Posted 07 September 2014 - 12:53 AM

The average player has nothing to be afraid of out of this.

I personally delivered those sanctions, and here's why...

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.

Some will say moderation is silly, that freedom of speech is an essential right. We firmly believe that it is. We also firmly believe that we, as a business, may reserve our right to remove patrons who abuse that freedom

Some will say that we must have more problems than others if we are in such need of moderation. Fact is, we aren't alone on this front by any measure...

Opinions and practices of how to carry out and communicate moderation are often wildly varied and suggest that each successful community has had to evolve their own systems according to the expectations of their community.

To make things a bit more open, here's a primer on what our moderation system has looked like since December 2012. A system I collaborated heavily upon. I'll take my cake for any flaws in it's methodology. so please check out the spoiler.

Spoiler

Volunteer moderators triage all reports into one of 5 colour codes.



Green implies a "housekeeping" level of moderation. Cleaning up where people have quoted moderated posts, posting in the incorrect sub-forum, thread duplication, closing invalid reports, etc...



Blue are low-level moderation concerns. On their own they would not result in severe repercussion, but repeated abuse would be recognized: Report Abuse, Cross-Linking, Unconstructive comments, Flaming, Bashing, Insults, Vulgarities, Spamming.



Yellow were intended to borrow from the baseline moderation point of other games: Where three-strikes and you are out. This was set to include discriminatory behaviour, profile/signature abuse, extreme content and advertising.



Orange was the one-strike policy, where an automatic ban would be delivered after staff review of the account in question. Any ban required at least two staff members to sign off on it. This was set to include Spambotting, Phishing, Illegal Use, Account Trading, Impersonating Staff, Releasing Pirated or Malicious Content.



Red was the emergency escalation protocol, in which the volunteer moderators were instructed to contact a team member at any hour of the day or night immediately. This included any viable real-life threat to the safety of a team or community member.



Each possible infraction was given one of these colours, as well as a definition, which have been further refined and are publicly visible in the



The distinct procedures are in place to handle the distinct nature of each problematic behavior. For example, often we find that poking a human and telling them we regard bumping as a form of spam as a friendlier approach than treating them as equal to a spambot offering free furniture and phishing.



A list of Do's and Don'ts is also provided to Moderators. The Do's are composed of sanity measures on the clerical side of things: Always reading notes before moderating, always adding a note when moderating. The Don'ts are mostly protective measures: Don't discuss moderation actions in public or with anyone besides staff or the player being moderated. Don't use the term "Troll" or other ambiguous and potentially insulting phrases; Don't take sides in personal arguments; and so forth.



As a general rule, content is not hard deleted unless it poses a safety threat or breaches vulgarity standards. Threads or posts which appear to be entirely deleted are actually "un-approved", meaning that they remain visible to staff members and moderators, but not to other players.



Reports are handled by a moderator according to the procedures provided before being reviewed and closed.



We have otherwise experimented with other systems, such as follows: 1st Offence: Verbal Warning.



2nd Offence: 24-72 hour Posting Disability



3rd Offence or Major Threat: Permanent Ban Penalties offered on the IPboard system include: A Warn Status meter: Players who are warned are given a visual representation of the number of times they have been warned, visible only to moderators and staff.



3 Variations of Suspension:

Moderation Preview. All player posts start un-approved. Only a moderator or staff member may re-approve. Aside from the high recidivism rate where-ever we have applied it's use, it is also not possible to distinguish un-approved posts from previewed posts.

Posting Disability: Player is unable to Post. The benefit of this system is it provides a timer for temporary suspensions. The problem with it is that it doesn't prevent use of the Private Message system.

Bans: Player is unable to access the forums. This is the most successful system at removing repeat abusers, though some still take this as an invitation to circumvent this.

The forum system is distinct from the moderation systems of other social media outlets. Staff members may reserve the right to block or ignore any player who is appearing to harass them on Twitter or other channels. On Facebook, the automated system vulgarity filter is set to strong, meaning that it may occasionally hide even positive comments. "%^$# yeah that's awesome!". Facebook profiles which appear to be un-constructive sock-puppets are reported according to Facebook's policies. Persistently aggressive or toxic commentators are hidden, where their responses are visible to staff but not to other followers.









The forum moderation is also somewhat distinct from the game moderation system, which focuses on chat abuses and game mechanic abuses and is exclusively managed by staff. A player who is forum banned can continue to play the game. A player who is game-banned cannot post on the forums.

Volunteer moderators triage all reports into one of 5 colour codes.Green implies a "housekeeping" level of moderation. Cleaning up where people have quoted moderated posts, posting in the incorrect sub-forum, thread duplication, closing invalid reports, etc...Blue are low-level moderation concerns. On their own they would not result in severe repercussion, but repeated abuse would be recognized: Report Abuse, Cross-Linking, Unconstructive comments, Flaming, Bashing, Insults, Vulgarities, Spamming.Yellow were intended to borrow from the baseline moderation point of other games: Where three-strikes and you are out. This was set to include discriminatory behaviour, profile/signature abuse, extreme content and advertising.Orange was the one-strike policy, where an automatic ban would be delivered after staff review of the account in question. Any ban required at least two staff members to sign off on it. This was set to include Spambotting, Phishing, Illegal Use, Account Trading, Impersonating Staff, Releasing Pirated or Malicious Content.Red was the emergency escalation protocol, in which the volunteer moderators were instructed to contact a team member at any hour of the day or night immediately. This included any viable real-life threat to the safety of a team or community member.Each possible infraction was given one of these colours, as well as a definition, which have been further refined and are publicly visible in the the post I made under the Primus account . It also included a Procedure to walk a new Moderator through the admittedly obtuse IPboard moderation system as well as templates for both the internal log notes and the communication to be given to players.The distinct procedures are in place to handle the distinct nature of each problematic behavior. For example, often we find that poking a human and telling them we regard bumping as a form of spam as a friendlier approach than treating them as equal to a spambot offering free furniture and phishing.A list of Do's and Don'ts is also provided to Moderators. The Do's are composed of sanity measures on the clerical side of things: Always reading notes before moderating, always adding a note when moderating. The Don'ts are mostly protective measures: Don't discuss moderation actions in public or with anyone besides staff or the player being moderated. Don't use the term "Troll" or other ambiguous and potentially insulting phrases; Don't take sides in personal arguments; and so forth.As a general rule, content is not hard deleted unless it poses a safety threat or breaches vulgarity standards. Threads or posts which appear to be entirely deleted are actually "un-approved", meaning that they remain visible to staff members and moderators, but not to other players.Reports are handled by a moderator according to the procedures provided before being reviewed and closed.We have otherwise experimented with other systems, such as follows:Penalties offered on the IPboard system include:The forum system is distinct from the moderation systems of other social media outlets. Staff members may reserve the right to block or ignore any player who is appearing to harass them on Twitter or other channels. On Facebook, the automated system vulgarity filter is set to strong, meaning that it may occasionally hide even positive comments. "%^$# yeah that's awesome!". Facebook profiles which appear to be un-constructive sock-puppets are reported according to Facebook's policies. Persistently aggressive or toxic commentators are hidden, where their responses are visible to staff but not to other followers.The forum moderation is also somewhat distinct from the game moderation system, which focuses on chat abuses and game mechanic abuses and is exclusively managed by staff. A player who is forum banned can continue to play the game. A player who is game-banned cannot post on the forums.

We intend to take a firmer stand against repeatedly inflammatory

than before. To those who believe we expect each player to become a "white knight" in order to keep their posting

. I don't think I can stress enough that isn't the case. We hope to take criticism where-ever we deserve it; Where-ever it seeks to help us improve the game.

Please feel free to respond to one, some or all of the questions and dilemmas below.

Would you agree with the idea that we should revert to a 3-strike system for most general misconducts in the aforementioned Blue category?



It is often said to ignore those who actively ignore what you say or twist it towards their own ends. Given the prolific nature of some of these individuals, many of whom seem to spend whole work-weeks on the attack, should we make stronger efforts to remove those players who actively and repeatedly refute, deny, or ignore staff statements and announcements?



Do you feel it's more important for moderation to be fair and consistent (at the risk of seeming cold or authoritarian) ; or to handle matters on a case-by-case basis to offer individuals the benefit of the doubt (at the risk of seeming to offer favouritism or being manipulated)?



Is our Name & Shame policy fair to the privacy of players, or should we be publicly flagging banned/restricted players who have been repeatedly abusive in the spirit of being more open? What about the potential risk of "bullying the bullies"?



Do you feel that the creation and use of Kaetetoa has been a more open and productive way of handling simply unreasonable and unproductive threads? If not, should those be unproductive threads be un-approved or locked instead?



What kind of "positive" moderation systems (e.g. Likes. Rewards) would you be interested in us investigating or improving?



What kind of "negative" moderation systems (e.g. Restrictions, Penalties) would you be interested in us investigating or improving?



Given the increased use of alternate accounts at any time a player is suspended or banned, would you rather see the following: A) Increased thresholds on the Recruit restrictions. B ) Pay barriers placed on the forums for new accounts. C) [Your own recommendation].



Without naming individuals or citing cases; If you could offer a simple, p olite and constructive suggestion to the staff and/or volunteer moderation team, what would it be?



Without naming individuals or citing cases; Do you have any general questions regarding the moderation system left unanswered by this post?

If you have concerns regarding moderation best left to private channels, please private message me.

Greetings MechWarriors,"I don't come onto the forums, it's full of trolls."This is a quote of a player from when I asked if they could send me their feedback and bug report through the forums, since chat logs are often a bit more work to sift through. I've heard variations of this phrase time in and time out for over two years now whenever I drop into a match..As you may have recently heard, a few prolific forum-goers have been permanently forum banned.behaviorprivilegesEven in the spirit of openness, I must be firm that this isn't a thread for tearing open wounds, old or new. It is one to find measures to heal them and to rebuild a trusting relationship between our community and team. Please try to keep your Reply TAGs firmly locked on me and not on the opinions of other players.Cheers.

Edited by Nikolai Lubkiewicz, 08 September 2014 - 07:08 PM.