ISD Eshtir, Suvetar, CCP Gargant, Guard: You'll forgive me for jumping in here to respond to a post clearly directed at one or all of you, but I can't resist gimmes!


Simple answer: the forum owners. In this case, that's CCP hf., an Icelandic corporation. More elaborately, CCP hf., through her officers, has delegated that authority to the CCP Community team, and from them to the ISD moderators.


I find that claim unsupported and suspect on its face. Can you provide a more detailed, reasoned, post support it?

MDD

These are two excellent observations. Firstly no matter whether it is a Community Rep or an ISD member, petitioning will always cause us to review what went on. If we find that something was done badly we make sure the people involved know about it. That should at least cause some awareness to that specific subject.

Secondly, humor. We are a very humorous bunch here at CCP as might have become evident by some of the tomfoolery we do. I must admit that we don't have a specific guide to what constitutes humor and what constitutes as a contentless contribution. That is one of the things I intend to have changed though.

Okay, so I probably have a different opinion to most people here, given I've seen things from both side of the fence.

Up until recently I was an EVE player, and a very active contributor to the EVE forums. I started playing in 2003, and immediately applied to be part of ISD CRC (Communications Relay Committee), which was the branch of ISD that was responsible for forum moderating in the early days of EVE. I served with ISD CRC for a number of years, along with a few people who are now working for CCP, in Community or otherwise. In ISD CRC, we used to follow the same ruleset that ISD CCL do today.

After a few years (somewhere during 2005 if I remember correctly), CRC was disbanded and CCP's Community team was founded. They became responsible for all forum moderation, but as the Community team grew and took on more responsibility in other parts such as taking care of fansites, doing promotional work and suchlike, forum moderation became minimal, and the rules were enforced in a far more relaxed manner. Some might say a too relaxed manner given what some people got away with.

So, after CCP Community took over moderation the old forums were shut down, and the new community forums we use now were set up and put into action. Recognizing the need for a more direct approach to moderating again, CCL was formed to make sure the forums stay clean. Please bear in mind that despite its pretty harsh and dark setting, EVE is an ESRB "Teen" rated game.

Lets look at the definition of a "Teen" rating from the ESRB :



While we all appreciate good humor and a little bad language is fine, what has been going on on these forums in the past has been far from teen rated, and far from acceptable.

While I agree personally that in some instances the moderation from the new CCL team has been a heavy handed, it has been justified and the vast majority of people who're complaining are people who have stepped out of line and who've been warned or temporarily banned for forum misconduct and are angry because they've been put in their place for crossing the line.

On the flip side of the coin as I said, moderation in some instances has been heavy handed in my personal opinion. The problem that we have here is that we're training an entirely new department of ISD. This kind of training is not something we can do in a closed environment. It needs to be done live, on the forums so that our moderators can learn how to react and deal with situations that arise.

Over time, things will stabilize and people will settle into their roles, but for now we're in a position where sometimes calls that are a little heavy handed be made. In the same respect, if people don't try to bend or break the rules then they have nothing to worry about when they come here to post because they won't do anything that invokes the requirement for moderation. My best advice to people is to think before they post, and make sure they're aware of the forum rules.

Everyone who uses these forums needs to refresh themselves with the Forum Rules. If you have any questions about them, then feel free to ask them in this thread and we'll reply and clarify them. However they're very straight forward and simply written, so they shouldn't be an issue.


One important thing that I will add :

Our ISD team are volunteers. They give up their time to assist CCP with their roles, whether they be CCL, STAR, ECAID, YARR or MERCURY. They are a cornerstone of our community relations, they do amazing work, and are a hugely valued asset to EVE and CCP.

I'm always in touch with our ISD volunteers, and People will learn to treat them with the same respect that they treat CCP employees. Those who don't, and persist with making personal attacks and threats, as well as berating and insulting them will be dealt with swiftly, and severely. I personally will have zero tolerance for people disrespecting our volunteers, and likewise I will have zero tolerance for EVE players disrespecting eachother and blatantly breaking the forum rules.

Personally, I have a very dark sense of humor, and I love nothing more than hearing stories of people getting their stuff blown up, or horrendous thieving, scamming and scheming shenanigans in EVE so long as they're within the game's rules.

I love the banter and fun that goes on here on the forums, and it makes EVE's community so much more awesome, but the rules are there for a reason, and while we want everyone to have fun and enjoy interacting with eachother, it needs to be done in a controlled and civil manner.

I didn't say they ban sales of mature games - it's just a self policed rating system that is taken seriously by the majority of the games publishers that operate there.