be socially inadequate shouldn't entitle them to moderation immunity. If you want your forums to have more success, consistency is key. Warning points should not be given to a user if another has said the same thing two post prior and is left warning points free. This goes for post hiding.

I also have to emphasize this point. There are many instances where the same user makes the forums a more difficult place to assimilate into for everyone. They also do not get any repercussions for their actions other than a reason why their first post was invalid, in other words there can't be warning points given for stupidity. I'm not calling out anyone specifically because the truth is there are multiple people that I can think of that are like this on the forums, whether it be in the past or present. 

 

28 minutes ago, Draekyn said:

Choice of moderators: Our selection process has lead to increasingly young and inexperienced picks. Each time, they seem to be more and more unknown by the community (thus not respected). These young moderators are placed in a difficult situation, wanting to prove themselves to their superiors, and concurrently to find a place in the community. This leads to zealous moderation. I am not aware of the current state of the applications you get, but if the applications' quality decreases, you might want to contact former moderators or better known players. I should probably point out that I don't have any quarrels with the current moderators, I hardly even know who some of them are at this point.

This is also key. It's difficult for a new mod to become familiar with the community, especially if they have been a regular player for a short amount of time. Also, not too many experienced players want to even become mods in the first place because they feel as if they will lose connection with the normal players, and be seen as a "higher-up" or "oh shit this guy's here i better try to not get muted". This is the nature of moderation, but I feel as if it should be more of an inviting thing. Mod bias is also a huge issue within Pokemmo. I can think of many moderators that aren't particularity liked by the general community at the moment, and this is again derived from the fact that many people do not know who they are/were before they became a mod.  

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35 minutes ago, Draekyn said:

Moderation is necessary on these forums as our player-base is likely to be rather young.

However, I would make the case that over-moderation can turn out to be worse than under-moderation, leading to dull, uninteresting discussions.

I'm well aware that the staff team will moderate their forums as it pleases their overlords, these are a few suggestions and comments from my point of view that you might want to bring up.

I'd also like to point out that moderators do what they do on a voluntary basis, and they put in a good amount of work, this isn't in any way an attack on the moderating team, moreso a message to their overseers on the way to form them.

 

I'm assuming that the admins allow for strict moderation. This, to me, leads to a plethora of issues:

  • The stricter the moderation, the more room given for moderator bias. This is our biggest problem, a user's views might not coincide with a moderator's, and that's fine, as long as the moderation isn't so strict as to make visiting the forums and keeping up with the community a tedious, boring and unpleasant endeavor.
  • Choice of moderators: Our selection process has lead to increasingly young and inexperienced picks. Each time, they seem to be more and more unknown by the community (thus not respected). These young moderators are placed in a difficult situation, wanting to prove themselves to their superiors, and concurrently to find a place in the community. This leads to zealous moderation. I am not aware of the current state of the applications you get, but if the applications' quality decreases, you might want to contact former moderators or better known players. I should probably point out that I don't have any quarrels with the current moderators, I hardly even know who some of them are at this point.

 

Good evening Draekyn, as far as moderation is concerned, forums is quite a professional place. There is no room for silly talk on forums, like how you can not sing and dance as people watch the movie. Strict moderation is not really a problem here on forums.  Think of the forums as your college campus' library, you have to be quiet and professional. Moderators work as both librarians and security guards to make sure people act as professional as they could.

 

  • Before staff are hired, they are screened to be sure they are not power hungry individuals. The moment they become too egotistical about their powers, they have a higher chance of being kicked out of the moderation team.
  • Actually, a lot of the mods are not young and inexperienced. @Zehkar may be young and may be teased as being a Dumbsparce, but the real story is quite to the contrary. He is quite intelligent and he is quite knowledgeable of a few languages. All the picks so far are superb!

 

I am not a lawyer for the staff lounge, but from my end, they're quite professional about their work.

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3 minutes ago, Draekyn said:

I couldn't disagree more, let's leave it at that.

Due to the setting of forums, I feel that the mods are not being strict, they're being practical. I am just stating my viewpoint, that is all.

Edited by Bestfriends
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This is a site for games that children play. Please be more tolerable to children. You're running a forum about pokemon, not a business. You aren't as special as you think you are and there is nothing you are protecting by making things strict. In fact, you are making your forum less enjoyable and the point of games are for enjoyment. I don't see why you find it necessary to be strict about a forum about a game for children but I'm letting you know this is counter productive and you will be far less hated by your users if you are more tolerable and understanding. Of course harassment and so on should be dealt with but if a child is making a silly post you should take it as a joke before you take it as a problem. We're all here to have fun and have a good time, don't make things hard on anyone.

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1 minute ago, LowOrbitAI said:

This is a site for games that children play. Please be more tolerable to children. You're running a forum about pokemon, not a business. You aren't as special as you think you are and there is nothing you are protecting by making things strict. In fact, you are making your forum less enjoyable and the point of games are for enjoyment. I don't see why you find it necessary to be strict about a forum about a game for children but I'm letting you know this is counter productive and you will be far less hated by your users if you are more tolerable and understanding. Of course harassment and so on should be dealt with but if a child is making a silly post you should take it as a joke before you take it as a problem. We're all here to have fun and have a good time, don't make things hard on anyone.

Good evening LowOrbitAI, I would like to debate you on this paragraph. Forums is a professional place where people speak about certain issues dealing with gameplay. If I go on forums and make jokes, then people might look at forums and be like: "seriously, this game's forums is a joke!" and they leave. When you have an operation, it is important to have a professional look to it. Look at my YouTube channels for example, I need to have one central place to run to for professional announcements, so the concept of "Roy Rogers Inc" was born. In the corporate world, you need to have a parent company to help out operations.....

 

FOX News and FOX Business = News Corp

 

Head & Shoulders and Herbal Essences = Procter & Gamble

 

PokeMMO the game and discussions relating to PokeMMO = Forums

 

From a corporate standpoint, it makes sense. When you have a parent company, that company has to be professional about their work. Roy Rogers Inc with my example, has to be extremely professional with operations relating to my brands. I also have to have Roy Rogers Inc provide a sort of a "work hard ethic" pressure down to the other channels I own. Forums also does the same thing to the discussions and the game.

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  interesting th... indeed if you want a clean easy-to-read forum (reason why so many aaaaaa posts are being deleted I guess) then you need to do more against those troublemakers (how is it that xatu and desu never get warned?)

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3 minutes ago, Bestfriends said:

"seriously, this game's forums is a joke!" and they leave

 

Isn't that what's happening these days? I've seen multiple occasions on which people left saying those exact same words.(and by multiple I mean the entire laidback zone)

No one likes to waste 10mins typing out a post just to see some trigger happy moderator remove it without giving a second thought.

 

Professionalism gets lost somewhere in the fray when you have impulsive moderators. I mean yeah, following the rules is important but they are humans and not robots. Sometimes they need to understand the situation before acting on it. Some of the newer moderators don't even understand the old references in game and hide posts thinking it's spam.

 

Forums being a place to discuss things  about the game- 

Why aren't we allowed to "discuss" values of things ingame? Not talking about rwt.

"Oh that Pokémon seems an ez 1mil to me" post removed. The value discussion post made by eggplant is outdated.

They say they will carry on the talks about it pretending to have more "important" things to discuss and then spend months without results.

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36 minutes ago, Bishav said:

 

Isn't that what's happening these days? I've seen multiple occasions on which people left saying those exact same words.(and by multiple I mean the entire laidback zone)

No one likes to waste 10mins typing out a post just to see some trigger happy moderator remove it without giving a second thought.

 

Professionalism gets lost somewhere in the fray when you have impulsive moderators. I mean yeah, following the rules is important but they are humans and not robots. Sometimes they need to understand the situation before acting on it. Some of the newer moderators don't even understand the old references in game and hide posts thinking it's spam.

 

Forums being a place to discuss things  about the game- 

Why aren't we allowed to "discuss" values of things ingame? Not talking about rwt.

"Oh that Pokémon seems an ez 1mil to me" post removed. The value discussion post made by eggplant is outdated.

They say they will carry on the talks about it pretending to have more "important" things to discuss and then spend months without results.

Your twisting my words. People talk about forums being polished and professional. It is important to have a polished setting to your operation. I like the forums the way it is because as a news reporter, I can take a screenshot of something without being duped. As silly as Desu can be, he does not get "too silly" if you know what I mean. He brings a bit of some relief to the conversation. Desu's comments are a hoot to look at, but Desu doesn't usually go off topic with his references. If you look really deep, you can find a little message that Desu is trying to convey without the need of a lengthy response.

 

Impulsive moderators, I could be wrong, but higher ups usually remove those types of people. In fact, moderators have to have a LOT of patience when dealing with an issue. if there is one way I can describe the staff lounge, it would be "tolerant." Squirtle goes through and looks for the "best candidates" for the job and one wrong move on these "candidates" and they get scolded and if it continues, get moderation powers revoked. If you feel that a moderator is being "too impulsive", file a report to a Senior Game Master.

 

Your correct, Forums is about discussing this about the game, but not about "hey that scarf in game looks great, you can sell that for 1 million." I think it would be best to PM the person on forums or in game. Forums is more of a "professional look" into the game. People have different viewpoints of how much something is worth, so I would say it is a good decision for mods to take the Value Discussion section away. Guy A says 1 million and Guy B says 3 million, your mad at Guy A because he told you the wrong number. People have different ways of looking at things. As for your "months without results" remark, the developers are hard at work trying to make sure Unova is at a workable state. They can't stop every minute and tell you how they are doing. If you want them to do that, then Unova is going to come out a bit slower than expected.

 

Spoiler

Someone once told me that "your reality is different than my reality." That saying was quite profound to me because it means that we view things in a different light. Your reality maybe be different than BillyBob's reality. Everyone has their own way of looking at things.

 

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1 hour ago, Bestfriends said:

Good evening LowOrbitAI, I would like to debate you on this paragraph. Forums is a professional place where people speak about certain issues dealing with gameplay. If I go on forums and make jokes, then people might look at forums and be like: "seriously, this game's forums is a joke!" and they leave.

Even though (as far as I'm aware, might be wrong) the majority of the player base consists of teenagers/20+ somethings, this is still a game for children. That's not to demean the game in any way, the beauty of Pokemon is that everyone can enjoy it and there's undoubtedly a large proportion of players who are here for nostalgia value, but the concept of fictional monsters battling each other is something primarily devised for kids. Without meaning any offence, lighten up a bit. Obviously there has to be line but kids playing this game don't want to treat it like school, they just wanna have some fun. Your idea of how the forum should be sounds extremely cold and mechanical to me. 

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1 minute ago, Jordzi said:

Even though (as far as I'm aware, might be wrong) the majority of the player base consists of teenagers/20+ somethings, this is still a game for children. That's not to demean the game in any way, the beauty of Pokemon is that everyone can enjoy it and there's undoubtedly a large proportion of players who are here for nostalgia value, but the concept of fictional monsters battling each other is something primarily devised for kids. Without meaning any offence, lighten up a bit. Obviously there has to be line but kids playing this game don't want to treat it like school, they just wanna have some fun. Your idea of how the forum should be sounds extremely cold and mechanical to me. 

Good evening Jordzi, I hope your doing well. I know where your coming from, but I have to ask you something: Are you allowed to act like a kid in Wal-Mart? If you do, people around you would call cops right away. To use your analogy, PokeMMO the game is like the club and the forums is like an office building. Your not in school, but there are times when you have to still follow the rules of school. Your not allowed to talk to yourself in Wal-Mart or people (around where I live) would call cops and detain me for being "nutty" in a public setting. Although, you are allowed to talk to yourself on forums because no one can hear you, you have to have a certain level of decorum when on forums. This is like a PokeMMO library. You can go and read up on stuff on forums, but you don't act this is a club.

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2 hours ago, Bestfriends said:

forums is quite a professional place. There is no room for silly talk on forums, 

 

  •  

Its much more than a " professional place ". Yes , there are sub sections such as Suggestion box , General etc not meant for banter,silly threads etc and moderation to prevent such is fine. However Off topic (Whatever the new name for the sub section is now) , Round Table and Tournament threads  tend to have everything in between and it kind should be at the behest of the OP of the thread to an extent how strict it should be modded after a certain basic level. Im not saying allow bullying,abuse etc . All Im saying is dont give people a platform to be idiots and then punish people for calling out such.

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18 minutes ago, Bestfriends said:

Good evening Jordzi, I hope your doing well. I know where your coming from, but I have to ask you something: Are you allowed to act like a kid in Wal-Mart? If you do, people around you would call cops right away. To use your analogy, PokeMMO the game is like the club and the forums is like an office building. Your not in school, but there are times when you have to still follow the rules of school. Your not allowed to talk to yourself in Wal-Mart or people (around where I live) would call cops and detain me for being "nutty" in a public setting. Although, you are allowed to talk to yourself on forums because no one can hear you, you have to have a certain level of decorum when on forums. This is like a PokeMMO library. You can go and read up on stuff on forums, but you don't act this is a club.

This isn't Wal-Mart tho or a library, it's an online game/forum. There's a fundamental difference there. It's a game, they want to have fun. You aren't meant to be having fun in a Wal-Mart or a library or a classroom. Like I said, there is obviously a line and just being insulting/offensive is definitely not something that should be tolerated, but the idea of turning the forum into a strict and controlled environment akin to a library is not appealing to me. There are rules, sure, but we don't need to overextend those rules to turn this into the equivalent of a certain Russian dictator's Soviet Union (rest in peace Uncle Joe). Basically, just take into consideration the age group this game is meant to appeal to, and then think about whether what you are saying is realistic. 

 

Fwiw, I think the way that forum is moderated is mostly fine, I don't feel like it's either as strict as some people here think it is, or as strict as your comments indicate that you'd like it to be. I just think it's important to point out the big difference between a forum like this and the public settings you compared it to. 

EDIT: You really can't make reference to Russian dictators by name?! 

Edited by Jordzi
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