BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Blue Star on June 07, 2016, 03:59:26 AM
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Well I guess I had the red lettering coming at some point. ugh it is such a pain to quote items, but this week I have a little time. I opened this thread more or less, because of what is stated below since I'm hijacking a thread apparently, which also brings me to a point much later down my list since i'm now a hijacker as well. Also to note is there a appropriate forum to raise a complaint or a suggestion regarding moderation of this forum that is visible to everyone? Don't try to say development board, we know that board really goes no where, but that is a battle for another day and time. Let us begin...
If you have a complaint about a warning from the mods, please message one of them privately. If you have a general complaint about the moderation of the forum, please either message a mod privately or start a separate topic in the appropriate forum, where you lay your grievance out in a rational manner. Do not hijack other threads to complain about the mods. Do not resort to passive-aggressive snide comments about the moderation of the forums.
Let's dive into this complaint, a complaint because it's clear Mods/dev drop the ball from time to time and well your not perfect and neither are we I get that. If we were we wouldn't need this forum (Limbo), so let's get that out of the way. However, a mod or admin, do not know who or rather care, stated I insulted one of them. As outlined below that is clear by such a warning I received from the BM community team in so called thread..
Blue Star,
You have received a warning for insulting other users and/or staff members in regards to the message:
Re: Stegman Hemmings is ruining the conflict.
Do not make posts that are deliberately rude or insulting to moderators or admins.
Please cease these activities and abide by the forum rules otherwise we will take further action.
Regards,
The BattleMaster Community Team.
If one of our moderation/admin team cannot take such a small comment, when it is not directed at neither Wimpie or and particular member of it I grow a bit concerned. I mean did I say "Mods suck" or "Mods play favorites"? Last time I read what I wrote it said nothing of the sort just a factual thing that has occurred based on comments in other threads as well as this one. Also, if you notice cause it will get turned around and well just start spewing post. Stating anything about the forum user was in fact no insulting, besides stating well the obvious though if it is perceived as a insult well i'm sorry, but that's my opinion as of recent and past post.
When has Gundam really had control of what he types? Your just now noticing comments similar to this.... dropping the ball dropping the ball
Well that sums most of it up, i'm sure I can think of more, but let's not over do it on the first day. Let just say if you're going to warn someone I think you should make it clear, which amin/mod who sent the warnint versus another. Why hide under the cloak and shadows of the forum? How do I take a complaint about a warning to someone if I don't know who actually gave me the warning? I don't intend to chat with the one who warned me, i'd rather talk to another. Also probably best to state how a complaint about a warning can be handled in the warning letter sent, makes it a bit easier than doing this whole thread thing.
Just a fishermen simply am casting a line, upon a wooden ship seeing if the last worm will catch some fish.
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a mountain range rises from a molehill. chill out, guys.
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I am confused.... What exactly am I missing here? I see an insult thrown at Gundam and basically calling the GMs incapable. That is just from your quotes.... in this entire post, I see you STILL insulting the moderation.
You've called Gundam a fool who speaks with anger rather than sense and stated that the Moderation ia below your standards. These are insults and not all in any way constructive or respectful.
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Missing two things, I think that are relevant in this. Interpretation is a trivial thing and that it is to each their own, is it not?
I have not I called Gundam a fool (at least not in that thread), that is what you are saying I am calling him, which is your own take on the conversation. I said clearly that he cannot grasp hold of what he types as of recent, in other words he is typing what comes to mind before thinking about ramification or taking it to thought. Though his apology a testament to that.
Moderation below my standard? That hearsay more or less because I am stating the warning I received I believe is unjust, but the moderation on the comment in so called thread I agree with since it was clearly vulgar.
I'm not sure Victor what you are getting at, but you can elaborate more, though I cannot promise I will indulge you every time. Though I would point out constructiveness of this is clearly that we should know how to actually refute a warning if warned and if we are warned we should know by who so we can address it with another party beside just the ambiguous group so then we would need to know who has given out the warning so we can contact another beside the one that action to warn us. Else is it not a system that is just a circle, that has no real solution for warnings being justified rather than being a opinion of a Admin/Mod. Though if it is not done that way then I think it would be wise for the Administration/Moderation of this forum to actually and final explain the process or steps they take.
I'm truly here only to see what Admins, mods, and Dev team will say from what I gather the team is more or less the same and they make up the Titans for the most part. In this instance I'm calling on them for a public answer and not a private message. I don't believe that is to much trouble to ask, even if I am wrong in what I stated I think it is only to their benefit to explain the process they take.
I say this because the magistrate issue ended poorly as it is now gone, titans are always under some type of scrutiny and well the people needs answers. No different than in game when a knights want to understand why their king signs a agreement of alliance with a realm that is not favorable.
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Hmm... I guess some transparency in moderation can indeed benefit the overall forum atmosphere. What's wrong with discussing warnings and bans openly?
Especially when we see that certain forumites get away with much stronger language and even undisguised insults.
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Speaking of the Titans, is there any actual point to them anymore?
Last time I sent in an issue, it took so long for them to respond I'd completely forgotten about it by the time I got the "golden message".
I have a current report that has been 2 weeks now, and still no acknowledgement.
Titan reports are often things that are causing real-time issues in the game & many times result in big OOC problems. If the volunteers can't even check in & handle their case load once a week, they ought to resign and find some new people. Otherwise people won't even to use them anymore.
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Been about a week hmm, interesting.
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Speaking of the Titans, is there any actual point to them anymore?
Last time I sent in an issue, it took so long for them to respond I'd completely forgotten about it by the time I got the "golden message".
I have a current report that has been 2 weeks now, and still no acknowledgement.
Titan reports are often things that are causing real-time issues in the game & many times result in big OOC problems. If the volunteers can't even check in & handle their case load once a week, they ought to resign and find some new people. Otherwise people won't even to use them anymore.
If the Titans can't handle their responsibilities in their roles they should step down and/or seek replacements.
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Moderation and running a game can often be a thankless job. Sometimes the people are volunteers and the time they have acceptable can wax and wane. I know from my personal experience is hard to find people willing to take the abuse and give freely that it requires for a moderator position.
I'm not associated with BM's admin or moderation team. If I am correct thought, I believe is ran only by a couple people. Tom is no longer really active here as he's moved on to other projects. Timothy is mainly in charge of all moderation, Titan, and coding. Due to the lack of people, there's really not an appeal since it'll go back to the person who made the decision.
I'm not sure this will change given the quantity of players. BM doesn't really justify a huge moderation team for better or worse. If there's more than Timothy here, then a clearer speak process couldn't hurt.
On the subject of discussing moderation actions publicly, it often causes more frustration and confusion as people try to justify one way or another. I've yet to be part of a group where it helped. Instead negative elements usually try to create more problems. If you disagree, you can always privately talk to whomever. This doesn't mean they'll change their mind. It's happened before with me. While I disagreed with their opinion, in the end, is their right to. We are on their game and accept to play by their rules and their interpretation.
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Pretty much everyone working on BM are volunteers, daviceroy, from mods to devs.
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Pretty much everyone working on BM are volunteers, daviceroy, from mods to devs.
I think that's his point though.
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I think that's his point though.
Moderation and running a game can often be a thankless job. Sometimes the people are volunteers and the time they have acceptable can wax and wane.
I was just clarifying on this point, everyone working on BM are volunteers.
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We have room for more volunteers! There are lots of areas one could focus on. Moderation. Coding. Wiki. Fixing Maps. Many more listed in another thread (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,7034.msg148278.html#msg148278).
Basically, if you see something not happening you'd like to happen, it doesn't hurt to ask if you can help out with getting it done. We used to have a lot more volunteers doing a lot of distinct tasks, but they have not been replaced as they've faded away, meaning more things for fewer volunteers to do. Which drags on oneself. What was said about thanklessness and constant complaints, even when we're agreeing with complaints, doesn't help with the whole humans remembering negativity more easily than positivity over time. Volunteering doesn't mean you need to dedicate your life to BM. Just being given the ability to do something when you do feel up to it.
Allow me to outline the current state of BM's volunteers, and some areas given attention/non-attention.
Current volunteer development is just fixing Helpline forum bugs, IRC bug help, Wimpie checking the bugtracker, or just fixing whatever we ourselves our frustrated by and want fixed (which most recently is Wimpie making improvements to Adventurer interfaces). Basically goes: wimpie thinks 'hey this thing is frustrating', wimpie asks Anaris or I if there's a Good Reason It's Frustrating, we answer with either why its a Good Reason, tell him its a bug or unintended and can be fixed, or that it Was a Good Reason but can be changed now because Good Reason is no longer applicable. Then either its simple enough for him to fix himself, one of us answers his questions if its a bit challenging, or he bothers us to do it ourselves when its too difficult. And eventually (hopefully) one of us does, or failing that, its recorded in the Bugtracker. That's about it for the dev team.
Anaris and I share adminship of BM. We do our best to uphold Tom's Vision and confer with each other on larger decisions, try to keep each other up to speed on anything we're doing or did, motivate each other, create Portal roleplays, review dev commits, approve character and realm name requests, approve banners, and delegate/manage/admin/mentor Devs, Titans, GMs, forum, wiki et cetera. Most things are pretty simple, but some things we argue about until one of us accepts the other's position or we settle with a compromise. Anaris idles all day, but he often has busy weeks with either employment or social life. I idle for periods of time, have available time, but atrocious motivation due to some OOC !@#$ going on in life that I'd prefer not be public, so usually spend any BM time I do spend on GM activities, trying to reply to questions on IRC, this forum, or the in-game mentoring forum, helping Wimpie with anything he's doing, answering other GM questions, trying to do a list of various coding-related tasks etc. I had also been more actively managing Titans, doing Social Media, actually playing the damn game, responding on the forum, tracking various game metrics etc, but those have slipped the last few weeks.
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I'm willing to help with anything that doesn't require coding.
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My point is that BM is pretty much all volunteers at this point since Tom has moved on to other projects.
Vita also brought up the other thing I was trying to hint at as well. If you want to help with BM, there are always avenues to do so. But it's also a basic understanding that it means you do still agree to help them under the rules and the interpretation. While I personally have disagreed with some actions in the past, I respect that it is within the agreement that I signed up for when playing this game.
I would personally help with things here, but my activity level would really prevent anything meaningful from happening. I have too many other projects that take up my time as well as work and family. I also struggle with the direction that some of the choices made from time to time. To give credit though, some changes have been made that help ease some issues.
Vita, is there an appeal process in place for forum issues? It seems by your statement that there may be more working on moderation here other than Timothy which was my original understanding. If so, can we have that somewhere to make it clearer for players so that they understand better? If not, then I apologize for any confusion.
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My point is that BM is pretty much all volunteers at this point since Tom has moved on to other projects.
The founder is still a volunteer. There were a lot more volunteers when Tom was still involved than when he was not. There seems to be a growing cultural divide of players vs devs of late, when it used to be a much more shared effort where devs were all players and any player would contribute where they'd see fit. That's how Dwilight was created. Darfix starting the project, I think Giask worked on map, players came up with all the region names and did various other bits before Tom and Devs finally took it up. I think last December would've been the 10-year-anniversary of Darfix's first email proposing the West Continent, as it was then known.
Vita, is there an appeal process in place for forum issues? It seems by your statement that there may be more working on moderation here other than Timothy which was my original understanding. If so, can we have that somewhere to make it clearer for players so that they understand better? If not, then I apologize for any confusion.
I think that may imply more of a system than exists. It's not so much like a legal/court system where you appeal to correct a criminal label applied to you as much as cutting out derogatory, insulting posts. A slightly more detailed explanation...
We have the Forum Rules of Conduct. Anaris and I have adminship of forum. We used to have more global mods and board mods that actively enforced the rules. With their gradual departure, enforcement grew lax. Also, international game, many subjective standards on what is acceptable/offensive, and maintaining a middle path of both being considerate in speech and not being overly-sensitive. I recently added a new mod to various boards to re-enforce the rules. There may be room for more mods.
The mod powers are relatively limited, in terms of enforcement. One can warn the user, increasing their warn level between 0% and 100%. At certain levels, a notification to mods is added to all their posts of a high level, they cannot post anymore et cetera. Over time, it decreases back to 0. When I moderate posts, I generally do it on a per-post basis adding a small amount. Others prefer to just apply one large increase to cover general behavior/multiple posts. If the post is particularly offensive, I may edit out the offensive parts and leave a red moderator notice.
So when you say 'appeal', appeal what exactly? A moderate saying 'hey, cut out out the insults!' and increasing your warn level to get your attention that hey, cool it off a bit? We all have moments and admins have had their warn levels increased at times too. And again, warn levels decrease over time. I guess I see it more as a measurement of poor forum etiquette. Particularly egregious individuals may find themselves banned from forum, which makes more sense for an 'appeal', but such bans are quite rare. In any case, Anaris or I would be the ultimate stop for any concerns. Or Tom, but it best be a very, very good reason. But as you/daviceroy mentions, since we're currently the primary mods (plus the other new one), its most likely to receive further explanation more than anything else. Still, if the initial warning message did not explain why you were warned or you felt mod misunderstood situation, that cannot hurt.
While we are on the topic of appealing/bringing one's attention to wrongdoing, let me draw everyone's attention to the 'Report to Moderator' link at the bottom of every message. If there is content that violates the Forum Rules of Content (especially is insulting, derogatory), please report it. This gives a notification to moderators that gives a link to increase the warn level of a user. This alerts us that there is an area of concern to give our attention to. I realized, after promoting a new mod, that despite people stating their concern over insulting behavior, there are practically no moderator reports on any message, for months at a time. While moderators can certainly go looking for derogatory posts, its a whole lot easier to check the interface built for those reports.
Regarding the specifics of moderation sparking this event, hopefully not being too far off the mark as I have not been paying the closest attention last few weeks, I think what happened was... we have been attempting to enforce moderation of the board more proactively in last few weeks resulting in increased warnings and a new mod added, insults were given on both sides of some forum disagreement, a mod warned users for such, since the increase of warn levels isn't broadcast to all but only the person warned assumptions were made that only some parties received warnings and not all parties. So yes, in an effort to re-enforce the rules and remembering that only the warned person receives the warning so you do not know who else was warned, it is possible warnings were applied on posts that would not have received them when moderation wasn't being enforced as actively.
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Dwilight as a concept should be closer to 11 than 10 years now. I remember making a really nooby comment on the wiki shortly after I discovered it and that would've been really, really early 2006 or late, late 2005.
Anyways, Vita, since I'm apparently coming around here more, and the forums are looking to merge soon(tm) anyways, I'm willing to help out with running this forum. I'm already administrating the Might & Fealty forum, so I doubt Tom would have any issues with me helping out here as well, if you need it. Along that same line, I host/run the M&F Fan Wiki, for whatever that's worth.
And to expand on the "Report to moderator" link, for everyone's awareness, that sends an email to every applicable moderator, global moderator, and administrator on the forum. If you see people fighting, report it. Looks like spam? Report it. Not sure if it is or isn't something to report? Report it and a mod will read it.
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It is my opinion that calling Tom a "volunteer" is a bit misleading. After all, he is the creator of BM and pays the bills for the game last I understood. He also was the receiver of financial support (via donations). Not sure if he still continues to receive donations for BM, but everything still pointed to him. Whether he made a profit personally off of BM or not, it's his brain child. He started East Island (or Continent) and while Dwlight is an example of his vision for BM which included player contributions, it should not be taken lightly that if Tom hadn't done work prior to this there could have been no Dwilight. If my math is correct, BM had been worked on for 5 years prior to Dwilight. In the end, if Tom decides to pull the plug on BM, BM is gone. Timothy and yourself, being volunteers on the project could be replaced. (Not saying you should be of that you want to).
It's quite possible that the growing divide you mention is partly due to the fact that Tom doesn't run the game any more. More than one player has gotten the impression that BM is currently ran by people who don't share Tom's passion. Whether this is true or not of Timothy is outside of my ability to say. I don't always agree with the decisions made by the admin team here, but again I don't expect to. It's the nature of any game. I can say that there are disappointing things that have happened that I wish hadn't. BM isn't nearly as fun as it used to be for me. It's more of a struggle to get people active and do things than it has been in the past. I've noticed players that are going through the motions more now.
Another impression that some have is that their concerns are falling in the cracks. I can't say that I've had this issue, but it has been said in the forum that there was a Titan review with no response in 2 weeks. Now, I can respect that the Admin team may have been reviewing the situation and RL got in the way or something else, but it is something that can give the impression that the Admin team may no longer have the passion to handle these issues. Again, I want it clearly known that I haven't had this issue personally.
I think that may imply more of a system than exists. It's not so much like a legal/court system where you appeal to correct a criminal label applied to you as much as cutting out derogatory, insulting posts.
I think that may also be where the divide is stemming from. Players (especially newer ones) are used to a Customer Service model for games (even those ran by individuals). Not having a clean "chain" of command frustrates them and may give a false impression of a lack of customer service. It's like if you go to a grocery store and have a price come up differently than advertised and the cashier refuses to give you it, you can "appeal" that decision to a supervisor/manager. A chain of command per se. Whether that is considered something that the admin team would consider, that I leave to you all.
The mod powers are relatively limited, in terms of enforcement. One can warn the user, increasing their warn level between 0% and 100%.
I appreciate you explaining the warning system. I haven't gotten a warning yet here in the forums, but had never really looked into the system myself.
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Vita,
Thank you for the brief insight.
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call that brief? ???
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I guess my point with pointing out Tom as volunteer is that BattleMaster was always a hobby of his spare time away from real life work. Just like the rest of us. While Tom has absolutely done the most lines of code and laid the foundation of what BM is today, it cannot be forgotten that there were quite a few other volunteer devs in the early days also making BM what it is today.
Decisions can and have been reassessed (recently, moving capital restrictions were recently adjusted for new situations that have arisen, drop functionality being removed for advies), so it doesn't hurt to bring it up. But yes, there is beating the horse to death too.
It's more of a struggle to get people active and do things than it has been in the past. I've noticed players that are going through the motions more now.
I think people are too spread out and unengaged compared to what BM used to be. This is why I have been advocating more, smaller realms with closer neighbours for closer wars with quicker refits and trying to rebalance the realm sizes from the empires that grew up. More battles and less marching is better than fewer battles and more marching. Also, more positions for people because more realms and becaues more realms, more peers across the continent. More people to affect continent diplomacy than with fewer realms/governments.
But that affects how many people you can talk to in your realm. So the other half is fewer and larger religions and guilds spread through multiple realms that can be used to share roleplays, news from around the continent, politics etc. I think, per continent 2-4 religions is probably about right. I see religion less as a group of 'allied', but more cultural and independent of realm politics. Guilds, Colonial Senate is one example for a smaller island that is nice. Royal Rangers works well on Dwilight as an intercontinental, realm-impartial advy guild, there's probably more elsewhere.
Another impression that some have is that their concerns are falling in the cracks. I can't say that I've had this issue, but it has been said in the forum that there was a Titan review with no response in 2 weeks.
Yes it happens. Busy volunteers, whether the Titans themselves, or the Admins. Bringing it to our attention when it happens is the best way to deter it. New Titans are being added to improve responsiveness.
I think that may also be where the divide is stemming from. Players (especially newer ones) are used to a Customer Service model for games (even those ran by individuals). Not having a clean "chain" of command frustrates them and may give a false impression of a lack of customer service. It's like if you go to a grocery store and have a price come up differently than advertised and the cashier refuses to give you it, you can "appeal" that decision to a supervisor/manager. A chain of command per se. Whether that is considered something that the admin team would consider, that I leave to you all.
Well, we were discussing forum moderation. In terms of Titan cases, there is an email provided to appeal decisions. But generally speaking, it would have to be rather exceptional to not support those we selected as Titans. Even locked multis are encouraged to email us to provide an explanation of their innocence.
I am glad for the willing volunteers. I'm sure Tom will set Andrew up since forums are beign merged anyway. Jdodger, was there anywhere in particular you had an interest more specific than not-coding?
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what do you need done, im a decent writer and a good people organizer
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pm me or we can talk on irc
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What I would like to see done is the following:
- Recreation of a map, more in particular, Dwilight, a topic was created for this (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,6915.0.html).
- One of my other frustration map-wise is the political map of Colonies. That needs serious work, but I am unsure what needs to be done to get it right again (since regions were split up or were pasted together or something?). I can't handle the fact that in my travel menu I don't see where I am going.. You'd need to enter dynamic map, click 'Names' layer so you can see the actual regions.
If either Tim or Ethan could comment on what needs to be done for that (if a volounteer actually can help on this), that would be awesome. - People who post bugs on the bugtracker are my heroes. Thanks for doing so. We are investigating them, but it takes time. However, we do require feedback from time to time. So please go to your profile settings and check the notification tab so you are notified when we require your assistance. Or just check your own bugs once in a while. It happens too regularly that bugs remain in status 'Feedback' because we need extra information, but never receive it.
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colonies map is awesome
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Glad someone likes it! 8)
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Thread high jacked. :o
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Andrew casts Necromonthready & un-jack.
Figured I'd bring this back on track and say hello and stuff now that I've settled in to my role.
Hello, for those who don't know, I'm Andrew. I'm your new Forum Administrator, and will remain so after the merge (whenever that happens, hopefully soonâ„¢). Based on the discussions, I have assumed most responsibilities for the administration and moderation of this forum as a whole. Unless something crazy happens, the other admins (Tom, Vita, Anaris) will probably step away from moderating things to better focus on their other roles. Which is great, because if they don't have to break up fights, they'll be happy, and happier devs dev more. Or so I'm told.
What this means though, is if you have issues on here, bring it up to me. If it's with me, send a PM to Tom, Vita, or Anaris, and we'll work it out. I can most likely even forward non-forum issues, like those about the game or the wiki, to the right place.
Any questions?
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What I would like to see done is the following:
- Recreation of a map, more in particular, Dwilight, a topic was created for this (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,6915.0.html).
- One of my other frustration map-wise is the political map of Colonies. That needs serious work, but I am unsure what needs to be done to get it right again (since regions were split up or were pasted together or something?). I can't handle the fact that in my travel menu I don't see where I am going.. You'd need to enter dynamic map, click 'Names' layer so you can see the actual regions.
If either Tim or Ethan could comment on what needs to be done for that (if a volounteer actually can help on this), that would be awesome. - People who post bugs on the bugtracker are my heroes. Thanks for doing so. We are investigating them, but it takes time. However, we do require feedback from time to time. So please go to your profile settings and check the notification tab so you are notified when we require your assistance. Or just check your own bugs once in a while. It happens too regularly that bugs remain in status 'Feedback' because we need extra information, but never receive it.
Regions were split, Steepglades became Highglades and Steepglades, and Nidalery became Reckrandi and Nidalery, for example. I doubt it would require more than some names being erased and recentered and others added to the map to bring it inline with the game world. Somebody with more photoshop skills than I could probably fix it up with little problem.