Regarding NES Moderation

Not to mention those that went around the forums to bring this discussion into other parts of the forum. Is that not rabble-rousing by definition?

I guess some moderators and NESers have a longer, and unpleasant, history with each other. Which may lead to so perceived "arrogance" (none was seen by me I must say). Whoever breaks the rules should be punished in accordance with the rules, that isn't arrogance. When we signed into the forums, we signed that we agree with that.


Also BS, don't take them too hard. If you NESed once, you are a NESer for life. Too bad the NES we shared was an early dead one by BirdJ. (Ahen Ahem). Thought as for the NESer moderator, I personally mean an active one (BirdJ isn't active either...)

BSmith,

Civfanatics was the first community I joined. I love this forum. I have a lot of good memories of this place and I respect a lot of the mods. Most of my internet friends were met here and I love the communities that this site I created.

I am firmly against the move. I want to save the culture here in civfanatics if I can.

I don't have a problem with you. But at the same time, you haven't talked to us in a while. We haven't played NES in a while. In your tenure as a mod, you tolerated us, but I don't really remember the last time you participated in NES community while being a mod at the same time.

I respect you, but only as a person who respects a reasonable superior. I don't view you as a peer like I did when you still played NES.

And I'm sorry for that.


The real problem I have is that I saw moderators like Camikaze or Lefty take actions against my fellow NESers.

I don't know what the problem was. I try to stay out Of politics in civfanatics if I can. The whole Amon debacle flew by without me noticing. But seeing them post here and do moderator actions here was alarming and made me uncomfortable and afraid. When grandkhaan posted something that explained the situation in a way that I could understand, it was removed shortly thereafter by Lefty. From the lack of sig and avatar, I can only assume that he has been banned.

It was an informative post that only explained to the res of us the origin of the debacle. I was not particularly swayed either way as to lay the blame in staff or troublemaking NESers. Yet the explanation was swiftly removed by Lefty and grandkhaan was presumably banned. There was no defense of this action given.

This has made me feel extremely uncomfortable. If you do not allow us to discuss the problem. If information of the discussion that led to the ban of our fellow NESers is not allowed to be shared in the forums, what choice do we have but to believe in our peers who you have termed "trouble makers?" If you do not explain the situation and what transpired within it in full detail, what choice do we have but to be doubtful?

This is why a peer moderator, who can engage us outside the laws of the forum and explain and defend his own actions is important.

Seon is absolutely correct on this. I personally am quite offended by the stringency with which the PDMA policy is applied, and the fact that it is doing more damage to people's opinions of the moderators than any damage done by simple discussion.

Not all moderators are created equal when it comes to leniency, clearly, and the tendency to not act in a blatantly oppressive and high-handed manner would be sincerely appreciated.

Since Plotinus has encouraged me to do so, I will suggest in Site Feedback the creation of a specific sub-forum or thread for appropriate public complaints or discussions regarding moderator actions. It is clear that the informal, private appeals process that had existed thus far has failed us, and there must be concrete reforms to this system.

I have created the relevant thread. I encourage those of you who are still unbanned to contribute thoughts and support.

I don't have much to add to this discussion, I admit. I missed the uproar.

Personally I am somewhat indifferent about the political aspects of WWW, so I don't really care for the moderator actions in place there nor for the reactions against them. I'm kind of willfully indifferent.

On my own experiences with the CFC staff. I was recently spammy, and the mods rightfully disciplined me for it, and I even asked for a two-week ban to look inwards and calm myself down. I'm not saying this as a counter to any other mod-user relation on the site, I'm not saying the particular event was wrongfully or rightfully handled in any way, as I am demonstratingly neutral in regards to the particular conflict; I'm merely describing my personal relation with the CFC staff. Basically I don't really mind it that much, and I'd hate if either side would take my word for being with or against it. I just wanted to post this personal stance of indifference somewhere.

I will be an active NESer on both CFC and The-Frontier if both communities survive. I play in very few NESes these days but N3S is one I really cannot miss, so I will naturally follow it to wherever it goes. Also, NEB2 seemed to migrate there too, and I cannot miss that either, so there.

Seon said:

BSmith,

Civfanatics was the first community I joined. I love this forum. I have a lot of good memories of this place and I respect a lot of the mods. Most of my internet friends were met here and I love the communities that this site I created.

I am firmly against the move. I want to save the culture here in civfanatics if I can.

I don't have a problem with you. But at the same time, you haven't talked to us in a while. We haven't played NES in a while. In your tenure as a mod, you tolerated us, but I don't really remember the last time you participated in NES community while being a mod at the same time.

I respect you, but only as a person who respects a reasonable superior. I don't view you as a peer like I did when you still played NES.

And I'm sorry for that.

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I will certainly make a better effort at being more active and visible in the community.

I also think there is still some misinformation out there with regards to bans and their durations, so I am going to outline all of the bans given to posters with respect to the recent happenings:

Sept. 2 – Symphony D. – 1 week due to accumulated points.
Sept. 9 – Symphony D. – 1 week due to the infamous post and starting the rebellion
Sept. 9 – Scarlet King – 1 day for PDMA and general continuation of the rebellion
Sept. 9 – SamSniped – 1 day for lots of repeated spam related to the rebellion
Sept. 9 – Luckymoose – 1 week for accumulated points.
Sept. 9 – Grandkhan – 1 day for spam and making Symphony D's post his avatar.
Sept. 10 – Crezth – 30 days for continued rejection of site rules and moderation – can be reduced if he commits to an admin that he will conform to the rules of CFC regarding flaming, trolling and moderation.
Sept. 11 – ChiefDesigner – 1 week for flagrant PDMA in OT and distributing falsified PMs

Nobody has been banned as a result of posts in this thread, though a few people have earned some points.

I also hope you guys appreciate the extraordinariness of this thread and the divulging of information that is normally deemed a private matter between the staff and the affected individual.

BSmith1068 said:

Sept. 9 – Symphony D. – 1 week due to the infamous post and starting the rebellion
Sept. 9 – Scarlet King – 1 day for PDMA and general continuation of the rebellion
Sept. 9 – SamSniped – 1 day for lots of repeated spam related to the rebellion

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We have a big problem here.

The moderation is using overly militaristic and hostile language- the equivalent to using tear gas and riot police in the internet, in order to describe the general dissatisfaction that is affecting the community.

The moderation must understand that this kind of language raises many alarm bells. The moderation, as we understand it, are volunteers, supposed to be our peers. By adopting the language of authority such as "crush" or "rebellion" or "revolt," you set yourself as an overly authoritarian figure that is above the concerns of normal posters such as ourselves.

I think that the majority of these "rebellion" related bans should be reversed. Tempers got heated on both sides and I think the reactions on both sides have been disproportionate.

If the mods show that they are willing to step back from considering these folks "rebels" rather than considerate individuals trying to support their community, then I think some of these individuals may consider coming back.

With that said, the censorship in this thread hasn't helped things. I'd honestly appreciate an apology from Lefty for his language, whether or not he was justified or not. His intervention in this thread has hardened opinions against the moderation further.

Oh come on! He's a gamer, that's his words! You guys are using the word Exodus to describe leaving! Over stating things has been so over done here.

My choice of words may have been a little unfortunate, but honestly I don't really know how else to describe what has happened. We had a set of posters determined to make their voices heard by disrupting the forums and blatantly breaking forum rules. This was an effort that was not uncoordinated in some respects with a central core of individuals that appear to have driven a lot of the chaos.

Consider the webster's definition of rebellion:

re•bel•lion
noun \ri-ˈbel-yən\
: an effort by many people to change the government or leader of a country by the use of protest or violence
: open opposition toward a person or group in authority
: refusal to obey rules or accept normal standards of behavior, dress, etc.

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This is exactly what happened here.

Regarding the ban reversals, that is a no go. Many of them are already over. Others have conditions attached already whereby the will be reduced.

None of them have been excessive given the actions that the individuals took to earn them.

Seon said:

We have a big problem here.

The moderation is using overly militaristic and hostile language- the equivalent to using tear gas and riot police in the internet, in order to describe the general dissatisfaction that is affecting the community.

The moderation must understand that this kind of language raises many alarm bells. The moderation, as we understand it, are volunteers, supposed to be our peers. By adopting the language of authority such as "crush" or "rebellion" or "revolt," you set yourself as an overly authoritarian figure that is above the concerns of normal posters such as ourselves.

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You have a point here, but in defence of BSmith on this, the NESers in question were using this language first. The language of "rebellion" is exactly what they used, both in private correspondence and publicly in the spam in OT that earned them some of the bans described (e.g. posting images of historical rebellions etc.).

I agree that it's a poor choice of words, coming from a moderator, to describe this incident, but it's not one that the moderators adopted.

Otherwise I'd like to add my support to everything BSmith has said here. I'll add in response to Thlayli that the bans in question are reasonable for the actions involved - remember, these bans were given not for heated language in WWW or similar things, but for the coordinated posting of a large quantity of aggressive spam throughout the site (not NES). People have been permbanned in the past for similar actions, and we've not handed out anything like that here.

erez87 said:

Oh come on! He's a gamer, that's his words! You guys are using the word Exodus to describe leaving! Over stating things has been so over done here.

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I am not in favor of leaving as of yet. I am in favor of returning this forum to a situation where people feel safe and are free to participate in NESes without feeling angry and resentful.

There are mods who are really trying to help us in that regard, and I personally don't think leaving has become the best option. My hope is for some reforms in the accountability process to make people feel like the moderators are open to discussion and criticism.

I'm willing to leave if the situation becomes entirely untenable, but I do not think it has reached that point yet.

Hey maybe instead of suppressing and calling your users rebels, maybe we could address some of the issues that led to "rebellion" in the first place

I have heard from my peer that one of us was banned for 1 week for, and I quote what is apparently the actual word used by one of the moderator, "spreading the revolt" into OT.

I would very much like to believe that the moderator of this site is reasonable authority and have not used those actual words, with it being a fabrication. This is an extremely poor choice of words on the part of the moderation. Even if NESers used it first, there is still a big difference between calling for the upheaval of government by violent or protests and expressing discontent against volunteer site moderation of a forum by breaking forum rules.

Ergo, the repetition of the r-word here greatly disturbs me and validates my peer's statements. One moderator can make mistakes, but two? That concerns me.

If the moderation could do all in its power to tone back their language by avoiding hostile or militaristic language, it would go a long way to avoid creating further grievances: we have enough. Do not give ammunition to the people.

I doubt, however, it will resolve the current issue.

A theory:

The mods have to govern a forum of thousands, mostly young male gamers - they are volunteers and don't have time to get into endless arguments over moderator actions.

We get hit with the same carpet attitude as the rest of the site. We don't like it, so we move site. We can keep it as simple as that.

IMO its not that we've been given especially harsh treatment, taking the whole site into account, and the mods have gone out on a limb with the creation of this whole thread. I don't request the mods change their ways, that's up to them to decide. We don't pay to use CFC. I think its up to NES to decide where to live.

I honestly think that putting all our focus on CFC is just bound to cause trouble and will never be resolved. I think its best to let this 'exodus' play out for now - but many of us will remain as bridges to this site. I am among those intending to keep their CFC account going and have some activity here.

Once we're settled elsewhere, with our WWW community threads off-site, I suspect there will be some trickle-back to NES-IoT. Apparently its not the first time NES community has been split between different sites - Apolyton etc.

I'd also like to apologise to BSmith as I was ignorant of his participation in NES in previous years.

I don't disagree with others here, but I'm going to point out that the narrative I've been hearing from various NESers elsewhere does not jib with what I'm seeing here. For example, I was given information that the ban times imposed were much longer and less reasonable. Also, I was told that others not on that list were banned. I don't know if I can trust the moderators, admittedly, but I honestly don't know if the NESers can be trusted either with their version of the narrative of events that has taken place.

I'd just like to repeat: can't we find a middle-ground? Wouldn't a suitable compromise for all sides be a resumption of the status quo with more reporting of offensive posts by NESers in WWW and on the other side of that, a moderator keep a closer eye on the context of those offensive posts?

BSmith1068 said:

I also think there is still some misinformation out there with regards to bans and their durations, so I am going to outline all of the bans given to posters with respect to the recent happenings:

Sept. 2 – Symphony D. – 1 week due to accumulated points.
Sept. 9 – Symphony D. – 1 week due to the infamous post and starting the rebellion
Sept. 9 – Scarlet King – 1 day for PDMA and general continuation of the rebellion
Sept. 9 – SamSniped – 1 day for lots of repeated spam related to the rebellion
Sept. 9 – Luckymoose – 1 week for accumulated points.
Sept. 9 – Grandkhan – 1 day for spam and making Symphony D's post his avatar.
Sept. 10 – Crezth – 30 days for continued rejection of site rules and moderation – can be reduced if he commits to an admin that he will conform to the rules of CFC regarding flaming, trolling and moderation.
Sept. 11 – ChiefDesigner – 1 week for flagrant PDMA in OT and distributing falsified PMs

Nobody has been banned as a result of posts in this thread, though a few people have earned some points.

I also hope you guys appreciate the extraordinariness of this thread and the divulging of information that is normally deemed a private matter between the staff and the affected individual.

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yes, our neser cabal worked day and night on those pm's! ori's detective skills were too much for us though unfortunately

Hey. I called it out immediately too! Credit where credit is due!

Seon said:

We have a big problem here.

The moderation is using overly militaristic and hostile language- the equivalent to using tear gas and riot police in the internet, in order to describe the general dissatisfaction that is affecting the community.

The moderation must understand that this kind of language raises many alarm bells. The moderation, as we understand it, are volunteers, supposed to be our peers. By adopting the language of authority such as "crush" or "rebellion" or "revolt," you set yourself as an overly authoritarian figure that is above the concerns of normal posters such as ourselves.

Click to expand...

To be fair, members of IOT semi-jokingly referred to it as a revolution, so I see how the mods have responded as such.