Koschej

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First: Koschej, I've been trying to get anyone in a position of authority to just bluntly state that for awhile now. It's why I keep asking about policies and major respect for finally seeing someone just state it. I've always gotten prevarication and dodges instead every time before this that it came up. Since that's in a public post, can I quote it as my signature?


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This is actually stated by, I believe, rule 17 of the new rules. If you feel the need to quote it, I would request you quote that instead of what I have said in the discussion of it.

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These forums are full of "grey areas", there can't be 100% consistency at all times - that's just not feasible or dare I say possible, to enforce the rules with 100% accuracy.

And as a few people have already pointed out, in their own ways...
If they actually did so it would undoubtedly feel more than a little Draconian, and the Forums would likely have a decidely "empty feel" to them.

So they do their Jobs, by exercising their own discretion on a case by case basis - according to the rules - to the extent possible.

The Forums are a huge field - with pitch black on one side, and pure white on the other - and a big fuzzy patch of grey all the way down the middle, where the Mods do their best to keep things civil, constructive, happy, etc.


That said if you're uncertain about what you can/can't or should/shouldn't say, use your own best discretion.

IMO, I believe the Mods can generally tell whether or not a poster either has, or is at least trying to - exercise some sort of discretion (and staying within the rules) when posting.

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Honestly, this is the best response I have seen to this and I can't think of a better way to state it.

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Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement.

We have recently revised the Message Forum Rules and Guidelines that govern conduct on the Official City of Heroes Message Forums. We have worked to condense the rules to a more straightforward single list and to make them more straightforward and comprehensive. Everyone is encouraged to review them.

Click here to view the revised Message Forum Rules and Guidelines.

I want to publicly acknowledge Moderator Koschej for doing much of the work on our revised rules. Should anyone have questions or desire clarification about the rules, please post here or send a private message to any of the City of Heroes Community Team: <ul type="square">[*] Lighthouse: Community Manager[*] Ex Libris: Community Coordinator[*] Niviene: Community Moderator[*] Koschej: Community Moderator[/list]We're working hard to promote the City of Heroes Community and make the Official Message Forums a great place to visit!

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My only problem with the rules and how they are set up is that if I have a problem with the community manager, for example if Lighthouse were to behave inappropriately, I would have no one to take it up with as he is the Community Manager. In any other industry I would be able to complain to his boss, but in this situation I would be powerless. And that just doesn't seem right to me.

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There are four people on the community team as a check and balance. However if issues you have are unable to be reconciled, and you wish promote it past Lighthouse, you can go to http://support.plaync.com and submit your issue to us via the “Ask a Question” tab.

I would also remind everyone, that the nature of this thread is to answer your questions regarding the new rules, not to provide a place to attack moderation actions, discuss moderation that has been done, or engender non-constructive posting on this topic. Please refrain from these types of postings, as they are not allowed according to the new rules of the forums.

I have tried to answer as many questions about the new rules as I can since I did a lot of work into writing them and will be doing even more into enforcing them, however I will continue moderating posts that are not conductive to the discussion. Constructive discussion I will continue to try and answer to the best of my ability.

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First this is great news.

The forums had become anarchic of late with the snowflake posts about nerfs and the lulzy trolling as well, glad to see the mod-nukes are being armed.

I do have one question though:

Whenver I report an exploit (and boy have I in the past two months) the canned response tells me to discuss the issue on the forums.

If I find X produces an insanely quick reward thanks to an exploit, do I continue using the Petition feature and alerting Posi/Castle or do I mention it here and risk the banstick and the collapse of the gaming infrastructure?

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In response to a previous post I want to say one thing.

Moderators will not ignore anyone on these forums, no matter their opinion of us. It is not professional, nor is it prudent given our job is to read people's posts, in case they contain rule breaking content, which we cannot see if the only thing there is **You are Ignoring this user* As for consistency, I will remind you once again that these are proprietary forums and we can allow or disallow any posts on these forums at our discretion. The other rules are the guidelines to be followed, the proprietary rule is the overall rule there.

As for exploit postings, if it is an actual exploit, come to the forums and message one of the Community team about it, and we will forward it on to the proper sources to get it taken care of. By placing it on the forums you put it in a place where people can see it, use it and possibly be caught using an exploit, etc. etc. before it gets fixed.

By letting us know however, you have a direct tap to get it taken care of.

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10. Avoid using profanity.

Profanity in any form is discouraged. Using any means to bypass the profanity filter (for example: partial masking, such as asterisks or punctuation marks) is prohibited.

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Could you clarify this more specifically? Is typing [censored] disallowed? Is there an actual "limit" to profanity? At times I tend to be slightly profane, but I never circumvent the filter and typically confine myself to hells and damns, or at most a [censored] or two.

(Sorry if this was already clarified, but I didn't see it...)

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If it's excessive, yes. Even in jest if all we see is a string of [censored], there is a high probability that it's going to get modded.

If it's done in the form of a non-construcitve post, it will probably get nuked as well
Example : The whole idea is complete [censored]

However if it happens to slip in somewhere, that is not meant in an antagonistic fashion, it will probably get left alone.

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Slightly off topic but could help with the discusion, how come none of the newer mods post dont show up in the dev digest or community one?

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A lot of our posts are moderation posts, and we do tend to post more than most other red names. Also as moderators, we will rarely post official announcements, and if we do, we will post them in the announcement section. As such, were we included we'd pretty much end up spamming those digests with nothing more than our moderation responses say to locked threads or warning messages that attempt to steer threads back onto track. As such it was felt that those would not be viable or good posts to have show up in the digests.

However it was brought up, by Turbo-Ski I believe, that there should be a mod-digest, and this is an idea that while I am not averse to, and which will probably not happen, that I find appealing.

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Was this just something that needed updating recently or have their been events happening that made you all sit down and go over what needed to be clarified better or added to?

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This has been a project on the table for a while, once Niviene and I started, it was a task that I took on myself to push through and get up as fast as possible. I looked at what we had and tried to work out the most manageable rules possible, and tried to apply clarification on where it was seen to be needed.

This was also not a one man project, I had input from a lot of sources on this, as well as from my personal observations of what was happening on the forums.

Going back to the /signed issue.
I think in this case the question of "Are we going to heavily moderate this"
The answer, probably not. If all you can think of or feel adds to the discussion is /signed, then it will probably be allowed.

The issue is if someone goes around to every idea in a section or across the boards and /signed on all of them. The question then becomes is it a genuine agreement or an non-constructive thread bump.

If it's a genuine agreement, it doesn't detract from the thread there is a good chance we are going to leave it alone. But if it looks like the behavior is prevalent, we may take steps. It all comes down to the constructive nature.

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We should just be grateful that Koschej doesn't spell it 'behaviour.'

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You guys are just lucky I didn't write the rules in Russian.

Give me a minute to catch up on the rest of my moderation that needs doing and I'll try to explain and answer a few other questions in this discussion.

Also Zombie_Man,
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To the forumites: Discussion of moderator discipline is usually just a ploy to try the actions of the moderators in the court of public opinion. Such a tactic is specifically designed to reverse the decision (regardless of its merit or lack of merit) and presents a one-sided case against the mods. The mods have their hands tied -- they can not publicly comment on the private communications they had with the person they disciplined (for that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen). Thus, the case can never be tried fairly. Its a no-win situation for NCSoft. This is NCSoft property, not a publicly owned trust. If it were the forums of your business, you'd do the same.



Things missing from the rules:

* No lobbying. Lobbying is a form of spam and demanding answers combined. It is the continuous bringing up of the same topic over and over again in many different threads, especially as an off-topic post in threads which are perceived as having the attention of the development team such as Patch Notes threads or threads in which a developer has posted. {Examples of such would be the celebrated case of repeatedly posting about Accolade Power exemplaring restrictions and when they would be lifted, or, more recently, how in every patch notes thread several forumites would post "No fix for the icon buff bug?"}

* No cross-posting. Pick the one forum for which the topic is best suited and only post about it once in that one forum.

* Staying on Topic: In general, posts should be on topic to the discussion and forum, especially for official threads. General discussion topics have more leeway to going off on a tangent.

* No necro-posting. Necro-posting is responding to an old discussion thread and is just a form of 'bumping.' One can bring up an old topic by starting a new thread and linking to the old discussion.

* Follow the rules of the particular forum. Each forum has their own guidelines. Follow those instructions posted in a 'stickied' thread at the top of the list of threads of that forum.

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This is some really great feedback, which I will bring up.

Also regarding the color, I'll take a look into changing it.

Zloth,
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P.S. And no mention of my PIGG file note? So we are clear for discussion on the internal structure of those things? That will sure make the 'silencing in-game sounds' guide a lot more sane.

[/ QUOTE ] as Zombie_Man said, this issue is still covered in the User Agreement, which according to [ QUOTE ]
1. You must have an active City of Heroes/Villains game account to post on our forums

Your forum account is linked to your game account. If you are suspended or banned from the game, you will not be able to post on the forums. As such, you are responsible to follow not only the forum rules of conduct but also the City of Heroes User Agreement and Rules of Conduct you agree to when you enter the game. If you are suspended from the message boards, your game account will be reviewed and you may be subject to a ban from the game, as well.

[/ QUOTE ] you are responsible for following as well as the forum rules.

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Does this mean you guys will get rid of the sections that encourage this type of behavior?

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This is actually a very good question. Will PWNZ and Forum Games be purged? Will threads posting off to NSFW content in the art forum be nuked?

Or will it be a case of "Continue as you were, but be more careful?"

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And is S&amp;I on that list? (See also "Nerf X," "bumping," "prior ideas" and more.)

Also, is the "If it's below the 'For Fun' header, we don't moderate anywhere near as much" no longer true? Since it seems to be going that way.

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First off, these rules haven't really changed that much. A number of them have been clarified and condensed, but at their core, they are still the same rules. Previously the forum rules were a mix of two or three sections, this is just a more clear list of what they are to help not only enforcement, but understanding of these rules.


PWNZ, Forum Games, S&amp;I and 'For Fun' and NSFW content in the Art section. and Server Forums.

What happens in those sections, for the most part, as long as it stays in those sections, we will allow it, to a point.

We have some very basic rules, like those in our Zero Tolerance Policy, as well as a few others that we will enforce even in those sections, but as long as the actions in those places do not bleed out into the rest of the forum sections, it will be permitted.

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16. Zero Tolerance Policy

Immediate suspension or bans from the forum can result from any of the following:
The posting of pornography; discriminatory remarks which are sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive; excessive obscene or vulgar language; posts which discuss or illustrate illegal activity; providing links to sites that contain any of the aforementioned.

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I would also remind that we allow or remove posts at our discretion. However that does not mean the community does not has a voice. As I have mentioned previously, if you have issue with say an Image, or link. Use the notify moderator button and even PM one of us to look at it. If, within our discretion, we find it in violation of our rules or inappropriate for the forums, we will remove it.

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However, many things have been changed by a large number of replies, not so much the content to those replies. If Arcanaville (as an example) presents a well placed arguement for pack hunting velociraptors with super speed in a new jungle zone. Odds are there won't be a heck of a lot many others could contribute to the idea as presented, thus /signed shows support for the idea and indicates I don't have anything to add that's not already been said by the first dozen or so people on this thread, but ido want my voice to be heard.

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*Edit*
Redbone actually said it better in the post below mine.
This is what I mean when I say I'm not at all perfect in what I do.

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Well, I repsect your need to maintain order in the whirling chaos that might engulf us otherwise, I respectfully (and vehemently) disagree with the following:

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..."/signed" posts are a version of bumping and likewise are not permitted.

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When the OP has made a clear, logical coherent statement of "whatever" /signed is not a bump, it is a means of demonstrating community support without wasting everyone's time by restating.

These forums *are* supposed to be a place to express our agreement/disagreement/wishes to the rest of the community and the development team. Brevity isn't bad.

Or said another way,

Where would we be if Marvel suppressed Stan Lee?

'nuff said....

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This was actually discussed as one of the hot topics, quite a bit, in some of our planning meetings. Having an idea to improve things, like, saying "Giant Robo Triceratops that spawn in Steel Canyon, especially if the "destructible environment" toggle switched on when it spawned, would be awesome" is fantastic and a good representation of your personal desire to see the game improve.

By doing just a /signed, you are saying "hey, great idea i like it" which is great to show positive sentiment towards the idea, but it's not constructive to the discussion of WHY it should be implemented.

/unsigned is even worse because a lot of the time /unsigned is like saying "no, this is a horrible idea" without providing justification as to why, which degenerates into arguments and flaming.

By providing feedback into the either agreement or disagreement helps engender discussion but also provides us with a better evaluation of what the community wants in a constructive fashion. However as this is a hot topic I will once again bring it up for evaluation.

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Very true.

Also re:bumping, we have been instructed in the past per a redname (think it was cuppa or cricket) that, prior to forum purges, we should indeed "bump" posts (such as the Mecha epic AT in S&amp;I) that we don't want lost.

On another topic, how much will you be ramping up the mod staff? My concern on this can't be stated without breaking at least one, possibly two or three of the above forum rules. I can't actually expand that post to explain the question without running afoul of these.

And as for prior suggestions - well, wait, I can't actually discuss *that,* or discuss a way of helpign remedy that, without running into a few rules, as the suggestion has been suggested numerous times... frell.

No, I'm not being facetious (well, very.) Following these rules strictly, I can't voice the concerns the rules bring up. If I wanted to really feel technical, I'd say the discussion of the rules, despite being in a redname post, would themselves be a violation of the rules, as they're directly related to the guidelines for moderator action - and discussion of moderator actions (which not being spelled out would conceivably include future moderator actions) are against forum guidelines.

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I'll try to answer these as best as I can.

With bumping threads prior to forum purges, I would suggest a few things.

1) Copy the entire text of the post you want saved, and save it as a file on your computer or somewhere other than the forums you can access it at.
The reason for this, is while we endeavor to preserve everything we can, sometimes things CAN get lost. It doesn't happen often, but it can happen.

2) PM a moderator with the link to the thread, we will then mark it to not be purged. Please don't do this right before the purges, but instead try to give us as much of a heads up as possible.

3) If you don't receive a response from the moderator regarding this, and we will respond if we have preserved it, then you may bump it with the text of something like "Bumping for preservation from forum purge" or something like that. This way people will not notify the mods and we won't perceive is as a self-interest thread bump.

At this time this Community Team is what we have. Though we are implementing ways to make moderation easier and quicker and these rules were just a step in that direction.

Keep in mind, if you wish to discuss these rules, this is the place to do it, as long as it is done in a constructive fashion. If you have concerns, please voice them. I've spent some time working on these, but alas, I lack total perfection in all things I do, and I appreciate the feedback. As for suggestions other people have mentioned, again, as long as you discuss the suggestion in a constructive fashion, it is permitted in this thread.

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LH, something should be mentioned in the new forum guidelines that losing forum privileges may also exclude a player from closed beta participation, just for sake of clarity.

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This would be considered a penalty and not a rule.

As with all things, while the rules are strict and solid, the document itself is fluid, we will take a look at how things go and possibly make revisions as they are needed.

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As such, warnings and bans are not to be discussed on the forum. Such matters shall remain private between the NCsoft and the user. Questions or comments concerning warnings and bans will be conveyed through e-mail or private messaging. Likewise, discussions regarding moderator actions are not permitted on the forum. If you have questions regarding a post or thread that has been removed or subject to other moderation, feel free to contact a moderator to discuss it.


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I disagree with this policy, to a certain extent. While I understand that your company does not want to have a public debate regarding specific conduct that results in a disciplinary action, I believe that it would be helpful to me, and others in the community, to see exactly what discipline results from engaging in certain conduct.

For example, I have seen Lighthouse and Niviene lock certain threads with a brief statement of why. Those types of moderation help me understand how the forum rules are applied in a practical and real context.

But hey, it's still your playground and you get to make the rules. Nice job getting those polished up

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I've complained about these forums' moderation before... just not here on these forums. I would use another forum, such as an SG forum, comic forum, game website forum, etc. if you need to vent.

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And we thank you for that.

However I would also say that we try to be very approachable. While we cannot discuss moderation of other people, if you feel something or you, yourself, got moderated unfairly, or things are uneven, you can message one of us to discuss it. Keep in mind that certain actions we may not be able to talk about, but if you do have concerns, we are open to talk about them.

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QFT. Nerf X threads have lead to so much trouble on these forums. There are some players that just wont be satisfied till everyone is nerfed in some way. If that player just felt x powerset was overpowered then they can play without enhancements so it doesnt feel as overpowered, that is how I see it.

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Mods notified for breaking rule # 2. Abuse and disrespectful behavior is not tolerated.

Lumping all players on one side of a discussion as "wont be satisfied till everyone is nerfed in some way" is insulting and inaccurate. Not to mention disrespectful.

[/ QUOTE ]Just wait a minute, I said some, no where in my post did I say all players.

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Stating an opinion on a rule was the context for this post, lets try to keep the discussion on topic.

Thanks.

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Cool. And if I see that the rules are actually being enforced, very cool.

If you would like an example of where the rules are being completely ignored, please see the "Now Testing in the Training Room - July 15, 2008" thread.

I hope the ban stick is used often and without remorse. Even if, and especially if, I'm the one being beaten with it.

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We do try to enforce the rules whenever we see them being violated, and the community is incredibly helpful in this. If you run into a rule violation, which the new rules should help clarify what is and is not a violation. Hit the notify moderator button. And if you want to take it a step further, PM Niviene or myself or both and let us know WHY you think it's in violation of which rule and we will look into it.

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That is perfectly understandable. Honestly, my main other question regarding moderator responses is whether there is a guideline covering which questions they respond to. As stated, I've asked for some clarifications on moderator action previously to the moderator who had taken such action. They've responded initially without answering the question, and when restated the question in a different manner for clarity I receive a read receipt of the restatement and then no further response.

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We, the moderators, are just moderators of these forums, there are a lot of questions we can't answer.
We also get a LOT of PM's in a day. While we will try and respond, even if to say "We cannot disclose any information at this time" sometimes it takes a little while to get to. Also in regards to moderation action, if you aren't the person that was actioned, we can't talk about it.

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Clarification: If I'm having a conversation with a Dev, Community Manager, or Moderator and they give information that I feel would be useful to the community: IE a technical issue workaround, news of new content, etc. --wouldn't it be appropriate to post that? Or do you want us to ask first? Thanks.

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If you ask, and an NCsoft representative gives their approval for you to post it to the forums, and you state such in your post, that is acceptable.

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This actually did not clarify the reasoning for the restriction unfortunately. Could you please continue onwards and do that as well? The reasoning for the restriction is actually what I'm having trouble grasping here.

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Lets look at the rule first from the case of moderation.
If you receive a warning PM from a moderator and then go post that warning PM into the forums, a few things can happen.
1) A flame thread can start, targeting either the moderator or the person posting the PM, depending on the action. That type of post is generally made to act like a petition thread, to generate sentiment, be it positive or negative, and usually in an antagonistic way towards the Moderation team. This is hugely non-constructive, and can result in us here getting lots of angry PM's saying "Why did you ban our friend, etc."

2) From a developer standpoint. If you send a PM to our developers, who, bless them, are incredibly active with this community, and they respond back. Lets say for example you ask them about changes to a certain power set. They reply back saying something vague, maybe giving you a hint about possible changes, to keep you interested and discussing it, without giving it away.

If you then post that PM to the forums, without their permission to do so, that PM can get over-analyzed, and where it was a possible, it now becomes recognized as fact. So if down the road, they decide to go a different direction with it, we then get posts of "You lied to us when you said ...."

Communication posts can get taken out of context, or release information that is not yet ready to be released. If you get that sort of useful information from a dev, or say from LH or EX, and request their permission to post it, they may let you, but without permission is a no-no.

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False obituary threads are considered highly improper, and knowingly posting false news of a player’s real-life death may result in a ban of both your forum account and your game account.

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Wasn't aware this was an issue on the boards...

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This has not been an issue, but it was put in place merely as a preventative measure to prevent it from ever becoming an issue.

That goes for a lot of these rules in fact. You guys and gals are a great community, probably the best I have ever had the pleasure to interact with, and a lot of these rules are unnecessary, but for us to be as consistent as possible in our moderation, we needed to update things. By having these rules in place, if it ever becomes an issue, it allows us to reference a broken rule rather than make our moderation seem like an arbitrary decision.

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Clarification: If I'm having a conversation with a Dev, Community Manager, or Moderator and they give information that I feel would be useful to the community: IE a technical issue workaround, news of new content, etc. --wouldn't it be appropriate to post that? Or do you want us to ask first? Thanks.

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If you ask, and an NCsoft representative gives their approval for you to post it to the forums, and you state such in your post, that is acceptable.

Posting for a user who emailed the information to us.

Frank King
spacemonkey@sc.rr.com

Follow this link to my art
Here is my
DeviantArt Page site
My gallery on that site

And a couple pieces
Ghost
Freakshow
Boss-Bones

I am always accepting commissions.

Thanks,
Frank King

Locking this down.

This...is...my...MODHAMMER!

Locking this down.

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Modlock is. You have to see it for yourself.

Keep the discussion clean and non-accusatory. You can disagree with someone's opinion, but you may not insult said person for having their opinion nor disparage it for being different from your own opinion. Instead state yours, and why you feel yours is the correct way.

Heh, I was actually really tired when I posted the link. Thanks for reposting what I wanted them to see Globe.

I want you all to reference this thread..

Thanks.

We are Ninja mod, our modstick strike with speed of the mongoose, as we hide in shadow.