"PVP" and "Cyrodiil" Gets you Banned on Twitch

Jeffrey530

BlossomDead wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we wanted to follow up on the post here and the general sentiment about asking/discussing PvP in chat during livestreams. We agree that noting terms like "PvP" and "Cyrodiil" should not be timed out when players ask or referenced the topic in our livestream chat. The moderation shown in the clip was a bit heavy-handed. We have talked about this internally, updated our moderation training, and made sure everyone is clear that conversations around core functions of our game, like PvP, should not be timed out or banned.

Please keep in mind that spamming those terms (or any terms) will be treated differently, as the action of spamming is disruptive to the entire experience. We understand that spamming was not present in this clip, but we want to highlight that there is a clear distinction between asking about/referencing PvP and spamming text blocks of the term.

Thanks everyone for following up on the video and the concern around moderation. We will continue to strive toward better moderation overall and appreciate your feedback.

Yeah, lovely, you do you. But remember that when we're leaving, you're leaving too.

No lol PVE crowd will still be around for Kev to keep his job.

SimonThesis

The PvP crowd loves Kevin too, he's the only one who actually listens and talks to us.

FeedbackOnly

SilverBride wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Chasing everything would also lead us back to situation with everyone banned all the time.

Not if the poster was only given a verbal explanation and a chance to learn from their mistakes. This would actually help that poster from getting into deeper trouble down the road because they would then know more clearly what not to do in the future.

Sometimes things should been reportable offense in the first place. Get reported for small things will still build fear in community.

It's part of the problem of over moderation. Both sides of this debate will have to give and take or community won't get better.

Onigar

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

...

Please keep in mind that spamming those terms (or any terms) will be treated differently, as the action of spamming is disruptive to the entire experience. ...

Thanks everyone for following up on the video and the concern around moderation. We will continue to strive toward better moderation overall and appreciate your feedback.

So with regard to the "... appreciate your feedback" part.

I was booted from the server today while handing in Master Writs to Rolis. This is not the first time and surely will not be the last. Using a Mythic Ambrosia drink I want to make the best use of the time so yes my fingers were working well on the keyboard but I dont really understand the sense in this.

Other times i have been booted is for quickly taking items out of the bank and separately my storage coffer in the house.

Also I had a lot of collected green recipes I did not need and after a number of quick trades with another player I was booted there.

All these 3 things are legitimate actions and performed manually on the keyboard.

Now I just try to take care to not do such actions too quickly.

A long time ago there was a screen message to say something like "you are sending many messages in quick succession" but these days I dont ever see that.

I dont imagine anything will come of this but it just makes me feel better writing about it

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we wanted to follow up on the post here and the general sentiment about asking/discussing PvP in chat during livestreams. We agree that noting terms like "PvP" and "Cyrodiil" should not be timed out when players ask or referenced the topic in our livestream chat. The moderation shown in the clip was a bit heavy-handed. We have talked about this internally, updated our moderation training, and made sure everyone is clear that conversations around core functions of our game, like PvP, should not be timed out or banned.

Please keep in mind that spamming those terms (or any terms) will be treated differently, as the action of spamming is disruptive to the entire experience. We understand that spamming was not present in this clip, but we want to highlight that there is a clear distinction between asking about/referencing PvP and spamming text blocks of the term.

Thanks everyone for following up on the video and the concern around moderation. We will continue to strive toward better moderation overall and appreciate your feedback.

@ZOS_Kevin Why was it there in the first place? I can't imagine that was an accident. That seems like a very deliberate decision. Whoever made that decision should be so grateful that people care enough to go to those streams instead of just silently quitting and removing their revenue. Can we get an honest reflection as to why it got there to begin with? I think ZOS owes us that much, especially things like this keep happening.

I get certain people might be tired of hearing about PVP, but imagine how we feel paying for a game with a system that's been plagued with issues for well over 5 years. Maybe if ZOS stopped trying to insulate themselves from their customers, people wouldn't be hostile and jump to every stream for an update.

And you know what, people wouldn't be doing that to begin with if @ZOS_GinaBruno could muster more than "no updates yet, sorry you're mad" after 5 months. So maybe she can start providing updates with more frequency and detail. We shouldn't have to explain to a CM (senior now right?) how to update us after 8 years on staff and deal with this draconian behavior from ZOS at the same time.

Given the severity and duration of PVP issues, I can't imagine why there isn't a regular PVP stream. You know it's an issue and rather than do anything meaningful, they opt for a combative measure like this. For shame.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@spartaxoxo, so we'll touch on this also. First, please feel free to PM me your specific example. Happy to review and discuss. Also, that is something anyone on the forum can do. We can chat about an issue and we can always talk to customer service to reevaluate actions as needed.

Moderation as you probably can guess isn't an exact science. Actions are taken based on the circumstances of the current situation and the history of those involved. We won't always get that right for a variety of reason. But we will continue to strive to get better and address situations as they occur. What should be noted here is in those back and forth conversations that get actioned, often times those escalate because either the parties start to include personal attacks or one of the parties has reported the other and a mod needs to figure out context by reading through the interactions and make a call based on our community guidelines. So it's a bit of a different ball game compared to live stream moderation.

However, please remember that our mods are human at the end of the day and work hard to ensure the forum is a welcoming and approachable space for all players. If there is an issue with how anyone has been moderated, please make sure to place a ticket to challenge the moderation. For added measure, please feel free to PM me and I can get that number over to our customer service team for additional context.

When there is room for open dialogue, we're happy to have it. I hope this provides some context for forum moderation as well.

@ZOS_Kevin Really appreciate you going into detail.

Where exactly can we have an open dialogue? Because it doesn't feel like it's here. This thread is one of the rare occasions where we have actually talked about a ZOS community issue with someone from ZOS. As I see it - the core problem is it's a community issue that the community can barely - if at all - talk about as a community.

Moderation is in our faces, but talking about it has to be down in a round-about way. While I agree that privacy issues are important, talking about general moderation strategy shouldn't be some delicate process for us customers. Seeing conversations snipped, removed, and locked does not present a good image nor make the forums feel welcoming. They can't even link duplicate conversations into the main conversation so that feedback is consolidated. How does that help our community, how does that help the game? How does draconian moderation here and Twitch actually help ZOS's image and ultimately revenue when it's such a well known problem?

PetSorcEnthusiast

EnKor wrote: »

StevieKingslayer wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin
People dont feel safe talking on your forums, that's probably an issue tbh.
I definitely dont. I've been modded for something very very silly. Your mods also don't communicate at all. Who even are half of these people.

How can people feel safe in ESO forum?
My wife ask "Where can i buy ESO without morrowind" She got Permanent ban. lol Only because of this!? Yes. ONLY because she ask "Where can i buy ESO without morrowind" and she got permanent banned.

@EnKor Oh my god this is bonkers! Do you have a link to the thread by any chance?

LordRukia

Pvp is no longer politically correct, the proper term is human vs human
LOL

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@spartaxoxo, so we'll touch on this also. First, please feel free to PM me your specific example. Happy to review and discuss. Also, that is something anyone on the forum can do. We can chat about an issue and we can always talk to customer service to reevaluate actions as needed.

Moderation as you probably can guess isn't an exact science. Actions are taken based on the circumstances of the current situation and the history of those involved. We won't always get that right for a variety of reason. But we will continue to strive to get better and address situations as they occur. What should be noted here is in those back and forth conversations that get actioned, often times those escalate because either the parties start to include personal attacks or one of the parties has reported the other and a mod needs to figure out context by reading through the interactions and make a call based on our community guidelines. So it's a bit of a different ball game compared to live stream moderation.

However, please remember that our mods are human at the end of the day and work hard to ensure the forum is a welcoming and approachable space for all players. If there is an issue with how anyone has been moderated, please make sure to place a ticket to challenge the moderation. For added measure, please feel free to PM me and I can get that number over to our customer service team for additional context.

When there is room for open dialogue, we're happy to have it. I hope this provides some context for forum moderation as well.

I and others have been specifically targeted with so called moderation , its no secret here on the forums and not surprising to see it on twitch. The fact that you have to school your mods so they don't outright ban people for no reason is pretty sad. It is pretty clear to me that there is personal feelings involved and certainly mods take biased sides based on those feelings.

I don't think anyone cares about appealing a ban , most the time will just stop using whatever media banned them and avoid it like the plague because its so obvious that you are dealing with an illogical entity and the only thing that can follow is stress so there is 2 options here, stop using it or further the hatred in a "yolo" mentality. Ya'll do that to yourselves. There is no point in discussion when one side is muted because that is an echo chamber, I think we can see the parallels .. anyway I don't care about any of this because it just doesn't surprise me and don't think anything is going to change. You got caught, period.

Until next time xD

Lumenn

Lumenn wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin I have a question, and I don't THINK it would break any company rules for you to disclose the answer as anyone applying for work would be told, but as always it's up to yourself and your supervisors.

What are the rules regarding mods with a personal account on the forums? Do they have to disclose that information to Zos, and if so, are there consequences to say, not disclosing or actively hiding such an account? What steps are taken to ensure impartiality? I've worked in situations where company management are not even allowed to have hourly associates or lower ranking salary on their social media, and any breach is considered an instant terminating offense, even hidden accounts should they be found out. If mods ARE allowed their own account, what steps does Zos take to ensure that this person we disagree with today will be impartial in their role tomorrow. Or is it just honor system?

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno might we get anything to this question, or any other that's been asked politely? I'm well aware that this thread has probably been the most open and least moderated in recent memory, and I do believe most are still trying to...edit...their words to be polite and open in this discussion, yet we still haven't had much input from your side. If silence is the only answer than I guess so be it, but here is a chance for the better communication that I remember @ZOS_GinaBruno mentioning a few times over the years without the forum having a hissy(mostly. And people let's be nice here. We're all on different ideas about how much moderation is needed but so far all agree it's been a bit...heavy, so give the mods a civilized response please)

Edit: I should say keep being civilized.

Yasha

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we wanted to follow up on the post here and the general sentiment about asking/discussing PvP in chat during livestreams. We agree that noting terms like "PvP" and "Cyrodiil" should not be timed out when players ask or referenced the topic in our livestream chat. The moderation shown in the clip was a bit heavy-handed. We have talked about this internally, updated our moderation training, and made sure everyone is clear that conversations around core functions of our game, like PvP, should not be timed out or banned.

Please keep in mind that spamming those terms (or any terms) will be treated differently, as the action of spamming is disruptive to the entire experience. We understand that spamming was not present in this clip, but we want to highlight that there is a clear distinction between asking about/referencing PvP and spamming text blocks of the term.

Thanks everyone for following up on the video and the concern around moderation. We will continue to strive toward better moderation overall and appreciate your feedback.

I am glad to hear this, but the fact that this did happen points to a major issue with the corporate culture you have developed. This is consistent with the recent gaff you had when a developer let a family member make wildly inappropriate comments about the pvp community on his publicly broadcast Twitch stream. Your obvious sense of distain and negative bias toward the pvp community is honestly quite shocking.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Yasha wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we wanted to follow up on the post here and the general sentiment about asking/discussing PvP in chat during livestreams. We agree that noting terms like "PvP" and "Cyrodiil" should not be timed out when players ask or referenced the topic in our livestream chat. The moderation shown in the clip was a bit heavy-handed. We have talked about this internally, updated our moderation training, and made sure everyone is clear that conversations around core functions of our game, like PvP, should not be timed out or banned.

Please keep in mind that spamming those terms (or any terms) will be treated differently, as the action of spamming is disruptive to the entire experience. We understand that spamming was not present in this clip, but we want to highlight that there is a clear distinction between asking about/referencing PvP and spamming text blocks of the term.

Thanks everyone for following up on the video and the concern around moderation. We will continue to strive toward better moderation overall and appreciate your feedback.

I am glad to hear this, but the fact that this did happen points to a major issue with the corporate culture you have developed. This is consistent with the recent gaff you had when a developer let a family member make wildly inappropriate comments about the pvp community on his publicly broadcast Twitch stream. Your obvious sense of distain and negative bias toward the pvp community is honestly quite shocking.

I agree that it is a cultural issue. While it might be more commonly displayed with the PvP community the same attitude has also been shown by the same developer towards the PvE community. In that case it was on another streamer's Twitch stream in regards to questions about the decision behind the Maelstrom Arena weapon changes. In summary they said they ignored the complaints as nothing more than a bunch of useless whining and to get over it. So I think it is really just a general disdain for the overall player community that has seem to have grown over the years.

blktauna

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

I agree that it is a cultural issue. While it might be more commonly displayed with the PvP community the same attitude has also been shown by the same developer towards the PvE community. In that case it was on another streamer's Twitch stream in regards to questions about the decision behind the Maelstrom Arena weapon changes. In summary they said they ignored the complaints as nothing more than a bunch of useless whining and to get over it. So I think it is really just a general disdain for the overall player community that has seem to have grown over the years.

The person in question is not a 'dev', he's a Director. Devs are getting a bad rap in here when they are not the ones in authority and making the decisions. Just sayin, in the interest of justice.

Lumsdenml

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

I, honestly, don't think it's a big deal. If you are going into a live stream where they are talking about the new expansion so you can be salty about something that's not even on topic for the stream, you're a troll. There are more appropriate forums for that discussion.

The issue with that is that ZOS never talks about PvP, so there is never a good time to bring up the topic as ZOS is avoiding it.
The other issue is that they've also banned people for talking about PvP during the reveal stream, which is an appropriate time to talk about PvP as many people were hoping for new developments around it coming with the big chapter.

While I agree that spamming "PvP" or "performance sucks" in something like the cooking stream is totally out of place and free game to be deleted as disruptive chat behavior, banning people who tried talking about it during the big chapter reveal stream is absolutely not okay.

They have already addressed the pvp issue. All of the testing and tweaking they have tried didn't have the desired results. Their conclusion is the only way they are going to improve performance is to rewrite the server base code. That will take a year., so they are adding nothing major to pvp or the game (i.e. new class, new skill lines) until that project is done sometime in 2023. What else can they say right now?

blktauna

Lumsdenml wrote: »

They have already addressed the pvp issue. All of the testing and tweaking they have tried didn't have the desired results. Their conclusion is the only way they are going to improve performance is to rewrite the server base code. That will take a year., so they are adding nothing major to pvp or the game (i.e. new class, new skill lines) until that project is done sometime in 2023. What else can they say right now?

They say alot but little comes from it, hence the constant questions. They have been saying "we're fixing it" for the whole of my time playing. Unfortunately we have reached the crying wolf level at this point.

No updates have come since January. Updates were hinted at, yet none materialised. There's a lot of frustration.

Lumsdenml

blktauna wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

They have already addressed the pvp issue. All of the testing and tweaking they have tried didn't have the desired results. Their conclusion is the only way they are going to improve performance is to rewrite the server base code. That will take a year., so they are adding nothing major to pvp or the game (i.e. new class, new skill lines) until that project is done sometime in 2023. What else can they say right now?

They say alot but little comes from it, hence the constant questions. They have been saying "we're fixing it" for the whole of my time playing. Unfortunately we have reached the crying wolf level at this point.

No updates have come since January. Updates were hinted at, yet none materialised. There's a lot of frustration.

In January they said they are going to work on rewriting the base code and it will take a year. What kind of updates do you want?

February - rewriting base code. 1/12 done.
March - rewriting base code. 2/12 done
April - rewriting base code. 3/12 done.....

I don't think there would be much more to tell at this time...

spartaxoxo

Lumsdenml wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

They have already addressed the pvp issue. All of the testing and tweaking they have tried didn't have the desired results. Their conclusion is the only way they are going to improve performance is to rewrite the server base code. That will take a year., so they are adding nothing major to pvp or the game (i.e. new class, new skill lines) until that project is done sometime in 2023. What else can they say right now?

They say alot but little comes from it, hence the constant questions. They have been saying "we're fixing it" for the whole of my time playing. Unfortunately we have reached the crying wolf level at this point.

No updates have come since January. Updates were hinted at, yet none materialised. There's a lot of frustration.

In January they said they are going to work on rewriting the base code and it will take a year. What kind of updates do you want?

February - rewriting base code. 1/12 done.
March - rewriting base code. 2/12 done
April - rewriting base code. 3/12 done.....

I don't think there would be much more to tell at this time...

I agree with this to be honest.

blktauna

Many of us work in the industry and would like to know what's been looked at, tested, where they are, whats the order of items they are addressing,... There's plenty they could say.

Also they once said performance would be better after the 'year of performance'... it was far worse. So trust levels are low.

ZOS_Kevin

blktauna wrote: »

Also they once said performance would be better after the 'year of performance'... it was far worse. So trust levels are low.

Hey all, wanted to chime in here. We don't want this chat about moderation to be derailed. However, we did want to highlight this in particular.

The team wants to be confident that the information shared does not create additional damage to trust for players who feel that way. So this is not an attempt to ignore or leave players in the dark. But given past feedback, we want to make sure shared information is accurate before sharing progress.

blktauna

oops I didn't mean to derail. Thanks @ZOS_Kevin !

nightstrike

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The team wants to be confident that the information shared does not create additional damage to trust for players who feel that way. So this is not an attempt to ignore or leave players in the dark. But given past feedback, we want to make sure shared information is accurate before sharing progress.

Making sure it's accurate is important, but what you effectively do is say nothing for long stretches. That's not helpful, either. It's ok to say that you tried something and it didn't work. Or that you stopped working on it because of other issues.

Your current communication strategies convey one or more of the following:
* We aren't adequately staffed to run the game
* The staff we have lack the experience and ability to improve it
* We don't have a high level strategy to guide us or a clear and detailed plan in place to start unraveling these issues
* What plans we do have aren't working
* We've given up on this issue and are working on something else
* ...etc.

Is that what you want to convey? If not, then perhaps your current strategy of saying less rather than more is ill formed.

To keep this back on the topic of moderation, consider how the extreme moderation detailed in this thread conveys your attitude towards other issues. Since the default response is to censor discontent, what does that convey? To me, it reinforces the above bullets converted to their relevant topic. For instance, if there is heavy censorship regarding discontent over some poorly implemented feature, that conveys to me that you lack the staff to make the feature better, you lack the strategy to develop it in a positively received way, and you are missing key components of the product development cycle. Otherwise, you'd be able to respond to criticism with something more substantial than "[snip]". Since you have little to say about negatively received changes, and since you censor what the community says, I fail to see how that can convey anything positive.

[The following paragraph is my own conjecture.]
One of the problems that I see looking in from the outside is a matter of authority. We have different groups each with their own level of responsibility: Support, Developers, and "Forum Staff". I am aware that there are hundreds more groups, but I'm trying to illustrate a more universal point. When customers are upset about Support or Developers, they have basically one outlet -- the forum. And if they complain, the moderators have basically one thing they can do -- censor. They can't make Support give reasonable responses, they can't make Developers redesign the product. They can delete the negativity and hope that it gets forgotten. I guess they can also write PR style posts, but that NEVER helps. So without any authority to take the concerns raised on the forum and actually change things, moderators get frustrated and fight back with the only tool they have. While I'm sure that you can "pass on feedback", as is often recounted, you lack the authority to actually enable change. You can't direct a developer to fix a specific bug, interpret metrics differently, add a particular feature, or revert a terrible idea (achievements!). And the developers and support staff sure don't come around and post here or engage with customers honestly and openly and frequently, so we are all left with a no-win scenario.

Of course, I don't know if any of the previous paragraph is actually true. I have no inside knowledge. I have only my own life's experience combined with what I observe from the actions taken. And that is what your actions convey to me. I feel like if you did have actual authority over development and support, you'd say so on the forum.

In summary, you make choices about how you engage (or don't) with the community. Those choices, whether it's how to write a post, what goes in the post, what to censor, or when to be silent, all translate into conveying an overall negative perception of the company running the game. And if you want to put dollars on it, it's caused me to stop buying crowns and chapters, for what little that's worth.

spartaxoxo

nightstrike wrote: »

Otherwise, you'd be able to respond to criticism with something more substantial than "[snip]".

There seems to be some confusion about what a moderator does. AFAIK, moderation does not do any development on the game (edit: or work with them), and their moderating should not be misconstrued as official ZOS developer statements. They are a customer service agent who's primary focus is to keep feedback civil and constructive. They write [snip] where a post was edited, so that person who wrote the comment can have the information they need to know exactly what was censored and what they need to inquire about in case an appeal is needed. This is very valuable information to the person being edited, and has absolutely no bearing on anyone else. They don't want to clog your messages with every snip because not all of them rise to the level of needing official communication, especially when that the amount of time more serious communication is needed is a factor when they decide whether or not a user needs to be permanently removed.

FeedbackOnly

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

Also they once said performance would be better after the 'year of performance'... it was far worse. So trust levels are low.

Hey all, wanted to chime in here. We don't want this chat about moderation to be derailed. However, we did want to highlight this in particular.

The team wants to be confident that the information shared does not create additional damage to trust for players who feel that way. So this is not an attempt to ignore or leave players in the dark. But given past feedback, we want to make sure shared information is accurate before sharing progress.

I love you Kevin! I am a fan!

FeedbackOnly

Back on topic. I think I suspension should be a week long. Honestly as a hot head...I still remember the problem in 3 days...but after a week it's cooled down

FeedbackOnly

One poster on the forums excessively abusing the reporting system.

Maybe it's not them, but it's ridiculous that I think it's in the moment I give up on the forums.

We can't even mildy disagree or it's reported. I really had hopes, but it feels like discussion really doesn't exist except with fake smiles.

I apologize, but this is my feelings that environment on the forums isn't healthy for discussion.

P.S

What happened is harassment and I believe they will continue to do so with other players under pretense of baiting

Ratzkifal

Lumsdenml wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

Lumsdenml wrote: »

They have already addressed the pvp issue. All of the testing and tweaking they have tried didn't have the desired results. Their conclusion is the only way they are going to improve performance is to rewrite the server base code. That will take a year., so they are adding nothing major to pvp or the game (i.e. new class, new skill lines) until that project is done sometime in 2023. What else can they say right now?

They say alot but little comes from it, hence the constant questions. They have been saying "we're fixing it" for the whole of my time playing. Unfortunately we have reached the crying wolf level at this point.

No updates have come since January. Updates were hinted at, yet none materialised. There's a lot of frustration.

In January they said they are going to work on rewriting the base code and it will take a year. What kind of updates do you want?

February - rewriting base code. 1/12 done.
March - rewriting base code. 2/12 done
April - rewriting base code. 3/12 done.....

I don't think there would be much more to tell at this time...

They also said they would add additional ways to keep Cyrodiil and BGs interesting - "for example, potentially special rulesets or weekend events" - but that was back in January and now it's already May and we haven't heard from them since.

What are you talking about? There is plenty of things they could update us on. Are weekend events still coming or not? When are they planning on starting with those? ZOS said that the hardware upgrade for PC NA wouldn't improve performance, yet performance was dramatically improved (although not yet "fixed"), so what's up with that?

Nobody is expecting daily updates but honestly the 1/12 done would already be good because it would at least be life signs and if something goes wrong they could tell us "there will be a delay because of XYZ". Not talking to the community at all makes people think that they will fix PvP soon™ (read "never") and that this is just some ploy to keep our hopes up for as long as possible to artificially boost active player numbers of a dying game.
Sounds bleak, but that's exactly what it looks like from the outside to PvPers whenever ZOS is going into radio silence mode for extended periods of time.

Also, back on the topic of moderation. A message like above would often be censored on the forums as "quitting threads" are not permitted and pretty much any exceedingly negative outlook on the future of the game would be interpreted as a "quitting thread" or "quitting post". Either that or it's "bashing" the Devs. Of course moderation was justified in a lot of cases but definitely not all of them, but it has certainly contributed to the feeling that you cannot say too negative things on the forums because it'll get you banned.
Saying you are cancelling your ESO+ sub because of XYZ isn't the same as quitting for example, but on the forums it's treated as such and I have seen even constructive feedback get locked simply for the stated intent to cancel the subscription over an issue.

FeedbackOnly

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

I hate dislike buttons in nearly every website but eso forums would benefit from it, why? Because most of the time when i want to disagree with somebody my post gets removed for back and forth or baiting! So either add a disagree button or more preferably cool down the moderation!

^ another example of someone who is victim of excessive reporting

I still feel like I should give up and will be banned soon, but maybe I still hope

It's not fair we can't disagree at all. Even with the very best intentions. We will be banned, suspensioned or moderate while the other poster is left alone to create an echo chamber

Kidgangster101

nightstrike wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The team wants to be confident that the information shared does not create additional damage to trust for players who feel that way. So this is not an attempt to ignore or leave players in the dark. But given past feedback, we want to make sure shared information is accurate before sharing progress.

Making sure it's accurate is important, but what you effectively do is say nothing for long stretches. That's not helpful, either. It's ok to say that you tried something and it didn't work. Or that you stopped working on it because of other issues.

Your current communication strategies convey one or more of the following:
* We aren't adequately staffed to run the game
* The staff we have lack the experience and ability to improve it
* We don't have a high level strategy to guide us or a clear and detailed plan in place to start unraveling these issues
* What plans we do have aren't working
* We've given up on this issue and are working on something else
* ...etc.

Is that what you want to convey? If not, then perhaps your current strategy of saying less rather than more is ill formed.

To keep this back on the topic of moderation, consider how the extreme moderation detailed in this thread conveys your attitude towards other issues. Since the default response is to censor discontent, what does that convey? To me, it reinforces the above bullets converted to their relevant topic. For instance, if there is heavy censorship regarding discontent over some poorly implemented feature, that conveys to me that you lack the staff to make the feature better, you lack the strategy to develop it in a positively received way, and you are missing key components of the product development cycle. Otherwise, you'd be able to respond to criticism with something more substantial than "[snip]". Since you have little to say about negatively received changes, and since you censor what the community says, I fail to see how that can convey anything positive.

[The following paragraph is my own conjecture.]
One of the problems that I see looking in from the outside is a matter of authority. We have different groups each with their own level of responsibility: Support, Developers, and "Forum Staff". I am aware that there are hundreds more groups, but I'm trying to illustrate a more universal point. When customers are upset about Support or Developers, they have basically one outlet -- the forum. And if they complain, the moderators have basically one thing they can do -- censor. They can't make Support give reasonable responses, they can't make Developers redesign the product. They can delete the negativity and hope that it gets forgotten. I guess they can also write PR style posts, but that NEVER helps. So without any authority to take the concerns raised on the forum and actually change things, moderators get frustrated and fight back with the only tool they have. While I'm sure that you can "pass on feedback", as is often recounted, you lack the authority to actually enable change. You can't direct a developer to fix a specific bug, interpret metrics differently, add a particular feature, or revert a terrible idea (achievements!). And the developers and support staff sure don't come around and post here or engage with customers honestly and openly and frequently, so we are all left with a no-win scenario.

Of course, I don't know if any of the previous paragraph is actually true. I have no inside knowledge. I have only my own life's experience combined with what I observe from the actions taken. And that is what your actions convey to me. I feel like if you did have actual authority over development and support, you'd say so on the forum.

In summary, you make choices about how you engage (or don't) with the community. Those choices, whether it's how to write a post, what goes in the post, what to censor, or when to be silent, all translate into conveying an overall negative perception of the company running the game. And if you want to put dollars on it, it's caused me to stop buying crowns and chapters, for what little that's worth.

They also have other social media places they can get feedback from if they just look. Like reddit, Twitter ect. But that means they need to work on listening to feedback and being able to admit they messed up something. It's very very very rare that a dev admits they messed up on a change that was in popular that they reverted back. They try to use other things to explain the change.

Example is wrecking blow. A few years ago they literally changed this move every few months. Knowing this was a problem they just kept changing it and never actually listened to people. They have done it with a lot but it's either they don't actually care about our feedback, or they kept messing up and wouldn't admit being wrong.

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

Also they once said performance would be better after the 'year of performance'... it was far worse. So trust levels are low.

Hey all, wanted to chime in here. We don't want this chat about moderation to be derailed. However, we did want to highlight this in particular.

The team wants to be confident that the information shared does not create additional damage to trust for players who feel that way. So this is not an attempt to ignore or leave players in the dark. But given past feedback, we want to make sure shared information is accurate before sharing progress.

That's unfair to us though. That's what I don't get about you guys. People have been saying it's fine to adjust, give us information as it progresses - especially on multi-year problems. How many times do people have to say this before ZOS realizes we're asking for more as customers? You guys will go on about how the community is everything but the comm strategy of "no information, we're hearing your feedback" feels really absentee. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you'd deal with less moderation and toxicity if they were just forthcoming about things. Some regular cadence.

Back on topic.

Back when you joined I outlined some points that I thought were actionable.

What changes have been made to moderation strategy in that time? What feedback has been heard, considered, and discarded or implemented? There's really simple things that can be done - like when duplicate threads are closed, the mod links it back to the central discussion. Or when an old thread is closed, we get more than copy and paste, and are actually told what was outdated when it gets necroed. These are really simple asks. It shouldn't take more than a year.

I do want to give you a lot of credit for the rapport you've cultivated here since joining, I just hope that you can get the mod teams to align with that.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

Otherwise, you'd be able to respond to criticism with something more substantial than "[snip]".

There seems to be some confusion about what a moderator does. AFAIK, moderation does not do any development on the game (edit: or work with them), and their moderating should not be misconstrued as official ZOS developer statements. They are a customer service agent who's primary focus is to keep feedback civil and constructive. They write [snip] where a post was edited, so that person who wrote the comment can have the information they need to know exactly what was censored and what they need to inquire about in case an appeal is needed. This is very valuable information to the person being edited, and has absolutely no bearing on anyone else. They don't want to clog your messages with every snip because not all of them rise to the level of needing official communication, especially when that the amount of time more serious communication is needed is a factor when they decide whether or not a user needs to be permanently removed.

I shouldn't have my words changed. Ever. Not only is it censorship but it borders on impersonation. They can ask us to remove or reword our post, but no we instead get treated like children.

VaranisArano

I've been weighing whether or not to comment on this ongoing discussion on forum moderation. I decided to because my experience seems a little different from what others have observed.

Without discussing specifics, I've been warned and temporarily suspended a handful of times over the last two years. Each time I could see where the moderators were coming from. With the benefit of hindsight, I've been more careful not to overstep those same boundaries again.

In the same way, when I get [snipped], I'm usually able to say, "Okay, self, you went too far there. Either keep it polite and directed at the topic, not the poster, or walk away." Sometimes I need (and appreciate) the occasional reminder to hold my sharp tongue.

I can only speak for myself as a fairly prolific poster on the forums; I don't have any concerns about how I've been moderated. Quite the opposite, actually.

spartaxoxo

Destai wrote: »

I shouldn't have my words changed. Ever. Not only is it censorship but it borders on impersonation. They can ask us to remove or reword our post, but no we instead get treated like children.

It doesn't border on impersonation at all, because everyone knows it's a moderator action. You agreed to conduct yourself in a certain manner or have your words edited when you created a forum account. And yes, they absolutely should be removing content that breaks the TOS. Enforcement is too heavy handed atm, but that doesn't mean it should be entirely without rules either. Moderation is a normal part of structured debate, and is also a normal part of keeping a website focused on what that website was built for.

Destai

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

I shouldn't have my words changed. Ever. Not only is it censorship but it borders on impersonation. They can ask us to remove or reword our post, but no we instead get treated like children.

It doesn't border on impersonation at all, because everyone knows it's a moderator action. You agreed to conduct yourself in a certain manner or have your words edited when you created a forum account. And yes, they absolutely should be removing content that breaks the TOS. Enforcement is too heavy handed atm, but that doesn't mean it should be entirely without rules either. Moderation is a normal part of structured debate, and is also a normal part of keeping a website focused on what that website was built for.

I'm not saying we should have no rules, there's a more respectful way to enforce them. I think we're in agreement that it's too heavy handed, though.

For all that @ZOS_Kevin talks about how there's humans behind the mod name, I don't get the sense that they reciprocate.

I've had many times where I put in something and feel like I have to tip toe around the point just to avoid needless snipping - that I'm going to go put back in some way or another. It also jars the flow of the conversation. And this isn't a place for structured debate - as nice as it is - it's a place for people to discuss this game. We shouldn't be held to debate standards that I've seen on no other gaming forum. It doesn't take long to copy-paste a link to a closed conversation to a master thread. It doesn't take long to write a canned message to someone with their snipped message so they can reword it. Simple respect.

Many rules could be automated or loosened - like swearing and auto-closing old threads. One of the things I appreciate about reddit is the community polices itself, which is really what I'd expect for a game rated M.

As for Twitch, I have no more use for that, not after what happened with Rich. He very clearly doesn't even want to entertain the possibility he could be wrong, and that cascades down to Twitch and here alike. There's such a feeling of disdain from some of the leaders that it makes supporting the game hard. They need to earn some faith at this point, and at least this thread is a step towards that. It's a shame it's all on Kevin's mighty shoulders and not on those who created the hostilities to begin with.