Forum Moderation Sub Team

[Wuhtah]

2 minutes ago, sico said:

 

If all admins should be doing it, there is no need for forum mods sub team, but since there is this team, the lead should be taking care of it. I haven't seen their plan or anything else about it, complete darkness.

 

If there is a specialized team for this, they should be doing better than any admin. But in this case, they're doing nothing.

 

 

Let me address this first - this is because in game reports are high as well as work on other sub teams are high too. Having a sub team that mainly focuses on the forums (with the help of other admins as well) is something we do truly need. It just needs a good kick in the rear end to get started up again which is the plan. What sort of plan would you like to see? I can update the main post of list of things I would do - maybe sort of a timeline as well in which you guys should roughly expect things? I don't want to put too much stress on myself, but I also don't want you guys to be left in the dark either.

 

 

Quote

Two months or three ago, they introduced formatting for the the reports. Explanation words were nerfed a lot and players had to explain everything with X words limit. This cleared a lot of unnecessary text that cluttered the report. But again, this made them only pick reports that seemed easy to tackle with easy explanations of the situation with minimum words used.

 

Anything more for them? I can we can just limit the words to 10 max.

 

We want to hear from the forum moderators why they aren't able to keep up with the reports? What's holding them back? We the players followed whatever changes they did to the report formatting, all the word limits and that stuff. That was supposed to fix the reports being stacked.

 

The changes happened, what we got in return? The same old pages of months old reports.

 

Why?

 

With the new changes - it was a good START in my opinion. However, it needs to be tweaked even more. I don't want to hear about the story of what happened persay. I want a 'I'm reporting W for XYZ. X happened here (2-3 sentences of how they broke that rule), Y happened here (2-3 sentences of how they broke that rule), etc. This would streamline and leave it a little less daunting IMO. Some of the reports, 80% - it's a story of what happened, and yes, we can read and nitpick and stare inbetween the words to try and figure out what - but it would just be easier if you guys spelt it out with as few sentences as possible. IFM sort of works this way in their reports.

 

I believe why the team is unable to keep up in reports is that there are 10 new reports I feel like a day. It's the same people picking up reports and it's not getting shared well. Admins are also not starting by taking the oldest report first which needs to be enforced as well. That's something staff management is aware of, and hopefully will be fixed. I have a few suggestions I will be tossing their way at the end of this week!

 

I believe that if we get admins who are just admins on the forums and handle forum work - it will go a long way. I feel as if some admins want just the green name and powers, and then sod off to do whatever knows. This was what happened in the past, unsure if it is the same now. 

 

For me, before I returned, I was in PM and had too much of a workload to handle any sort of reports unless it was easy. I usually thought 'this is easy and quick, I have time for this' - which I'm sure is the same mindset of a lot of admins now. At least some are doing something, and some are just going above and beyond with handling so many reports. I am proud to be on the staff team because of those admins. 

 

So, in short. I know we let you guys down with the forum reports. I am going to be asking around the staff team of why/how to improve that and why some do not take forum reports. It's a step, you're not going to see progress overnight or even in the next week - but this is my main focus, so I will be trying to get things into gear.

[Westen]

10 minutes ago, Wuhtah said:

With the new changes - it was a good START in my opinion. However, it needs to be tweaked even more. I don't want to hear about the story of what happened persay. I want a 'I'm reporting W for XYZ. X happened here (2-3 sentences of how they broke that rule), Y happened here (2-3 sentences of how they broke that rule), etc. This would streamline and leave it a little less daunting IMO. Some of the reports, 80% - it's a story of what happened, and yes, we can read and nitpick and stare inbetween the words to try and figure out what - but it would just be easier if you guys spelt it out with as few sentences as possible. IFM sort of works this way in their reports.

Make it really strict. 100 words, anything over is a close of the report and you can't report for that situation again. If they argue, close it. If there's no evidence where there could be, close it.

[Zach..]

1. do reports in order. will solve a lot of problems

2. make admins regardless of rank have to do 1-2 forum reports a month. there's no admins that should be exempt.

3. throw out useless reports.

4. enforce admins actually handling reports. over and over I see reports that have an admin assigned that havent touched it in a month. if the same admins keep forgetting about reports, remove them.

[Chill]

1 hour ago, Wuhtah said:

So, in short. I know we let you guys down with the forum reports. I am going to be asking around the staff team of why/how to improve that and why some do not take forum reports. It's a step, you're not going to see progress overnight or even in the next week - but this is my main focus, so I will be trying to get things into gear.

Hi. Past moderator from a free to play community of well over several thousand players. There almost 10 years before hanging it up. 👋

 

Specifying a word count is far too specific and people will not sit there and count their words or characters. Believe me, we tried and its useless. Best option is to stick to a direct format and simple rules such as:

• Reports may only be 2 short paragraphs (3-4 sentences / paragraph). Anything more, the report will be closed and original poster asked to re-submit. The two paragraphs should cover:
  • Who are you reporting - Forum Name and/or In-game name
  • Why are you reporting them - A few sentences on what rules were broken (Specify rule numbers)
  • Evidence - Please provide attached logs, screen shots or video links. Understand that reports without evidence may not produce the desired outcome for the reporting party and may take longer if an Admin deems it necessary to check logs for the validity of report.
• DISCLAIMER: Do not provide the entire story surrounding the rule breaks, only what's necessary for the Admin to understand the situation. They will determine if further information is needed after picking up the report.
• WARNING: OP, reported party and witnesses may post ONCE. Any responses may be 1 paragraph or less (3-4 sentences / paragraph). Any more than that, warnings will be issued up to and including a forum ban.

 

Specifying a paragraph count limited to 3-4 sentences per paragraph gives a much easier picture of what a forum report should look like. People aren't going to count their words. Admins can moderate reports much easier that way by just looking at the initial post and responding posts. If walls of text are included, close the thread. Ask the OP to resubmit in the above format. Don't be afraid to issue forum warnings for breaking these rules. 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Chill

[Westen]

51 minutes ago, Chill said:

Specifying a paragraph count limited to 3-4 sentences per paragraph gives a much easier picture of what a forum report should look like. People aren't going to count their words. Admins can moderate reports much easier that way by just looking at the initial post and responding posts. If walls of text are included, close the thread. Ask the OP to resubmit in the above format. Don't be afraid to issue forum warnings for breaking these rules. 

I don't think this would work. GTAW rulings are already full of inconsistencies. There's no reason to make it worse by having a wishy washy, vague requirement for reports. "But but this report had three words more and you didn't close it!! Why did you close mine!!" leading to an inevitable staff report.

 

A hard word count is easier to enforce and if you can't be bothered copy and pasting it into a word counter then quite frankly why should an admin be bothered reading it?

 

 

[Chill]

5 minutes ago, Westen said:

I don't think this would work. GTAW rulings are already full of inconsistencies. There's no reason to make it worse by having a wishy washy, vague requirement for reports. "But but this report had three words more and you didn't close it!! Why did you close mine!!" leading to an inevitable staff report.

 

A hard word count is easier to enforce and if you can't be bothered copy and pasting it into a word counter then quite frankly why should an admin be bothered reading it?

 

 

Disagree. It's called Admin discretion. 

 

"But but this report had three words more and you didn't close it!! Why did you close mine!!" leading to an inevitable staff report. 

 

This can happen when you specify a word count too, so I don't see the point you're trying to make here. You specify a 350 word count and its 353, someone could come in and pull that same excuse. Specifying a small paragraph is easier to quantify and then an Admin doesn't have to bother with a word counter either. 

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Chill

[Westen]

Just now, Chill said:

This can happen when you specify a word count too, so I don't see the point you're trying to make here. You specify a 350 word count and its 353, someone could come in and pull that same excuse. Specifying a small paragraph is easier to quantify. 

 

Not really? <= 100 words, it stays open. > 100 words? close it.

[Chill]

7 minutes ago, Westen said:

Not really? <= 100 words, it stays open. > 100 words? close it.

Agree to disagree. My past experience with this and dealing with people in that same position, no one bothers with a word counter. Quantifying a "small paragraph" is easy. People are expected to have a basic understand of grammar coming here. If you can't understand "a small paragraph", then as you said why should an Admin even bother reading it? 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Chill

[Shaderz]

2 hours ago, Chill said:

Disagree. It's called Admin discretion. 

 

"But but this report had three words more and you didn't close it!! Why did you close mine!!" leading to an inevitable staff report. 

 

This can happen when you specify a word count too, so I don't see the point you're trying to make here. You specify a 350 word count and its 353, someone could come in and pull that same excuse. Specifying a small paragraph is easier to quantify and then an Admin doesn't have to bother with a word counter either. 

 

 

Plugins to cut out words after going beyond the limit or to restrict typing after they reach it exist, and they could be used in in this instance. This would eliminate all the problems you brought up.

 

[Perstephone]

I'm not so sure the problem lays in how things are done, more in the fact that they aren't being done at all. 

 

You can limit a report to 100 words, it just means the responses are either going to be longer or there will be more of them. 

 

Some things are totally cut and dry, other things context matters. We already had the word limit and reply limit reduced and this did absolutely nothing to expedite the process. It's hard to offer opinions on how a sub team can improve when they aren't currently operating at all. 

 

Toxicity on the forums and things like that tend to get shut down pretty quickly, but the actual processing of the any forum requests or reports is just being neglected. There is no point beating a dead horse but really the only suggestion is for the forum moderation team to start doing the things the team was set up for. 

 

And maybe a big look in to why it hasn't been happening. If the leader of the subteam can't explain the lack of activity, perhaps a change of leadership is in order.