I'd like to adress some of this (and more), fil...
Sorry, wall of text incoming!
(if I adress "you" in it, I mean it as "everyone in the MWO community")
I'm nearing my one year celebration of being a moderator here and I guess I appear as somewhat of a hardliner on moderation. I'm also a very active moderator, so I am a highly visible target. It seems I have attracted quite some "fans" because of that, who hate me with all they got, for what they believe I have done to them, or for voicing my opinion against them, since I have that green tag attached my forums account.
When I take a look over at the Star Citizen boards and how some of the ex-MWO players portray me there, I must be some kind of idiotic demon. I guess I can let them keep on believing that, but I haven't done anything to them, that they haven't brought upon themself and whenever I voiced my opinion, I made it clear that it was my own and that I'm not talking for someone else.
The rules are outlined pretty clear and it is not hard to follow them. Most users can do that just fine and never come into contact with one of the moderator team. Whenever we recieve a report or witness a rule violation by a user, we always look at his past behavior, if he is new and how severe his infringement is. A ban, temporary or not, is always only a last resort for us. If we issue one of those, the user will have repeatedly, knowingly and severly broken the rules.
We can not let rule violations stay on the forums and simply tell the users:
"No, no, no! Please don't do this". If if we just somehow mark it as a violation and let it remain visible, the user only got more attention. Others will then copy him, knowing that whatever they do it will remain visible somehow. Some users strive for this type of attention and we are not here to give it to them. In addition to increasing our workload on the long run, it would also feel like we are complices in allowing them to post in violation to the rules.
There are some violations we consider to small, to be worth any more hassle, then to simply remove them. If a user notices one of his posts to be gone or changed, we hope he will think about in what way he might have broken the rules. If we edit his post, we will leave a note in the
Edited by line. If he doesn't learn from those small early mistakes and keeps repeating them, we will someday warn him and tell him in a PM what rule he has broken. Those are mostly predefined protocols, so that our moderation is consistent. At this point latest, a user can no longer claim to have not known the rules, as we will always direct him to them.
As a sidenote: If someone is taking part in any forum, he should always be aware of the rules and honor them, don't you agree? There are quite some users who will test out how far they can go or how far they can bend the rules in their favor. I had my share of users who told me: "But this isn't explicitly stated so it isn't forbidden." They tend to forget, that posting in any forums is a privilage and not a right. If they do not honor the rules in the spirit they are meant and if they don't accept that they are only guests even if the whole world explains it to them, do we not have the right to remove them from the forum community?
The reason we moderate mostly in private with the one who violated the rules, is also to protect them. We are just as much bound by the name and shame rules as anyone else here. We do not want a public execution of the users for their misbehavior. We want them to behave in a way that will help this community to grow. That's also the reason why we can not do that:
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and honestly it's probably funnier to just add a mod edit to the person's post with how long since they last logged in to the game and let people judge for themselves if the opinion is informed or not
I agree that it might seem funny on first glance, but we try to treat even the bad guys with respect. Even if they do not return it.
When we move threads to jettisoned or even further to k-town we get attacked for that as well. We are told that we would be hiding these threads. If that were the case, why are they still accessible to the logged in user? Why can every player, who has an account with the forums (and played at least 25 games of MWO) still participate in them? Kaetetôã was created so we do not have to hide (in other words: delete or move to an unaccessible part of the forums) those threads. Ok... it is limited access, as you need to be an actual player of MWO to see them, but they are still there. The reason most users do not visit k-town, is because they soon realize just what type of topic tend to land there.
Still... not everything is bad in k-town. I have seen some threads, that I thought hopeless to recover, come up with some pretty good arguments between the users. If it weren't for the unconstructive parts of those topics, that got them there in the first place, I'd move them back.
I can't talk for IGP or PGI and I never will, unless I'm enforcing rules. Everything said here is my observation and interpretation and my own personal opinion. For that reason I can not comment on things like this.
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I'd also suggest a review of some of the more... creative policies I've heard mention of, such as banning people from posting if they've said something negative but haven't played the game in a while.
All I know, is that this forum is the property of those two companies and they have every right in the world to decide, who they want or do not want on their boards. If they someday decide, that I'm no longer allowed here because I do not want to represent Comstar but the ConCap and ban me from the boards for it, I'll have to accept it and move on. I'll probably never touch MWO again afterwards, but it is their right to do so.
The moderation on the MWO forums isn't heavy handed. It only appears so if you start to look at it with a biased view, searching for moderation, silenced users and other such things. I can only repeat myself here. Everytime we touch a post, move it, edit it or delete it, we do it because a user broke a rule he should already be aware of. We understand angry posting (and advise against it for good reason) and let some things slip because of it. Just as often as a user calms down after a short while, one will feel encouraged if his angry post is not removed immediatly and therefore escelates himself through our protocols pretty fast and get even more angry when he actually gets moderated.
We aren't psychologicaly trained. We have to work on experience alone. Except for the IGP guys and gals, we are volunteers. Volunteers who want to help the game, the community as a whole and every single user as a part of it. My experience is telling me, that we have a very dedicated userbase. They will get worked up on the slightest mistake and they will rejoice whenever something happens they like, because they are so much into the game and the univers it comes from. Because of that we sometimes have to act hard and we sometimes have to loosen the reins a bit. We can't always act the same, as much as we want to. We would only alienate the community more by doing so. Of course, the hard episodes get noticed more. You will see less moderation in the relaxed phases. Added to that, that it is proven that memories, that are associated with strong emotions, are better remembered, then those without, it becomes obvious why we are often percieved as the bad guys. I recieved many PMs that thanked me for the way I handled one situation or another and it's more often from those violating the rules then from some victim.
There are many topics I want to take part of, but I can't because I'll for sure get attacked for doing so. If I voice my opinion on a game matter that I like, for example on ghost heat, I'll get attacked for defending PGI, being a white knight or, and that's where I aways get a good laugh, because I am forced by the higher ups to post that stuff. It will for sure derail the thread and cause work for the other moderators. I'm essentially locked out from part of the discussions on the forums for my believs. I'm doing this volunteer work, so that this doesn't happen to others as well. I still try to look for topics I can take part of, that are less controversial, I often find them in the support forums or in less common topics for a specific module, mech or map and I can also take refugee in the german part of the boards. There are far less attacks on me there and my opinion is mostly rated as such. If I were in this for the power (which is in fact not much more then anybody elses, as every moderation I do has to recieve a final approval), I'd have gone, for the continued abuse I recieved, long ago.
So... I don't know for sure if I stepped over the line in my post somewhere for talking in to much detail about the moderator protocols. I'm pretty sure someone will use my post and twist parts of it, to again attack me, the moderator team as such, PGI or IGP somehow (please surprise me). I do hope it helps everyone to better understand what we are doing here and why we are doing it.
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