I reiterate my encouragement to ISD to make more frequent use of the banhammer against those who are repeatedly openly disrespectful toward, insubordinate against, and taunting of ISDs
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There’s a danger though with then effectivley banning criticism of ISD actions. I agree they should have absolutely zero tolerance of abuse but it should be fine to disagree with their stance.
I think they should just go back to the old system where if people are insulting and attacking people they get escalating bans with each offense over a given timeslace. That way people who are occasially losing their temper get short cool off times but people who are frequently offensive end up getting purged entirely.
It will fix at least some of ths issues where pretty much every thread turns into the same cesspit, though it will still leave the problem that it needs to be applied fairly across the board, which I don’t think can happen since I think there’s already an underlying bias which will be impossible to dig out.
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There is a difference between expressing disgruntledness and disagreement with ISD, and responding with equivalent of “how about you go ■■■■ yourself and don’t tell me what to do?” - particularly when ISD responds amicably and another such response is issued, and even more so when this exchange repeats itself for a third time. Then you have a situation where ISD asks for flags not to be abused and someone issues the same “how about you go ■■■■ yourself and I’ll use the flags however I see fit?” kind of response. ISD has been extremely patient giving these people one or two kind replies to such overt rudeness and insubordination, particularly when they occurred after thread cleanups that purged such trash talk to begin with. The ISDs don’t deserve the trash talk, and the forum community doesn’t deserve to have these trash talkers among them; it would be best for them to be softbanned for the community team to review (keeping in mind that CCP employees review all softbans, each of which are inherently temporary when issued by ISD to begin with), and if they have a grievance they can email the community support team and basically keep the exchange off the forums as none of us bystanders should have to put up with it.
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I fully agree and I think in this case the line was crossed, however I do have sympathy as I’ve been on the receiving end of bad moderation decisions and understand it can be frustrating when you see the rules being applied against you but not against others.
And sure, we shouldn’t have to see trash talk, but I think there are far stronger examples of that. If calling somone a retard or accusing someone of perfoming sex acts on animals doesn’t even get the post deleted (on a forum of a PEGI 12 game no less), it’s difficult to understand why someone being a bit rude to an ISD should be censored.
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I’m sure there’s a lot more than just 60 posts in this thread that violated the forum rules. Also there’s no way to confirm how many replies were actually removed. I highly doubt anybody checked to see if all active replies left in this entire thread now conform to forum rules.
One thing is for sure, the tone and content of the recent ISD posts was unprofessional and quite frankly uncalled for, especially with all the mixed feelings about moderator actions presented in this thread.
I’m going to say this in the nicest way possible, ISD moderators volunteered for that job and if they can’t handle it, then they need to retire or at the very least, take a break from that position, especially if they can’t maintain a professional demeanor in dealing with these forums.
As for issuing ‘softbans’, I don’t think they should be allowed that power. It was given to them in the past, it was abused due to bias and prejudice and then that power was removed. And yes I think selective moderation based on bias and prejudice has been happening in these forums for quite a while.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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The difference here though is that we cannot moderate the moderators outside of emailing the community support team, and trash talk is never the answer (though it is fine to express disgruntledness in general or encourage others to email the community support team… even the ISDs being targetted do that - “if you have a problem with me, shoot an email”). So while our options are limited in moderating the moderators in that one direction, their options are readily available in moderating users in the other direction. There is an imbalance to be sure, but that doesn’t mean moderation should not take place when it is unambiguously justified even if they fail to do so in other justifiable circumstances (the “retard” point is debatable as “trash talk” though frowned upon to be sure, but “sexual acts on animals” certainly needs to be taken down). That one episode above is not uncommon. I’ve seen it happen several times outside of this thread (where admittedly it happens at a higher rate than usual for obvious reasons).
I think one problem with emailing the community support team is that they are known to take weeks or months to respond to an email, and this is probably why no one bothers. I recently send them an email to asking a simple, generic yes/no question not specific to any character or thread, etc, and it took two weeks to respond. Maybe if they responded more quickly then users would be more inclined to email them.
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I forgot what the maximum duration was - I’d have to comb through the ISD appreciation thread or CCP Aurora’s announcement post - but wasn’t it stated that ISD softbans were an extremely short duration? Like… no greater than 48 hours or something like that? Basically long enough for CCP employees to review the severity of the infraction and issue a verdict before the ban is stayed, revoked, or extended. But durations can be shorter than that, of course, if the ISD just wants the person to “cool off”.
@ISD_Dorrim_Barstorlode what’s the maximum permitted duration of an ISD (ie. non-CCP) issued softban? I hope you’re allowed to share that information.
I can tell you that in total there are 427 posts missing from this thread.
Which I think is part of the problem, but yes, I agree. I am opposed to trash talk.
Yeah, I agree, I’m just saying that I understand why soemone can get frustrated and lash out when there’s issues with moderation lacking and perceived bias. Target the root cause of the frustration and the trash talk won’t happen in the first place.
Yeah, it almost always result in the standard “we’ll take a look but can’t tell you anything” email too. But since we can see if actions are taken based on the forum posts, we know they aren’t. So you have someone being insanely abusive and no action taken by the ISDs, you escalate to the community team, they eventually come back and say they’ll have a look, then none of the posts get deleted and the user continues on as usual.
To jump through that many hoops just for it to be closed off with no action taken makes it kinda pointless. In my view it just creates a worse environment too. If someone sees that abuse is tolerated and no action is taken they just respond by being abusive back. They old “if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em” thing.
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It’s longer than 48 hrs but that’s not the issue here.
Replies that contain sarcastic insults, demeaning remarks and or profanity are clearly posted to flame and provoke an altercation. When moderators remove the flag, mark those replies as acceptable so they can’t be flagged again and allow those posts to remain active, then those previously flagged replies set a precedent for others to post the same way. Especially if the original poster is allowed to continue posting.
The forum rules clearly state what type of reply is and is not allowed. There is no ‘maybe’ about it. The fact that moderators will condone one poster and then condemn another poster for the same thing portrays selective moderation based on bias and prejudice. That is a misuse of the position and those actions are unacceptable from a moderator. The ability to ‘Silence’ those who they see fit only makes that assessment seem even more apparent.
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Really, and if you don’t mind saying how do you know that?
When you reply to a post and quote it, you can see the post number.
So the post I’ve replied to is post 1721. There are only 1294 posts in the thread currently.
1721 - 1294 = 427
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Sure. Each post has a unique number, so if you click on the time in the top right of the post it says the post number:
On the right you can also see the number of visible posts in the thread (currently 1294). So your post number #1721 in the thread minus the visible posts = 427 invisible posts, which will be a mixture of moderator deleted or self-deleted posts.
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Ahh, I never noticed that before. Guess it’s never too late to learn something new.
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You guys have also failed to point out that different forums get different treatments. Try the trollish bs in NCQ&A for example, vs C&P. General Discussions is a mixed bag .
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Nope, that’s just your outrage talking. Their posts are quite in line with the rules and spirit of the game; you just happen to dislike them.
Your perceptions of abuse, bias, and prejudice are just that: perceptions. You feel this way because you and your camp are entirely focused on complaining about moderation because the mods aren’t purging the people you dislike. That’s really your sole reason for existing on these forums. How many posts have you recently made that are game-relevant? And how many have you made that are complaining about either the mods or other forum posters? I can count half a dozen posts from you in which you butt into conversations you weren’t a part of, polite conversations where the tone is respectable even if disagreement is taking place, and telling people not to talk to me because I’m “one of those” or whatever. And then you come back to this thread and talk about the tone and content of ISD posts, and say how unprofessional and uncalled for they are? This is such a prime example of hypocrisy, that when they use it in an encyclopedia entry for the term, they won’t even need to put a caption under your image.
All your crew does is run around the forums, flag people’s posts, and post about how oppressed you are. Other posters, especially those on the opposite side of the EVE “moral divide” do not engage in this sort of petty ankle-biting. Have you noticed anyone going through your post history and flagging stuff that’s days or weeks old? Have you noticed anyone follow you into threads and “warn” other posters away from talking to you? Have you noticed anyone come to this thread to complain about you by name any time you post something they don’t like somewhere else? No, it just doesn’t happen. The people you dislike generally operate under a “live and let live” sort of principle, and you’re so full of hate and bitterness that you either don’t notice this, or don’t want to admit it.
So maybe you should consider the possibility that the mods are acting this way because they see right through your thin veil of formality, and are able to judge your actual intent. To the outside observer, your behavior seems like nothing but an effort to gaslight the management into getting rid of the competition because you’re too bitter and jaded to engage in good faith debate about game-related topics with anyone whose outlook on EVE doesn’t fall in line with what you think the game should be like.
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Irony 
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Neither I, nor the people I know, go around and try to silence the opposition through flagging. The only times I personally flag posts are when there’s overt racism/sexism (very rare), or when something is so far out there that I’m concerned that its presence would shut down an otherwise good thread.
But you’re free to believe anything you want if it makes you feel better.
Please explain how personal lifestyle anecdotes contribute to this topic.
Well, for one, we can establish who is and isn’t abusing forum tools for their own satisfaction. And that would certainly put us on the path toward establishing if the moderation on this forum is biased or not. I don’t think you want to go down this path, though.