EVE General Discussion

Hi,

Thanks for posting. I'm going to quote you. I hope it is not dangerous for me to do so.

1) CCP can have any system they like and it's their call. That being said debating the merits of that system within the narrow, narrow boundaries of this thread, in a general & non-specific way and not attacking anyone in particular should not result in responses that are downright rude or what I would consider to be veiled threats.

If a CCP person wishes to respond to a specific post you would expect that they have an understanding of the context or an attempt at understanding the customer before giving them both barrels. It's not like anyone here is in a position to respond in the same way.

2) I can remove the speculation. GMs do send warnings in game via EVE Mail for out of game issues. So the 'official' position is they do.

3) Have you seen how many EVE mails get sent in this game? Try joining some of the 'Bulk Marketing' mailing lists. Hundreds of recipients with countless EVE mails daily and that is just one example.

The thought that the EVE mails generated by CCP in forum warnings could some how bring down the EVE mail system is a hypothesis with endless comedic opportunity but I will pass and just say it is an unlikely scenario.

4) To counter your point don't you feel a system that at least delivered the warning via the medium a forum member had just earned it on might some how avoid "WTF Banned?" "petitions" like some we see before us? Do you feel CCP's life would be made easier or more difficult without a near endless queue of customers being banned from the forum - from their perspective out of the blue?

If you go back and read the relevant posts on this even a concession that it perhaps be a workable idea and it could be raised on some EVE Gate ideas whiteboard might have been enough for a bit of kudos and and end to that issue. The response... well I've already commented on that and I remain astonished.

Which is really what I find the most baffling about this particular forum conversation is where the tone such a simple issue has been set by CCP. Frankly, it isn't the customers who are in the a position to be unsubtle in this thread.

To be frank I'm of the opinion that this approach has torpedoed the forum strategy that was laid down a few months ago. Wonderful, the forum has less character. People with a view that doesn't toe the party line are slammed as "trolling" or "ranting". Honestly, meh. It doesn't matter how all this looks on the front page of GD. It's simply this. Is this approach more expensive or less expensive that it was six months ago? More forum "petitions" or less than there were six months ago? That's the only measure of success and longevity of a community support function in a games company.

The next time CCP stuff something up (as they will) that's when you will be able to measure your community goodwill then we can see how this strategy is shaping up.

Overall though, I feel I can see the evidence of a massive amount of forum and "petition" issues being completely mismanaged here because frankly, I've seen all the forum and support issues.

After many years dealing with gaming communities the cultural and judgement issues I see on these forums and in in my opinion, the appalling "petition" process are obvious.

I could go into further details but that will be for another time and a discussion on how petitions work.

One thing though. You learn early on in community support is that if you regard every question, challenge or issue as a nail you have created yourself a serious hole to dig out of. If you already have perceived credibility issues (I refer as example to the numerous threads started by CCP on forum moderation in recent months) people really won't bother to care, respond to you or feel anything is fair when they expect only a hammer.

Which would be true if we were talking about their product, which we arent unless you're seriously trying to argue an internet forum is an essential part of EvE Online.

Hmm, I can see where you're coming from there and I partially agree with you but there are some points I want to make. Personally i think It isnt the moderation staffs job to stay on the good side of players just to make the company look good or to satisfy a players idea of how they should behave, its to keep order on the forums and give information when needed or requested and I believe the current staff have done that very well. I also believe they already tried playing nice and it just didnt work, witness how unpleasant some forum denizens used to be and in some cases still are, both to other users and staff members.

Do devs or isd have a moderation quota?

Then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then because I just dont think that applies in this particular case.

Sorry for not reading everything in the thread (I got to page 6 or so), and so I don't know how much Trolls have been talked about already:

About Troll hunting and Authority Trolls

Because it is sometimes difficult to tell if a person is trolling or not here in the forums, CCP/ISD person should try to avoid going into trolling mode even as a joke. This is because they are Authority figures here (and also because trolls are nasty stinking non-creatures). If they do go to trolling mode, it is difficult for the readers to determine if this authority figure is trolling, or if he really thinks that way - and if this is the way official way CCP thinks about the matter. This difficulty of understanding adds to insecurity of your customer base. Resulting insecurity could lead to less euros/dollars in CCP Swiss accounts.

The above concerns humor to some extent too because it translates moderately at best in text form. Bad joke can insult people badly (bad pun intended).

Also, even though it isn't quite as important imo as the above, if you can do something more about non authority figures trolling around in forums, it will be appreciated.

Thank you for your hard work to make EVE and the Forums a better place,
Abigail
PS: Features & Ideas forum pretty much moderates itself; ideas disappear from the first page very quickly because of the amount of stickied posts. Maybe CCP could have a new forum area for the development ideas like ship balancing in which only CCP can start new threads, and leave F&I for player started threads? Shameless links to F&I: Agree and Ammo. First one is even related to this thread.

lol not even one NickYo post delete/threadlock per day

That's obvious, but not reasonable.



If other people would be able to read my evemail for more than the few minutes needed to verify my full API, I'd be more concerned about anything else than anything related to eve-o forums.

Moreover, if CCP forum rules wouldn't be executed entirely arbitrarily, there would be nothing to hide.

Isolating a target in the 'Petition Isolation Cell' allows a company to reply with myriads of belligerent, nonsensical and threatening replies without anyone noticing.

Common practice in Crowd Control.

Of course Communal-Celebration-Proctologists woudn't know about that...



Assumingly, only a small percentage of Subscribers read the forums and even less receive warnings, even when posting and getting banned without any warning (another point I was criticizsng), so compared to the traffic some client updates cause, I just have to say:

Unlikely.



It wouldn't add work - sending a CC to a clients forum messaging inbox is a basic function of UBB forums, which this forum is clearly based on.

We make sure to investigate thoroughly before we clamp down on something. In a lot of instances however, these are rumor threads that the subjects of which have been taken care of before, so we can use past judgement and do a simple double check to see that the response is still valid.



As Community, we're kept very closely in the loop with everything that's going on at CCP so that we can answer player questions. We attend the scrum team sprint reviews, deal with all the patch notes, and keep in contact with every department in CCP to make sure that our information is up to date.

As such we generally tend to make calls based on that information, but if we're unsure, the entire company is just an instant message or phonecall away. Internal communication at CCP is the best I've seen in a company I've worked for, and I've worked for some massive corporations in the past. Plus the fact that everyone is very approachable and easy to talk to.



If there does happen to be an extremely rare instance where someone is genuinely wrongfully banned or warned, it will be repealed. No system is 100% flawless, and we have no issue with doing this on the rare occasion it does happen.



This is a really grey area, and it's something that we'll deal with on a case by case basis. If it's tantamount to harassment or is detrimental or insulting to an individual or group, then it'll more than likely be taken care of. If not, we'll gather discussion and see how we can progress from there.

Hope this answers your queries

Personally i think banning the discussion of specific events only shows you've got something to hide about that incident and dont want people to know. Being open and willingly discussing people's opinions on specific incidents allows you to communitcate to the players that you care about them and are concerned with their opinions on the matter. If they do not understand your reasoning for the outcome, it is a great oppertunity to express why you've chosen to take the steps you did in that incident.

Covering it up just makes people wonder why. Being open about your rulings tells people you respect them and also serves as warning as to what players should avoid doing.

I agree in some instances, such as an active unpatched exploit, details should not be posted, but after the exploit is patched they should be free to discuss it in detail.