You are only promoting "Temp Ban Ping Pong" get as many users probated as possible.
He is promoting the removal of content that disrupts discussion, not the ban. If the guy gets probated, it's certainly not on that message alone, but rather on a significant repetition of offenses.
Who are those regulars and what is their contribution? This is a company-owned forum. It's purpose is quite clear. This is no forum meant to be a place for serious religious, political and what not discussions. This is no forum to bash POE, GGG or other players. It is no fanbase-forum. Potential customers, customers with questions around the game or the need for information are the target-group. And if they got scared away too heavily because of the tone set by some regulars here, GGG's reaction was quite understandable. Does that mean that i like hard forum rules? Not really. I believe that if they get implemented, some things BEFORE went brutally wrong. I believe that some permabans to some notorious trolls would have solved a lot of problems that occured. GGG was a little bit too kind. Now it is a little bit too hard. But what can they do? Let others overtake their forum? Let new players be scared away because of "l2p"- or "got to D3 then"-one-liners? I encountered forum-changes like this before in other forums. And mostly they were hated by some, but in the end lead to a more serious, more business-orientated presentation.
Again: I don't like the changes. But to some point i totally get them. Is it "over the top"? Yes. This needs to be adjusted. But still: The intention of this forum should always be better than enabling some to spam whatever they want - even at the cost of the companys resume. And i very often was shocked how much damage GGG allowed to be done.
It's not like i don't get their intentions, but even good intentions can lead to bad things, as here with these ridiculous rules.
I got put on probation for 24h after i called someone a "passive-aggressive troll" after i argued in several posts with him in a serious and friendly fashion, yet he (or she) neither read or reacted to anything i said, just repeating the same argument over and over again. That's exactly the kind of moderation that is killing forums. Either you do it right and ban the troll for trolling (as in: the obvious attempt to set people off) or you do NOTHING AT ALL. It's not like i called him "dickhead", "idiot" oder anything, i just stated the obvious - he/she is trolling, and that i didn't want to be part of that. If you protect trolls with your rules, your rules are bullshit and nothing else.
The forum moderation was very bad regarding trolls before already, but now they're not only ignoring them but also PROTECTING them. I've seen this kinda stuff before, left a forum because of exactly this kind of moderation where i had like 7k posts in almost 7 years. From what i've heard, the forum is slowly dying because there's nothing left but a circlejerk.
As i said, this forum won't die as long as there are people playing PoE, but with these rules it sure as hell SHOULD die. If you want to see how to run a good forum, check out civfanatics.com...
Idk why this is so hard anyway. Moderation should enforce rules it actually CAN enforce and keep their hands off all the nonsense people are throwing at each others head every second here in this forum (ah, right, not anymore because they get BANNED FOR CALLING A TROLL A TROLL, lol). It's easy:
- very few rules: no racism and all those other forms of belittling for religion/gender etc, no harsh curse words, no spamming, no shaming/blaming, AND ESPECIALLY NO NEGATIVE TROLLING. If someone's only goal is to set off people, he or she should visit 4chan. There's no place for such behavior in "serious" forums.
- IF someone really oversteps these very simple boundaries, MAKE IT COUNT. 7 days ban the first time, 3 months 2nd time, permabanned account the third time.
No "Probation" bullshit where people can still read, have them gone for good. No (partially) deleted posts, unless someone does some of these things that could be punished by the law etc. Not only "private messages" explaining why and what, but also make it public. Keep a low profile as moderators as much as possible.
Idk why forums chose to take very complicated approaches over and over again. Keep it simple. The less moderation, the better. And get rid of harmful users as quickly as possible.
Thanks for your long response man.
I am totally with you, regarding the handling of trolls. But:
You simply cannot compare a fan-forum like civfanatics with a business-forum like this one right here. The web is full of brilliant fan-forums / fan-sites. They are brilliant because of many facts, but one is: they can do their stuff as they wish. Most of them are not made for a business-purpose. They are fansites. They can accept rules (or discard them) companies cannot allow to be installed or discarded. "Freedom of speech" for example is a very important thing. It is one of the most important things in the world ;)
BUT: Not in a forum run by a company. While you can stay on your city's main square and shout "fuck H&M and their slavery!", you will not be able to do this in an H&M-forum. While you can sit in a park and discuss about religion (and 99% of the time make an idiot of yourself), there are some limits to do so here.
This forum, as a company's forum, is meant to be a place where customers and players can find informations about the game. Where problems are solved, bugs are reported, announcements are made and so on. It is not reddit (which i regard as a fan-site).
And about the troll-thing: As Ray said, don't write it. Send a pm to support. Done. "Troll" is offensive. To detect a troll is often very difficult. To call someone a troll can therefor be a mistake. Just because the person isn't. It's like with every other potentially offensive title. Just because you think someone is trolling, this does not force you to call this someone a troll. Just leave. Send a pm to moderation. I have to learn this too ;)
The moderation is something that bothers me too (see my signature). I think that it is a small line for a company how to manage a forum well and how to manage it not so well. But some of the people here (or people who left already) didn't help. In my opinion, they are just angry that this is no longer a sandbox for their sometimes childish games. I am not too sad about some people leaving this forum. Others departure would be devastating, but i still see them around, so all is good.
There has been a time (not so long ago) where nearly every not so well articulated, naive or controvers question was "attacked". In "Gameplay help" in "GD" and so on. Spam-threads were opened, trolling was massive. I don't miss this. This is an official forum. I, personally, don't want this to look like a fanbase-site. And, btw., some people here who acted like idiots, would be kicked on this fansites at once. ;)
The Sirus fight is a disgrace.
Last edited by ghamadvar on May 21, 2015, 5:43:45 AM
I wonder how long it takes till I get a 1 year probation for another completely harmless post.
(b) Personal abuse, foul language, inappropriate subject matter, obscene, harassing, threatening, hateful, or discriminatory or defamatory remarks of any nature ... are not permitted.
Think of it like a dinner party. Grinding Gear Games is hosting it
They host it but they arent there, they went at another dinner party
Their dinner party is on reddit.
(b) Personal abuse, foul language, inappropriate subject matter, obscene, harassing, threatening, hateful, or discriminatory or defamatory remarks of any nature ... are not permitted.
