Forum Over moderation and annoyance to the community

Hello.
I was thinking about making a comment on my ban appeal, but since I know it is likely to never get a proper answer from staff, I decided to do it here instead.
Since I also made a report on this, that was closed by the same said moderator, I have no choice but using this place to give staff feedback on their forum moderation.
I wanna talk about the way the forum is moderated in certain cases, and share my experience.

2 days ago, I was having a discussion on the Skill Change feedback thread.
In this discussion, a comparison was made of 2 players who are supposed to be the "top DRKs" and that was used as an argument why Zerking should be easier, as not everyone is expected to be them.
I explained that:
1) Those players are miles apart, which is factual considering hard evidence such as contribution to the community, videos etc.
2) Those Zerk changes are not necessary in my opinion, and explained why.
(https://royals.ms/forum/threads/feedback-request-skill-changes-and-balancing.205730/page-18)

I'm not trying to argue if that comment was out of place or toxic, my opinion (and other's who commented as well) is clear about that, and I also think you need certain bias towards that player to find that comment offensive.
But lets leave that aside - because I want to talk about how it was handled by the forum mod.

At first, he wrote the following comment:

Spoiler: .

After which he edited my post and removed a section of what I said.
At this point, no warning points were issued and no punishment was handed.

To that comment, I responded with criticism about what he did.
I don't find it nice to edit people's comments as it can change the intention of a post and twist their words, so I voiced it:


Nothing mean was said here.
At this point, I got straight up banned from the thread for this comment.
Yes, I wasn't banned for the sparky/awlz comment, I was banned for responding to a mod.
He saw this second comment as me "continuing to flame", what?

That's an absurd way to deal with players on the forum.

Also, setting up people who call him out for his action for a ban, basically putting them in a spot where they can't comment on this anymore or they will get the same treatment, is just not right:

Spoiler: .

Now, I knew I was going to get unbanned, cause who in their right mind on staff would leave this ban in place?
But the fact that I have to deal with this heavy handed ban and the annoyance that followed is what really didn't sit well with me.
Should I really invest my time in feedback threads if that's how I'm treated?
I don't think I will anymore as it stands, because the reason I feedback so much and put my own time and effort into this is simply because I care, and I want to give staff my input and help steering things in the right direction (in my opinion at least).

I've seen many cases of over-moderation lately - on selling threads, shoutbox, feedback threads etc.
I think the most important things to remember as a forum mod are:
1) You are here to give people a better forum experience, if you over-do it and nuke comments/threads left and right, ban people from sections and make them go through ban appeals, you are beating the purpose.
Not everything needs to be moderated, and not everything needs staff intervention, this becomes a burden on the community.
You need to use common sense of when to intervene, and when you should let people speak and do their thing - because it's harmless.
2) When you do decide to handle certain cases, do it well, there is really no other way for me to say it.
Heavy handed bans and bad decisions such as this just anger the community, as you can clearly see by the comments after the ban I was handed.
Reviewing your own actions and apologizing is not a bad way to approach this.

I hope @Zancks who commented on my ban appeal sees this, and even @Matt who needs to know people's feeling about the forum moderation.
Once I got banned, I surprisingly got a wave of forum DMs from people I don't even know, all saying they had a similar experience and that they are just as frustrated as me.
I would like some staff comment about this.

 

Genuinely curious what could have warranted editing from our dear moderator

Spoiler: Spoiler

will this comment be moderated/Thanosed too?

 

Seems to me like a not-so-subtle complaint on Dave.
Never experienced any issues with Dave.
There is a reason why he is a mod for so long, he is doing a good job.
But I guess we need to wait for the many DM senders to say otherwise.

 

I doubt that Dave has or had bad intentions but in short, Doing a good job does not make doing a bad job okay or acceptable, appreciation is earned on consistency and not upon certain periods

As for the topic, usually I would say this is out of place, and disrespectful to use a feedback thread to push your own interest which is in this case would be your argument against Dave, BUT that is not the case, your point is valid and I think it is very important to get it across, that people should be allowed to voice their opinions without being worried about what might happen if a nerve is touched by using one of the words that can or can not be used (a mystery apparently), it shouldn’t be a mystery and it should be more clear what’s the real meaning of the term “freedom of speech”, because from where I sit, there was just speech without freedom, and that is unfortunate for me to see, I truly hope that this discussion will lead to a lesson that can solve this for the future so people find the forum a more appealing platform and not less.

 

I got my comment/thread (I dont even remember what it was about) deleted a couple times. Iirc it was just a couple memes and not so important trolling gibberish, so those getting deleted was not a big deal and I honestly didnt care.

What irritated me, however, was the fact that I was never notified who deleted my post for what reason.

If the OP is not notified when the thread gets deleted is not a power abuse, what else is?

P.s. this happened when Dave stepped down from his forum mod role for a while so I am not blaming him or someone specific for this. I still dont know who deleted my post (i can only assume who) and I am just sharing my experience.

 

you're still not getting it. Moderating is healthy, especially when you are doing it solo in a forum with a decent amount of traffic, it's plenty for just one individual, so actually, i honestly think you do a really good job moderating as you are kinda a fanatic over it (which is needed prob).

However.... i'd say you do need to exercise more judgement when you are assuming your role as a mod. Take the verbal warning you replied to me earlier as an example,


i called you out on your behavior by writing "quit power tripping dude", and you responded immediately by trying to silence me, obviously setting me up for a reply ban if i responded. What? Do you think its okay to silence a player by lowkey threatening a ban when you see something you don't want to see? Also, you proved my initial statement by doing that.

 

So your immediate assumption is that i'm gonna be flaming someone when i have not said anything at all prior to that post?

 

i think hes doing a good job of containing grown adults playing a childrens MMORPG

 

There is a distinct difference between setting me up for a ban, and setting up a trap to ban me, don't twist my words.

 

Personally, I like Dave a lot and hope he continues to forum mod.

There are past Forum Mods that would have banned lxlx by now lol.

The forums are an outdated wasteland where the Staff really doesn't have too much time to invest to. The forum search bar was down when I took a 3 year break, I came back it was still down.

Dave always sweeps up the chinese college degree waves we get once a week, helped out even after he resigned/forum mod was removed in general, and I don't even think he plays the game anymore (outside of helping people 2nd job advance).

I think its an important job to keep on staff. GM Staff shouldn't be assigned also moderating the forums. I think it was worse the forums when staff removed Forum Mod thinking GM staff could moderate both ingame and forum activites.

That being said, we all have room for improvement and I think it's fine you won't see eye to eye with some members. But so long as they don't take it too far, you'll have to do what you can to come to terms with them or just let them be.

Edit:
I think in the past if flaming would start ramping up. Mods either your or other, in the past would issue a verbal warning to everyone before it gets worse, something on the lines of "Thread is getting a bit out of hand, if it continues to get worse we'll have to start deleting posts and issue WPs"

I think some sort of warning before deleting/editing comments would have gotten a less negative response. If that did happen and I did not notice it, sorry about that.

 

You say this, and you deleted @Donn1e 's segment about it, and after that, despite NO ONE bringing up "he who shall not be named", you were still dishing out reply ban, verbal warning? No one brought up his name again or even talked about him, so what are your reasons for the reply ban and verbal warning?

 

You mean these right? But you already addressed that when you said this.

After this post of yours, which post afterwards is seen as a further attempt to incite a flame war? No one else talked about it anymore yet you dished out a reply ban, which was why i called you out and you gave me a verbal warning for doing that.

Your reply ban / warning was NOT for talking about another player, so don't you try to backpedal now.