Mods and social policy.

[CYRO]

So as you are all Aware Recently I have had an issue with the modes and another player that Was not handled Correctly on several levels. And I am looking for what you all think about it. Since I know people are out there waiting like hungry sharks to put there junk here as well to bash the modes. I am not angry at the modes I do not believe they racist or jerks. What I think was there was a mix up and punishment was To severe with little warning. I believe it should never have Escalated to the point it did and while lsm Is doing something about it now it does not help me now, or what I believe the Root of the Problem to truly be. Please if you Reply only Reply to the following Questions.

1)What do you think Is punishable when you react to some one insulting you?

2)And what do you think you should be allowed to do when you as a person not a player but you personally Are threatened. Do you think you should be banned under these Circumstances? Or Just a receive a warning?

3)Did you know Unofficial warnings Count? That they count these and Can issue bans with these? Even without ever Receiving an official warning and you leaving chat when asked to? So what is the Difference between and official warning and Unofficial?

4)What do you think should be the Response of a mod when some one is Trying to start a fight in social? Not talking about disagreeing but once insults of any kind and not talking about jokes that not been asked to  be stopped or it is an Easy to see guy baiting people.

Ultimatly Blacklisting Trouble makers is the best solution but some times it feels like garbage to let them Drone on and talk behind your back for 30 mins.

This is to help the staff know how you all feel as well as to suggest solutions DO NOT TURN THIS INTO A BASHING!

[KayoHime]

Mods*

[WarJack]

Hi Cyro,

Figured I'd attempt to answer some of your questions. It's a shame this one thing happened at ~4am my time, otherwise I would have gone down in a blaze of glory received a ban right alongside you. :D

1)What do you think Is punishable when you react to some one insulting you?

Anything that breaks the rules, naturally. I would generally advise remembering that this is the internet, people will usually say things they wouldn't say in real life, either out of mis-placed confidence or arrogance (but that's besides the point).

2)And what do you think you should be allowed to do when you as a person not a player but you personally are threatened. Do you think you should be banned under these Circumstances? Or Just a receive a warning?

Depends on the threat and the person who's threatening you's ability to carry out said threat.
If a known DDoS'er were to threaten me with a DDoS attack, I would immediately report them to the site owner and possibly contact the police.

But this is WoB and WoB is full of keyboard warriors (myself included. Regardless of the fact that I can back up most of what I'm dishing out ;D).

Your question leaves a little out in the middle, as you fail to disclose that you react to the threat, in order to be banned. As I said before, if you say or do something against the rules it's up to the Staff to deal with you (at their discretion, of course).

3)Did you know Unofficial warnings Count? That they count these and Can issue bans with these? Even without ever Receiving an official warning and you leaving chat when asked to? So what is the Difference between and official warning and Unofficial?

Do they count towards what?

Are you asking if we're aware that our warnings are counted against us when a decision is been made?
Well. Obviously, it's only common sense. If you have a person that has been caught stealing from a shop multiple times, a stronger deterrent is needed than against a first-time offender.

The difference between an OW (Official Warning) and an UW (Unofficial Warning) is the officality of it Joking aside, I think it's something to do with their records. An UW is like an under-the-table slap on the wrist. Like a warning jab, before the huge right hook comes out of nowhere and knocks you out for 24 hours.

4)What do you think should be the Response of a mod when some one is Trying to start a fight in social? Not talking about disagreeing but once insults of any kind and not talking about jokes that not been asked to  be stopped or it is an Easy to see guy baiting people.

As long as the flow of conversation is uninterrupted, politely ask the two players in question to take it to PMs. Failure to comply? UW and a forced end to the topic ("if either of you continue, or anyone else starts instigating -looks at Kagex- your posts will be deleted and you will receive a warning.")

If the fight takes precedence over Mixed and other conversations are halted? Allow the players to air their grievances until one of them escalates it beyond acceptable levels (and breaking the rules in the process) then start handing out warnings and forcibly end the conversation.

Solutions?

Not sure if I have any actual constructive suggestions for this, but I heard talk of creating a time-out feature, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 6 hours, etc. would be pretty useful for first-time/frequent trouble-makers. :D

[Haruchi]

Hey I'll go ahead and voice my thoughts - though admittedly I wasn't around when this incident took place.
But I'll speak from my personal views and some moderating experience. Please keep in mind that what I think =/= what current moderators think.

1)What do you think Is punishable when you react to some one insulting you?

Retaliating. If someone calls you stupid or belittles you, don't respond in kind - you will be at as much fault as the other.
Be the bigger, better man: report, blacklist, move along. Yes, it's tempting to get the last word in to...regain some of the lost pride? But don't. It doesn't make you look any better and is only childish.

2)And what do you think you should be allowed to do when you as a person not a player but you personally are threatened. Do you think you should be banned under these Circumstances? Or Just a receive a warning?

Let me get this straight so I know I've understood correctly: you are asking what -I- think -I- should be allowed to do if -someone else- threatens -me-?

Same as above: report, blacklist, move along. If it's a personal threat that you feel may have consequences outside of the game, I'd go as far as to file a support ticket to Lsm about it and ask for advice.

Even if you are threatened, it doesn't give you any right to retaliate.

3)Did you know Unofficial warnings Count? That they count these and Can issue bans with these? Even without ever Receiving an official warning and you leaving chat when asked to?

As formerly part of staff, yes, I'm aware they count. But there are several possibilities here:

A) You were told, repeatedly, to drop a topic or correct your behavior, yet you insisted on keeping it up - person who warned you saw no other way to get you to calm down than a ban. An official warning is always (not sure if the ban interface has changed - a moderator can correct me) sent along with a ban.

B) You were told once to drop a topic or correct your behavior. You didn't listen. It would've been better to send an OW and then ban admittedly - that's something Ama or Hito can address to the moderator.

C) By the time a staff member noticed there were reports, they were numerous. And most of them pointed at you - perhaps you chose to retaliate instead of reporting, as your post makes it sound like. Perhaps the other person was intent on getting you banned and so they reported all you said. So by the time a staff member noticed something was going on, all they could do was to tell people to knock it off, while they were frantically clicking back in chat history and opening reports to make any sense of the situation (I feel longer social would help so much with this).

D) You have several OWs on your records for the behavior from a recent timespan - so you keep persisting in it instead of heeding the warnings, so a ban was necessary. The situation may have also been so heated that to put an end to it a ban was necessary.

So what is the Difference between and official warning and Unofficial?

Unofficial warnings (UW) I find are helpful when correcting behavior in small-scale: accidental RP, accidental all-caps, accidental who-knows by a new player. They are also used in social as a warning for everyone: don't do that. Official warnings (OW) in turn are when you have really stepped out of the line, or when UWs don't seem to have any effect on you. They weigh, alongside bans, a lot during decision making.

4)What do you think should be the Response of a mod when some one is Trying to start a fight in social? Not talking about disagreeing but once insults of any kind and not talking about jokes that not been asked to  be stopped or it is an Easy to see guy baiting people.

I'm going to agree with Jack here. Time-out ban (15min, 30min, 1 hour, 2 hour bans and so on) has been suggested before, also by yours truly.
IIRC Lsm felt/feels they are redundant, but they would definitely be good to give those who frequently blow up in social a way to be put on a forced cooldown - and more helpful tools for moderators.

Lsm is going to address some of the recent social etiquette and behavior issues in near future.

Cheers,

[CYRO]

So I for the most Part agree with what you said Harichi but I do want to clear something up.

I have not Received a single official warning from anyone to this date that I even know of.

2) the ban occurred after I had left chat when asked By a mod so it was not me ignoring the moderator I even Acknowledged him in social. when Questioned for the ban the Reply was for making a mama joke....but I had already gotten an unofficial warning for the said joke.( I know I left chat since some one made a suicide comment And I recently lost some one for that reason so ill be honest I left and Cried.)

3) the Behavior that was insulting me was reported and even directly seen by a mod so there was not a single reason to delay in coming to a decision yet there was a length of time it was allowed.Ultimately I was banned after listening to a mod ask me to knock it off without a single official warning and when appeal's were sent they were not Properly investigated Nor was I given the time of the day. I know I do not see what goes behind the scenes And I do know that I was not acting in the right but I do think the punishment was unjustified since it was far to extreme without a single Official warning.I know you don't know exactly what happened but I don't want guess work here since its seems to be people trying to tell me what the rules instead of what they think..

To jacks statement....unofficial counting is stupid might as well make it an official warning since they do count. Unofficial means it has no force behind it yet clearly these unofficial warnings do have weight so they should be Technically official.

I do believe I deserved punishment but Straight to ban after it was over (at least with me) and after obeying a moderator without an official warning nor correcting this mistake and instead sticking with the punishment shows me something far different then you take time to find out what is really going on. To me it is to late for the staff to correct this problem in my case but until a answer on how to address this properly in the future is announced I am not gonna stop trying to make my case for a change to be implemented until I am satisfied.( I am not gonna cause trouble but try and work with staff for something that Truly works not just for my benefit.)

Between being ignored for appeal's and being lied to since they did not take the time to research the event to come to a decision or ask a single question to clarify it. No official warnings. Leaving after being asked to by a moderator to stop it. No proper investigation until I had to pull LSM directly into it and he let me know that was the moderator who handled my ban repeal had it wrong. At the start LSM said I was banned for my unofficial warning so I was punished twice.

[Haruchi]

It indeed does sound like there was a lapse of judgement. An OW would have sufficed. But since you have had it looked into, there has been reprimanding done on the staff end.

I thought this was generally about opinions instead ofa specific case, apologies for not knowing the details but thanks for providing them.

[CYRO]

Haruchi You are right about it being a general opinion and I think I got side tracked slightly.

[Hitori]

I'm going to speak about this in general terms - disregarding the case on hand.
~~~~~

1)What do you think Is punishable when you react to some one insulting you?

The issues as a whole are taken in by staff members. If you react by insulting the person, you're just as guilty as they are - regardless of if they started it or not. The proper thing you should be doing if someone threatens, trolls, harasses, etc., is report them; from there staff members can take the appropriate action.

In circumstances where you have a lot of tension with another user, your best bet is to use the tools provided to you. Black list them and turn on social ignore, this is the very reason this user tool exists.

2)And what do you think you should be allowed to do when you as a person not a player but you personally Are threatened. Do you think you should be banned under these Circumstances? Or Just a receive a warning?

Again, the best thing to do is report and blacklist. As for the banning vs warning thing, it's all contextual and based on your record.

3)Did you know Unofficial warnings Count? That they count these and Can issue bans with these? Even without ever Receiving an official warning and you leaving chat when asked to? So what is the Difference between and official warning and Unofficial?

To clear this up officially. Unofficial warnings is when a staff member speaks to you privately about a specific issue and gives you guidance / explains a rule / etc. to you in an informal way. They do not hold as much weight, and are not, official warnings. Note: All current official warnings will appear in your account messages: http://prntscr.com/duk86j

4)What do you think should be the Response of a mod when some one is Trying to start a fight in social? Not talking about disagreeing but once insults of any kind and not talking about jokes that not been asked to be stopped or it is an Easy to see guy baiting people.

With most issues in the chat, a mod usually first ensures the social gets off the course it's going, to make sure further harassment doesn't ensue. After which, they can look into exactly what happened more thoroughly and take the appropriate action there. As a very important note -- all because you're asked to stop an action in social, doesn't mean that's the final action. Again, this is just a generalization, and sometimes different action is required.

[CYRO]

yeah no official warning in my message traffic.

Question about the unofficial warning. Is there a way that the name can be changed at all since as I stated before and in the question itself. Unofficial warning is just that unofficial. Yet as you can see they are clearly official and do hold weight. To me unofficial warning is a hey this is going in the Wrong direction please stop before official action is taken. but if you are logging them then they are not off the Record or undocumented. why do I suggest this? to me Until today Thought I had a clean record so it was a big surprise to be banned from a record I never even knew I had.

unofficial
adjective
1. unconfirmed, off the record, unsubstantiated, private, personal, unauthorized, undocumented, uncorroborated Example Unofficial estimates speak of at least two hundred dead.

[orosan]

unofficial warning is just a kind reminder to another user such as:

"hey there buddy, try to remember not posting too much of those in caps" or

"hey mate, lets lay off the fight shall we? its best if this doesnt escelate further"

its a small talk, usually privately between one staff to another user just to make sure that things can be over smoothly without having the need to make it strict.

the only thing unofficial warnings counts to is how many times we gone soft on you, for example we gave one user like 3 unoffcial warnings and were nice about it to him and didnt want things to get tough and YET he still does it and breaks teh rules, at this point we need to start being strict and perhaps issue a real Official Warning.

there are lots of players who take our kindness for granted, and at that point we need to let them know we are serious at this, you broke the rule 3 times i was nice to you nd tried to remind you 3 times, but now after all that you still did it again the 4th time and im not taking anymore of it, i WILL have to give you a real warning and it will show in your official records this time.

thats what unofficial warnings are, they dont show in your records, its just done privately between us to make things better off.

its better if we can solve things without the need to hard on it, but if after that it didnt work then we will have to do it in a stricter way.

I noticed a lot of users often mistake Official warnings and Unofficial warnings , they think a PM from a staff is an Official warning, it is not.

Official warnings will have an account message labelled with the subject in red "OFFICIAL WARNING" .

[CYRO]

thats what unofficial warnings are, they dont show in your records, its just done privately between us to make things better off.

Ok now this makes sense to me.

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