What to do if you are muted by "bad" moderators

Apologies for my previous antagonistic thread on this topic. I'll try to be adult about things.

The first thing to do when you feel you are unfairly muted is to take in some basic information before jumping straight on the forum and posting your sad tale:

- there are two support entities - moderators and the support team. Mods are part of the community - members who GGG feel deserve the role - and the support team are hired by GGG.
- don't assume you know who muted you or who made the decision to do so, even if you have a nice shiny name associated with the mute - it could be the mods or it could be support or it might even be the devs (GGG themselves) who actually make the relevant decision.
- the only place to complain about a mute is via the support mail address support@grindinggear.com
- be very clear about this: you DO NOT KNOW the motivation of the moderator or support staff or dev involved so don't bother ranting about how they did this or that to you - 95% of the time they are just doing their job. 5% of the time they're human and they get annoyed and they sometimes make mistakes.
- it's an automatic reaction to look for support from others in the community when you feel someone has done you wrong - but the reality is, you are unlikely to get support from a community who has to see support threads about a known issue (that are valid and warranted 99% of the time) repeatedly posted by people who are angry in the moment, have forgotten the details of what they actually said, and are looking to vent. If you want community support, see below about making a calm, logical, detailed post.

and finally, if you absolutely must post because you believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are 100% innocent of wrongdoing:

- as above - be calm, logical, clear, and detailed with your reasoning. Don't attack anyone personally or any group (Mods are power trippers, Support sux, etc.). If you want the community to care about what you have to say, say it with an eye to improving the game.
- people make mistakes - if they do and you only have a minor ban consider that it may take you longer to post and respond and defend your claim that it will to just suffer the mute and get on with life. If it is really so unfair and you have mailed support and not been satisfied with the response then by all means make a calm post about the issue.

Edit: removed after possibility of being locked noted

This may get locked, but I want to say:

Thank you for getting it.

"

- it's an automatic reaction to look for support from others in the community when you feel someone has done you wrong - but the reality is, you are unlikely to get support from a community who has to see support threads about a known issue (that are valid and warranted 99% of the time) repeatedly posted by people who are angry in the moment, have forgotten the details of what they actually said (like this - a common occurrence) and are looking to vent.

Amen to this, my friend. :( I think as a community we would be a lot more supportive if it we didn't see so many unwarranted complaints about it, day in, day out!

I hope people take the advice you have given here. :) +1 for this post.

Not many will take a step back and give the matter some thought before realising "Oh..well maybe I really shouldn't have done that." -- but as per natural human behaviour, we all seem to believe that we are in the right all the time, every time.


Sometimes its best to just take a step away from the computer and clear your head. Go for a walk or read a book. Do you still feel like posting that thread now? No? Good.

Bravo Sir/madam...well said and +1

It is hard for someone to NOT use emotion when being punished...the reason is that punishment (especially public) stirs emotion and rarely logic.

Even if you are in the right, it NEVER helps nor convinces anyone to help you when you go on a rant, it only serves to feed the bias that you were wrong...even if you were not.

Speaking with logic and reason and using objectivity can sway not only community members, but may just get the dev/mod/support to reassess their punishment and look at the situation again.

Sometimes just a simple apology can go a long way (if you were in the wrong and the offence wasn't absolutely horrible).

Emailing then is pointless, they do nothing but make excuses for wrongly muting people and can't even apologize.

Even when people are wrongly muted like I was, their response is pretty much 'this is why we did it, we are right and you are wrong'.

A simple apology and admittance that the mute was carried out wrongly would solve the issue, but the mods and devs are too full of themselves to ever admit to any mistakes they make even when caught.

Why should the players be expected to apologize for any valid reasons they got banned when the mods / devs refuse to show the same courtousy when they are caught making errors and wrongly muting players?

"

bhavv wrote:

Emailing then is pointless, they do nothing but make excuses for wrongly muting people and can't even apologize.

Even when people are wrongly muted like I was, their response is pretty much 'this is why we did it, we are right and you are wrong'.

A simple apology and admittance that the mute was carried out wrongly would solve the issue, but the mods and devs are too full of themselves to ever admit to any mistakes they make even when caught.

Why should the players be expected to apologize for any valid reasons they got banned when the mods / devs refuse to show the same courtousy when they are caught making errors and wrongly muting players?

Actually this moderator is the first to admit mistakes. Past, present and no doubt future.

I've rescinded mutes that I realised I'd done too harshly or were taken entirely out of context.

I've reconciled with people in PM because as someone tasked with keeping the peace and serving the community I believe one unhappy customer is more important than tens of thousands of content ones.

There is no doubt that it is now more difficult to contact Support directly than during Closed Beta, and I believe this is a temporary measure until Support work out the wrinkles in some of their processes.

I wish I could say 'sorry' on behalf of whoever you felt wronged you, but that won't make anything better.

As has been made clear in the past, trying to make what should be a private matter public when you're not the one with the keys to this board probably isn't going to do any good, but I know how frustrating it is right now to try to handle this privately.

Although I'm currently not acting as a moderator (see the signature), I always felt a little sad when someone would make a complaint thread against a moderator or support member when we're just a PM away. Believe it or not, we can achieve a lot more in a private conversation than you ever will in a thread that typically starts with a legitimate complaint (again, best made in private) but soon dissolves into the usual useless mixture of assent and dissent.

Are moderators that seemingly unapproachable now?

I don't have any issues with the moderators here.

I have an issue with the fact that one specific dev / _GGG person has been repeatedly shown to be making mistakes which come across to me as purposeful trolling with his 'mutehammer', yet any such discussion about this issue is completely ignored when we contact support (even worse because its the same troll dev that replies to the emails), and if we try to raise this issue on the forum, any such thread is locked by the mods.

What purpose are you serving in defending the dev in question, why are we not allowed to discuss the issue when emailing support does nothing to help, and when is this issue going to be taken seriously and resolved?

Just make a new account

Game is F2P

"

bhavv wrote:

I don't have any issues with the moderators here.

I have an issue with the fact that one specific dev / _GGG person has been repeatedly shown to be making mistakes which come across to me as purposeful trolling with his 'mutehammer', yet any such discussion about this issue is completely ignored when we contact support (even worse because its the same troll dev that replies to the emails), and if we try to raise this issue on the forum, any such thread is locked by the developers.

What purpose are you serving in defending the dev in question, why are we not allowed to discuss the issue when emailing support does nothing to help, and when is this issue going to be taken seriously and resolved?

18 man team. You surely cannot expect them to reply you instantaneously?

Please don't be as difficult as you were on the GW2G forums bhavv..