Forum Moderation - give me suggestions and feedback

[Rudra]

6 hours ago, tidge said:

There is at least one (currently open) thread in the forums I am following/participating in that was essentially derailed because one player tossed out a hyperbolic anecdote (presumably intended to be a "____ is not *my* experience" flavor of response) among their multiple other responses and then there were a flood of followups somewhere on the spectrum of "picking-nits" to "hypothesis testing as refutation" of the hyperbolic anecdote.

I take it this part is in reference to me. Not my intent, but message received. My apologies.

[PeregrineFalcon]

12 minutes ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Calling people names on the forums is one way to get moderated.

This is a perfect example of the selective enforcement issue that I, and others, have been complaining about.

 

There are several posts that I've reported where someone referred to people who don't share their taste in movies as "neckbeards." A term that is also insulting. And yet those posts are still there, completely unmoderated.

 

So why is it that it's ok to insult some groups of people but not others?

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

7 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

So why is it that it's ok to insult some groups of people but not others?

 

It's not OK to be insulting to anyone.  But, I'm sorry, neckbeards doesn't register as an insult to me.  Maybe I'm just not versed in Urban Dictionary.

 

Other reasons thing might seem selective: 

 

1)  While I and other GMs do read the forums and can spontaneously act when we see something, more often than not we are reacting to a report made by someone else.   If no one reports it, we may never see it.

2)  We do try to be consistent and even handed, but different GMs (like different cops or teachers or parents) have different pet peeves and tolerances.  And we also have good days and bad days and might let something slide today that we don't tomorrow because the pet died, or the boss yelled at us, or any other bothersome thing.  We should be consistent and even handed anyway, but we are human.

3)  We also take into account the poster's history.  Is this the first complaint we ever got about them or have they already received multiple warnings and temporary forum bans? 

[lemming]

Neckbeards is always an insult.   iirc, the one mentioned, the context wasn't flattering either.    I tend to ignore stuff like that, but I do tend to think less of the people using insults.    There have been a string of broad generalizations from some people.

[PeregrineFalcon]

9 minutes ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

It's not OK to be insulting to anyone.  But, I'm sorry, neckbeards doesn't register as an insult to me.  Maybe I'm just not versed in Urban Dictionary.

Almost any word that's clearly used as a pejorative in the context of the sentence is an insult. And neckbeard isn't a new term. It's been used as an insult online for over 20 years. Also, even Wikipedia agrees that it's an insult.

 

I'm bringing this up not because I want action applied retroactively, but because I want to prove that selective enforcement has been a thing on this forum to people who continue to refuse to believe it. Thank you for confirming that.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

I learned something new today.  I looked it up and found the same wiki then searched the forums for it.  Your complaint pre-dated my arrival. 

 

But to be honest, I probably would not have taken action at that time either.  If you called me a moron, I would take offense.  If you called me a neckbeard, I would not take offense.  Maybe because I actually have a beard that is partially on my neck.  I would also not be offended if you called my a poopyhead but would if you said I had shit for brains.  *shrug*

 

Edit to add: I would be more disposed to take GM action if you were insulting other players vs insulting some outside group.

Edited Thursday at 06:49 PM by GM_GooglyMoogly

[ScarySai]

1 hour ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Calling people names on the forums is one way to get moderated.  Would you like to edit your comment or should I take some other action?

 

I elected to not name names, that's quite enough. 

 

But add another problem I have with you to the list, if you want.

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

3 hours ago, ScarySai said:

there's better ways to handle it than just closing the thread.

 

Such as . . .?

At the moment moderation seems to roughly escalate as follows:

 

1) Play nicely everyone, don't make me come in here.

2) Hid some posts, seriously cool it everyone.

3) Ok we're done, thread locked.

 

I suggest an extra step between 2 and 3 where appropriate:

 

2.5) Ok X and Y, you were asked nicely and this isn't on. Do not post again in this thread or bans will follow.

 

Again, I appreciate that this isn't as simple as the complete threadlock and it does require moderation being more publicly direct but it would be fairer to other posters in the thread. At the minute it can feel like everyone is punished for the actions of individual posters.

[ScarySai]

Specifically moderating the people that are actually out of line in a given thread would be great and the ideal solution. Particularly if a means to ban people from just the specific thread could be made, as I think an outright forum ban for going off topic is extreme.

 

Given major "hot" threads in recent history though, I do doubt the ability of this being done responsibly and not just making it worse.

 

I've seen people invoke the dead and not get actioned, but friends of said departed responding to that in reasonably hostile fashion got suspensions. 

 

Once again, asinine. I could be more direct in DMs if you wish, Googly. As I'm sure specific names and examples for the double standard don't fly in a public thread.

Edited Thursday at 06:51 PM by ScarySai

[Parabola]

5 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Particularly if a means to ban people from just the specific thread could be made, as I think an outright forum ban for going off topic is extreme.

They could just instate a forum rule that says 'if you are asked to leave a thread, do so' and the outright bans follow if this is not obeyed. Going straight to the ban would indeed be too strong unless other rules had been broken.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

The only way I have of keeping people from posting in a certain thread is to ban them from all threads for whatever given time, or to lock the thread.  It would be nice to have a tool that blocked a poster from a specific thread.

 

7 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Once again, asinine.

 

Maybe no one ever told you, but poking bears or insulting the neighborhood cop is usually not a strategy for success.

[battlewraith]

37 minutes ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Such as . . .?

 

As I said before, I don't have a problem with your moderation. It's a mostly thankless job with limited tools to work with. 

If I can offer a suggestion, it would be to manage expectations maybe slightly differently. At least with respect to this subforum. 

 

In my experience, there are a group of players that view themselves as helpers. And quite frequently the "help" is about explaining why an idea is bad in their opinion. 

This is wholly unnecessary. Ideas sink off the page fairly quickly. If you don't like something, don't engage. All these individuals are doing is making the thread tedious and contentious for people who may actually be interested in the topic. Furthermore they tend to bring the same litany of objections to every discussion and then complain about repetition. 

 

I'm not against people objecting to an idea. I'm against people treating these threads as a "cleanup in aisle 5." If you have no interest in an idea and think it's horrible, by all means say so. But then move on. If you look at the "phantasm sucks" thread, it went on for a while with people making the same repetitive assertion that changing phantasm would be a buff to the set and therefore they were against it. At one point someone said "this thread is done, gms put a fork in it." That's the mentality I'm referencing. "I made my good arguments against this, now stop the discussion."

 

The thing is, the thread did not get locked and people kept discussing it. And I noticed in the recent beta patch notes: Known issue: Phantasm is stupid.

That's the point. The hope is to get a message across to the developers, not convince a subset of forum regulars. Someone taking the initiative to articulate a suggestion shouldn't be condemned to playing whack-a-mole with people who are simply not interested in the idea. 

 

 

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

15 minutes ago, Parabola said:

2.5) Ok X and Y, you were asked nicely and this isn't on. Do not post again in this thread or bans will follow.

 

I have privately contacted players on occasion, but not habitually.

[ScarySai]

7 minutes ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Maybe no one ever told you, but poking bears or insulting the neighborhood cop is usually not a strategy for success.

 

Did you want feedback? Or would you prefer I lie and say forum moderation has been acceptable this past year and a half?

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

3 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

Someone taking the initiative to articulate a suggestion shouldn't be condemned to playing whack-a-mole with people who are simply not interested in the idea. 

 

I agree that some people on these forums can be contrarians or argumentative or relentless or all of the above.  And sometimes people with a suggestion are just as relentless and argumentative and take criticism personally.

 

It's OK to post suggestions; it's OK to disagree with suggestions; but it's not OK to attack each other or beat the proverbial dead horse into tiny pieces.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

8 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

 

Did you want feedback? 

 

I do!  That's why I asked. 

 

8 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Or would you prefer I lie and say forum moderation has been acceptable this past year and a half?

 

I was just giving you some life advice.  You are free to ignore it.  But saying moderation has been unacceptable is better than saying it is asinine.

Edited Thursday at 07:16 PM by GM_GooglyMoogly

[Stormwalker]

15 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

In my experience, there are a group of players that view themselves as helpers. And quite frequently the "help" is about explaining why an idea is bad in their opinion. 

This is wholly unnecessary. Ideas sink off the page fairly quickly. If you don't like something, don't engage. All these individuals are doing is making the thread tedious and contentious for people who may actually be interested in the topic. Furthermore they tend to bring the same litany of objections to every discussion and then complain about repetition. 

 

If you post an suggestion in a thread, and I post that I disagree with the suggestion and give my reasons why, and you then argue with my reasons why, and I am not persuaded by your argument, I am obviously going to express that I am not persuaded.  Otherwise I am effectively conceding the point, at which point my objection is no longer a matter of record.

 

Now, if we start going around in circles about the same point, then eventually I'm just going to say, "We're at an impasse.  You see it this way, I see it this other way, and we're not going to agree," and stop responding after that.  But I'm only going to actually do that after I feel like I've said what I have to say.  If the argument you make against me either 1) leads me to believe I haven't adequately expressed my point or that I need to clarify something I previously said, or 2). causes me to realize other important factors that I think need to be raised, then I'm going to keep arguing until I think I've fully expressed what I have to say about it.

 

Now, if the other person says, "We're at an impasse.  You see it this way, I see it this other way, and we're not going to agree," then I will probably stop as well, unless their description of how they think I see it doesn't actually match up with how I actually see it, at which point I'll try to clarify my viewpoint.

 

I'm not arguing just to be argumentative.

 

I can't speak for everyone else who participates in these threads, but I imagine that many of them feel the same way about it that I do.

Edited Thursday at 07:15 PM by Stormwalker
subject-verb agreement correction

[ScarySai]

9 minutes ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

I was just giving you some life advice.  You are free to ignore it.  But saying moderation has been unacceptable is better than saying it is asinine.

 

I don't need life advice from a forum moderator who asks for advice and gets upset when said advice isn't worded to their liking.

 

I'm not swearing, your word policing doesn't interest me. 

 

On that note, I remembered a third point I neglected to mention earlier, because I forgot: You tend to ignore the general point of a post and hyper-fixate on one tiny little thing you don't like, not even against the rules, you just don't like it - discarding any other content in said post in your replies, and giving others (It's not just me, rest assured.) the general impression that you're being unfair.

 

I'm really trying to be honest and work with you here, but I'm not going to pat you on the back and tell you you've been doing a good job, I think the moderation has been a joke overall on the forums specifically, and my feedback is going to be direct and reflect that.

Edited Thursday at 07:22 PM by ScarySai

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

Thank you for your input.  But I am not upset, just having a forum discussion.

 

You can send me PMs with examples and additional details if you wish.

[ScarySai]

Will do, thanks.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

On 3/17/2025 at 9:10 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

I will say though, that in that recently locked thread I was able to screenshot a post that was deleted that clearly didn't break any rules.

 

I think I know the thread you are mentioning, though I'm not sure which specific comment you are referencing.  If I hide a post, I am also going to hide all the posts quoting it.  Sometimes you'll have a comment that doesn't quote a hidden post but now makes no sense without the hidden posts and that may also get trimmed.   It's also certainly possible that I made a mistake.

[Rudra]

42 minutes ago, Parabola said:

They could just instate a forum rule that says 'if you are asked to leave a thread, do so' and the outright bans follow if this is not obeyed.

People are already being told/asked to leave threads just for saying they disagree. This will lead to a yesman echo chamber where any dissent is simply not allowed.

 

Edit: Hells, there are OPs that include statements that dissension is not welcome. So by those OPs, anyone posting any disagreement would be subject to being banned for participating on the forums.

 

Edited Thursday at 07:38 PM by Rudra

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

Such as . . .?

 

 

Calling people names on the forums is one way to get moderated.  Would you like to edit your comment or should I take some other action?

 

🙂

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

On 3/17/2025 at 9:31 PM, biostem said:

In short:

1. Be fair in enforcing forum rules/policies, and perhaps provide some feedback and an opportunity to appeal any moderator decisions.  We do try to be fair and any decision can be appealed by filing a support ticket here - https://forums.homecomingservers.com/support/

2. OP not responding to replies for a thread they started?  Maybe close it if said OP is no longer engaged. That would require us to read every thread and keep up.  We do close out necro threads.  If you feel another thread should be closed for whatever reason report it and let us know why.

3. Prohibit personal attacks and/or remove them?  Respond to the topic of the thread or not at all?  A lot of my forum moderation is removing personal attacks.  I try not to get too involved in maintaining a strict on-topic rule.  Sometimes its just a joke or a related issue.  But again, if you think something has really gone off the rails let us know.

4. Limits on what can be discussed?  Maybe shut down threads that appear to solely exist to stoke up anger/unrest?  There are limits that are outlined in the Code of Conduct - https://forums.homecomingservers.com/code-of-conduct/.  Some topics are controversial but worthy of discussion even if they stir up emotions.

5. I'm not sure how feasible this last one is, but perhaps require any new forum members participate in existing threads to some extent or for a certain period of time, before being able to start their own threads/topics?  I'm not sure if this forum could do that, but I would be against that for the reasons stated by others.

 

[macskull]

I’m going to agree with the poster on page one who suggested new accounts should not be able to start threads until they’ve engaged with the community in some way (certain account age or number of posts, perhaps). They’d still be able to support in the help/support sections for technical issues of course, but it would keep some topics from being repeatedly brought up by people who don’t know any better.

 

Now, I’m sure someone’s going to come in here and say that such a system would be “unfair” or “gatekeeping” or something similar, but it’s… a standard anti-spam practice on plenty of forums and Discord servers. In this case it just has a bonus side effect of reducing repeat threads about problematic topics.