one of the mods here mentioned, "one of my forum goals is to keep happy members and happy forum".
what about the 'not so happy members'? what about the disgrunteled? what about the pissed off? sweep em away?
one of the mods here mentioned, "one of my forum goals is to keep happy members and happy forum".
what about the 'not so happy members'? what about the disgrunteled? what about the pissed off? sweep em away?
The level of moderation on this board is exponentially more severe that any forum I have seen in the 20 years that forums have existed, and I have been members of quite a few. They even use grade school slogans like "naming and shaming" at this point, as if we are all 12 years old. Now they close threads for slight scope creep, minimal sarcasm, hell, even if a question is answered they close it proactively just in case anybody says something down the road.
I honestly don't get it. Is this what a business wants for their customers? A vacant forum, the equivalent of a hotel bar, where the occasional passer by strolls in but quickly leaves because of the vibe? If that is their goal, they achieved it in spades. I started another thread specifically about this, with a lot less detail, of course, and it achieved the goal with remarkable efficiency. In it, nobody swore, nobody said anything terribly mean, there was no naming and shaming, and no less than four mods weighed in, the last one closing it. That is EXACTLY what I was talking about.
In the past, I have been fairly critical of people coming here strictly to whine about rules of the game, not getting their prizes, complaining of the cost etc. It was pretty bad at times, and some people had to go. I thought the mods were very fair, if not leniant, and did a very good job of biting their lip. Then the mods just went away, and we got no answers to anything. Now? It's a freaking ghost town. It is so over moderated I am not sure why I come here any more. 2, maybe 3 new topics a day? No new posts for hours on end? This is not an offline chat app issue. This is a mods treating people like children issue. You've killed your forum.
I hope Gree sees this as constructive, although with the actions I have seen here lately, I highly doubt it. Oh, and now that this place is a ghost town, your are dramatically overstaffed. 4 mods for 3 new threads every day might be a little overkill.
Last edited by Max Power; 04-30-2015 at 06:21 AM.
I posted essentially a two sentence post stating this in the off-topic marathon thread yesterday. It was removed without a trace in under 10 minutes. I'll probably get in trouble again, but my post read something like, "Does anyone else see the irony in the outcome of 'that thread'? Its demise clearly exemplifies the exact cause of the issue presented."
Gree, if you don't want to have a community forum, shut it down. The heavy handed over moderation has already killed it, and if that was the goal, there really isn't any reason for you to continue wasting resources on it. People can and will provide feedback via CS ticket instead of posting on the forum, so you may wish to consider hiring some extra hands there because tickets are already backlogged. Shutting down the forum should free up the resources required to make additions to the customer support team so there shouldn't be any damage done to the bottom line, if that's of concern.
You want discussion go someplace else. If you want your thread locked down, come to the CC forums!
On "Naming and Shaming": The rule used to be that you couldn't call out hackers/glitchers/cheaters on the forum. The purpose of the rule was that most of these accusations turned out to be false and the proper action was to report it and let Gree (funzio) sort it out. Then that rule got a cute name: "naming and shaming". Now the scope of that rule has been expanded so far I don't even know what it means anymore.
I've actually been told that quoting someone's post on the forum and responding to it is "naming and shaming" if the original post was dumb enough.
Thread rate: EXCELLENT.
I agree 100% with all of the above posts.
Line ID: clementine88
I agree that there has been over-moderation. There is another element that is killing the forum and that is over-zealous forum members. If there is a person espousing an opinion different from the opinion of experienced members of the forum, that opinion is quickly run down. This is essentially a place where only a handful of very vocal people can have their opinions shared.
You have just as much a right to post here as anyone, dad. The thing about putting your opinions out there, means you're offering them for challenge. If you have a point to make, be sure you can back it up with a rational argument and you'll be fine.
An example of the point I made earlier is in regard to accomplices. I can say I like accomplices because it rewards active players. Then someone who essentially lives on here will make 8 posts about why my opinion is not worth a crap. I've seen this type of thing repeatedly happen.
Another thing that happens is experienced members get into arguments about the most mundane things. Like "free" gold use versus "paid" gold use or some such thing. This happens all the time. Or the age of forum posters or anything else that is silly and unhelpful.
Recently look at how one of the members of SAS1 is attempting to get answers on the +1 mafia member reward. The posts after are filled with nonsense and vitriol toward SAS1 and the other teams that won the reward.
I keep coming back because I am truly amazed at the way the forum works here.
No mods know anything about what is happening with the game, ever, but they are everywhere shutting threads down in a heartbeat. It seems the sole feature of mods on this forum are to shut down threads.
I have never seen anything like it and it truly fascinates me.
This forum was allowed to go unmoderated for quite sometime. Folks were allowed to attack and insult others (other members of the community, the company staff, and the company). By having minimal moderation this forum became virtually uninhabitable for users, except for a select few. We saw fewer new members joining, and those that did join were often pushed out by the current members. Seeing this, and wanting this to become a place where all would feel welcome, we knew a change needed to be made. So we added the Forum Moderator program, rewrote the Code of Conduct, and started enforcing the rules more rigorously. This was and continues to be the right decision.
We understand that many of you are deeply passionate about these games and that your frustration is due to the fact that there are many issues in games that you love (or at least enjoy). However, that passion and frustration does not give you the prerogative to continually attack and aggravate each other, the moderators, or the staff. Yes, these forums are here so that you can air your grievances and share your concerns, but they are also here so that you can meet new people, make friends, and have conversations with individuals who share similar interests. Instead of this, we see people being persecuted for differing opinions. We see needless name calling and insults being slung. We see harassment and trolling.
On the subject of "Trolls", myself, Bolt, and Relic have all been working in community for a very long time (between the three of us we have over 30 years experience). We understand that every community will have these types of individuals; they are part of the territory. However, when the behavior of these individuals begin to drive away other community members, or prevent them from participating in the conversation, action must be taken. You have noticed that recently we have clamped down on this kind of behavior. We will not tolerate the inflammatory posts that are meant to do nothing but insult others, or aggravate the volunteer mods or the paid staff. And yes, we have been quicker to lock or remove threads that go significantly off topic. We do this to prevent them from becoming unnecessarily inflammatory. If folks do not want threads to be locked, we ask that you examine why they are being locked, and stop engaging in that type of behavior.
We are working our hardest, every single day, to make this a better place to be for all. While we, the Community Management staff, have no control over the state of the games (we are not Designers, Product Managers, Engineers, or QA), we convey every legitimate issue and concern to the Developers as soon as it comes to our attention. The same is true for our Customer Support staff. Together we work to champion your needs and concerns. Does it mean things will get fixed right away? No, but we will make sure it is not ignored or forgotten.
In regards to the desire and need for more information, we are constantly working to improve the process, get more information in advance, and share more with you, our community. However, it is important to understand that there are times when our hands are tied, when there is a piece of information that you may want but we are unable to share it with you. This is the nature of business.
On a regular basis the Community Management staff receives PMs from community members thanking us for trying to clean up the forums, and for trying to remove the negativity. We also receive messages from community members who ask us to do more, to come down harder on the "trolls". They feel as though they can not participate in the community for fear of being attacked, or bullied. This is not acceptable. This is what we are working to change.
I know that this community is filled with intelligent, passionate, individuals, even if it is sometimes hard to see. It is time we work together, community members, volunteers mods, and Community Management staff, to make this place a better place for all.
Thank you for your efforts to clean up trolling and bullying on this forum. One of the posts in this thread is a great example of why some new members do not feel comfortable participating, and it is perplexing why some are sanctioned and others are not for such bullying.