Harsh censorship on forums

[Underverse]

If it help curbs the click bait threads, good. This forum has devolved into click bait spam with no purpose but to start shit flinging at one side or another.

Even so-called click bait threads can produce useful discussion. Someone can make a thread with a clearly biased view and responses can still be well reasoned. And they often are. Not always, of course.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Or close threads on the basis of reported posts or moderator discretion (which is not what's happening now, as Endus said).

I was speaking from the aspect that, the mods might think we need increased policing.... which I feel ike its what they've implied by expanding the rules to encompass more topics.

[Alvito]

I suggest a new, better approach.
- No topics are forbidden, other than apparent troll/bait posts.
- When people don't behave in a thread, they get infracted.
- When too many people don't behave in a thread, a mod issues a warning that people have to stop, or the thread will be shut down.
- If people keep misbehaving, then and only then a thread is closed.

This is a video game website, as a result there are limits to what they want the users diving into since it spreads into other forums. When people behave poorly they are often infracted. When multiple people are derailing a thread, but a constructive back and forth is still continuing between most posters a mod does issue a warning. When they just close it, most if not all of the replies are people slinging mud back and forth and the thread has already gone completely off course. Your ideas for a new approach is the current approach. If it doesn't seem like that then contact one of the mods or super mods. In my experience most of the super mods are pretty good about getting back to people if you have a legit question/comment.

[dopefishz]

- When too many people don't behave in a thread, a mod issues a warning that people have to stop, or the thread will be shut down.
- If people keep misbehaving, then and only then a thread is closed.

Neat ideas. Gotta form an army that's totally annoyed of hearing about how much better vanilla was and we should be able to get that 'Bli$$ard shut down Nostalrius' thread locked in no time.

[Raldazzar]

whilst I agree, you're basically asking people who (stereotyping woo) clearly don't have a lot going on in their lives to give up power.

thats why they do this. they have the time. and seek power that they do not have elsewhere.

they won't give this up. the forums have been modded based on mods opinions for years, look how the people who talk about israel get infracted etc etc.. it's no different from anything in life, bias makes it through.

[TheDestinatus]

Rules are arbitrary. That rules currently do not allow for something is not an argument for the existence of said rules.

Anything you don't agree with will be considered arbitrary. There is nothing random about the reason for the implimentation of the rules, Endus pointed out exactly why they were put in place and pretending that you don't understand, haven't experienced or even participated in rule violations is nothing but disingenious behaviour so you can seem like the damsel in distress when in fact you're just trying to worm your way back into discussions that are demeaning from both ends of the spectrum.

[Endus]

I understand you're not paid, and while I do appreciate your service to MMO-C... wouldn't more Mods be a solution? Making sure you have a few online at all times? I see that some sub forums only have 1-2 mods.. which can't really cover all times of the day.

In many cases, we'd love more mods. The issue is that, again, we're all volunteers, and we have to be sure we only bring on people who'll be a good fit for the mod team; if you break site rules a lot, it's unlikely you'd be a good fit, for pretty obvious reasons.

In many cases, we just don't get applicants. I was a Shaman mod for almost a year after I quit WoW, and the ONLY Shaman mod, pretty much entirely because nobody else had volunteered for that subforum. I was eager to hand it off to anyone who wanted it that whole time, there just wasn't anybody to hand it off TO.

I just find there is a lack of consistency in how these restrictions are applied.

Oh, you're not supposed to nation-bash? Read through virtually every thread and someone (without getting infracted) goes, "hurr durr another day in 'murica. Americans are all X."

In all seriousness, use the Report Post button. We DO check. I've issued plenty of infractions over the years for people saying "hurr durr 'Murica" or the like. However, be aware of a few things;
1> Sometimes, it may be borderline, and we may decide it isn't over the line. It happens. A lot depends on context and the rest of the post.
2> They may get infracted for an earlier/later post in that thread, or banned in another thread entirely. If a user is banned, we generally don't pile more points on; the system's meant to encourage reform, not see how high we can stack points. And if they made 3 or 4 "bad" posts, they may only get hit on one, but that infraction covers all their posts; the lack of a red tag doesn't mean a post was ignored by the mod team.

Or close threads on the basis of reported posts or moderator discretion (which is not what's happening now, as Endus said).

Well, it is moderator discretion. And we do look at reports, but reports draw moderator attention; they don't convince us to take action. If someone says something a bunch of people don't like but which wasn't against the rules, if we get a dozen reports on that post (WAY more than we usually get on anything), that doesn't mean we'll feel pressured to take action.

But definitely use the Report Post system. Speaking from our end of things, it feels underused. There'll be a really obvious flame, like "you're a moronic poopyface turdburglar" obvious, and we'll MAYBE get a single report. And if we don't get a report and none of the GenOT mods read that thread, it might go unnoticed. So please, report stuff. We may not agree with you about whether it needs to get hit, but we WILL look.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Another forum I am sometimes on has similar rules regarding non-constructive topics.

Every once in a while they'll let the ban on such discussion drop with the caveat of "If you still can't discuss these things civilly with each other the ban will go back up"

[Endus]

Another forum I am on sometimes has similar rules regarding non-constructive topics.

Every once in a while they'll let the ban on such discussion drop with the caveat of "If you still can't discuss these things civilly with each other the ban will go back up"

For what it's worth, we do the same. We just don't announce it. If there's a thread we feel has potential, and an issue has largely died down, we may use that thread as a test case to see how things go. If it derails as expected, it's clear the rule still needs to exist. If it doesn't, we consider amending the list. Same kind of principle applies to adding topics to that list. For the most part, the rules are still there for a reason, though.

I say "we", but that kind of decision is really up to the global moderators and the site admin staff. We regular mods will get a heads-up to let a thread go from time to time, but we're not making that call, and no one global moderator is, either.

Don't take this as an excuse to start such threads, though; we generally use major events where there's some wiggle room, anyway. I'm just reiterating that we're not blindly applying rules; we do discuss and consider whether they need to be amended semi-regularly.

[Steve French]

Well as it is, there are really only three options:

1) Close threads more often

2) INfract people more often

3) leave everything open, and punish no one.... causing issues.

Are those really the only solutions though? Better yet what does that have to do with what I said? Are you saying they should just randomly hand out infractions to keep people in line? I think all this censorship just makes people value this forum less, its just a big shithouse where you can drop your shit off at now, you think anyone cares if they get infracted on MMOChamp? Like they learn some positive lesson from shitty moderation and seek to be a better person on this forum? Doesn't work that way.

[ElDoorO]

dont forget thread necro'ing ...


as it happened, i replied to an old post without noticing the date and got a warning...

checked the rules, and unless i totally missed it, there is no clear indicative for this warning..

is it consider necro if its an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year? ... either way, time has passed since the original post, even if the topic has remained active...

plenty of threads out there were originally created years ago yet still have posts every once in a while and are not considered necros..... what makes a thread okay to be brought up again?


anyways... as for other censorship, the mods for the most part are okay, but every once in a while their sense of "whatever it is they think they have" causes them to ban accounts just to make themselves feel better......

heck, some mod of a penguin or something like that, that starts with the letter "d" (i think), posted not long ago an extremely "unprofessional" reply saying just "no" when the original post didnt even ask a yes or no question... apparently, mod can troll politics post and get away with it.

had someone else replied like that, and the mods felt giving, i am sure any other person would have gotten a ban.

This one I never understood. It's trivial enough to write a nightly script to lock threads as "old" and thusly lock them as aged. It really is *that* simple and yet few actually do it.

[Underverse]

Anything you don't agree with will be considered arbitrary. There is nothing random about the reason for the implimentation of the rules, Endus pointed out exactly why they were put in place and pretending that you don't understand, haven't experienced or even participated in rule violations is nothing but disingenious behaviour so you can seem like the damsel in distress when in fact you're just trying to worm your way back into discussions that are demeaning from both ends of the spectrum.

No. The rules are always arbitrary, whether I agree with them or not. All I was saying was that they can be changed.

But you decided to take this further. First, I appreciate the sentiment that Endus described in his post, but as I've already said I think the lines that have been drawn are too restrictive, to the point where a lot of interesting discussions are shut down regardless of whether or not they are violating the principles the current forums rules strive to uphold. As in, there are a lot of off-target effects of the current method of forum moderation.

Second, I'm flattered by your commendation of my objectivity but I really have no idea where this 'damsel in distress' bit has come from - care to explain that?

And finally, whether or not the things I write are demeaning is a subjective judgement. If you ever feel insulted, you're free to either change yourself or explain to me (or others) how I'm wrong. But that you take offense is not grounds for banning topics of discussion. I'd like to remind you that it's your decision to take part in off-topic discussions; no one is forcing you to open threads.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

dont forget thread necro'ing ...


as it happened, i replied to an old post without noticing the date and got a warning...

checked the rules, and unless i totally missed it, there is no clear indicative for this warning..

is it consider necro if its an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year? ... either way, time has passed since the original post, even if the topic has remained active...

plenty of threads out there were originally created years ago yet still have posts every once in a while and are not considered necros..... what makes a thread okay to be brought up again?

The general rule of thumb regarding Necroing, as I understand it elsewhere, is whether or not you are actually adding something new to the discussion. Posting into a 3 year old thread with something like "I agree" or "No" is generally considered necroing. Posting into a old thread with new information is generally considered ok.

[May90]

For the most part, the moderation team would love to be able to trim down that "forbidden topics" list. However, there's a reason those topics have gotten onto that list. They're topics which, in our experience, do not produce any constructive discussion, but just turn into two (or more) sides shouting insults and "NO U" type responses at each other, forcing the moderation team to step in repeatedly and heavily to cut down on the flaming and abuse. It's not that these topics shouldn't be discussed; many of us would enjoy productive discussions on those topics. It's entirely down to how those topics go on these specific forums, with our community.

For instance; I love discussing religion and theology. I was one credit short of minoring in Religion, with my first degree. I debated becoming a clergyman for a while, in my youth. I know I can discuss the topic without mocking people's faith and whatnot, but that's unfortunately not how such topics tend to go, here, so it's on "the list".

It's better to see that list as toys that have been taken away because community members keep hitting each other with them, rather than toys we think are dangerous or "bad" in and of themselves. It's not our goal to see how many people we can ban every week, and allowing topics that serve to just make a lot of people angry enough to flame and threaten others or engage in hateful speech of some sort means we have to drag out the banhammers, and if we can avoid doing so by banning the topic, that's "better". Neither option's ideal, and I recognize that. The ideal would be if everyone could be more even-tempered and engage in open, constructive discussion, even if others disagree with their views.

I recognize this can feel unfair to those who DO behave well; see my above comment about really enjoying religious debate. It's a tough choice as to which path is "better", because it's pretty much a Sophie's Choice thing. Two bad options, and no good ones on the table.

Another issue is regarding your proposed "solution"; the central issue with it is that we moderators are volunteers, and it'll happen that I'll poke my head into a thread on Page 3, see that it's "okay" in terms of behaviour even though it's a topic we know is problematic (but not banned, at that point), I'll go to bed, wake up, and the thread is now 52 pages and it went to the Abyss by page 5, and everything after is horrendous. After a couple hours of cleaning and a couple dozen people banned for outrageous behaviour, the thread's finally locked, but the damage is done. If we have that topic on the list so I can just close it at page 3 before it gets that bad, that's "better" from the mod team's perspective. If we were paid, and here 24/7, and could have someone babysit a thread all day, that'd be a different situation.

I see, and I understand the reasoning. I suppose, you are right: we like to project on others and think that if we are going to have civil discussions on these topics, then everyone can - which is not always true. I just think that the preemptive moderation on these particular forums is a bit too harsh; although the community here might have a lot to do with this, as well.

I remember an amazing thread on "science vs religion" we had on The Hive Workshop, back when I was active there. The thread was almost 200 pages long, and even though sometimes the discussion heated up and people had to be penalized, for the most part the discussion was very illuminating, and I personally became much more accepting of religions than I was before - even though I am still non-religious.

I suppose the way the moderation works currently might be seen as the lesser evil: it would be great if we could discuss whatever we want in a civilized matter, but we have to choose between freedom leading to anarchy and chaos, and censorship leading to structure and order. Pretty much like the compromise all societies have to do: between freedom and safety.

dont forget thread necro'ing ...


as it happened, i replied to an old post without noticing the date and got a warning...

checked the rules, and unless i totally missed it, there is no clear indicative for this warning..

is it consider necro if its an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year? ... either way, time has passed since the original post, even if the topic has remained active...

plenty of threads out there were originally created years ago yet still have posts every once in a while and are not considered necros..... what makes a thread okay to be brought up again?

Honestly, a bit off-topic, but I've never understood this rule accepted on almost all forums. What is wrong with necroing? If one wants to discuss something, and there is already an older thread on the topic, isn't it better to "up" that thread, rather than create a new one?

The heavy handed infractions don't help much either, basically get infracted if a mod disagrees with you.

That, luckily, I haven't seen much of here. Some infractions seem quite arbitrary and biased, but can't say I've seen a moderator infract someone solely out of disagreement. If that disagreement comes along with aggressive language and such, then yes - but the person asked for it.

I understand you're not paid, and while I do appreciate your service to MMO-C... wouldn't more Mods be a solution? Making sure you have a few online at all times? I see that some sub forums only have 1-2 mods.. which can't really cover all times of the day.

The problem with a large number of moderators is conflict of opinions and interests. Pretty much like a large number of politicians in one room are unlikely to find compromise easily and will bicker for eternity before agreeing on something, a large number of moderators on one forum might lead to "moderator wars", with some moderators issuing infractions, others canceling them, closing threads, opening them, etc.

If threads devolve and people are willing to engage, then why not let them? People still have the ability to report posts, and the decision to close a thread can be made at that point. I'm not sure it has to be preemptive - even if you know it's going to turn into a 'NO U' back and forth, as long as people are willing to engage and posts aren't reported, I don't really see a problem.

This is a good point... But I'm not sure it would work well. A lot of devolved threads on the first page might lead to the community devolving in general, to people lowering their standards, and even those normally carrying out civilized discussions behaving more like people do in the Youtube comment section. I think I agree with Endus on this: more liberal rules would only work if moderation was more active on these forums - and that would be hard to achieve, since moderators do the job for free and won't spend hours every day sorting through hundreds reported comments.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I dunno. I feel like a cracking down on the obvious, "Haha I'm not technically breaking the rules!" shitposting would be more productive than banning entire topics.

It's a slippery slope when mods start cracking down on people for almost breaking the rules.

[Derpleton]

One thing that I have always disliked is that we can't talk about private servers. Now of course Nostalrius has been the exception due to the publicity and yet a thread on the server that most people are fleeing to was recently locked. Is there some sort of legal reason for this? I mean I can understand not letting private servers advertise and hold general discussions here but having their names be forbidden feels a lot like how Voldemort must not be named... oops anyway I just don't see why naming private servers in a general discussion is frowned upon.

[Hexian]

Maybe a possible solution is harsher penalties for individuals who do directly violate the ToS, especially the well known repeat offenders.

[Notter]

The whole world is having a censorship trend right now.
it's mostly advocated by SJW groups who are against free-speech and demand safe spaces.
i'm not saying this is the reason for the censorship on these forums, but it's very noticeable everywhere.

Twitter and Facebook are becoming worst and worst with the allowing expressing opinions.. schools have a zero tolerance policy..

only thing this leads to, is for people to not be able to share their opinion with those who disagree with them, which creates echo-chambers, in places that they CAN express themselves. which in turn... makes their opinions more extreme.


Anyway, as for the topic.
yeah, i agree, the "off-topic" forums are no longer a place for almost anything disagreeable. and the mods choose to treat us as little children which need to be separated, instead of letting us indulge in debate, even uncivil debate.

[Sliske]

Been infracted many times for simply disagreeing with something the American government does as "Nation Bashing"

also been infracted many times for referencing religions role in a particular issue.

Its dumb, its to the point where I don't even care about infractions - they're thrown out seemingly at random ,maybe 1 in 10 posts will get infracted and then I get to not post for a week or 3.

At least bashing Blizzard isn't bannable. Holy moly, that Darthisis fella would be this forums Hitler, and we'd be the Jews.

[TheDestinatus]

No. The rules are always arbitrary, whether I agree with them or not. All I was saying was that they can be changed.

But you decided to take this further. First, I appreciate the sentiment that Endus described in his post, but as I've already said I think the lines that have been drawn are too restrictive, to the point where a lot of interesting discussions are shut down regardless of whether or not they are violating the principles the current forums rules strive to uphold. As in, there are a lot of off-target effects of the current method of forum moderation.

Second, I'm flattered by your commendation of my objectivity but I really have no idea where this 'damsel in distress' bit has come from - care to explain that?

And finally, whether or not the things I write are demeaning is a subjective judgement. If you ever feel insulted, you're free to either change yourself or explain to me (or others) how I'm wrong. But that you take offense is not grounds for banning topics of discussion. I'd like to remind you that it's your decision to take part in off-topic discussions; no one is forcing you to open threads.

Its simple, read the post that Endus wrote. The rules were relaxed and have been heightened because when they were relaxed people would flout the rules. This leads to nothing more then more work for the moderators and an increasing aggressive social environment which is completely contrary to the purpose of this website. I get that people have polarising opinions, ultimately the status quo pushes whats considered acceptable whether it should be or shouldn't be. My opinions on moral fibre and purpose are probably different to other peoples but this website isn't the place for that. I am surprised that curse didn't outright remove it when they took over because as a business they should be trying to bring more money not have visitors assailed by endless preaching from both sides of the moral spectrum.

Anyone pretending they haven't violated the rules could be proven wrong with a post history check, you are no different to anyone else including myself and the damsel in distress comment should read something like this "Oh, but we haven't done anything to deserve this, this is so unfair!", but thats not the case, this is a reaction to people not doing the right thing.

I know you can opt out of seeing this message board, but that requires logging in everytime you here. New comers to the website or people not logged in that pay any attention to "recent forum posts" get nothing but war mongering, religion/anti-religion, SJW/Anti SJW or gay/straight agenda pushing. On any given day this forum dominates that window and while you could argue that maybe thats because its the most active part of the website, its probably a contributing factor to why people don't want to participate in the other parts.