You don't need to tell someone they are offended or arbitrarily isolate them from the risk of being 'upset' by someone else on a forum. Let people determine who is and who isn't annoying and/or offending them. They can ignore, filter and disseminate their own prejudices, based on their *own* subjective perspective. We don't need a ministry of thought control (ISD) deciding for us.

To attempt to conceal this *epic* paradigm shift in the cuddly in-offensive blanket of 'just trying to make it friendlier' is insulting to anyone's intelligence Herr Navigator.

Censorship = suppression. That is what you are advocating. Above and beyond. And it is not (and never has been) motivated by altruism!

Seriouspost: This is a very good question for The Mittani. He literally makes this sort of thing his business (not calling people stupid, mind you, although he is very good at that, which is arguably mostly how he came to leading Goonswarm). That is to say, he spends his time winning the metagame. While the metagame* involves other things like outing spies and planting our own, often enough it comes down to persuading or beating down members of opposing alliances over public forums--the only place where both sides can see what the other has to say without being able to silence each other. There is a reason Goonswarm takes its posting seriously.**

If you can think back to RoyOfCA and Black Rise--bless you, Roy--he literally sat there and called peoples' corporation and alliance leaders stupid, corrupt cowards, and guess what happened: R I S E abandoned their space and never put up a fight. More recently, Goonswarm won the forum war against RaidenDOT. They were convinced they were already going to lose the war between us before it ever started. And then there wasn't even a war, as such, as we just steamrolled over their undefended and abandoned region in the fastest sov change Eve Online has ever seen outside of when Karttoon went on vacation.

Calling people stupid (with appropriate justification, such as "Your fit is terrible and we have told you multiple times it is terrible and you continue to use it" or "You don't check peoples' APIs when you recruit them" or "way to jump unscouted to a beacon, jesus christ") is a very valid tactic in an arsenal used for demoralizing and destroying enemies. If you just spray and pray with insults, you risk being identified as a moron yourself, so there's that to counterbalance morons sperging everywhere. There is also the notion that if you post, you should do so with proper grammar and spelling, and if you do not, u r an moron. We like to remind an morons of what they are in the hopes that they will post better.

Beating people in this game does not rely solely on blowing up their ships. It means getting them to not log in when they need to defend their stuff, or getting them to play other games because that's more fun than the thought of losing, or making them realize their leadership is utterly incompetent and corrupt and that they, the average Joe Poster, are being used and tossed aside by their supposed friends, or that their friends are idiots and Joe Poster should find a new home. Goodposters aim to destroy an enemy's morale through words. Making someone appear stupid to others or making them feel as though they have done something stupid is incredibly handy in accomplishing this.

So yes, being able to call people stupid is very important.


*You can't actually win the metagame
**this is not the actual reason

I am pretty sure we are polemically split on what we feel is required in terms of censorship. If there is not a rule set in place on a forum then why should people not post ****, trojans, malware and other stuff. Why should people not be outright hostile, menacing and threatening? Why should a productive discussion ever happen in that type of atmosphere? Perhaps you feel those should not be censored and people should survive on their ability to be savvy or not, as the case may be.

Believe me when I say, and you can quote me on this, players who do not want to be part of fair and reasonable discussions on these forums will soon find they do not belong on this discussion area at all. that is not designed to be a threat or convey a sense of malice but is intended to show our resolve to create a much more amiable atmosphere for players and developers in general.

Okay, I'm going to ask before I say anything else, because I really don't wanna say something I'm not allowed to say.* Can I discuss "that one website that starts with a K" and its forum moderation? If I can, and I will do so with the utmost care, I'd like to compare and contrast the moderation, the allowance of insults/etc., and the discussions that form as a result.

*No pun or rib intended here, I'm honestly just going slow on this one.

Yet ppl that have mostly added to the discussion, Ruby Porto for example (although I disagree with what he says most of the time) have been perma banned for just posting joke threads as a protest.

They weren't being abusive, posting malware, RMT, menacing or trolling each other, actually saw ppl coming together that normally would not, because they care about the subject.


Why so heavy handed ?


Tal

It has become apparent over the last 24 hours that players are upset at the perceived locking of legitimate discussion threads on the forums.

The rules of other forums, what they allow or do not allow is completely up to those communities and their administrators.

Nice OP CCP Navigator. I think it's great that CCP are experimenting with this.

In my RL job I manage a community/forum that is entirely customer/volunteer moderated and they do a great job. What is very different to how you guys are approaching this is that we have effectively "given" the community to them. They own it. They ban. They control the rules. We advise and support, but don't overrule. We find we never need to.

This transparency of responsibility means our forum is an extremely constructive place. It allows our customers to rant at us, get support and feel like they aren't being spun/marketed to them. It's in a way, liberating. We get a lot of flack in there for the things we do wrong, but also a lot of positivity and suggestions for how to improve it.

The key to its success so far has been clear rules and an open dialog between the moderators and the moderation decisions being made. It is important for people who have "broken the rules" to have it explained to them what they've done and be allowed the chance to defend/explain their actions. This helps to break the us vs them attitude you sometimes see on forums websites.

One of the struggles this forum has is the sheer number of people who seem to simply enjoy trolling and just generally being argumentative. I sympathise with how difficult it must be to make the right decisions in these situations. You can't really win as you are going to upset someone now matter what you do, and having a policy of dialog around those decisions would be unworkable based on the volume. I watch with interest as to how you tackle it!

We've been upset for a whole ******* lot longer than 24 hours.

I have no intention of discussing specific cases on the forums. You stated that you already have a petition on the subject so a Community Rep will be in otuch when we get to that in the queue.

We've been upset for a whole ******* lot longer than 24 hours.

Whats the point of ISD? Seriously. I have never seen ISD do their job right in the entire time I've spent on these forums.

Ok no specifics then, why is such a casual offence worth a perma ban. Is there a list of punishments to go against certain forum activities, rather than a general rule that is applied inconsistently depending on how someone feels about life that day ?


Tal

I would politely disagree with this statement. After using forums of other games I believe the "New CCP" (meaning post Incarna) is interested and responsive to constructive feedback and complaints. Mind you that the operative word is constructive, not omgwtfbbq rants about the end of the EVE as we know it. For the most part, I believe that the more the commuicty is constructive in voicing opionions, CCP will continue to be more transparent and responsive. Of course the inverse is true. Honestly, who wants to even acknowledge someone who goes all personal attacks in their posts?

[quote=Megnamon]
...
A lot of what is going on, a year after Incarna, is that you guys really messed up, really broke a lot of the implicit trust, and really destroyed a bond with a significant percent of your player base. Perhaps not the majority, but certainly the most vocal, and hence, influential, both on game, and in the forums, as well as the outside places that are, like it or not, part of the community.

And while you guys (CCP) have clearly worked hard to undo the damage done, it was very real. And as we know, it is easier to break something, than to put it back together.
...

Messing up is not bad if you learn from your mistakes. Personally I like the fact that CCP opens dialog with us when something is wrong. (Like this issue) pre-incarna this two-way communication did not exist as much.

I like the fact that they screw up and talk about it. Screwing up is normal, it means they are trying new stuff and moving forward. It does not always seem like it in my posts, but I really like CCP for that attitude!

Tx CCP for talking with us.

Quick question, what is the value in calling someone 'dumb'?

One thing that would go a long way towards better moderation would be if the ISDs invited us to contact them (through EVE mail) if we felt they did something wrongly. That way we could have a nice little discussion and maybe both the volunteers and the forum folks could learn a bit about each other (including how to better serve the community).


Instead we get one liners with no opening for explanation, because we can't discuss moderation on the forums.

Our aim is to provide a discussion platform that allows players, volunteers and developers to talk about EVE and how we can make it better, what you like and what you want to see more of in the future.

I will be totally candid and tell you that this does not happen when any of these groups becomes abusive and vindictive. That type of discussion only ever results in one or more of those groups becoming more distant and non-communicative. That is not good for you, the players, and it is definitely not what our developers and volunteers want to see happening. So here is our plan for taking the EVE Community team and ISD forward:

Thank you Navigator for taking time to deal with this for the community.

I'll just put here my opinion on the matter of ISD communication from another thread.

Adding to this, the CSPA charge that is set adds further to the illusion that we shouldn't ask questions and just accept one liners.

It should be encouraged to discuss with the ISDs why they took the action they did. For those of us who are reasonable (some exist), it would be a great addition to communication and a method to improve community relations.


Maybe I'm just a dreamer.

Thank you for your input, Akirei.

While you are entitled to your opinion we have received many petitions and mails from players who are thankful for the help they have received from ISD right across the board.

I am sorry that they do not meet your expectations.

What you want then is a feedback forum, not General Discussion. Why repurpose GD when you can accomplish your goal with a more focused forum and save yourself the growing pains?

A feedback forum could serve your dual purpose:
- Get feedback on recently introduced and/or legacy development items
- Introduce new feature ideas for community concensus before implimentation (less design by committee, more pass/fail).



Making plans around self-defining GD when the community has already defined it for you will end poorly.

I have years of gaming forum moderation experience under my belt, and hold three things to always be true:
- There needs to be an outlet for crap posts
- People want their crap posts to be seen
- Your most popular board will therefore be the natural home of crap posts


You can solve this problem in a number of ways:
- Create a feedback forum for your intentions, leaving General to be General (Quaaid Approved)
- Create a crap post forum, and let the trolls have it as you repurpose General to be your feedback hub ( mild end user change, harder to impliment)
- Stay the course, and learn the hard lessons, perhaps succeed where others have failed (constricting end user change, imminent failure)

It should be encouraged to discuss with the ISDs why they took the action they did. For those of us who are reasonable (some exist), it would be a great addition to communication and a method to improve community relations.


Maybe I'm just a dreamer.

A fair bit off topic, but since Navigator is already responding to this thread, can you please resume using the RSS feed for patch notes (found here - http://community.eveonline.com/feed/rdfpatchnotes.asp)?