Announcement

**Ngreth Thergn** · 07-11-2004, 10:50 AM

I am posting again because I wanted to re-iterate a point.

When a thread you created, or you are at least personally invested in is moderated, you are likely to feel that the moderation was a personal thing against you.

Even if it was your actions in a post that caused the moderation, it does not mean that we are personally out to get you. All it means is that your post or thread needed moderation.

Just remember, it is not personal.

**Lilosh** · 07-11-2004, 12:19 PM

WARNING: LOOOOOOONG POST AHEAD-

I'm glad this came up. I've wanted to bring this up for some time, but I didn't dare make a post about it. But since you've declared this a safe haven for calmly discussing EQTC Moderation, here goes. I'm bringing this up because I love this community, and I want to see it become a better place, not because I hate any of you, or because I'm a jerk.

The moderation is killing the community. Seriously.

I'm in contact with alot of people who have been using these boards as long, or longer than I have, and people who have been using it much shorter than I have, and there seems to be a trend. Long time posters just haven't had the urge to come back.

I know this has always been a heavily moderated board. It's one of the trademarks, and strengths of this board. We're not a Flame Fest, we're not full of porn spam, and we're a safe, clean place for Members, Moderators, and Developers to post and interact.

But the moderation style, in recent months has been WAY out of control. Civil threads have been locked, innocent remarks taken WAY out of context, and threads have been moved for little apparent reason. Remarks that once would have gotten laughs now get stern look and warnings. Posts that once would have been popular and stayed at the top of the forums for a couple weeks now get locked because "Somebody might come by and maybe think the wrong thing".

One moderator, in particular, has their name associated with the recent rash of heavy, heavy handed moderation. You asked us not to mention any other mods by name, so I won't. If any of the site Admins want the name, My PM box is open. I won't drag dirty laundry here.

But I can't stress this enough. The boards are losing their community. They're losing their camradiere. They're losing their fun. Long time posters have been telling me that they just don't feel interested in forums anymore, and they don't feel welcome.

I hope I found a good way to say this without getting myself banned. But it's gotten to the point where , If I need to get banned so that this gets addressed , I'm willing to accept that consequence. I've been on the verge of leaving as well, and I've decided to stick around, in hopes that the message boards might return to what they were a year or two ago.

In conclusion, they moderation is becomeing TOO extreme, the community is much less friendly, and it seems that as the regulars get more and more reluctant to post, this forum will go from a family to a forum of nothing but New Folks asking questions and then leaving.

My two cents, and I hope not my final post,

-Noish

**Lilosh** · 07-11-2004, 12:25 PM

Also, in direct response to the "preferential treatment of some long time members." I can point whoever is accusing this to at least a dozen places in the past few months where I've been locked, moved,warned, or what have you. Usually justifiably so. I'm probably the most well known regular, or at least in the top 5.

I can point out where Sanna, Cubwynn, Nhinx and probably a few other names that ya'll would recognize have been warned, banned, or just spoke to harshly.

If that's preferential treatment, than maybe I don't know the meaning of the word.

-Noish

**Sanna** · 07-11-2004, 01:05 PM

Apparently it's been too long since my last really long post. : P
That was a touch of sarcasm, btw.

Not everyone plays fast and loose. I grew up in that mentality (of /not/, that is), and it's taken me years to adjust to people who do. My own ability to 'play fast and loose' is very very rough and full of flaws, and even my ability to recognize such in others is still shakey.

People are unpredictable, both the 'shepherd'-moderators and the 'sheep'-posters. That's even a poorer analogy than I wish, because in truth we are indeed All Just Human. But: Do you wish to follow the mentality of "keep everyone walking the same path", or just "keep everyone inside the field"? There is a difference, a very very marked difference, and what has been seen happening recently has been the first. What I gather we feel acceptable, what I think we prefer is the second.

There is a HUGE difference between telling someone their idea is wrong, ie, incorrect, and attacking someone's character. Both the current structure of the English language and the common American useage of said English language do not really allow for ease in differentation. It's too easy to just say, "you are wrong" to someone. Is that an attack on their character? Could be. Could also not be. If someone were to show up and spout all this stuff about the world being flat, and board regulars reply and say "you are wrong"... who's right? Now look at that in view of what's happened, and tell me there's not a good chance that thread wouldn't get locked, for an 'attack on character'. Silly example, I know. Play with me here.

You cannot have a constructive discussion without some de-struction. That is: without feeling free to correct the incorrect and set right the not-right. People Are Going To Be Wrong. And it has to be acceptable to tell people, when they ARE incorrect, THAT they are incorrect. Otherwise no progress will ever be made.

Now yes, there are good ways and bad ways to tell someone s/he is wrong. I know this. But if NO correction is allowed, that's worse than semi-faulty correction.

What's been seen recently is that the band of what is 'acceptable' has been tightened to the bone-breaking point, and we're struggling against the pinch. How do we, the 'proles' as Noishpa sometimes says, come to an agreement with the mods on how to have a debate and correct the incorrect and the flaws and the wrongs? What can we convince you is allowed, and what in return can we accept is not allowed? Where can we meet you in the middle on this?

Also. I know I've come up against this before, in less... civil... scenarios. But it's here again: Posts in a locked thread cannot be edited. Sometimes a merely honest mistake is made. (Sometimes they're not merely honest mistakes. I know. But sometimes they are.) Is it a stronger choice to say, "You crossed a line. You may or may not even know/see what line you crossed. But we're gonna shut this down. So Sorry." Or is it stronger to say, "Hey, look. Are you even aware that what you said here is wrong?" Sometimes people know. And, sometimes they cross the line without meaning to, or, as mentioned at the top, they don't have a good-enough handle on playing fast-and-loose. Example? I'll example myself. I attempted to ensure that I didn't cause a thread-derail into a 'discussion' that I'm almost POSITIVE would have gotten locked eventually, since it would have been Pure Opinion And Little Else about something that doesn't even relate to EQ at all. And I crossed a line. And had to ask someone why what I said turned out to be 'a vague threat'.

My initial reaction: o_0 ?_?
Second: Ok... I can see that.

But it's still there. And I can't change it.
It's like... getting a report-paper back and not being able to correct a mistake before the final turn in. You know? Have I learned? Yeah. By a slap on the wrist rather than with a pencil with an eraser.

There has to be a better way. Easy? Who knows. Worth it? Depends on if you want to keep herding the sheep along a little narrow parth.

Mods make mistakes. They'll lean too easy, they'll lean too hard. Proles make mistakes. They'll flail out at something they shouldn't, or they'll be trying to be right and just miss. The "older proles" will make mistakes and because their personalities are relatively known, maybe an allowance will be made. The "younger proles" will make a mistake and get snapped on hard. Or even a really honest mistake that's still a mistake will happen, like the thread where Noish, Kiz, and I (and was Nhinx in that one too?) clawed semi-viciously at someone's playstyle (namely mine). And we don't care. Yes, the emotion /should/ have stayed off the boards and left in-game where it started, but should that thread be locked with a harsh warning too? Nah. Was just a mistake. A couple of mods dropped through and were like, "hey, can it", and we canned it. Should stuff like that happen? Not really. Should it be locked with harsh warnings? No.

I'm wondering, if everyone can make just a few more allowances sometimes, how much that would fix right there.

Then again, maybe I trust too much.

I've invested a year and a half of my life to EQTC, and many more people have invested far more time. I hope this doesn't become a breaking point.

-- Sanna
this was a first draft, I get the feeling I'm going to come back later and feel I could have worded things more... thorougly... but for now surely this is enough words.

**Itzena** · 07-11-2004, 01:31 PM

Just as a quick addition to this: I fully understand that this is your site, Denmother, Ngreth et al., but I'd really, really hate to see what happened to the original Vallon Zek community board* happen here. Overmoderation can kill a community just as quickly (more quickly, even) that undermoderation. Speaking purely from my personal experience, people will tend to tolerate arguements for much longer than they will tolerate being silenced.

Edit: Just to clarify, I agree with the actions of most of the moderators here, both now and since I joined. It's just that recently one or two have got a little...um...trigger-happy, as it were.

(*OK, history time for anyone who cares: A new, very heavy-handed mod was appointed to the then-community board, started locking threads (that previously would have got a "Hey, tone it down a little" from the other mods) and banning long-time members of the community, and basically managed to destroy the community within a week. Some made a new messageboard up and started posting there, others just stopped posting completely. It even (briefly) made the front page of Lum the Mad's site.)

**Lilosh** · 07-11-2004, 01:34 PM

In addition, the moderation has started to be done in secret at times.

Sometimes we'll get an expanation. Other times, we'll have a locked or moved thread, with no notes/comments, NO idea of who did it, and no viable recourse.

This is very very frustrating, and it makes me, personally, feel unimportant and insignificant.

Please make it Standard procedure to at least SIGN a thread that you lock, close, or move. I know that some do this, but some don't, and asking "Who moved this thread" or "Why was this thread moved" Is the only way to find out, and it's just asking to be reprimanded for breaking the rules.

Unless the proper procedure is to PM each and every Admin and Mod, to find the one that moved or locked it, and can explain?

-Noish

**Noni DeeCups** · 07-11-2004, 11:40 PM

I have been using EQ Traders web site and message boards for years. I don't know what you hope to gain from this thread to be honest. You can not make everyone happy no matter what. People threaten to leave? Let them. Threats are for people who have nothing left to say.

**Ngreth Thergn** · 07-12-2004, 09:21 AM

I agree that closing and deletions should have some info. But why do you need to know *why* something was moved, just think and it can be figured out. (where something was moved could be usefull info though)

**Kronepsis** · 07-12-2004, 10:36 AM

I don't think needing to know why something got moved/altered/deleted is NEARLY as important as knowing *who* is doing it. If one person is doing a bad job of moderating and doesn't leave evidence, it makes all the other moderators of the forum look bad.

**Lilosh** · 07-12-2004, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by Kronepsis

I don't think needing to know why something got moved/altered/deleted is NEARLY as important as knowing *who* is doing it. If one person is doing a bad job of moderating and doesn't leave evidence, it makes all the other moderators of the forum look bad.

Aye, Who is definately more important than why.

-Noish

**Verdandi** · 07-12-2004, 11:47 AM

The admins are able to see who has done what. It just isn't available to the public. As it says in The Rules in Visitor's Corner, if you have a problem with a moderator decision, PM an admin. Same applies here. Of course when you do know the mod you can always ask them directly, but since you don't in these cases you can come straight to myself or Ngreth.

**kiztent** · 07-12-2004, 01:52 PM

Ok, I'm going to dig out an old thread here:
http://www.mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/...ead.php?t=4991

I pick this thread to illustrate 2 points:
1 - without the ability to engage in confrontation, resolving disagreement is impossible. The thread just died out because engaging in any kind of heated discourse within the rules of the board is flat out impossible. And the people that disagreed with me were ALL WRONG WRONG WRONG (we found out a year later - either way, they showed up and accused me of lack of rigor in my experiments then refused to back up their claims - which is just as galling as them disagreeing with me and being WRONG WRONG WRONG, but that's another story). But I couldn't say a **** word about it without getting a warning. So instead I walked off and left the thread.

2 - How long would this thread last under current moderation without locking? I think my post on the bottom of page 2 would've triggered a locking or a move to PSR (note it's still in general to this day).

On the other hand, what is there to discuss on the boards today anyway? Yet another rehash about how evil undercutters took my profits? The umpteen millionth thread on someone wanting a fast, cheap way to 250 tailoring? The latest speculation based on 20 combines for how SoE nerfed something else last night?

Gripping hand, The EQTC community shares an interest in tradeskills, but not an interest in discussing same (the chat channel devolved into a discussion of Scottish deep frying Sunday morning which I found fascinating). Overmoderating kills this community. But, do Niami and Ngreth want to pay bandwidth to foster this community?

The moderation policy doesn't really bother me. It's excessive, but I have no interest in changing it or doing it myself anyway.

**Verdandi** · 07-12-2004, 03:26 PM

People seem to have the impression that we don't like it when folks disagree or when they discuss their disagreement. That is not the case. What we don't like is when people start taking things personally and getting snide with one another. If your opinion is respectful, you can express it respectfully. If your opinion is not respectful, then we don't want to hear it. Is it really that difficult to discuss things without getting snippy with each other?

Threads are not closed because someone in them disagrees with someone else. They are closed because people get angry and take things personally and say things that are most definitely not nice. This happens often, but not always, when two people absolutely cannot agree but both insist that it is their God-given mandate to convince that other person. You know what? Sometimes there's just no convincing someone, and you have to let it drop. When a conversation reaches that point there's nowhere for it to go except to get heated. Nothing else good will come of it, so it gets locked. That's not always the case, but is often.

The moral of the story is: If you want your pet thread to stay alive, BE NICE. We could try doing more editing of individual posts rather than locking entire threads, to help prevent an isolated An_Angry_Person_01 from getting an otherwise productive thread closed. But again, when they come to that point where there's nothing to do but agree to disagree, they may still get closed if the posters refuse to quit beating their heads against each other. And if too many people rise to the bait and leave us with a huge mess to clean up, it will get locked.

Remember, the rules aren't here because we like spending time slapping people on the wrists. I can think of lots of far more productive things I'd rather do with my time, like working on the database, reading a book, flossing...but we do it because it has helped the EQ tradeskill community thrive for over five years now. If ever the boards that Niami and Ngreth created and continue to sustain for us are allowed to devolve into somewhere where flames and snide little jabs are the norm, I can guarantee you they'll disappear entirely.

An addendum in reply to Kiztent: If there's nothing in particular to talk about, how does that translate into a need to start flamewars? If you're bored and want to post a flame just for something to do, take it to the boards where that's welcome. If a conversation about Scottish deep frying develops then fine, take it to OOC. We'd have no problem with that. We just want to try to help keep the information where people can find it and keep the non-informative stuff out of the way, so that people can even see the informative stuff at all. The informativeness of this site and boards is probably their most frequently praised quality.

And one last thought...to be honest, I'm baffled and a little offended by the statement "But, do Niami and Ngreth want to pay bandwidth to foster this community?" Who in the blazes built this place and has maintained it nonstop for the last five years?? In addition to paying bandwidth to foster this community, they've also been putting in countless hours (often 80+ a week EACH in the static site days) updating and maintaining this place. What makes you think they're somehow not interested in paying the bandwidth to foster this community anymore, except the pain of seeing that everyone seems to have forgotten how much love and dedication went into the making of this resource? That everyone seems to have forgotten that the rules currently in place are the same rules that built this resource that suddenly they're accused of tearing down?

**kiztent** · 07-12-2004, 04:00 PM

Originally posted by Verdandi

And one last thought...to be honest, I'm baffled and a little offended by the statement "But, do Niami and Ngreth want to pay bandwidth to foster this community?" Who in the blazes built this place and has maintained it nonstop for the last five years??

I'm differentiating the site from the community. The site, yes obviously they want to pay for. The people that have grown up and gravitated to the site? I'm not sure there is the same match. Maybe I'm out to lunch, but given that long time posters still get modded and banned tells me there's a fundamental disconnect between the vision of what some of the old timers want/like and what the owners of this site like.

Ditto some comments I've read from Niami on the channel (which is mostly regulars on the boards). I'd dig up quotes, but the short part is that Niami finds the language there... offensive.

Now, if I was paying my money for a community, and I found the language used by parts of that community offensive, I'd find other things to spend my money on.

This doesn't mean that they should close EQTC, but do the message boards provide a good return on their bandwidth costs? Judging by the calls of heavy handed moderation and so forth, I wonder. I know I got a lot from eqtraders.com before I even knew there was a message board.

As for civil disagreement...

I started my posting on ADND-L and was caught up in alignment flame wars, as well as various USENET posts. I'm also a regular reader of shadowknight.org. My definition of offensive speech is sufficiently removed from the moderators' I don't really understand the triggers that will set off banning. So I don't bother.

Pardon if this is abbreviated - I have some more thoughts, but the train doesn't wait for thoughts to finish.

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