271 replies to this topic

[headclot]

I really think moderation was and is currently to heavy handed.

[Solis Obscuri]

Repeated Blue offenses should stack up to yellow offenses; players should be given some visibility of how much trouble they are in.

Some people just have sour grapes and complain about everything. Sometimes there's a real root cause that set them off, sometimes they just like to complain. I don't think complaining and conspiracy theorycrafting should merit infractions, though, unless there are other aggravating factors like abusive language etc. Being a squeeky wheel alone shouldn't merit banning anyone, but it also shouldn't grant them immunity from moderation under some auspice that their trolling and flaming are some protected brand of "speaking truth to power". There are plenty of civil ways to voice criticism or speak truth to power, and that civility should be exercised more often in the commons of the internet.

I think moderation should generally be consistent, even if that makes it seem cold and arbitrary. Rulings should be subject to some review for leniency if the case merits it.

I don't support name-and-shame. I don't think other forumites should see who has enough infractions to be in danger of a ban or suspension; it just makes it easy to gang up and goad someone you don't like into a forum ban. I've seen it get pretty Lord of the Flies with that on other game forums.

I think Kaetetoa is the best moderation move you've ever done.

As for sockpuppet accounts, I favor raising the Recruit thresholds, at least for certain forum activities. Newbies should get easier access to certain areas like the Help sections, but it should be hard to sockpuppets to spam General Chat.

[Escef]

tucsonspeed6, on 08 September 2014 - 06:28 AM, said:

I all but quit the forums a few weeks ago due to the negativity. I only found out about this thread from twitter. I have a general assumption about forums that they are where fandom goes to die, and this one is no exception.

Hasn't happened to D&D and M:tG.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

I have heard people say that "The only people who post on the forums are the people who don't play the game."

And sometimes, I wonder if there is a bit of truth to that. At the same time, I know better, because I have well over 3k posts, and I play quite often.

I've been involved with Mechwarrior Online since the second wave of closed beta invites, and frankly, even before then, when I was a prolific poster here, and over at the Mektek forums in regards to the coming Mechwarrior game. [all the way back in 09 when we thought MWO was going to be "Mechwarrior 3015."

During those days, I was an almost fanatical supporter of what PGI was doing. I saw little snippets, I read the Twitter posts and yeah, I bought into the hype.

Then, finally, during closed beta, my invite came, and I got into the game.
And what a game it was. MWO was beautiful, visually, sound quality, everything, it was like, Mechwarrior Living Legends, but I could see more potential, I could see it being what MWLL couldn't be. I could just imagine where things were going, and if the devs were to be believed what kind of EPIC experience we would get. Heck I even held off on getting founders until I was damn sure this would be the game I wanted.

Then... then it all began to fall apart. Slowly but surely, Mechwarrior: Online became a mess of a game, decision after bad decision, lie after lie from the devs... I was starting to flounder in this sea of negative emotions about Mechwarrior Online because of my own personal history with Battletech and Mechwarrior as a whole.

You can look over, and see that I have founders, and I have the Clan Package. [I missed phoenix.] There's a reason for this... and it's actually very simple as to why I am still active in MWO... and it's because, there's no other active mechwarrior title in town with continual competitive Multiplayer.

At this point, I'd probably still be playing MW4:Mercs if it was still supported by Mektek. MWLL is in shambles with a very tiny community [which it always had a small community but it's so tiny now I can barely find a game.] So that leaves me with Mechwarrior Online.

And you know, it's not a terrible game, is it amazing? No far from it, it's decent. It delivers the Mech combat that I crave. and I'll continue buying Mechpacks and mechs and attempting to support this game.

But that's because, I have no choice, I have nowhere else to take my money for a battletech experience.

It's not because I believe in PGI anymore, because I don't. I haven't in probably a year and a half.

Now when changes get made, I laugh bitterly, and try to adapt, because I know they won't work. Hell they couldn't even program in 3rd person view correctly when their argument for it was that 3rd person view was to help you with your leg orientation [3rd person view barely gives any view of the legs on any mech, thus is useless for the reasoning given.]

I come to the forums, for discussion. I've been moderated a time or two, during rather passion fueled moments of rage perhaps. And rightfully so. But at the same time, I've seen people banned over the most innane things that I have to sometimes wonder if I'm at risk of a ban just because I have a slightly disagreeing opinion to what PGI wants.

It's hard to foster good will, when you've gone out of your way to say your vocal players are "on an island." and that we don't know what we're talking about.

You've tried so hard to hide the mistreatment we've suffered from you, and yet you keep trying to act like everything's ok, and it won't be, it can't be. There will always be enough of the old guard around, be it here on this forum, or elsewhere, that we'll be able to tell new players of the BS that's been pulled.

Granted, you [read:PGI] could flip this around, you COULD pull your heads out of your collective {redacted} and actually change, begin listening, delivering on your promises, stop lying.

But, there will ALWAYS, be an undercurrent of distrust, because that is what you have fostered to this point.

[Rick Rawlings]

Based on the above response, it sounds like you are going down the rabbit hole of whack a mole moderation. Good luck with that. But I don't see how closing down any thread that discusses the new product while suggesting forum users go to the official thread where of course discussion is forbidden helps your image in any way...

[Redshift2k5]

Accurs3D, on 07 September 2014 - 02:21 PM, said:

Is this thing on?

Hello, PGI and IGP are ******* ******** ******* and I hope you all die of brain cancer.

Please ban me.

Bonus points if you guess what the asteriks are.

I don't envy you, Niko. That kind of **** is why I never took up the fabled Mantle of Moderator oh so many moons ago.

[MX Duke]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 07 September 2014 - 12:53 AM, said:

The players who had been removed were all with prolific long histories of being moderated by various members of the team. This would all be well and good were it not for the fact that we have observed these same individuals openly mocking us and our players in third-party channels. I have made the decision that we will no longer offer such individuals the right to use our own channels as a means to drive away new players, denigrate the positive experiences of fans, derail the constructive feedback of the average player, and just plain heckle us; Even if it means someone resorting to proving Godwin's Law correct every once and a while.

The people that Niko is singling out in this post have something to hide, and very well might not use the same handle on each site. I would never use Homeless Bill's name, but Joe Blow might try to highjack my handle to spread his flame. If so I hope Niko has the for site to see that if MX Duke is being prolific on Reddit, but has not been on MWO, that the Reddit account might not be mine. IF he banns me, I hope it is for what I do HERE, not on reddit.

But as Niko's post points out, I doubt any body that obeys the rules of these sites has anything to worry about.

[Illegal Username]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 09 September 2014 - 02:31 AM, said:

Reddit: r/OutreachHPG is under the control of three non-staff / fan moderators and is considered the primary and official fan reddit due to it's persistently higher number of active viewers. r/mwo used to be the primary fan Reddit, until a takeover by the Word of Lowtax.

oh no ~goons~ ruin everything

[Kraven Kor]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 09 September 2014 - 02:31 AM, said:

I'll give a quick breakdown on our social media outlets moving forward. It should be generally considered that the Code of Conduct is in effect on all those sites we maintain, in addition to the terms of use imposed by that third-party social media site. That said, we cannot always moderate players banned on other channels.

We sometimes have to block people on Twitter when they spam multiple negative messages to us. It just makes it a bit easier to move through that negativity and speak to those who have otherwise been curious, excited, constructive, or needing honest support. I cannot otherwise determine when individual members of staff will choose to block players from their personal accounts, that is, justifiably, up to them. It also unclutters our newsfeed from off-topic discussions of an otherwise nice area of Canada and a hip-hop group who I wouldn't mind partying with, both of which happen to share the #MWO hashtag.

Facebook: The vulgarity filter seems to be doing most of the work for me now that it is turned on. Out of over 75,000+ likes/followers, There's about a hundred perma-banned accounts in total who have mostly been routinely breaking out into arguments with other players through the comments system or spamming vulgar content, or had been posting otherwise extreme content, spam, and so forth. Since I was not in full control of this before, and Facebooks system is not designed for record keeping. I am contemplating releasing them of the current banishments after setting up a Rules tab on the Facebook page itself and letting it give a fresh start then.

Reddit: r/OutreachHPG is under the control of three non-staff / fan moderators and is considered the primary and official fan reddit due to it's persistently higher number of active viewers. r/mwo used to be the primary fan Reddit, until a takeover by the Word of Lowtax.

For YouTube, as is an increasingly standard and more positive practice, we are moving towards disabling comments and ensuring video descriptions include redirect links to relevant topics on the forums, as well as to our other social media sites. It's better for acquisition and it reduces our need to fight a moderation waterloo within that system and redirect more staff attention where it is needed.

In almost all cases, we only identify a player on that site if they have provided some way to verify their account name to us, whether it's screenshots, e-mail addresses, using the same username everywhere, and so forth. Usually this would only be intended for support purposes. Occasionally we have reserved the right to exceed that self-imposed boundary to handle account trading. In this case, I have extended it further to handle a few who were consistently bypassing moderation and sanctions. With a new group of CSRs coming aboard, I did not intend to leave them to clean up after those continuing problematic accounts after stumbling into some broad daylight remarks and digging further to make sure I wasn't going insane.

To those players who remain forum-banned only. I have been considering planning amnesty options in the future. But that first requires a major overhaul to the moderation systems design and auditing the existing banned players list to flesh out ones we shouldn't (Spambots, Sockpuppet Accounts) A process which won't happen overnight.



There's other plans for that coming soon. Stay tuned.



I've been back and forth with Russ and Bryan about this and I believe the only reasonable middle ground is this. Once we have a few other things in place, I'm going to be pushing to let our web gurus build a proper automated dev tracker that isn't Helmer or myself fueled on caffeine. It's been on the Wishlist for a while; now becoming the To-Do list.



I might have to reconsider my previous comment about being warmer and cuddlier to everyone I ban.

Request approved, Later dude.

[size=4]

[size=4]I think Russ handled that earlier today with the NGNG Twitch stream event and some of his responses. I hope you can give us a bit more time to achieve the goals Russ has outlined and be there on the other end to try it out. Otherwise, if anything was left unsaid, please poke me in another channel so we can keep this one more on the topic of moderation instead of communication in general, which I do appreciate has been a huge concern.



[size=4]PGI has 2 people currently assigned to moderation. The one is our new GM, who is there to primarily to handle the Report a Player and Forum Reports as reported, and myself to help shoulder that load and handle some of the escalations. Neither of us have the ability to code.



[size=4]Bryan likes to be spooky and mysterious.

---

That's it for me for tonight folks. See you in the morning when my eyes don't feel like Terra Therma. I plan to get through the responses to my questions and direct comments after a bit of rest. See you all later!

I was banned from your facebook page despite only posting on it a few times, not arguing, not cursing, and really only due to me giving public notice that I had reported you to the BBB and the Canadian equivalent for False Advertising when I realized that the game I had paid to fund was never going to happen.

Negative?

Sure.

Worthy of banning? I don't think so. I give you permission to post every single thing my facebook account posted to your facebook page (PM me for my FB info if you'd like.)

It's one thing to silence people being complete jerks.

It's another to silence critics just for being critical.

/me gives PGI the hairy eyeball.

In my opinion, you guys have mishandled a lot of things. Forum Moderation, not so much, but twitter? Facebook? Trying to silence your critics? Heavy-handed response to player outrage?

One of many reasons my forum signature now says...

[Kraven Kor]

Escef, on 09 September 2014 - 10:35 AM, said:

It's a PR site for them, and you expect them to leave that up? Are you stupid?

I expect a company to be honest and up-front and to not silence feedback that is voiced professionally.

Death threats? Wargarble we hate PGI please fire Russ? OK, fine, that has no place anywhere.

"I am a dissatisfied customer and have opened a complaint with a consumer protection bureau" - yeah, I kind of think that they have a responsibility to not dismiss such complaints and I even think they could turn this around if they just, you know, start to deliver on those initial promises.

I am critical of PGI; I am not a belligerent person bent on ruining them, and banning me from their FB pages or whatever is not going to help them. If they want the campaign of negativity to end, they need to address the core cause of that which is, mainly, Founders and long time Mechwarrior players and fans feeling like the initial Founders pack and much more since then has been a money grab where we are never going to get the game we initially paid for.

I'd be backing this new project if I hadn't been burned so badly by this one.

[Escef]

Kraven Kor, on 09 September 2014 - 12:34 PM, said:

I expect a company to be honest and up-front and to not silence feedback that is voiced professionally.

Death threats? Wargarble we hate PGI please fire Russ? OK, fine, that has no place anywhere.

"I am a dissatisfied customer and have opened a complaint with a consumer protection bureau" - yeah, I kind of think that they have a responsibility to not dismiss such complaints and I even think they could turn this around if they just, you know, start to deliver on those initial promises.

I am critical of PGI; I am not a belligerent person bent on ruining them, and banning me from their FB pages or whatever is not going to help them. If they want the campaign of negativity to end, they need to address the core cause of that which is, mainly, Founders and long time Mechwarrior players and fans feeling like the initial Founders pack and much more since then has been a money grab where we are never going to get the game we initially paid for.

I'd be backing this new project if I hadn't been burned so badly by this one.

In other words, you answered both of my questions in the affirmative.

[Gorgo7]

Kraven Kor, on 09 September 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

Blah blah blah

If you want to lodge a complaint with the BBB then lodge a complaint.
If you want to prance around attempting to stir up others to "join you" in your crusade do so on your own specialty site.
I for one don't want to see it on an official site.
If you wish to attack Piranha hire a lawyer.
This isn't a high school popularity contest.

[Kraven Kor]

Gorgo7, on 09 September 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

If you want to lodge a complaint with the BBB then lodge a complaint.
If you want to prance around attempting to stir up others to "join you" in your crusade do so on your own specialty site.
I for one don't want to see it on an official site.
If you wish to attack Piranha hire a lawyer.
This isn't a high school popularity contest.

1. Done, and resolved.
2. Not at all doing that; just voicing my opinion. Others agreeing / disagreeing is on them.
3. So ignore my posts, or refute them, or whatever. Just be polite about it
4. Don't care about my popularity, at all. The posts I write are, generally, addressed to PGI and not to other players. Generally.

[Kraven Kor]

Also, note I post with no spite, no insults... and generally get spite and insults in return.

[Escef]

Kraven Kor, on 09 September 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

Also, note I post with no spite, no insults... and generally get spite and insults in return.

You get honesty. Because it reflects an unflattering portrait of yourself, you imagine it to be spite and insults.

[Kraven Kor]

Escef, on 09 September 2014 - 01:07 PM, said:

You get honesty. Because it reflects an unflattering portrait of yourself, you imagine it to be spite and insults.

OK, then consider that I haven't posted any "honesty" about you and then maybe get the point I'm trying to make.

Dismiss me all you want or refute my points or whatever; but insulting me, even if true, is just a strawman and does nothing for anybody.

So stop that

Edited by Kraven Kor, 09 September 2014 - 01:15 PM.

[Void Angel]

Excellent. Too many people feel entitled to spout insulting prattle on the forums. Anyone who challenges the conspiracy theories and wild accusations is immediately labeled a "white knight," in an attempt to poison the well and set up ad hominem attacks. Personal insults follow, and the theorist will simply keep arguing forever, derailing any thread that touches, however obliquely, on something with which they disagree.

While it's important to recognize a line between simply being inexcusably, embarrassingly stupid ("PGI doesn't want to balance new 'Mechs and make their game better because selling overpowered new 'Mechs makes them money! I don't understand business, but I'm loud!") from actually over-the-line behaviors - the habitual harassment, constant heckling, and conspiracy-theory nonsense that gets thrown up every time a fracking announcement comes out is appallingly annoying. Sometimes, you want to have a serious conversation...

Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken PGI this long.

Edited by Void Angel, 09 September 2014 - 01:29 PM.

[Void Angel]

As for what I'd like to see on this subject:

Well, I'm not sure where the point of diminished returns is for this sort of thing -

Kraven Kor, on 09 September 2014 - 01:15 PM, said:

OK, then consider that I haven't posted any "honesty" about you and then maybe get the point I'm trying to make.

Dismiss me all you want or refute my points or whatever; but insulting me, even if true, is just a strawman and does nothing for anybody.

So stop that

Actually, a straw man is a misrepresentation of your argument:
"I don't think that animals always have to be kept indoors, depending on the breed and why you have the animal in the first place."
"Oh, so you want to murder kittens by throwing them out into the winter snow!"
What you're looking for is an ad hominem attack - though it's only an ad hominem attack if it's irrelevant to the argument. Whether or not someone is a child molester isn't apropos - unless they're arguing that they should be allowed to work with children.

Still, this sort of argument is distressingly common on the forums - usually because the combatants are undereducated and unskilled, rather than being deliberately deceptive - and I'll be glad to see a moderate increase in the requirements of forum conduct.

While we're on the subject, perhaps we could relax the Psychotically Puritanical Word Filter? I can't even use the plural of "targeting aid..." Blocking every term that might possibly offend someone (including some that are dual-use and often inoffensive) doesn't seem to be the best way to monitor the forums - after all, abusive posters will simply work around the filter or find new insults.

Edited by Void Angel, 09 September 2014 - 01:45 PM.

[Kraven Kor]

Void Angel, on 09 September 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

Still, this sort of argument is distressingly common on the forums - usually because the combatants are undereducated and unskilled, rather than being deliberately deceptive - and I'll be glad to see a moderate increase in the requirements of forum conduct.

And again you insult when not insulted (or one could take it that way.)

I am neither undereducated nor unskilled and again you can't just label anyone that disagrees with you as inferior.

I am not attacking or denigrating anyone, whether they like PGI or MWO or agree with me or whatever.

I am merely voicing my opinion on things. And frequently being insulted / denigrated for it. And it seems both "sides" of the argument are under some illusion that only the "other guys" are doing this.

[Mawai]

Escef, on 09 September 2014 - 01:07 PM, said:

You get honesty. Because it reflects an unflattering portrait of yourself, you imagine it to be spite and insults.

Although I should stay out of this ... I would like to point out that you called him "stupid" ... and in my opinion, perhaps everyone's opinion ... that is certainly an insult and not honesty.

He has a valid opinion ... I may or may not agree with some or all of it ... perhaps he feels that corporations should be open and honest even on their social media sites ... but it does not require insults as you have clearly expressed ... so it is not his imagination