Dear Users Complaining About Moderators

[Barbas]

(Snip).

If you think someone's deliberately trying to bait and aggravate you, there's no need to respond to them and sink to the same level. I don't remember exactly how you responded to them or what thread it was in, but there's more than one way of pointing things out. Take the warning you got, for example - complaints about the moderation are fine, but there are ways to make those complaints heard. You just made it in an inappropriate place and in the inappropriate way. You can ask a question in the Moderation FAQ thread or PM a mod if you have a question. I think they'll be happy if you do.

You only got one warning. You can get up to four. The only thing that's bad about this situation is that you seem to have already reached the conclusion that the moderation is biased and are now finding facts to fit that conclusion. Keep in mind, you've been told that's what you're doing, it's completely topsy-turvy and it gets people warnings. So don't worry, IceForce. Play some forum games or something and get your mind off it!

As for recent behind-the-scenes changes, buggered if I know, but see LackTheKnack's post:

2. Mods are being held to multiple standards.

For the sake of example, let's look at the Jimquisition Adblock thread. Jim said he wanted the comment thread to be a place where one could freely comment on Adblock. No one told the mods.

So, now the mods are expected to ban the Adblock advocacy posts in that thread, and will get in trouble if they do not. On the other hand, the Content Creator who made the thread doesn't want them to intervene. What is the mod supposed to do here?

In trouble with users, in trouble with staff. Things like that are probably why they'd get frustrated. The idea of the temporary disappearance of that thread being some sort of site conspiracy are laughable. People had already made up their minds that there was something fishy going on, but how would The Escapist even get away with that? Keep in mind that the Jimquisition AdBlock thread made the news on some other site and that isn't the angriest thing that's happened here. It may not even make the top 5.

 

[wulf3n]

...uh what is wrathing?

And before someone says Google it, I did!!!! [https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=wrathing&safe=off]

 

[Colour Scientist]

Oh, are you referring to that time where you were told that they weren't going to wrath Daystar Clarion because they'd have to wrath you too? I mean, you are the main advocate for consistency and all.

I was not referring to any specific example, but since you brought it up:

@IceForce: It's not our job to hand out warnings just because of your personal grievances. The post isn't nice, I'll agree, but giving that a warning under "Being a jerk" would lead me to warn your post that's being quoted as well, for the same reason.

My post consisted of nothing more than pointing out a strawman argument, and it is standard debating practice to point these out.
The reply I got was accusing me of "attempting to come across as an intellectual".

I'm honestly dumbfounded at how BOTH of these could possibly be considered "being a jerk".
How is accusing someone of attempting to be an intellectual, on the same level as a example of standard practice.

Are you serious?

That's how you remember that incident?
I believe you what you said was:

That user accused me of claiming that it's Anita's fault that "people want to talk about it", which is something I never said. Ergo, it was a strawman.
It's right there in the quote chain you quoted. Reading things properly isn't this difficult, surely?

I wouldn't exactly call that "standard debating practice." It's not that bad either but it's as bad as what was said to you and you posted this first.

 

[Yopaz]

Eh. I certainly think the forum healthbar is a silly idea and that infractions should be contextual, but I'm not going to blame moderators for it. It's like blaming a judge. They don't make the laws, merely uphold them. So yeah, moderator hatred is definitely over the top and unfair, and there should be less of it. I definitely do not envy moderators their roles, for sure.

I actually consider it quite useful. If you are close to either getting suspended or banned you'll be a little careful because you know how close you are. It also leaves the mod little doubt on what to do. It also leaves little room for complaint. You didn't follow the forum rules and you failed to learn. I have been banned from a site for swearing and I had quite a clean record before that. I disagree with that, but since they haven't made their rules consistent enough for me to contest it there was nothing I could do about it.

 

[lacktheknack]

I was not referring to any specific example, but since you brought it up:

@IceForce: It's not our job to hand out warnings just because of your personal grievances. The post isn't nice, I'll agree, but giving that a warning under "Being a jerk" would lead me to warn your post that's being quoted as well, for the same reason.

My post consisted of nothing more than pointing out a strawman argument, and it is standard debating practice to point these out.
The reply I got was accusing me of "attempting to come across as an intellectual".

I'm honestly dumbfounded at how BOTH of these could possibly be considered "being a jerk".
How is accusing someone of attempting to be an intellectual, on the same level as a example of standard debating practice?

Regardless, there is one thing that this proves: The "don't be a jerk" rule is completely and utterly subjective.

Forum rules should not be subjective. They should be clear, concise, and show specific examples of what is allowed and what isn't.
The rules here are not like this. They are vague, ambiguous, subjective, and open to interpretation.

Cool! Complain here, not to mods. That's the whole goddamned point of this thread.

Also, again, the mods aren't the final stop on who's being a jerk. The staff are. You know... that part I just wrote that you conveniently cut out.

If that's the case, and if the mods really are as powerless as you claim them to be, then why have them at all? Why don't the staff moderate the forum, and get rid of the mods altogether?

It would cut out the middle-men, it would probably lead to better consistency, and it would mean fewer mistakes being made (since people have to contact the staff anyway to get mistakes rectified).

Why bother with all this? Just have to staff moderate the forums, and it would solve all these problems.

Oh dear Christ, you're like a co-worker of mine. "Gee, why don't we hand this entire administrative workload to the intern as well as his normal duties? It'll be fine, he's hardworking!" As the intern, I'm now completely drowning in stuff to do, and it's simply never going to get done.

You can count the Escapist's paid staff on two hands. Why does ANY company delegate ANYTHING, especially to unpaid people (such as mods)? Because it's way too much work.

You massively overestimate the number of people who appeal their wraths. And even with the fraction of the wrathed who appeal, the appeal system gets bogged down so easily. You want the people running the slowest response system on the site to run the moderation? Literally the worst idea I've heard this week.

I discovered that the hard way myself, just recently.

What I found particularly surprising was the way the mod messages I received seemed to contradict the instructions on the group itself.

That seems to be a recent thing. I think there may have been a behind the scenes change of policy we weren't informed of. Either that or the attitude of the mods has just shifted lately.

I haven't been around long enough to notice any shift or change, but what you say definitely sounds plausible.

lolno. Nasrin, the last community manager, was more direct and abrasive than the current community manager would dream of being.

 

[Eleuthera]

lolno. Nasrin, the last community manager, was more direct and abrasive than the current community manager would dream of being.

Nasrin is two community managers ago by now, since her we had @S0osleepie and @JonB in a co-community manager role, and now we're under @DrStrangelove's supervision.

 

[thewatergamer]

I find some of the escapists rules and regulations as well as advertising practices to be somewhat silly and really annoying sometimes, but I don't get how this is the MODERATORS fault, they are just doing their job to the best of their abilities, if you have a problem take it up with the website itself, the mods are just doing their job, besides no website is perfect when it comes to its rules and regulations its just the way it is, so you just deal with it and try to avoid breaking any rules even if you think they are silly, or just go to a different website for your gaming news etc.

 

[lacktheknack]

lolno. Nasrin, the last community manager, was more direct and abrasive than the current community manager would dream of being.

Nasrin is two community managers ago by now, since her we had @S0osleepie and @JonB in a co-community manager role, and now we're under @DrStrangelove's supervision.

Whoops.

...she was still way more abrasive and direct than any of the others. And she was great.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Snip

For the record, save for some small hiccups, I think you and the mods all do a fine job here. It's at least nice to have mods that do things, like... moderation. Imagine this place like the YouTube comments section, or threads spamming stuff all of the place, like bump posts. Nobody can ever tell me that'd be better.

OT: Only complaint I've ever had with the mods was me reporting a blatantly inflammatory thread, and no action was taken on the OP in the least, especially after the responses the OP made to others. I've seen warnings and bans being given for such minor things in comparison, so it baffled me. Then again, it was a little hazy between 1-2 rules, but... reading the OP, it was still really obvious what was wrong.

But, whatever. All is well. I'm still glad for the mods. I appreciate their effort!

 

[The Lunatic]

The forums of The Escapist have an awful reputation. Mostly due to the policy of the staff which is enforced by the moderators.

The situation involving the Episode of Jimquisition is just one example, if you look across the internet, on reddit and where ever else, you will see people talking about how strict and frivolous the rules are here.

I myself have stopped buying Escapist Membership simply due to how poorly run the forums are. I am not the only one.

So, I really can't figure it out. Nobody seems to like the over-zealous moderation. It's causing The Escapist to have a poor reputation, and it's actively costing them money.


Why continue like this?

 

[DoPo]

So, I really can't figure it out. Nobody seems to like the over-zealous moderation. It's causing The Escapist to have a poor reputation, and it's actively costing them money.

1. It's hardly "over-zealous".
2. It's hardly "nobody".
3. You seem to assume every single person here gives any amount of fucks about what Reddit (and "where ever else" [sic]) thinks.

 

[Eamar]

The one time I got a warning, I felt it was unfair and successfully appealed it, no biggie.

I got an unfair warning too, but when I appealed, nothing happened.

Just wondering, what did you write in your appeal? I'm starting to think I may have written the wrong thing in mine, which is why it didn't work the way I'd hoped.

I'm not sure I can give general advice, as what I wrote was pretty specific to the situation but basically I stated my case and provided a fucktonne of links to posts/threads that supported my argument. In my case, that meant showing that things that had been mistaken for insults were actually facts that the poster they were aimed at had openly admitted to, and a bunch of stuff providing context for the conversation in question.

I guess backing up any and all claims with actual evidence is something I'd advise if possible. Of course, it's possible they just disagreed with you I suppose - the staff are human too after all.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Eh, I've moderated (significantly smaller, mind you) forums before and there's really nothing particularly extraordinary about the moderation here. Moderation is going to be subjective and inconsistent to some degree and there's absolutely fuck all you can do about it because moderators are human beings. Moderators are granted moderator status precisely because they're trusted to make their own decision on whether or not something is an infraction and they will inevitably come to different conclusions on occasion. It simply isn't practical to have every moderation decision peer-reviewed before it's made.
If you really, really think there's an injustice it is not hard to contact someone to have it looked at. More often than not though, I think you would get the same response again.

And if they don't reply, then that's a problem with the STAFF, not the mods. I've sent multiple complaints to the current CM, and he's always responded to me.

What I see when I see fussing about mods is someone raging at the cashier of a grocery store because management changed the store layout without warning. As someone who's been that cashier, I have negative sympathy for these people.

Also, this. So much this. The mods are there to uphold the same rules that you have agreed to when you join the site. If you have an issue with them then that's not an issue to do with the moderators.


Ironically, I can totally see this thread getting locked.

 

[The Lunatic]

So, I really can't figure it out. Nobody seems to like the over-zealous moderation. It's causing The Escapist to have a poor reputation, and it's actively costing them money.

1. It's hardly "over-zealous".
2. It's hardly "nobody".
3. You seem to assume every single person here gives any amount of fucks about what Reddit (and "where ever else" [sic]) thinks.

You might want to edit your post to be less rude. People have been warned for less, and I wouldn't want anyone to get warned for conversing with me!

1. Citation Needed.
2. Citation Needed.
3. The Escapist should care about how it is percieved on sites in which a large portion of the internet visits. A negative reputation is not a good thing to keep.

 

[DoPo]

1. Citation Needed.

You first - you were the one who brought it up.

2. Citation Needed.

You first - you were the one who brought it up.

3. The Escapist should care about how it is percieved on sites in which a large portion of the internet visits. A negative reputation is not a good thing to keep.[/quote]

3. The Escapist should care about how it is percieved on sites in which a large portion of the internet visits. A negative reputation is not a good thing to keep.

Thanks for watching out for the Escapist. You are now allowed to go to Reddit, as you seem to not want to be here. There you go, problem solved.

 

[The Lunatic]

Citation Needed.

It's funny you should say this, because:

The forums of The Escapist have an awful reputation.
[...]

if you look across the internet, on reddit and where ever else, you will see people talking about how strict and frivolous the rules are here.

Citation needed.

(Two can play at this game)

Nobody seems to like the over-zealous moderation. It's causing The Escapist to have a poor reputation, and it's actively costing them money.


Why continue like this?

The results of a poll held back in January would seem to disagree with your assertion.

Unless you're claiming things have taken a considerable turn for the worse in the last 6 months?

Okay.

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/man-has-anyone-here-been-on-the-escapist-forums-la-390720/

https://twitter.com/Escapist_TXT

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140306/06471226459/escapist-website-content-creator-puts-up-video-about-adblock-moderators-warnsuspend-people-discussing-adblock-comments.shtml

These are on the first page of google searching "The Escapist Forums".

These are what people will see when they search for our forums, and these results are what people have viewed when searching for our forums. There is not a single good result for our forums that I can reasonable find in this list of results.

The following are some reasonable well upvoted comments on a reddit thread for The Escapist.

You could sneeze on an Escapist forum and get banned.

Escapist seriously rivals /r/shitredditsays for the speed at which you can get banned over the dumbest shit.

I used to be a gold member, frequently active on the site (this was before I discovered Reddit).

Remember when Notch gave people a "free week" during the Humble Indie Bundle? The guy who made a boatload of dosh from the sale of Minecraft decided he could only afford to give people a free week of the full game. Now I think Notch is a swell guy, but a bunch of us on the Escapist (myself included) saw no reason why Notch couldn't give away Minecraft codes via the Humble Indie Bundle. We saw his little free week stunt as a way to open up more accounts and to piggyback off of a charitable bundle.

This, of course, was just an opinion. Andy Chalk (one of the main contributors, editors) threw a ***** fit at us. If anybody reading this watches It's Always Sunny, it was the same sort of fit that Charlie threw when Frank accused Extreme Makeover of being marketing for Sears.

He started personally attacking all of us in the forum, as well as people who posted that they spent under the average limit for the Humble Bundles. I promptly cancelled my gold account, renamed my account and removed all history of it (you can't just delete accounts), and told him. Full of nerd rage, he started spouting "don't let the door hit you on the way out!"

And I haven't been to the Escapist since!

I mentioned I used -Redacted- once on their forums and was permabanned for it (I had no other warnings or bans, ever). I got the ban reversed by agreeing to turn it off for their website. Their mod really took the issue way too personally and overreacted as if it was an attack on the staff themselves.

The Escapist forums will ban for anything: I actually have an account but I'm scared to post!

I don't post on their forums, but I do browse once in a while. The admins seem to be extremely strict in how they enforce their rules. It's insane when you see benign posts with "user was banned/suspended for this post" under it, for seemingly no reason.

The list goes on and on and on. I'm using a pretty small sample of the amount of complaints there is.

To find these the only term I searched was "Escapist Forums".



And finally.

Poll you're quoting has a small sample size, and those that do agree is a fairly small margin. I accept that it's difficult to gauge response if people don't answer the polls, but, the fact it was such a small margin of "Victory" means you should really consider what that implies.

And, please, you just have to ask, there is no reason for the rudeness and mudslinging of "Two can play at this".

 

[The Lunatic]

Snip.

Please refer to rules 1, 2 and 5. You are in risk of breaking them, if not having done so already.

Also, the above post is the response when asked for.

 

[Eamar]

Ive been here for a good while (on and off) ive got a multitude of infractions (all deserved). Eamar is also a regular too and all of her posts are within guidelines. She tends to be pretty squeaky clean when it comes to the rules. I personally have never read the CoC but ive learned from experience what I can and cant get away with and its cost me a probation. Eamar is clued up and knows the rules and I think shes one of the best posters on here and she is always pretty reasonable and adds a lot to the discussion. I tend to get along well with her (even if I disagree with her) because of this (she'll probably disagree)

Well, I just saw this and now I'm blushing Thank you, kind sir! And no, I don't disagree at all, I always enjoy our conversations.

You've got guys like daystar, lack the knack, dirty hipsters, krazy kidd, eevee electro and eamar...and many more (sorry if you didnt get a mention i havent got all day, but you know who you are) who have been here a while and add a lot to the discussion and know when to have a laugh

I have to say I'm honoured to be listed among such illustrious users. Cheers, shootthebandit, this made my evening XD

 

[Mikeyfell]

My problem with the Moderators (Bye everyone...)

is that there's one rule they don't enforce.

there's a rule in the CoC that says you're not allowed to troll other users. and that rule simply never gets enforced.
The victims of trolling are the ones who get punished. mostly because the CoC is broken.

Mentioning that you've been trolled is against the rules because you're not allowed to accuse another user of trolling.
so how do you report them for breaking the trolling rule?

Oh no! There's a flaw in the system!


The moderators also seemingly decided amongst themselves that leaving a positive comment, or telling a joke counts as "Low Content"

I've seen great comments on this site (Not recently because everyone capable of leaving succinct clever comments get banned because of the Low Content rule)
But when I do see one I want to let the poster know that their comment made me smile. and since I agree with it and think it's well stated I have nothing to add by virtue of... the dictionary.

and that means that every single post (Including this one) is either low content disagreement or addendum.
and the knowledge that those are the only 3 types of responses the CoC allows you to recieve every post in every thread is Flame-bate by definition of the CoC


and I pointed that out to the community manager and nothing changed.
So it's not really the mod's fault they just choose to uphold a broken rule set.

You're not allowed to be nice on the Escapist, you're not allowed to be mean either so everyone left is so neutral that there's hardly any humanity left in these forums.
I've seen Low Content posts that were hundreds of words long.

I've been penalized for being nice, I've been penalized for being succinct, I've been penalized for being trolled. I've been Penalized for telling a joke. and it's easy to think the mods are just fucking with you.

The one thing that you can say is abuse of power is when ever the reason you're penalized is "Mod Sass" because that pretty much means that you can be banned at the moderators discretion. because I've never sassed a mod... ever, and yet I've been suspended for "mod sass" 3 times (I think) and they can't be heald accountable because when ever I try to appeal "mod sass" suspensions I just get brickwalled.

But it's still not an "abuse of power" so much as "fair use of over power"

So the next time you want to accuse a mod of "Abuse of power" just send a PM to DrStrangelove and tell him to rewrite the Code of Conduct in a way that promotes healthy forum communication.

 

[2fish]

Dear users complaining about users complaining about moderators,

Dear users complaining about users complaining about users complaining about moderators.

Dear Mods complaining about users complaining about users complaining about users complaining about moderators.

Can't we just accept there will always be people be complaining but as long as you have my blessing their complaints mean nothing?

The few times I have looked into why someone was suspended/ect I can always see the why it was done. Maybe adding a little info at the end when a thread is locked could help. Transparency is the key.

"User violated paragraph 3 line 2 rule regarding wearing of black pants on Tuesday. Per Rules dated on 1900 amended August 18, 2012 the user has been suspended for 3 days as this is the users second offence in this category."