EQTC Moderation.

[Verdandi]

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.

Ahhh I misunderstood your meaning then. I apologize for that. One question remains: why should the boards be closed to everyone when there are still definitely many people here who enjoy them as they are?

As for your original question, I can't answer definitively on this because I'm not them. But as Niami and Ngreth haven't exactly found reading this thread particularly pleasant, I'll offer a few facts to serve in the meantime. Two points.

One: There are a whole lot of PMs with general comments that get sent to Niami and Ngreth. A great number of them are complaints that things in general, or some individual posters, are not being moderated enough. Another great number of them are simply thanks and/or praise for the site and/or boards. None of that means there isn't room for improvement, but it does demonstrate that hardly everyone suddenly hates it here.

Two: Keep in mind that plenty of old timers do not frequent the eqtraders channel. When Niami decided to invest in creating and maintaining this place, she decided on some ground rules in order to keep it the kind of place she wants to be. Changing those rules in order to allow the boards to have more of the kind of tone that the eqtraders channel has would make the boards the kind of place where she doesn't want to be. Ergo, it would be the kind of place that is no longer worth maintaining, and would cease to exist. To ask her to change the rules so far as to make herself uncomfortable with her own labor of love is asking a bit much, in my opinion.

Look at the database. Look at the boards. Ask yourself if it's worth having to be nice to each other in order to keep them.

[Ngreth Thergn]

After this thread was started I actually indirectly heard the we are, despite the other posts in this thread... NOT tough enough. I admit to not really reading the safehouse often... just because I do not have time, not because of any dislike of the community. I am told that they are moderated even stricter than us, except maybe in their primal screams equivalent. Their community is even stronger than ours.

I truly think the slowdown in posting (sorry SOE) is due MORE with general discontent with Everquest itself. This discontent with EQ has also caused people to be generally frustrated and act out as they should not in these forums, and because of that we have had to mod more than usual. I have seen it happen before. Something bad happen in game, there is a lot of extra moding in these forums, then it all passes over. The current issue with EQ is just not going away as fast as it normally does, so the discontent has lasted longer and become more of a continuing issue, causing extra moderation here.

And I still see examples of people taking moderation of their posts personally. Recently a poster posted in the 1750 thread AND in a new post in General. This breaks 2 of our rules... double posting, and posting in the wrong thread. Are these bannig offense... NO. But they are rules we act on. The NEW post got moved (and yes to the wrong forum the first time) and suddenly there is a post about us picking on the person and trying to ruin their fun. All we wanted to do was move what was a duplicate post to primal screams where their scream of joy at making 1750 belonged. We were not out to get the person, ruin their fun, or humiliate them. We just cannot seem to win. Even if we said "Congrats! And by the way, you may not know, but this post belonged in Primal Screams... no problem we are just moving it" (yes we didn't) 90% of the time the person whose post we move would be offended.

People need to understand that our moderation is not personal EXCEPT at the point where maybe we are nicer to a person than the rules say... and then we are being nice because we know the person.

[Minta Rose]

Thanks for making this thread. It's good to be confident enough to start such (searches for a phrase) self-review once in a rare while.

Right now, blind editing is the default. Flip board controls to always show a tagline when a post is edited, leave that on for a few days, and it should show where posts are getting moderated. Posters appreciate it because it takes some board-destroying rules lawyering to prove stealth moderation happened. Two moderators butting heads on one post appreciate it because it helps avoid "We tried to move the thread to two forums at once and it evaporated" syndrome, of which I have no experience whatsoever. Truly. [Edit: Yes, sometimes 'why' would be helpful also, as we don't all think alike--but 'who' is crucial.]

I do wish the boards would lose the past few months' tolerance for bitterness, but I KNOW that increased moderation doesn't relieve bitter postings. For that, I can only promise to not answer bitter posts, and to trot out Minta-the-jester where appropriate.

Iztena--do you know if the old VZ board is still up? I've watched new heavy-handed moderators get appointed and they got squashed without mercy by the community (necromancers x3, archmage x2 for my server alone) and would like to see how the VZ board disintegrated.

[Nhin Impious]

Verdandi writes,

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.

In the past, I've seen a few examples where one person responded in a thread, and their response maybe WAS or COULD HAVE BEEN inflammatory or personal, and it got locked then and there. Without disagreeing with the decisions that have already been made, would it be possible to consider another option instead? I'd like to see more mods posting with maybe a simple general reminder like "I'm leaving this thread open for now because it's addressing issues A,B,C; but we don't want to see it turn into a personal argument about issues X,Y,Z."

For instance, I seem to recall a thread where another poster told me it was POSSIBLE people were calling me bad names because I was acting in a way to invite it at the time. Mind you, it wasn't phrased like this at all, but first, it was a legitimate point from someone who didn't know me, and second it was useful information to consider. However, the thread got locked before I ever responded to it (see "wasn't phrased like this at all" & think "inflammatory language"). Again, I wouldn't disagree with the locking decision, since we have no way of knowing what would have happened. (I don't think this qualifies as an "actual example", since I think every other thread I've ever started includes a rant on why random people have to be such a pain. *grin*)

I come to these boards for information and conversation. If someone is stamping a big boot into every topic I try, I'm likely to be frustrated and upset even if I rationally see that someone else was starting a fight-- it's like going to a restaurant and it being closed halfway through dinner because some kids are smearing ice cream on the walls. Whether or not you agree it's disruptive, it's rather annoying not to get the choice to work through it.

Nhinx Aphsion
not nearly evil enough to waste ice cream

[Cantatus]

One thing that hasn't been said yet that I think is deserving of being mentioned is that there is a good reason for why the board traffic has decreased over the past couple years. That reason is the database. A couple years ago, the board was a lot more active with questions about where to find certain components, stats on various items and just general posts by lazy people who didn't want to search the site for what they are looking for. The database has removed a lot of that traffic since it is exponentially easier to find what you need without coming to the forums to find it. Obviously, since this is a tradeskill help site, those posters did make up a good percentage of the posters here.

This is also the same reason why the boards become more heavily trafficked when a new expansion comes out (as Ngreth mentioned.) The new information is not in the database. People looking for information on it are forced to come to the boards to see what has been posted, and yet more posters come here to post what they've found in regards to the new tradeskills. Wait until Omens of War is released. I guarantee there will be a spike in the amount of posts here.

[Lilosh]

One thing that hasn't been said yet that I think is deserving of being mentioned is that there is a good reason for why the board traffic has decreased over the past couple years. That reason is the database. A couple years ago, the board was a lot more active with questions about where to find certain components, stats on various items and just general posts by lazy people who didn't want to search the site for what they are looking for. The database has removed a lot of that traffic since it is exponentially easier to find what you need without coming to the forums to find it. Obviously, since this is a tradeskill help site, those posters did make up a good percentage of the posters here.

This is also the same reason why the boards become more heavily trafficked when a new expansion comes out (as Ngreth mentioned.) The new information is not in the database. People looking for information on it are forced to come to the boards to see what has been posted, and yet more posters come here to post what they've found in regards to the new tradeskills. Wait until Omens of War is released. I guarantee there will be a spike in the amount of posts here.

I'm not talking about sheer numbers, Can.

I'm talking about the community, and long time members no longer getting the same sense of belonging they used to have. No longer feeling that this is a relaxed, friendly place to be with friendly debates and interesting conflict.

Sorry, it's 4:30am, and I'm rambling incoherently. I'll clarify when I wake up.

-Noish

[Froni Thunderpaws]

The community has changed over the last three years I have been here just as the game has changed. I am in agreement with Cantatus with the cycles of traffic and also point to two major game changes that affected the things we talk about. The general one is that EQ started handing us new recipes instead of hints about them. So the amount of collaboration to discover new things to make became a limited opportunity - one that I really miss. Now we really only get into that mode when there is a new tradeskill quest. Sure we try and get all the details of new recipes after any expansion but they don't require the same level of exploration that they used to. The second change that I felt made the timbre change was NTCM and the Aid Grimel quest - it changed the "demographics" of the tradeskilling public from those nutty lovable folks who had this fixation on making things, to include many of those nutty lovable folks who powerskill. We made a big shift from exploration and crafting to how to gain skill as fast and economically as possible. I would love to see another quest like Liber Brassica that relied on collaboration - with NTCM you would have to do it with class or race restricted combines now.

I don't think the EQTraders community is at risk from overmoderation as much as because EQ itself is becoming less challenging in a lot of ways and more and more repetitive - hopefully the new dialogue with SOE will help that. I really miss the exploration and discovery the game used to have.

I have always appreciated the moderation here - I like civility; I like the absence of flaming. I get really embarrassed when I think I step over the line in the forums. If I want turmoil I just head to my server community board - sheesh! But, because there is a concern maybe some procedures need to be implemented to address them. Where there is a concern there is usually a problem albeit it may be a misunderstanding.

{And I wanted to note. Froni is a moderator of the community run section of our site (for which we thank you Froni)... the marketplace forums. Froni does not moderate the main areas where these complaints are generated. I this main section Fronti is a member like any other - Ngreth}

{Thanks Ngreth - I think I need to make a sig or something to point out I just watch the Vaz marketplace forum. My opinions are my own. I hope that they might offer something to the dialogue and don't reflect badly on the folks who are keeping this place going, but they aren't anything more than my personal views as someone who has been hanging out as an EQTrader groupie since 3/01. }

[Spyke]

Things change over time...

...and it's absolutly insane to expect something as organic as a community that's run by two people to be the exact same year after year after year.

EQ came out in '99, EQ Traders "launched" in its initial form sometime later that year, I beleive. That's close to FIVE YEARS that Niami's been at this.

You think that someone might have changed just a WEEEEE bit over those five years? You think maybe that someone just might not have the tolerance to deal with... snerts (perceived or real) anymore after that long?

You think that other people might have aged, gotten married, had kids, etc, over those five years?

There's simple logic to all of this.

Anything that's got to do with EQ Traders is Niami and Ngreth's. This is their world, their rules. This is their message board, that over their is their database... oh, and those Dev's that post... that's due to Niami having won them over in real life. She has that effect on people, trust me.

It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't. If you think it does you're deluding yourself.

What matters is what Niami and Ngreth think... period. They are the ones with absolute control over this environment. If they don't like you, you're SOL. If they like you, here's a cookie. If they think that something you are doing is not within their rules, then it isn't within their rules.

I'll say it again slowly for those that missed it the first time around.

It. Does. Not. Matter. What. You. Think.

This is a dictatorship run by one very adorable, yet very cantankerous hobbit. Ngreth is there by her side, but she is the heart, soul, and CONTROL of this place.

She's let you come and play in her sandbox, and you have the audacity to tell her that what is happening here is killing off the community? That you don't like the rules that she's posted for you to read?

PLEASE... stop being so full of yourself. Without Niami *THIS* community wouldn't exist. This site wouldn't exist, that database wouldn't exist... and again... those Dev's... they wouldn't be here.

Sure, it would exist in some form. But I doubt you'd have it as good as you would here.

That's the nutshell. You don't like it? You think they are "stifling" or "killing" the community? Go start up your own message boards so that you can run them the way you want them to be run then.

You can still come back here for the database, that's the main purpose of this site anywho. Just go do your own thing with your own message boards and then everyone will be happy.

I hear that ezboards still let's you do stuff for free.

[Sanna]

once again, a handful more words that i'd wish... but I can never seem to cut any out... *displeasureatself*

Changing those rules in order to allow the boards to have more of the kind of tone that the eqtraders channel has would make the boards the kind of place where she doesn't want to be.

We're not asking (at least I hope we're not) for the boards to become the channel. That beast moves of it's own accord and frankly 98pct of the time I'm GLAD it's quite separate from the boards.



And no, I don't think even /most/ people "hate it here". On the extremely massive whole, EQTC is a very nice place to be. It's the exceptions that are under scrutiny.



Yes, the person who double/cross posted in two different threads about 1750 flew rather off the handle at getting his thread moved, and also being told why his thread was moved. Which actually kinda surprised me, but if I were a noob here, I'd understand. He doesn't have the time-invested 'background' to know that he /wasn't/ getting slapped on the wrist, just shuffled to where he/his thread belonged. And in one sense, there's nothing you can do to protect against that. It's a kind of a lose-lose situation, which is beyond merely 'unfortunate'. Yes, the people who come and post here do need to understand the rules of the place. Yes they need to not fly off the handle when they unintentionally break those rules. But, there's nothing that could have been done to have stopped his reaction. Enter the Human Factor. Most of the time this is dealt with just fine, or fine enough. In that instance, aside from the ordering of the comments given to him (should the first mod who posted have said 'grats' first and /then/ listed the rules to him? would it have mattered, would he have reacted the same? or differently?), I'm not sure there was something the mods could have done to prevent that from happening. So it's a bit... unfair?... that a situation like that seems to be included in the Instigating Factors Pool for this thread. What I think could be would be the Cubwynn side of things. But since I KNOW I DON'T KNOW what exactly happened (nor am I asking), I'm not going to speak to what exactly happened. But as for what it LOOKED like happened.... what I-as-a-prole see is that either he did something REALLY bad.... or he just managed to catch the full whiplash of the mods at a bad time. And given that I-as-a-prole don't really associate 'Cubwynn' with 'someone who often pushes the mod's buttons', the illusion of 'heavy-handed mod-ship' comes through.

I'd like to see more mods posting with maybe a simple general reminder like "I'm leaving this thread open for now because it's addressing issues A,B,C; but we don't want to see it turn into a personal argument about issues X,Y,Z."

I used to see this... and I think it worked better.
(Can I mention mods in just a reference sense?) There was a thread about something in General quite recently, and the mod said, 'keep it calm', and someone somehow didn't, and then she locked it.
See also the thread about Kiz 'insulting' my playstyle.... what he said was expletively infuriating... and 99.5% true. And he's said it before (in less public venues), and I hadn't learned. And the mods came through, said, 'calm it down, be nice', and I said, 'don't warn him, I'm not angry', and they said, 'still, be careful, we don't want others to think this is ok', and i said 'good point', and that was the end of it. No locking, no mod-editing, no anger, no problem.

And maybe that, a 'winable' situation, is more rare than I want to believe. But I have this silly idea of 'believe in the good until proven to be bad', so I keep hoping that more situations can be like that one, rather than a lose-lose one.




I mentioned up there the 'exceptions' being under scrutiny. Some of them are not 'winable', and some of them are. Some could have been 'winable', but for whatever choice that was made, became a 'loss'. Yes, the mods are human and make mistakes, but so are the proles. Mods are allowed to correct proles, proles can correct themselves if they get to it before the thread gets locked, and sometimes proles can correct other proles. And now, thankfully, the 4th option is coming into play... proles 'correcting' mods. Accidents will happen, and I for one would rather see an accident properly corrected *where possible* than just smacked with the LockStick. Could the 1750-guy situation have turned out better? maybe, maybe very doubtful, who knows. If indeed what I said in the thread about /who all 65 was a threat as was deemed a 'threat' and I can agree to upon further looking (but totally missed the apparent severity when I first typed it)... that could just have been told, "you. that's a threat. fix it." And I'd have stared until I got it, and fixed it.

The more I think about this, the harder it is to tighten things down to 'general instances'... they're all seeming to be specific ones. "Here, this could have been done better. There, this could not have been handled better on your side." And... I don't know what that means for the overall theme. I don't think Every mod is messing things up Most of the Time. It's just... I think it's human nature to remember those Some of the Times...


that's as far as I can cook that idea right now... more stewing on it, and I'll see if I can condense any better next time....

-- Sanna
I swear... I better have this many words for my paper.... : P

[Spyke]

*tweet* Flag on the field...

Enter the Human Factor.

15 yard penalty... loss of down.

When has it become acceptable for you to be able to go into someone else's house, do something against the rules of the house (regardless if you know or not), get corrected/instructed/etc (even if it was done slightly incorrectly), and then go off the deep end?

...And then expect to not get quickly shown off of the grounds?

That's the base problem here. Yes the situation you bring up was handled a bit incorrectly... but that doesn't give ANYONE the right to throw a hissyfit and go all ballistic over it. That's not how things work. Sorry. It doesn't matter what the base rules are, or if you knew what they were or not. Ignorance is not a defense.

And I don't see how anyone can think that throwing a hissy fit is ever within their perogative when they are on private grounds. You don't have any rights beyond what Niami gives you when you're on these boards. I'm sure people think they have some sort of soverign rights otherwise, but they don't.

If there's anyone here that has the right to throw a hissyfit, and get away with it, it's Niami.

The more I think about this, the harder it is to tighten things down to 'general instances'... they're all seeming to be specific ones.

Then why do we have this thread? Is it the fact that certain specific people are feeling "beaten down" by "the man" (or in this case by "the hobbit") and are trying to make a big enough point that Ngreth decided to make this thread to clear things up?

I don't even see why there continues to be a discussion over this. If it comes down to one side being right, and the other side being wrong, I give you three guess which side is going to be right.

I'll give you that specific situations get handled incorrectly from time to time... That happens. But that's not an excuse for either side to fall back on. If it's a problem on the mod's side, it needs to be addressed and then everyone moves on. If it's a problem on the poster's side, it needs to be addressed and then everyone moves on.

Otherwise, things move forward the way that a certain Hobbit wants them to move forward.

**changing focus away from Sanna back the broad spectrum**

I just keep thinking to myself... If you're a snert, and you know you're a snert... why continue to push buttons? Does it give you some sort of sense of satisfaction?

I hope you'll be happy when everything comes crashing down on you on the day that you finally cause Niami to throw her hands up in the air and say, "I've had enough."

I wonder how long these boards, and the main eqtraders web site will stay up after that?

Who wins then?

[Noni DeeCups]

Spyke is right on the money.

[Akishka]

I just have to say first of all, this is an excellent board and I've never had problems with the moderation but that I think its excellent that everyone is willing to listen to feedback.

I do have to address the 'it does not matter what you think' - well, apparently it does or why else were people asked to post to this thread? Just like good parents, a good moderator is the final word of what is done but knows that you get a heck of a lot further listening to people instead of smacking down the 'cause I said so!'

[Lilosh]

I had a LOOOONG reply typed up, pointing out why Spyke is incorrect. But then the forums crashed hard.A reply pointing out that the denmum and ogre have *NEVER* run this as a dictatorship, other than a few base rules that they justifiably DEMAND be enforced.

They welcome us into their ranks (I, personally, was a mod for a year until I borked that), they ask us to help them with projects, and they CONSTANTLY ask us for our input.

They laugh with us, and they scream with us.

And now they ask us for our opinions of their moderation style, and half a dozen of us who have been around for a LONG time tell them that the site is going in a direction that we are worried by. We tell them that we'd like EQTraders to go on being the wonderful *COMMUNITY* that is had been , and we know it can be.


I personally, don't see how you can call that "Having the audacity", nor "Being full of ourselves".

I was *especially* worried by your choice of the phrase:

It. Does. Not. Matter. What. You. Think.

I have never. EVER. EVER seen the mods or admins here tell people that their view is irrelevant. While they set the rules, they try to keep from doing so in an "I'm right, and you're wrong" manner. They explain why the rules are in place, and it takes a lot of provocation before they fall back on "Because we pay the bills, and we say so.". A lot of provocation.

In fact, Spyke, we're NOT breaking their rules. The people who have a problem with the recent trend towards FIERCE moderation haven't been Locked/Banned/Stifled for breaking the rules. We've just noticed that the mods have started to lock threads and lay the smackdown because It's possible that someone might think about posting something that might possible break a rule. Or that threads get locked , not because of a personal attack, but because of the remote possibility that SOMEONE might get offended.



Oh, and If I don't like it, leave? That's a GREAT IDEA! Next time I don't like my job, I'll quit. Next time I disagree with my friends, I'll disown them, and never speak to them again. And when my car needs an oil change, or a new alternator, I'll drop it off at the junkyard. Because quitting is clearly a better alternative than trying to work through difficulties.


But seriously. Niami and Ngreth own the board, the site, and a bunch of other stuff. But your "it's their dictatorship, and they will squash, crush, and bash anyone who disagrees", and the "You are always wrong and they are always right, because they are absolute" is very very very very very far from what I've come to know about them over the past 2 years.

But then, I'm not them, and can't speak for them. But they've never seemed , to me, like the Totalitarian Control Freaks that you make them out to be.


-Noish

[Ngreth Thergn]

The crash was racknine repairing the GD package bug on the server (was keeping people from registering and me from making structural board changes.). I expect they had to recompile PHP to update the GD package.

[Sanna]

What I was referring to by "Human Factor" was not 'someone getting away with throwing a fit', it was the inability to predict his reaction in the first place. Sorry if that was unclear in my original wording.



I find it interesting that of the various tones the posters in this thread have taken, Lilosh was the most, hm, emotionally energetic, until Spyke entered. Personally, I'm taking massive measures to be as level-headed as I can ever be, and I don't really feel that I'm crimping my opinion or 'going out of my way' to do so. What "caused this problem" has produced a lot of emotion, and I don't think that massively excessive emotion is going to bring it to a resolve.

This is why I'm being expletively verbose; I want to be clear and not seem to say things I don't want to say. As seen above ("Human Factor" comment), apparently I'm not being verbose enough. ^_^ (j/k)

And yet... I cannot help but feel that now there is a certain element of 'being baited' here. And I'm really trying to resist the urge to rise to the new heat source... because the only thing I can forsee by doing so is bringing degeneration to this thread, which above all others, must be kept level-headed and calm.


Yes. Denmother-sama started this as a labor of love. She's /already/ hit her burn out point. More than once, as I recall. That's why there are so many more mods than just her. Yes, she is at the top of the pyramid here (do a search on my posts and tell me the last time I've ever EVER referred to her as anything other than "Denmother-sama"... then go find thee a Japanese dictionary and learn what 'sama' means), but she's already delegated a massive amount of her own personal responsability to others. Can you blame her?


Twice now I've been in communities that have asked this question: "One person begins a project. Others contribute. In the end, to whom does the project belong? To the one, or to all?" And twice the communities have fallen apart before answering the question. Maybe that's part of my vested interest this time... I want to know the answer. (And I direct this towards the boards, not to the DB-side of things.) We already know Spyke's answer, and I know I've at least implied mine, but since I wasn't as clear, earlier, as I thought I had been, I'll state explicitly.

The boards belong to both the people running them and to the people in them. This isn't a "democracy" in the sense of 'electing the mods', perhaps closer to a republic, as the mods are appointed from above. YES, there are people in charge (Denmother-sama and Ngreth Sir). YES they appoint mods over the various areas. YES mods have 'more powers' than us proles. But this wouldn't be a community without.... the rest of the community.

And a strength of this community is here, in this thread. We ARE being allowed, indeed asked, to CALMLY discuss what's going on. This is NOT a totalitarian regime. And I apologize if anything I personally said ever gave the impression that was my opinion. There is a 4 page thread where Ngreth Sir has asked for feedbacks on the DB. A thread (or two?) where we discussed replacement terms for 'utility item'. He even asked for feedback on if we wanted prices to be shown, and how. In the Beginning and in the End, yes, this is Denmother-sama's baby. But in a sense, we are the village, helping to raise the child.


I almost feel honored that you dedicated an entire post to me, sir, except half of what was directed my way was merely a misunderstanding of what I said. Now, why do I get the feeling that I'm merely redefining things we already understood to be clear? If they needed redefining, then that's that. In any case, if we're done re-re-definining the question, shall we continue discussing?

-- Sanna