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

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.

spartaxoxo

Destai wrote: »

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.

When you say that mods should have to ask permission to enforce rules, you're basically asking for no enforcement of them. And without enforcement, rules are pretty much meaningless. Imagine if cops had to ask your permission before issuing a speeding ticket. There'd be basically no speeding tickets, because almost nobody is going to say "okay, ya got me." They are going to make excuses about why it doesn't really apply to their circumstance, if they admit speeding at all, and then reject the ticket. Even on this thread, there are posts saying that users should be able to openly insult each other and it not be considered baiting. The moderators are the neutral third party that enforce the rules, and when they determine a rule violation has occurred, they remove the offending content. They could just remove it without saying a word, but that is much worse. It means the person who was moderated may not even know the content of their post was changed, or if they do, what was changed and why. -snip- and then -edited for: reason- gives very clear information. I have been on forums that don't do that, and people are always much, much more confused and angry when you just delete their posts with no rhyme or reason indicated. Yet, not every offense deserves to get someone banned, so you don't want excessive documentation that is impossible to sift through and does nothing but make the user look bad.

Informative and transparent warnings that don't get put on your permanent record are vastly superior to every other form of moderating of very minor infractions. It's not even a contest IMO.

SilverBride

Destai wrote: »

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.

ESO was given a Mature rating for Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, and Violence in the game. This has nothing to do with the forums or what is appropriate forum behavior.

The problem is the punishment only takes into account that an infraction occurred while giving no consideration to all the player's constructive posts. This leads to heavy handed moderation and excessive punishments.

nightstrike

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.

There's no confusion at all, and I stated that forum staff aren't developers. The point here is that their job is more than just moderation. They are the only reasonable communication point between players and developers, and they routinely state that they are sending our feedback to the development team. So while yes, they do on occasion need to edit posts and ban users, that should be infrequent.

And more to the point is that there is a fundamental difference between moderating two users arguing with each other and moderating users angry at ZOS. The latter is where I see the biggest issue, as mods simply delete any negativity towards the company instead of finding an effective way to change the root cause of that negativity. The reality is that if ZOS acted differently, there would be a whole lot less to moderate. Not zero, of course, but a substantial reduction.

Destai

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

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.

When you say that mods should have to ask permission to enforce rules, you're basically asking for no enforcement of them. And without enforcement, rules are pretty much meaningless. Imagine if cops had to ask your permission before issuing a speeding ticket. There'd be basically no speeding tickets, because almost nobody is going to say "okay, ya got me." They are going to make excuses about why it doesn't really apply to their circumstance, if they admit speeding at all, and then reject the ticket. Even on this thread, there are posts saying that users should be able to openly insult each other and it not be considered baiting. The moderators are the neutral third party that enforce the rules, and when they determine a rule violation has occurred, they remove the offending content. They could just remove it without saying a word, but that is much worse. It means the person who was moderated may not even know the content of their post was changed, or if they do, what was changed and why. -snip- and then -edited for: reason- gives very clear information. I have been on forums that don't do that, and people are always much, much more confused and angry when you just delete their posts with no rhyme or reason indicated. Yet, not every offense deserves to get someone banned, so you don't want excessive documentation that is impossible to sift through and does nothing but make the user look bad.

Informative and transparent warnings that don't get put on your permanent record are vastly superior to every other form of moderating of very minor infractions. It's not even a contest IMO.

No, what I'd expect is something like,

"Your statement of <whatever> isn't up to community standards and has been snipped. Please reword and edit your post".

It's not until it gets to official warning or worse that you get a sense of what you did wrong. I guess I wasn't clear on that.

But honestly though, what happens if something says someone doesn't like? I don't get it. I get there's a line with harassment and obvious bigoted speech, but I've seen baiting interpreted as any question that engenders further discussion. Or threads closed because "the conversation ran its course" despite people still being actively engaged on it. The conversation's done when people say it's done.

They could collapse comments and label them as offensive, allowing the user to choose to read it. I don't trust that the rules are interpreted fairly - especially with how visible and vocal many people's frustration with it is.

SilverBride wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

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.

ESO was given a Mature rating for Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, and Violence in the game. This has nothing to do with the forums or what is appropriate forum behavior.

The problem is the punishment only takes into account that an infraction occurred while giving no consideration to all the player's constructive posts. This leads to heavy handed moderation and excessive punishments.

Agreed, I do think the person's contributions should be taken into consideration. There's no way to tell if it's not, and I think that would vary from person to person.

spartaxoxo

nightstrike wrote: »

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.

There's no confusion at all, and I stated that forum staff aren't developers. The point here is that their job is more than just moderation. They are the only reasonable communication point between players and developers, and they routinely state that they are sending our feedback to the development team. So while yes, they do on occasion need to edit posts and ban users, that should be infrequent.

You're conflating the moderation team with the community team. Kevin, Gina, etc relay our feedback to developers, communicate with us, etc. The moderation team's primary focus is just to moderate the forums. The majority of what we see them do is simply editing posts. It's not supposed to be infrequent, it's the primary focus of their public facing work. They are customer support.

nightstrike wrote: »

And more to the point is that there is a fundamental difference between moderating two users arguing with each other and moderating users angry at ZOS. The latter is where I see the biggest issue, as mods simply delete any negativity towards the company instead of finding an effective way to change the root cause of that negativity. The reality is that if ZOS acted differently, there would be a whole lot less to moderate. Not zero, of course, but a substantial reduction.

I agree that they are over-zealous in their enforcement, especially in regards to what's considered bashing the company. Unlike when users discuss each other, the actions of ZOS is a relevant topic of conversation. Things like "they don't see to care about PVP because we've gotten no new content" shouldn't be actioned, and yet I see that happen quite a bit. And it's not okay. However, there is also definitely a way to phrase those statements that don't devolve into bashing the company. Stuff like "so and so should be fired," or "they are just bunch of lazy greedy jerkmobiles" are different than "they need a new approach," or "they aren't doing enough to convey information to us." It's not just what you say, but how you say it.

Moderation undeniably and blatantly needs to find a better middle ground so that people can communicate with one another. Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. Users shouldn't be getting permanently banned for being human beings, who sometimes will say negative things. They need to be more judicious in their approach to what gets an infraction and what does not. But, at the same time, I think users also sometimes don't understand how negative feedback ought to be worded to avoid triggering these violations. And thus, they don't understand how they got them and get upset, even though it's actually pretty fair. Which is why I think their communication about what got infractioned needs to be improved as well.

Right now, when you ask what you did wrong, you're met with extremely unhelpful copypaste responses that don't actually tell you much of anything.

spartaxoxo

Destai wrote: »

No, what I'd expect is something like,

"Your statement of <whatever> isn't up to community standards and has been snipped. Please reword and edit your post".

It's not until it gets to official warning or worse that you get a sense of what you did wrong. I guess I wasn't clear on that.

Ah, I see. Yes, they used to make more use of unofficial warnings but they stopped at some point, I think. Or maybe they limit the number you can receive over the entire lifetime of your account or something. IDK.

Perhaps ZOS is different, but when I did moderation work for another company we had a few different levels of severity.

lowest level = snip/delete with a brief message or none at all about why it was snipped/deleted. This was used for very minor infractions. Stuff like "bump," or "you're just a noob that's why you don't get it," or swear filter bypasses in posts that are otherwise not profane.

medium-low level = snip/delete and an unofficial warning sent to your account. This was for stuff that was less gray in it's rule breaking or maybe needed further explanation, but wasn't necessarily something that anyone deserved to be even suspended over. Stuff like derailing a thread [because this kind of comments might not be against the rules in another thread], insults that can't just be excused as thoughtless but are ultimately mild and not necessarily harassing individual users: such as "Ugh, anyone who thinks that this item isn't overpowered is a complete idiot! What kind of mouth breather do you have to be to think this is okay?", or other such moderate infractions.

medium-high level =snip/delete and official warning sent to your your account. This was stuff that was serious but not enough to warrant immediate suspension, or you've gotten too many messages from the medium-low level category in too short a timespan. Stuff like posts where a user's primary goal is to call out another user "This person was cheating in my guild!" or they were bashing the company.

High Level Suspension= snip delete comment and immediate suspension for X number of days. Stuff like racial slurs, harassing another user, etc. Also used for people who had too many official warnings in too short of a time span, as they were repeat offending often enough to be an issue.

Permanent Ban = too many high level suspensions in too short of a time period, or especially outrageous posts such as real life threats.


The stuff that didn't even merit a response, we still sent one when asked. When sent a message about why something was changed, we could go that comment and see the edit history. And then provide guidance. But we didn't send out messages because we used messages as a way to track the moderation history of an account. We didn't want people losing their accounts for stuff like "ITBL", when they really aren't a problem user. It didn't mean we wanted those non-constructive posts as part of the thread either, as they had a tendency to derail productive conversation. So we edited it, but didn't keep track.

SilverBride

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Another reason a lot of companies prefer their official forums be more professional than any Reddit communities they interact with or even their in-game chats is because they use the feedback gathered as part of their job, to improve the product design. It's not that they don't use the input from those other communities, because they absolutely do especially if a particular social media platform is popular. But they like having an area with more professional standards that might encourage some people to speak about the product they are doing, but wouldn't necessarily on other social media platforms.

Gaeliannas

spartaxoxo wrote: »

You're conflating the moderation team with the community team. Kevin, Gina, etc relay our feedback to developers, communicate with us, etc. The moderation team's primary focus is just to moderate the forums. The majority of what we see them do is simply editing posts. It's not supposed to be infrequent, it's the primary focus of their public facing work. They are customer support.

The fact ZOS employ's people specifically to moderate their forums says a lot about how they feel about customer service. And to be clear, moderation is not customer service, it is the exact opposite in fact, it is customer suppression. The forums are a community, so why isn't the community team here engaging the community on more than sporadic intervals and only when they have something to say? Maybe if the community team actually engaged and interacted with the community, as opposed to simply talking at us, or attempting to put out some fire someone at ZOS created, the community would have a lot less angst and the need for moderation would be considerably lowered or completely disappear?

To be quite honest, I don't even see the point of these forums, because they are pretty much nothing more than a place to come and shout into the wind.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Gaeliannas wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

You're conflating the moderation team with the community team. Kevin, Gina, etc relay our feedback to developers, communicate with us, etc. The moderation team's primary focus is just to moderate the forums. The majority of what we see them do is simply editing posts. It's not supposed to be infrequent, it's the primary focus of their public facing work. They are customer support.

The fact ZOS employ's people specifically to moderate their forums says a lot about how they feel about customer service. And to be clear, moderation is not customer service, it is the exact opposite in fact, it is customer suppression. The forums are a community, so why isn't the community team here engaging the community on more than sporadic intervals and only when they have something to say? Maybe if the community team actually engaged and interacted with the community, as opposed to simply talking at us, or attempting to put out some fire someone at ZOS created, the community would have a lot less angst and the need for moderation would be considerably lowered or completely disappear?

To be quite honest, I don't even see the point of these forums, because they are pretty much nothing more than a place to come and shout into the wind.

One philosophy of customer management is to provide a means for customers to shout into the wind and blow off steam rather than have the company face it directly. Forums are one of the tools used to accomplish this and IMO is their main purpose with the ESO community.

Ratzkifal

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Gaeliannas

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

spartaxoxo

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Ratzkifal

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Obviously. But the question is, why does the forum have a different age rating than the game and why. I've once quoted King Camoran and because he had something to say about Prince Naemon that wasn't fit for the forum, it got removed - the explanation, the forum has a different age rating. Why is that necessary?

FeedbackOnly

[

Ratzkifal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Obviously. But the question is, why does the forum have a different age rating than the game and why. I've once quoted King Camoran and because he had something to say about Prince Naemon that wasn't fit for the forum, it got removed - the explanation, the forum has a different age rating. Why is that necessary?

Because someone reported it. The reporting system needs to be redone

Ratzkifal

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

[

Ratzkifal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Obviously. But the question is, why does the forum have a different age rating than the game and why. I've once quoted King Camoran and because he had something to say about Prince Naemon that wasn't fit for the forum, it got removed - the explanation, the forum has a different age rating. Why is that necessary?

Because someone reported it. The reporting system needs to be redone

Not everything bit of moderation comes from reports. Moderators actively browse the forums to check for violations. That's how they determine if a thread needs to be moved too, because you cannot report a thread for the purpose of moving it. There just isn't a report category for that.

FeedbackOnly

Ratzkifal wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

[

Ratzkifal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Obviously. But the question is, why does the forum have a different age rating than the game and why. I've once quoted King Camoran and because he had something to say about Prince Naemon that wasn't fit for the forum, it got removed - the explanation, the forum has a different age rating. Why is that necessary?

Because someone reported it. The reporting system needs to be redone

Not everything bit of moderation comes from reports. Moderators actively browse the forums to check for violations. That's how they determine if a thread needs to be moved too, because you cannot report a thread for the purpose of moving it. There just isn't a report category for that.

Some of the more mild ones is reports though. Like asking about Morrowind had to be reported

spartaxoxo

Ratzkifal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Obviously. But the question is, why does the forum have a different age rating than the game and why. I've once quoted King Camoran and because he had something to say about Prince Naemon that wasn't fit for the forum, it got removed - the explanation, the forum has a different age rating. Why is that necessary?

My guess would be to have a more "Professional" setting, for lack of a better term, so that they can pull in feedback from people that they wouldn't get from other social media channels. The more "official" atmosphere can help create an environment where a broader group of people may appear, whereas some other social media channels may skew towards different groups, say for example you might find a more competitive oriented crowd on some channels (e.g. Twitch).

This wasn't about this game, but a community manager from Overwatch once talked about how he viewed forums as someone who had made a career in community management for that and other games. I think it could be insightful here, I'll edit out the stuff about Overwatch.

There’s a general rule of thumb that’s known by most community professionals:

Less than 10% of all players will ever even look at your forums or owned channels

Of that 10%, less than 10% will ever be an active participant in the conversation on these owned channels

It’s important to understand that this in no way diminishes the usefulness of community discussion hubs (like forums). Forums serve as a microcosm of the larger OW community, representing viewpoints from many different segments of players; casual, what we call “Core Players”, competitive players, representation from marginalized groups such as BIPOC or LGBTQIA+, the list goes on.

I have seen similar sentiments expressed by community management leads in other games, though their quotes are less easy to find.

I don't know how the developers at ZOS view this forum, or why they chose the age range that they did for this website. But I would imagine it's a similar reason that other official, corporate-run forums try to keep a similar tone.

SilverBride

Whatever the age rating the community rules still make sense. Being "mature" doesn't mean "anything goes".

SilverBride

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Some of the more mild ones is reports though. Like asking about Morrowind had to be reported

Asking about Morrowind isn't a violation of the forum rules. I don't understand what happened in that case.

Agenericname

Ratzkifal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

A mod pointed out in another thread that the game is rated M but the forums are public. This is why the standards are stricter here.

I actually agree with all of the community rules. I just don't agree with how heavy handed the punishments can be.

Agreed.
I'm not sure why the forums are differently rated either. After all this means is that there must be certain parts of the game that cannot be brought to the forums under any circumstances, which is weird, and it also means that if the forum is meant to be used as advertisement it's advertising in the wrong age group, which is just as odd.
Perhaps the original intention was to just keep it sanitary here so that nobody can say "but it's M-rated" as an excuse to talk about inappropriate topics, but now it's enforced like people who wouldn't be allowed to play the game are coming to this forum to read things about a game they shouldn't even be playing yet.

Not to point out the obvious, but they could also have an age check on the forums like the game has, and if you haven't joined or are underage, only show the "OFFICIAL NEWS AND UPDATES" section to the viewer.

But I guess hiring a small army of moderators makes more sense than a hour or two of website coding to them.

They do have an age check, and they'd still need moderators. They are needed at the bare minimum to ensure nothing illegal is posted, such as credible real life threats.

Obviously. But the question is, why does the forum have a different age rating than the game and why. I've once quoted King Camoran and because he had something to say about Prince Naemon that wasn't fit for the forum, it got removed - the explanation, the forum has a different age rating. Why is that necessary?

They can somewhat control who has access to their game, but less so who has access to their forums. They can control who posts, but not necessarily who reads.

Destai

SilverBride wrote: »

Whatever the age rating the community rules still make sense. Being "mature" doesn't mean "anything goes".

There's mature and controversial content in the game that cannot be openly discussed here for long. That's a weird disconnect IMO.

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

You're conflating the moderation team with the community team. Kevin, Gina, etc relay our feedback to developers, communicate with us, etc. The moderation team's primary focus is just to moderate the forums. The majority of what we see them do is simply editing posts. It's not supposed to be infrequent, it's the primary focus of their public facing work. They are customer support.

The fact ZOS employ's people specifically to moderate their forums says a lot about how they feel about customer service. And to be clear, moderation is not customer service, it is the exact opposite in fact, it is customer suppression. The forums are a community, so why isn't the community team here engaging the community on more than sporadic intervals and only when they have something to say? Maybe if the community team actually engaged and interacted with the community, as opposed to simply talking at us, or attempting to put out some fire someone at ZOS created, the community would have a lot less angst and the need for moderation would be considerably lowered or completely disappear?

To be quite honest, I don't even see the point of these forums, because they are pretty much nothing more than a place to come and shout into the wind.

One philosophy of customer management is to provide a means for customers to shout into the wind and blow off steam rather than have the company face it directly. Forums are one of the tools used to accomplish this and IMO is their main purpose with the ESO community.

It's super helpful to have an official place to talk about the game. I think letting people vent is constructive, but I think there's an expectation it'll sway development decisions. There's so many cases where I wish it had, like the Bosmer changes, perfected weapons, etc., and I think that immovability really sours it for a lot of people.