EVE General Discussion

Even a saint couldn't resist to get mad at you, now please stop talking to me.

You just try to drive people mad so that they maybe swear at you and get banned.

If these are the kind of people you people like, I'm not sure where the world is heading , lol.

My opinion is that transparency combined with genuinely taking on board feedback from players will eventually breed a system that the community agrees is an acceptable level of moderation.

If you look at the Something Awful forums if a user is banned for a post, it says so on the post. Everyone can view the ban history of a poster. Personally I think that's great, if you're trying to lurk a bit and find where you fit in with everyone looking at a post with a mod stamp saying "USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST" gives you an idea of what NOT to post. Likewise if you think a mod is being over zealous, you can simply look up all the users they banned and why, then call them out on it (or in the case of EVE-O file a petition etc).

Plus it means that people can never claim "over moderation" without being able to say "For example ,here, here and here" because if they don't have examples they are probably making it up.

I mean I started a GD thread which got locked (because it was terrible and thats why I made it) but I think thats pretty much the only interaction with the ISD I've ever been aware of.

I know it's more of a forum coding rather than moderation team thing, but I think moderation needs to be a lot more visible. I honestly think the CCL team wants to listen to player feedback so the best way to use that is to make moderation as visible as possible.

At the moment posts edited by mods usually say why etc. I think that's a good start but other actions too I think are a good thing.

Imagine a neighborhood, this neighborhood has a handful of police officers assigned to it. They generally look after everyone, make sure no criminal enterprises spring up and if an alarm goes off they respond. Everything has a general feeling of order but people barely notice they are there. Now imagine that all of a sudden one day volunteer positions open up for the job of "security guard", dozens of teenagers and young adults apply.

"Wouldn't it be nice and fun to include them? Everyone will be safer and things will feel more inclusive. Not to mention the fact they will make our jobs easier. No one in their right mind could ever be opposed to this" they say.

So one morning citizens of the neighborhood awake and things seem at first as they usually do. But they quickly come to notice that there are 'security guards' patrolling the street. They're questioning people as they pass and peering through windows. The general feeling of order has transformed to an ominous controlling presence and it's impossible for it to go unnoticed.

The security guards are the ISD in that scenario in case you didn't pick that up. Your response to this seems to be

"I don't see a distinction, the security guards are the same as us. Besides, were you not under these same laws before? I don't see how things have really changed at all and in the ways that they have you could argue that things are even better now!"

You claim all this while specifically stating we are not allowed to use examples in order to illuminate the ways in which you are wrong.

You and the ISD seem to like writing me off, telling me to just apply to be a mod (everyone must have the same penchant for authority that you two have right?) Let's say just for fun that I was one in the ilk that we see around today. I would first edit your OP, claiming "this is bad manners" then I would delete your post and say "I think it's obvious as to why, we can all see the trolling going on here"

And you would defend this right? Since you seem to be such a big fan of selective moderation?

Not helpful Amber. Your post comes across as needlessly egotistic. It's ok to disagree with Gargant's implication that the over-moderation has ceased (I'm not certain he actually claimed it has ceased, but no matter). But to simply say "I disagree" without providing a basis for that disagreement misses the opportunity to advance the discussion. Why waste the audience's time like that?

MDD

Reptail, attacking RSB doesn't advance the conversation here about CCP/ISD moderation. You can disagree with his points without being disagreeable.

MDD

Interesting aside: did you know that the prefrontal cortext is the last portion of the human brain to finish development? Did you know that this area is responsible for judgement (known in psychological terms as "executive function")? Did you know that the prefrontal cortext development continues until roughly age 26? I bet many of you are having "ah HA!" moments right about now...

I'll agree that this prohibition is uncomfortably vague, I'm not certain I agree with you that it is a complete prohibition. CCP/ISD appears to want to allow us to cite examples to support our claims, while avoiding the situation where someone would cite a specific moderator action with the intent to dispute that particular instance (which should be handled via petition). It's a very faint distinction.

I might argue that selective moderation isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, a moderator can't be merciful (a critical skill) without being selective. What I think we would agree on is that they should avoid adversely biased moderation. That is perhaps what you meant, and simply made an imprecise word choice. Also to be avoided, and distinct from "adversely biased", would be oppressive moderation, which is what I would ascribe to your interesting analogy.

MDD

You raise some god points Skippermonkey, there's no simple answer but if you'll allow me, I'll post a few observations and a few facts and hopefully, some hope!

First, to address your point regarding threads locked for 'lack of content'.

You might notice a trend of change in this recently; I've personally just gone back through the last few pages of this forum and the only things that are locked are:

CCP posts that have expired their necessary usefulness.
Posts that are opening new threads to discuss things that should be in the official comment threads.
Posts that are blatantly against the rules from post 1.

We are reviewing our policy* of locking and whilst we're not going to do anything retroactively:

• You will notice more threads being moved.
• You will notice more threads being temporarily locked for cleaning.
• You will notice more threads getting ISD posts contributing or guiding in some way.

There has to be a trade off, there's simply not enough room in GD for everything!
We also want to try our best to be as informative as possible when we lock something, so that it should be clear why it's happened.
We know that some folks who posts here in GD, believes their post belongs here and that being moved is some kind of punishment because other forums are quieter. This is *so* not the case.
I'm a firm believe that if posts are put into the right forums in the first place, then those forums will attract visitors.

If you see anything that you consider to be needlessly locked going forward, I ask you to report it for review or petition it.
As leads, Eshtir and my self have the ability to undo excessive moderation in some cases, so let us know.
If you report the OP and start your report 'FAO CCL Leads' then only Eshtir, myself or CCP will look at it.

As to why those previous threads have stayed open ?
There are a number of reasons; they're harmless / authorized by CCP / encourage positive posting (mostly!) / help the forums feel lively.
Another point is that they're about Generally about EVE in it's broadest definition and they're not hurting anyone being there.

I know that wants to promote the point "why them and not others"; but there's no way to answer that satisfactorily.
We've made mistakes in the past, and we've not been uniform in our actions - this is understood.
Part of the reason I'm here now is to make sure that moderator behavior is unilateral and fair.

I can't undo the mistakes of the recent past, but I hope I can stop them from happening again though.
I will repeat my statement though - we are not going to do this retroactively, at least CCL is not.
The Community team can and will address that, if they believe there's any necessity to do so.

What you say about 'useless/redundant/duplicate or whatever' threads. In a perfect environment, people would ignore them; but they don't. We get 'Wat' posts (Hi Jim o/) , 'IBTL' posts, 'Your bad and you should feel bad' posts.

These sorts of threads break down and become dysfunctional very quickly.
That's not (intended to be) a gross sweeping statement there, it's fact.
We've let some of these threads slide as an experiment, and by the second page, to a thread, things have gotten out of hand. "Why aren't ISD doing their job", "Why is this still here" etc.
Of course, that in itself breeds more, those posts bump it to the top and breed more comments of people complaining.

We're very interested to hear what you might suggest can be done to fix that though - it's one of the things that we invariably end up locking.

To remark on your last paragraph, with regards to " let the community decide what threads they want to post in."
I think CCP Gargant has put it in the best way:



If you stick to the rules, we welcome you to post anywhere you'd like!

* that is to say, CCLs internal and future training policy.

I didn't think you did, sorry!

I just meant to illustrate that the community can post where it wants as long as where it wants isn't a violation of the rules, is all!

One of the things we're thinking about is new forum areas, it's one of many options.
What do you propose ?

I was half jokingly discussing with my team that we could have an 'Opinions' forum, but it would only allow one post to be made per thread; and it would have a Like button and Dislike button

Ok, that's unlikely to happen but we're open to suggestions from all avenues. Just remember as Navigator has said, CCP has a legal obligation to keep the forums PG13; we're unlikely to ever have an *anything goes* forum.

Suvetar, I'll add that I, too, thought you were rebuking Skippermonkey. At least I did on the first reading, but I tend to read posts multiple times (that way all the voices in my head eventually get a turn...) so eventually I decided that maybe it wasn't a rebuke. I suppose that just demonstrates how what one writes can be so easily misunderstood.

Polls certainly seem overdue; players have been limping along on band-aid solutions for quite a while now (example: the crowd-sourced wish list of changes). I would ask that if polls are added to the forums that voting be restricted to non-trial characters which are members of player corporations. Allowing NPC characters to vote seems to too easily permit sockpuppetry shenanigans. Restricting voting from characters in non-player corporations will irritate those players who insist on remaining in non-player corporations (frequently die-hard carebears), so you (CCP et al.) would need to be prepared. But to my thinking it would simply be another inducement to get into a player corporation (just like the NPC tax rates).

Also I realize that the above is more of a "Features & Ideas" discussion than a "Moderation" discussion, so it does fall a bit off-topic for this thread. But don't blame me; Skippermonkey started it!

MDD

As satisfying as it would be to remove NPC corp players from voting, in the interests of fairness, they have to be included.

The best reason for this thinking is they might be voting on something that influences their decision to stay in the NPC corp in the first place.

The only way i can see polls working is if they are restricted to 'one vote per account'

edit - in response to your above post, you could argue the case for 'authority figures' like ISD's and DEV's to be removed from the up/down votes all together

As for the players being subject to 'block voting', well, thats just a reality that people will have to accept

edit2 - in regards to the 'what would polls do for moderating', you might be able to gauge the public reception to ideas or behaivor with more clarity to see if it is a prevailing mood of the community or just a grumpy forum poster pushing his agenda to the front of the queue