SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

The "report them, don't tell them" has always bugged me. I am a firm believer that people should be allowed to self-correct, before the moderators come along and potentially ruin their day.

I generally take this approach too. If I have to ask someone to self-correct because they said something that bothers me (usually what I perceive as rudeness or misrepresenting what I said), then I try to make sure that the majority of my comment is on the thread topic. Usually, though not always, it's enough that the substance of my comment survives if the mods sweep through looking for back-and-forth.

I'm not going to take that chance, especially with how heavy handed the punishments are.

It's up to the mods to correct infractions. Correct, not punish, unless it's very offensive or there have been repeated offenses despite several warnings. In that case temporary suspensions should be attempted before anything permanent is considered. Permabans should be very rare.

With the caveat that I can only speak for myself, I've never been warned for politely asking someone to self-correct. That part of the comment might or might not be removed by the mods later, but it's never escalated to a warning or temporary suspension.

I will say that if the mods would prefer that I report rather than ask people to self-correct, then they need to push Vanilla Forums to fix the Report option on Mobile. I cannot effectively write nor send a report on Mobile, and so a post has to be an egregious violation before I go to the effort of swapping to the desktop version on my phone to make the report and then back to mobile.

VaranisArano wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

The "report them, don't tell them" has always bugged me. I am a firm believer that people should be allowed to self-correct, before the moderators come along and potentially ruin their day.

I generally take this approach too. If I have to ask someone to self-correct because they said something that bothers me (usually what I perceive as rudeness or misrepresenting what I said), then I try to make sure that the majority of my comment is on the thread topic. Usually, though not always, it's enough that the substance of my comment survives if the mods sweep through looking for back-and-forth.

I'm not going to take that chance, especially with how heavy handed the punishments are.

It's up to the mods to correct infractions. Correct, not punish, unless it's very offensive or there have been repeated offenses despite several warnings. In that case temporary suspensions should be attempted before anything permanent is considered. Permabans should be very rare.

With the caveat that I can only speak for myself, I've never been warned for politely asking someone to self-correct. That part of the comment might or might not be removed by the mods later, but it's never escalated to a warning or temporary suspension.

I will say that if the mods would prefer that I report rather than ask people to self-correct, then they need to push Vanilla Forums to fix the Report option on Mobile. I cannot effectively write nor send a report on Mobile, and so a post has to be an egregious violation before I go to the effort of swapping to the desktop version on my phone to make the report and then back to mobile.

I actually did get an unofficial warning on that.
They actually admitted the person I was responding to was baiting and that my own polite was respectful, but that it still called another user out. And thus it was naming and shaming.

They said they want it reported instead so it doesn't derail the thread.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

The "report them, don't tell them" has always bugged me. I am a firm believer that people should be allowed to self-correct, before the moderators come along and potentially ruin their day.

I generally take this approach too. If I have to ask someone to self-correct because they said something that bothers me (usually what I perceive as rudeness or misrepresenting what I said), then I try to make sure that the majority of my comment is on the thread topic. Usually, though not always, it's enough that the substance of my comment survives if the mods sweep through looking for back-and-forth.

I'm not going to take that chance, especially with how heavy handed the punishments are.

It's up to the mods to correct infractions. Correct, not punish, unless it's very offensive or there have been repeated offenses despite several warnings. In that case temporary suspensions should be attempted before anything permanent is considered. Permabans should be very rare.

With the caveat that I can only speak for myself, I've never been warned for politely asking someone to self-correct. That part of the comment might or might not be removed by the mods later, but it's never escalated to a warning or temporary suspension.

I will say that if the mods would prefer that I report rather than ask people to self-correct, then they need to push Vanilla Forums to fix the Report option on Mobile. I cannot effectively write nor send a report on Mobile, and so a post has to be an egregious violation before I go to the effort of swapping to the desktop version on my phone to make the report and then back to mobile.

I actually did get an unofficial warning on that.
They actually admitted the person I was responding to was baiting and that my own polite was respectful, but that it still called another user out. And thus it was naming and shaming.

They said they want it reported instead so it doesn't derail the thread.

Thanks for sharing!

This is what trying to report my own comment looks like on Chrome (Android Mobile):


Ir looks like they've improved the "reasons why" and the nested comments parts from what we used to have, but I still can't scroll to get to the Report button at all. Which, er, makes it pretty hard to report. So I almost never do.

I know we've mentioned this to ZOS_Kevin on several occasions before, so it's a known issue at least.

Mobile

Desktop View (mobile setting)


It's the same for me. The one I can't report on is mobile, and the workaround is desktop view. Don't worry didn't flag any posts in here. Just providing pics of the interface haha

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Mobile

Desktop View (mobile setting)


It's the same for me. The one I can't report on is mobile, and the workaround is desktop view. Don't worry didn't flag any posts in here. Just providing pics of the interface haha

Laughing at the thought of reporting someone is what got us here.

VaranisArano wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

The "report them, don't tell them" has always bugged me. I am a firm believer that people should be allowed to self-correct, before the moderators come along and potentially ruin their day.

I generally take this approach too. If I have to ask someone to self-correct because they said something that bothers me (usually what I perceive as rudeness or misrepresenting what I said), then I try to make sure that the majority of my comment is on the thread topic. Usually, though not always, it's enough that the substance of my comment survives if the mods sweep through looking for back-and-forth.

I'm not going to take that chance, especially with how heavy handed the punishments are.

It's up to the mods to correct infractions. Correct, not punish, unless it's very offensive or there have been repeated offenses despite several warnings. In that case temporary suspensions should be attempted before anything permanent is considered. Permabans should be very rare.

With the caveat that I can only speak for myself, I've never been warned for politely asking someone to self-correct. That part of the comment might or might not be removed by the mods later, but it's never escalated to a warning or temporary suspension.

I will say that if the mods would prefer that I report rather than ask people to self-correct, then they need to push Vanilla Forums to fix the Report option on Mobile. I cannot effectively write nor send a report on Mobile, and so a post has to be an egregious violation before I go to the effort of swapping to the desktop version on my phone to make the report and then back to mobile.

I actually did get an unofficial warning on that.
They actually admitted the person I was responding to was baiting and that my own polite was respectful, but that it still called another user out. And thus it was naming and shaming.

They said they want it reported instead so it doesn't derail the thread.

Thanks for sharing!

This is what trying to report my own comment looks like on Chrome (Android Mobile):


Ir looks like they've improved the "reasons why" and the nested comments parts from what we used to have, but I still can't scroll to get to the Report button at all. Which, er, makes it pretty hard to report. So I almost never do.

I know we've mentioned this to ZOS_Kevin on several occasions before, so it's a known issue at least.

That looks a lot better

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Mobile

Desktop View (mobile setting)


It's the same for me. The one I can't report on is mobile, and the workaround is desktop view. Don't worry didn't flag any posts in here. Just providing pics of the interface haha

Laughing at the thought of reporting someone is what got us here.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean here, can you elaborate?

Elsonso wrote: »

Wow. When did they add the reason list to reports? It has been a long time since I reported anyone.

Late 2020, or early 2021. Not sure exactly when it changed.

starkerealm wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Permabans should be very rare.

As a rule, they appear to be. Users permanently getting the boot are the extreme minority of people on the boards.

I wish that were true but a lot of 10 star long time posters have been permabanned. It appears that only the infractions are looked at and the thousands of constructive posts the player made over the years aren't considered. It's next to impossible to post for years and never once make a mistake, so the complete picture needs to be looked at, not just that they have a certain number of infractions so they are permabanned.

Yeah, that goes back to the use of the report button as a tool of abuse, that we've been talking about. Well, in most cases, anyway. I can think of three or four where there were very compelling reasons for their bans. If you're sitting at ten stars (which we both are), odds are extremely good you've perturbed a few members of the community over the years, and statistically, we probably have. So, the only real question is whether we've gotten on the nerves of someone who abuses the report button. The body count (of banned accounts) speaks to that theory.

This has nothing to do with the report button being abused. Reporting valid violations is not abuse.

This has to do with the punishment being extreme in comparison to the infraction and not taking the accused poster's complete posting history into account.

starkerealm wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This has nothing to do with the report button being abused. Reporting valid violations is not abuse.

The problem with this argument is, you're assuming the violations were reported in good faith. Again, I have literally been actioned for very old posts that could only have been reported if someone went digging through my post history.

I think there are two examples being thrown around here about abusive reports.

1) your example, where someone combed through years of post history to find something reportable.

2) A single thread having multiple mod edits

I think the first one is easily abuse, regardless if the report against that person was genuine or not. Posts over a year old shouldn't be able to incur moderation action that is detrimental to the account imo. This prevents that form of abuse.

The second example is only a problem if the reports aren't legitimate. If someone is legitimately being overly aggressive or harassing another user, it is easy for them to rack up multiple violations on the same thread. That they are racking up so many legitimate violations in a short time span shows a problem with the person being aggressive, not with their victim. If the reports are false however, then it's the person doing the reporting that is abusing the system.

SilverBride wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This has nothing to do with the report button being abused. Reporting valid violations is not abuse.

The problem with this argument is, you're assuming the violations were reported in good faith. Again, I have literally been actioned for very old posts that could only have been reported if someone went digging through my post history.

This also combines with the assumption that the moderator's behavior was justified. The problem with this is, in many cases, if there is a post severe enough to warrant a ban, the moderator will delete it. (This isn't unique to ESO, and is true of most forum moderation.)

Now, it's possible that they're being more surgical, searching through post history, and picking posts they think can get actioned. At that point, the line between, legitimate use and abuse is in intent. If someone has a grievance, and wants to remove a user from the boards, and seeks to do that by digging through that user's post history until they find something they can run crying to the moderation team with, that is abuse of the system. And, make no mistake, that is what appears to be happening here.

It's not about correcting past behavior. It's not about reporting past behavior. Those are legitimate uses of the tool. It becomes about finding a vector to get a third party to harass and attack the user for you, and that is abusive.

I agree that going through old posts looking for things to report is abuse. In this case the moderator should not take action on the old post and should warn the abuser.

But some are claiming that reporting valid infractions is abuse, such as if a poster was baited 5 times and reported it 5 times. That is not abuse.

And that's the part about this that is, legitimately, impossible to quantify. It really does come down to an intent question, "are they reporting people because they see the infraction and think it needs to be stopped?" If that's the case, then it's not abuse. The alternative situation is, "are they reporting people to harass them?"

I suppose another way to look at it is, are they responding to the posts themselves, or are they targeting the poster, and then looking for something to pin on them.

Like I said, it's basically impossible for anyone else to determine which is happening. There has been a lot of moderation that looks suspiciously like someone is engaging in the latter, but as I said a couple pages ago, I can't prove it's happening. All I have is a very well developed sense of pattern recognition going, "hold up, something ain't right here."

spartaxoxo wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This has nothing to do with the report button being abused. Reporting valid violations is not abuse.

The problem with this argument is, you're assuming the violations were reported in good faith. Again, I have literally been actioned for very old posts that could only have been reported if someone went digging through my post history.

I think there are two examples being thrown around here about abusive reports.

1) your example, where someone combed through years of post history to find something reportable.

2) A single thread having multiple mod edits

I think the first one is easily abuse, regardless if the report against that person was genuine or not. Posts over a year old shouldn't be able to incur moderation action that is detrimental to the account imo. This prevents that form of abuse.

The second example is only a problem if the reports aren't legitimate. If someone is legitimately being overly aggressive or harassing another user, it is easy for them to rack up multiple violations on the same thread. That they are racking up so many legitimate violations in a short time span shows a problem with the person being aggressive, not with their victim. If the reports are false however, then it's the person doing the reporting that is abusing the system.

There is a potential issue with the second one. If someone rams all the reports through at once. I don't think that's something that affects how the mods here look at the incidents, but it is a tactic employed by less than reputable people who are banking on a moderation team having a fixed punishment progression system, and are trying to, effectively, force multiple punishments through on a single pass. Bonus points if they're using a sock puppet to troll their intended target. (Again, I don't think that's happening here, but, I have run across this behavior in the past.)

Part of why you're not seeing a lot of examples is, first, discussing moderation activities are still against the rules. (Judging by what Kevin said, this thread seems to be a temporary exception to that rule, so long as we can keep the discussion constructive, and non-confrontational.) However, it is why I haven't gone into greater depth on the [Deleted User] story. Second, it's really hard to know with certainty if someone is targeting you, or if you're just being paranoid.

starkerealm wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I agree that going through old posts looking for things to report is abuse. In this case the moderator should not take action on the old post and should warn the abuser.

But some are claiming that reporting valid infractions is abuse, such as if a poster was baited 5 times and reported it 5 times. That is not abuse.

And that's the part about this that is, legitimately, impossible to quantify. It really does come down to an intent question, "are they reporting people because they see the infraction and think it needs to be stopped?" If that's the case, then it's not abuse. The alternative situation is, "are they reporting people to harass them?"

I suppose another way to look at it is, are they responding to the posts themselves, or are they targeting the poster, and then looking for something to pin on them.

Like I said, it's basically impossible for anyone else to determine which is happening. There has been a lot of moderation that looks suspiciously like someone is engaging in the latter, but as I said a couple pages ago, I can't prove it's happening. All I have is a very well developed sense of pattern recognition going, "hold up, something ain't right here."

They may be reporting because they are being verbally attacked by the same poster or posters repeatedly. Unfortunately this is something that does happen, especially in threads that players are passionate about.

If a poster calls another poster a name, or insults them, or otherwise baits them and they report the post then they are also reporting the player who posted it. There is no way to separate the two.

But this is not why so many posters are being banned. The punishments are just too extreme. Posters should get a chance to learn how to stay within the guidelines.

I'm putting this in the FIRST section as some have issues with having an OPINION that doesn't match their own. I FULLY understand I'm old. My way of thinking may be outdated to a time when life was rougher and being offended took more than it does now to be a problem. Believe me I understand even minor offenses sends some into fits, some people have mental health issues, and overall its just not nice. I STILL think moderation should be limited to threats, hate speech, any of the "isms"(race, gender, etc) and topics should be in game only.

To the question of being stalked and reported by one person repeatedly any solution based on that premise wouldn't " fix" that issue, whichever side you're on. Way back when I used to manage in a store we have had people who were not "good" for the team. Maybe they weren't team players. Maybe they were bad for morale/attitude. They would also be smart enough to JUST ride the edge of termination. A dropped word to the management team and they became a target. Every manager would watch closely and coach them (write up) for some small infraction. A certain amount of coachings equals automatic termination. Said person can appeal of course, but being coached by different managers shows to the review board, unemployment, and even a lawyer that it wasn't someone with a grudge or one manager being too hard, and usually the management team is diverse enough that it wasn't any kind of "ism" that could be used legally. This is a VERY simple tactic that would be hard to prove and is very effective. If a poster upsets a guild member, an employees personal account, etc and boom, you're banned, and this game has some STRONG areas of cooperation that we've CERTAINLY seen when the pvp/trading guilds come together on one topic or another. There are work arounds to any goal you set.

The more rules you put in, the more the mods have to jump, and scramble, and chase, and ban, and judgement calls resulting in inconsistent moderation. Unfortunately as they are NOT dealing with children most of the time they have to deal with trolls on both sides who know the rules and can use them to their advantage. You really couldn't pay me enough to be a mod on this forum. After decades in management, 5 children, and several grandchildren, I've heard enough "They're touching me!" type of complaints and hurt feelings to last the next few lifetimes. Limit modding to threats, hate speech, any of the "ism"(race, gender, etc) and limit topics to in game only. Grow a thicker skin, let the poor mods breathe for a bit not chasing every "I'm offended" sentence, and perhaps even redirect some resources to in game G.M.s instead of stuck in the forums. Just my opinion.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

There is a potential issue with the second one. If someone rams all the reports through at once.

I don't see that as an issue either, unless they are false.

With the preface that this isn't an issue here (as far as I know), the issue with this is when it occurs as an intentional strategy.

The purpose is to effectively bypass any warning system and get an account immediately actioned as a habitual offender by characterizing one extended infraction as multiple minor ones. You'll most often see this used by trolls on forums where there are strict infraction point systems, or three strikes rules.

So, what will happen is, the troll will take an infraction that would rate a warning, and then attempts to present it as multiple infractions, with the intention of racking up all the points immediately and either multiplying the punishment, or (effectively) bypassing the point system entirely and leading directly to a ban.

In some cases, the troll will intentionally flag innocuous posts simultaneously with the intent of getting the moderator to simply see the reports, and after investigating a few, except the others as fact as well. (I've actually seen this occur as a forum moderator years ago, and the strategy worked on one of the more impulsive members of the team. Resulting in a few unwarranted bans.)

I've also seen a particularly thin-skinned individual (with no ties to our community) attempt a similar strategy with false DMCA takedowns. Again, the intention was to immediately trigger three strikes, and irrevocably delete the channel, without the opportunity to respond. (So, in this case, yes, the, clause of, "unless they are false," does apply.)