This thread makes my brain hurt. And dont forget what a mod has to put out with during a day. Not everyone in kaw can behave. Be nice. Full Mei support
Some of you should use reddit, then when you get invested in a subreddit and become part of the community you might realise that there are some hard and fast rules, and there are others that require a bit more interpretation. Moderating is a difficult job that these players have volunteered for, it takes time and effort. Sometimes they act like human beings and are tired and snappy or don't come across as they intended because it's text on a screen which is often difficult to read meaning. I don't see the point of this thread, just looks like you are complaining about the moderators who are trying to help the game be a better place and they spend a lot of their time dealing with people who don't care about the cleanliness of the game or their treatment of others.
I'm pretty much just me... I often insult everyone in wc and obviously silence indiscriminately those who anger me *disclaimer* obvious joke. Ultimately I play the game similar to how I've always played. I hit, I forum and these days I've started wcing. But if I'm disliked for my persona then that's a real shame. Because ultimately, I volunteer to make this place better.
Towards the first commenter, I can't really speak on the current "standards" silences are occurring on, but I can speak on how it was basically a Wild West of moderation for a time when the population was exploding by comparison. We had some moderators go bad (which I still feel partly responsible for supporting most of their nominations), but overall it was just all-hands on deck and each had their own style. For instance, did you know there wasn't always multiple world chats? On topic, just as you could non-stop buy and sell allies under 1 mil (as long as you didn't buy the ones that ended up over 1mil), there were also waves of activity ("prime time") where you'd see back-to-back-to-back-back silences due to World Chat, Walls, Status. The reason why I quoted Noodle here is we did go after clan chat violations if the owner reported it. If the owner was fine with it, the devs had little reason to go after CC logs. Likewise, the forums would regularly occasion posts and topics being deleted (porn, regular bypasses, mass spam), locked, merged, and moved to the correct topic (and there wasn't nearly as many sub-topics at the time. There was a loose/informal agreement with the most popular forum trolls and their communities/factions that they could have Off-Topic to burn down as long as they didn't make any blatant violations and kept those posts within OT. That isn't to say satire "guides," joke scams, and mass forum / war drama didn't happen - those were just as encouraged as the "boring" content outside of OT. It just meant the more spammy, random, borderline, and slightly questionably bizarre were a bit contained in one place. Near the end of my period of moderation, with respect to a newer generation of moderators that wanted less stringent/more casual silencing guidelines and policy, I ended up becoming a "Silence bot," discretely pushing offenders for status, world chat, and walls, and letting the newer voices carry things on, before eventually petitioning the devs over a month to be released from the position to focus on life without worrying about feeling an ethical obligation to log-in daily to moderate (even if it wasn't in writing anywhere). ---- I bring all this up to say that I find it difficult to believe it's easier to get silenced now compared to back then. Of course, we don't see the silence notifications anymore, so there's no easy, visible comparison, but on the other hand I've seen exponentially less anti-moderator topics created in the intervening period, for all that counts for.
I must say that as a moderator, yes being respectful to the community individually or as a whole is warranted. There's nothing better than making sure players one encounters, to have a positive experience playing the game. I think as for myself, I do follow this guideline I set for myself. I have never yet in my 3 years total of moderating have actually had a player rant, uptight or have any negative outlook on my contact with them, which tells me I'm doing what I should do the correct way. As for the post I noticed about sucking up to devs, those that do know me, remember I stepped down from moderator after a year and a half cause I didn't see things as the devs saw. I'm a moderator that's for the players, always worked in the players behalf and will continue to do so. Reason for my return when I came back, I honestly missed working with the community. I did let the worse side of me take over when I stepped down rather than suck it up and stay for the community. I am very happy I have returned and grateful for opportunity to do so. I do all I can to help ensure a pleasant gaming experience whether you been here for years or you just started a day ago.
This is kind of a stupid thread if there is an issue with a mod contact support the email address is support@athinkingape.com
I remember the old days, when mods snipe silenced players, had friends taunt so they could then silence you and other such trash moves. The mods today may not be perfect, but they are far better than many of their predecessors. I have never seen Mei do anything to cause me to question them. If I had I would not be in the same clan. Certain prior mods are missed. But those in the game today get extreme abuse whilst trying to play a game they care enough about to try and help its community. For free. There are no perks to being a mod. It's not easy and yes they choose it. But try to understand they are human. They are players, And they are trying to make the game a better place to be. They are not paid to be at your service 24/7. Show them a little dignity and respect. And they will do likewise. If you have a legitimate concern email support as stated. Also for questions the community can always help if you use the questions thread.
Personally I think mods should hold a certain maturity in the actions they take however at the same time they are simply players with access to the mod toolkit and a green name. By this I mean that a mod should be mature and respectful when dealing with moderator matters but act how they would normally act if they weren't a moderator. I personally receive hateful comments from players simply because I am a moderator and while I am not perfect I try to be fair and understanding to players. Everyone on the mod team is actually really understanding towards the player base as we actually are part of it. People claim that the mods are biased and always side with the devs. It's simply not true. There are times we defend the devs and there are times we criticize them. I wish that the players could see the amount of things we disagree on with the devs and how we do argue in favor of the community. We want to see this game flourish and prosper same as the community does. We want the game to remain great and introduce things the players want. We argue for the sake of the community so often but sadly because it's done behind closed doors the community will never truly understand how much the mod team care. In regards to the responsibilities of the moderator it's simple. We enforce the ToU and pass on issues to the dev/support team. We are the bridge between the devs and the community. This isn't the tidiest and most concise post ever but I think it sort of gets my point across. The whole mod team does care about the community and we receive nothing in return (besides free speakers.) We truly do care about the community.