Moderators

[Zandoezan]

...are there any on these forums? Ive not seen one comment in any Forum post here in General Chat.

[Bstr]

...are there any on these forums? Ive not seen one comment in any Forum post here in General Chat.

 

On the forum, there are moderators, the main one being Eric Musco. For an example of a mod post, look at http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6765271#edit6765271 . A list of mod posts are on the Developer Tracker.

 

In General Chat, I believe the moderators only look at chat items that were reported to them. It would be hard to moderate all of the planet's chats + guild chats + custom chat channels ect. on all servers at all times.

[hadoken]

I think usually the bad stuff just gets deleted instead of posted onto, but I occasionally see a 'droid' post reminding people of the rules.

[ImpactHound]

...are there any on these forums? Ive not seen one comment in any Forum post here in General Chat.

 

They're active after 11am eastern. Most of my infractions were earned same day as the "offending" post.

[Zandoezan]

OK cool, just wandering. It almost looked like we kids are left to our own devices and it's our house, we can do want we to, it's my mouth i can say what i want to - eeeuw how did Miley get in there.

[ImperialSun]

They're active after 11am eastern. Most of my infractions were earned same day as the "offending" post.

 

Eh, what are these 'infractions' you speak of?

 

I've never had one of those

 

Driz

[branmakmuffin]

...are there any on these forums? Ive not seen one comment in any Forum post here in General Chat.

Moderators moderate. They don't, as a general rule, post.

[Lunafox]

Eh, what are these 'infractions' you speak of?

 

I've never had one of those

 

Driz

 

They like to give those if you speak out in opposition to their 'spin doctors.'

[branmakmuffin]

On the forum, there are moderators, the main one being Eric Musco. For an example of a mod post, look at http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6765271#edit6765271 . A list of mod posts are on the Developer Tracker.

 

In General Chat, I believe the moderators only look at chat items that were reported to them. It would be hard to moderate all of the planet's chats + guild chats + custom chat channels ect. on all servers at all times.

I don't think Eric Musco is a forum mod per se. I think he's a Community Relations person. He probably has forum mod powers, though.

[chuixupu]

There are moderators that are not the community reps. They don't post often, but if you look around you'll see them. Some have names, and some are just "CommunitySupportDrioid" or something like that.

[ELRunninW]

...are there any on these forums? Ive not seen one comment in any Forum post here in General Chat.

 

There is nothing that requires their comments. They will remove the posts that are violating the rules but rarely reply to a thread. Almost never reply when they are being asked for replies unless they consider the thread deserves immediate attention, mind you most of the threads don't.

For most requests for comments that show up the common answer is "We will take a look at it when the time is right" and there is really no point to paste it into every single thread.

Since people who reply to posts in the forums do represent the company, they avoid getting involved in any discussions as it usually leads to problems. People do not take 'No' easily, or only understand what they want to understand.

Edited September 20, 2013 by ELRunninW

[funkiestj]

...are there any on these forums? Ive not seen one comment in any Forum post here in General Chat.

 

There are mods but their priority is removing posts when people complain about their messups.

 

Imagine the following hypothetical: BW perma-bans you and sends you an email explaining that,after a full investigation, they have determined that you intend to violate the ToS. You email them disputing the justification for the ban and after a few days (presumably doing an even fuller investigation) they say "oops, sorry. our bad". If you were then to post about how shabbily you had been treated you would discover that there are indeed moderators. At least that is what I've heard ...

 

Similarly, if I were to threaten you with violence (e.g. I say I'm going to sick my colony of attack trained argentinian ants on you) and you flagged the post you might notice my very credible threat (argentinian ants are everywhere) disappear. That would also be the work of the otherwise invisible mods.

 

It might be nice if, like some other well run forums I've used, BW employed some volunteer mods for non-disciplinary actions (containment threads, curating valuable topic discussion threads). Alas, you are more likely to have your account closed for no good reason (or so I hear) than to see volunteer mods here on the forums.

[funkiestj]

They like to give those if you speak out in opposition to their 'spin doctors.'

 

As far as I can tell, mods only deal with objectionable posts. Objectionable means

1. extreme incivility (I hurl a stream of filthy invectives at you and then you flag my post)
   
2. posting about an incident where BW abused you and then later admitted it was their mistake.
   

I understand why #2 objectionable but I'm still baffled trying to understand the rational for moderating #1.

[branmakmuffin]

It might be nice if, like some other well run forums I've used, BW employed some volunteer mods for non-disciplinary actions (containment threads, curating valuable topic discussion threads). Alas, you are more likely to have your account closed for no good reason (or so I hear) than to see volunteer mods here on the forums.

The problem with volunteer mods is the same as with class reps: those most desiring to do it are by definition least suited to doing it.

[CosmicKat]

The problem with volunteer mods is the same as with class reps: those most desiring to do it are by definition least suited to doing it.

 

As usual, we are in agreement.

[CosmicKat]

There are mods but their priority is removing posts when people complain about their messups.

 

....

 

I've never had an infraction for criticizing anything in the game, for whatever that is worth.

 

Got one for quoting a president that has been dead for 200 years, strangely enough.

[ApostleThirst]

Moderators moderate. They don't, as a general rule, post.

 

This is actually one of my disagreements with the methods here. A lot of people like Eric because he keeps it real. If the moderators actually became involved in the discussions and showed they care about the game as much as we do, it would probably go a long way towards keeping the whiners and haters away. At the very least, posting why a moderating decision was done (with the exception of spam) would also reinforce the rules, though how each member was individually punished should stay between them and the mods.

 

Just my opinion, of course, it's the method one of the teams I was with on another forum used, and the vast majority of the population there loved the moderating team.

[ApostleThirst]

As usual, we are in agreement.

 

Agreed sorta. Mods being drawn from the community is not a bad thing, and if they desire the post that's not necessarily a bad thing either, though it very easily can be.

[chuixupu]

I got an infraction some time ago for posting a link to a scientific article that happened to be a subject of certain social issues.

 

Moderators aren't always the least qualified people for what they do. I mean, what DOES qualify one to be a moderator? I've never asked to be a moderator, but I've been promoted to one in a few communities in my internet life (it was volunteer work, not paid). I never thought I was qualified, but for whatever reason someone did. Out of all the people I "worked" with, there were some I thought were terrible and some I thought were awesome. I was only "ok" at it. It's challenging to make judgement calls when you've got two opposing sides of a story, and sometimes you don't have all the information. There are times when you want to let something slide, and times when you need to take action; you will have people on both sides that claim you have taken a side when you actually took equal action on them both. I could go on and on about how frustrating it is.

Edited September 20, 2013 by chuixupu

[funkiestj]

I've never had an infraction for criticizing anything in the game, for whatever that is worth.

 

Oh, you can say the game sucks, all operations and WZs are boring, the voice acting is terrible. What you can't say is "BW did this obnoxious thing to me, they admitted they were wrong and they gave me some free gree armor to make up for it". At least not if it is true. Or so I've heard.

 

I'm not describing anything that has happened to me because that would not be allowed. They never offered me gree armor, for instance.

 

I've also heard that despite all their metrics, they can't tell the difference between a chinese gold farmer and a ToS abiding founder who has put more than 1000 USD into their pockets. That is the word on the street.

[funkiestj]

Agreed sorta. Mods being drawn from the community is not a bad thing, and if they desire the post that's not necessarily a bad thing either, though it very easily can be.

 

In my limited experience, the places with volunteer mods have uber-mods that quickly get rid of power hungry jerks. They typically have a private forum to discuss moderation questions and abuses of moderator power.

 

Of course you don't have to give volunteer moderators lots of power for them to be effective. E.g. they don't need to be able to delete posts -- just move them out of interesting threads (into their own thread or a containment thread) when they are off topic. E.g. in the thread explaining how resolve works, posts along the lines of "I hate the resolve system" are off topic and don't belong.

[Thylbanus]

...are there any on these forums? Ive not seen one comment in any Forum post here in General Chat.

 

Nice signature. I wonder how many people get that.

Back to sleep, Louis, or I'm telling Mom about your Playboys! - Beta