On AtWar Toxicity and New Moderation

Kirjutas Sultan of Swing, 15.02.2019 at 12:18

But where I agree with you the most in is dealing with player bans. There are most definitely some bans that come across as "personal" and biased. However, what most people don't realize is that bans aren't applied without majority mod agreement. Sometimes even when there is majority agreement, we still don't ban a play because we want to give them the benefit of the doubt, and we give a second chance (in some cases too frequently...). Nevertheless, I think there needs to be some sort of forum, log, or monthly report (idk maybe someone can have a better idea..) of moderator actions ranging anywhere from mutes, to bans, and reasoning for taking such action. To all the mods who are reading this, yea sadly that will require more work on our end.... but being a moderator comes with responsibility, and part of that responsibility should being held accountable to the rules that we enforce. I've been saying this for a while now, but as I haven't had the time to actually do much with this idea, its just blabber and jargon. Maybe in conjunction with this post, enough people out of the community could rally behind the concept of 1) cleaning up the rules to make them more easily understandable and less vague, and 2) promoting more openness of moderator actions. "Fake news" is rampant, and rumors spread because of this lack of openness. If we can work together on this one, I think it would prove to help AtWar's administrative efficiency increase.

Kirjutas Wheelo, 15.02.2019 at 16:33

Kirjutas Permamuted, 15.02.2019 at 16:10

Ah here, bog off ya knacker. Go back to your Caravan!

Go back to Britain!

Ok too far.

Kirjutas Permamuted, 15.02.2019 at 17:44

--

You know what's too far? Joking about the famine in all of your profile pictures. Absolutely disgusting.

Kirjutas Permamuted, 15.02.2019 at 17:44

Kirjutas Wheelo, 15.02.2019 at 16:33

Kirjutas Permamuted, 15.02.2019 at 16:10

Ah here, bog off ya knacker. Go back to your Caravan!

Go back to Britain!

Ok too far.

Wheelo is a, how you say it? "A settled knacker" in a housing estate in the Southside somewhere I'd say

#Ihaveneverbeenbanned

Kirjutas 1GodofWar1, 16.02.2019 at 09:22

#Ihaveneverbeenbanned

Kirjutas 1GodofWar1, 16.02.2019 at 09:22

#Ihaveneverbeenbanned

Youd be suprised how clean my record is lol (besides global mutes)

Standard precedents and stronger moderator guidelines which are required to be followed seems like a logical solution to any argument relating to the severity of punishments. I understand how difficult it is to find a balance, however I have always held the belief that action should only be taken in terms of in game communication, if there is a legitimate complaint from a player that has been made and the matter is trivial usually can be resolved with words of guidance, there is an ignore button for a reason. Unless of course there is a genuine negative impact on the gaming environment then nesacerray steps to eliminate the problem should ensue. Sometime a heavy mute on all the alt accounts can send out equally as strong a message to players who will insist on disrupting the platform.

Addressing infractions in the relevant context is also important. For instance if I said 'f*ck' after I was rushed, with players I am aquianted with, doesnt warrant the same level of punishment as excerting a 50 line diatribe at another player in game chat because another player backstabbed me, in the beginners room.

Kirjutas Sun Tsu, 16.02.2019 at 10:23

Standard precedents and stronger moderator guidelines which are required to be followed seems like a logical solution to any argument relating to the severity of punishments. I understand how difficult it is to find a balance, however I have always held the belief that action should only be taken in terms of in game communication, if there is a legitimate complaint from a player that has been made and the matter is trivial usually can be resolved with words of guidance, there is an ignore button for a reason. Unless of course there is a genuine negative impact on the gaming environment then nesacerray steps to eliminate the problem should ensue. Sometime a heavy mute on all the alt accounts can send out equally as strong a message to players who will insist on disrupting the platform.

Addressing infractions in the relevant context is also important. For instance if I said 'f*ck' after I was rushed, with players I am aquianted with, doesnt warrant the same level of punishment as excerting a 50 line diatribe at another player in game chat because another player backstabbed me, in the beginners room.

I was with you till you butchered "neccassary" and then i felt offended jk lol. The issue is that many players dont simply trash talk or even harass individual players. They collectively spread misinformation in hopes of ejecting individuals they find problematic to there platform from the game entirely in hopes of getting them black listed from the overall community. So muting them, does not work. They can still read your forum posts, they can even qoute you still. Its basically like sticking your head in the sand while they are still able to attack you. It does not work. Individual's need to be held accountable for there actions especially when the victim is in distress and has asked them to stop multiple times.

I honestly believe the moderators are doing a good job. As long as you don't say anything incredibly offensive I think they have been fair to everyone. Normally its the people who actively misbehave that feel they are being punished slightly more. But that's probably because they have a past of being a trouble maker.

Although I do agree some mods are biased towards friends but for the most part it seems fair all around.

The problem I see here is an apparent lack of transparency. Not only it is hard for the player community to oversee the mod actions, it's also hard for other mods aswell.

I am pretty sure not all mod actions are logged. I spoke with many mods so far and often I get an answer that they don't know which mod did something, or that they don't know why they did it (no reason provided). Why not make a log for all actions done by all mods, and make it available upon request? Also make it a must to note reasons for every action.

Kirjutas Guest, 17.02.2019 at 08:07

The problem I see here is an apparent lack of transparency. Not only it is hard for the player community to oversee the mod actions, it's also hard for other mods aswell.

I am pretty sure not all mod actions are logged. I spoke with many mods so far and often I get an answer that they don't know which mod did something, or that they don't know why they did it (no reason provided). Why not make a log for all actions done by all mods, and make it available upon request? Also make it a must to note reasons for every action.

Just to clarify... with respect to transparency, traditionally mods have respected the privacy of the offender (a sort of 'right to be forgotten' ethic). Players who have argued extensively about being 'banned for no reason', despite overwhelming evidence, have on occasion been openly invited to allow us to publicize the full evidence, more to call their bluff and put an end to the victimhood and to let the community know the player has done something that they aren't admitting to the community. It is important to note not a single player has taken the mods up on this offer. In other words, the lack of transparency on discussing details of these extreme claims of mod abuse is entirely the result of the offending player knowing the evidence is there, but not wanting the rest of the community to see it.

That said, there is active discussion in mod forums since this post was made that we reconsider the policy of not sharing an offending players actions so the community is more aware of what actually is happening in these situations. [An 'airing the dirty laundry']

As far as the logging of mod actions, this is somewhat frustrating as their are times not all the details are logged correctly. Speaking for myself, there are occasions - typically in help chat before the rank filter was applied by Dave, where i am less than diligent in logging the reason for a particular help mute. For instance if 7 players start spamming chat at the same time, i'll just mute them from help to put a quick end to the help spam, and then put 'ha' (help abuse) in the comments for other mods. Generally this isn't a problem since few players argue these things, but a few will, and even though they know full well they were abusing help channel, they will go and ask mods 'what did i do? i got banned for no reason" and the other mod won't know the details without going back to the original chat logs and searching the date of the offense, which is time consuming.

Kirjutas brianwl, 17.02.2019 at 08:30

I completely agree with you and I'm not defending an abuse of any kind. But it still doesn't answer my concerns. Am I not right that not all of the mod tools log the actions? It's a systematic oversight, not a failure of individual mods. And I'm pretty sure I cannot get any such log of actions on mine or anybody else's account.

Compare it to a political system. For a government to be transparent, it needs to "log" every action done. Merely saying every action is justified (which I don't want to doubt) doesn't satisfy the need for transparency.

Kirjutas Guest, 17.02.2019 at 08:07

The problem I see here is an apparent lack of transparency. Not only it is hard for the player community to oversee the mod actions, it's also hard for other mods aswell.

I am pretty sure not all mod actions are logged.

They are.

In-game actions sample:
http://prntscr.com/mm9o0p

profile history sample:
http://prntscr.com/mm9omy

profile permissions sample:
http://prntscr.com/mm9pgk

Hope this clears things up. All a mod has to do is filter the in-game actions, or check profile. If there isn't a reason stated, we can see which mod took the action, and we ask that mod why they did it

Kirjutas Guest, 17.02.2019 at 08:46

Kirjutas brianwl, 17.02.2019 at 08:30

I completely agree with you and I'm not defending an abuse of any kind. But it still doesn't answer my concerns. Am I not right that not all of the mod tools log the actions? It's a systematic oversight, not a failure of individual mods. And I'm pretty sure I cannot get any such log of actions on mine or anybody else's account.

Compare it to a political system. For a government to be transparent, it needs to "log" every action done. Merely saying every action is justified (which I don't want to doubt) doesn't satisfy the need for transparency.

Ah, yes there are shortcut keys (i personally don't use them and get annoyed when other mods use them for exactly the occasion you mention ... they have their place - useful for mods when modding from their phones or when they need to apply an action quickly while in a game or otherwise busy.)

Generally these shortcuts are used for short mutes (less than 3 days) for convenience, and i think the majority of mods have stopped using them for the reason you mention. i might repost your point in the mod forum it it's alright with you, is it still a problem? Has it happened recently? It's an easy fix in my view - mods need to stop using the shortcuts or maybe it's time Dave disabled them if they don't serve a legitimate purpose anymore.

The notion of sharing mod actions with the player has been a hot topic of debate in the past. The reason it hasn't been shared is that the players who request it, (excepting you) have generally been people with 100+ mod actions in their history. It is clear from the request they just want to further the drama, attention seeking, etc. by arguing with mods over whatever items are in their history and mods tend to agree we want to look forward to improving the situation, not look back and argue about the past which is a waste of time. I can respect this - if opening histories is just going to throw gas on the flames of the most troublesome players, it's really not worth it. It's a question of 'transperancy vs drama' and most mods will share players history if asked privately, so it's done not to be secretive or 'anti-transparent' but to re-move the drama.

I do agree, there is a point to where it gets to strict.