On Moderation

[FtXCommando]

Let me begin with this pretext:

Discussing moderator decisions in public posts is discouraged. You are free to bring up any actions taken by moderators against you or others in private messages to any moderator or all the moderators at once through the IRC Moderator usergroup here on the forums. If the past is any indication discussing these matters in public will almost always lead to trolling.

This post is meant to be centered on moderation philosophy. While I may use examples in order to illustrate the points of the post, they are not the point of discussion within the post.

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I'm a guy that's been around for a little bit on FAF. I've had my fair share of bans and I've also seen my fair share. There were some bans that were totally justified, such as when I accidentally posted a NSFW album in aeolus instead of a lenny face. There were some that were certainly in a gray area, such as the client ban that utilized aeolus rules on a rule-breaking activity taking place in a non-aeolus channel. But recently there has been some moderation activity that has completely gone beyond the point of moderation and has taken a far more malicious purpose.

But what is the point of moderation? Well every community rule is different, but judging from the Lobby Rules set up for the FAF Client, the FAF Community has a moderation philosophy that fits under three general tenets:
1) Provide an outlet to resolve conflicts that relate to the game/flaming between individuals.
2) Create an environment that makes as many people comfortable without unnecessarily infringing on the speech of others.
3) Create clarity within the client in order to facilitate a more amiable experience or at least to prevent malicious behavior.

I think that's a fair representation of the tenets of moderation for FAF. So let's move on to what is creating tension between some people and some moderators.

A large factor of the problem, from what I have experienced, is the mistake of conflating the first tenet with the second. A moderator in a game community has the difficult objective of acting as both an impartial third party while also proactively creating a respectable environment. Those two roles can quickly make a moderator do one of the greatest sins possible for a moderator:

Being offended for others and using that as the emotional provocation necessary for a ban utilizing the first tenet.

This is something that comes into play on FAF when a moderator sees something disagreeable and determines that to be offensive. The common one that seems to happen on FAF is the usage of certain offensive terms as a term of endearment between individuals. I'm mainly referring to the usual warning/kick that comes from individuals using terms like "cunt" or "faggot" or "cuck" in aeolus. Now, this action, while disagreeable to some, is acceptable moderation under our derived tenets. It fits under the second tenet of creating a "comfortable" environment and the definition of "comfortable" is ultimately left up to a body that is not up for discussion at the moment. While some might disagree with the concept of what is a "comfortable environment" that falls under a different discussion.

So what is my problem with FAF moderators taking offense if this falls under the second tenet?

Well, FAF is an interesting position where aeolus is treated differently than the game because of the fact that the game is an experience between a small group of individuals while aeolus is a leviathan where 1000s of individuals are involved. Clearly, using a real world example, a game is like the home of an individual while aeolus is more like the marketplace. Both operate under different sets of rules while still being under a similar code.

My problem is when moderators take offense to something disagreeable not in aeolus but rather to something within a game.

Yesterday there was an unranked game hosted in which 10 people played. Of these 10 people, there were at least 7 that were messing around and having fun with one another rather than seriously playing. As one might expect in an unranked game. Now part of the problem of using real world examples is that gathering all the proper information can be difficult so instead I will need to make some assumptions here. If they are wrong I'd be happy to be corrected.

The game reached a point where a player kept the game from proceeding by constantly dropping/reconnecting every 40 seconds or so. While not really a big deal at first, several people started getting pissed off when it devolved to spending 10 minutes progressing 10 seconds in the game. We proceeded to ask Tex to ban the player, at which point he says he notified Voodoo about it while also notifying Voodoo about Farm.

The crashing the game ban issue comes under the first and second tenet, so it was fair game. My issue is about the rest of the bans that resulted from this game and how they break the tenets. Let's look at Dro's ban first since it's a simpler case.

Dro was banned by Voodoo due to the fact he was reclaiming an ally's base. This seemed like bannable behavior out of context, but understanding context is central to moderation behavior as it's essential to the first tenet. Particularly since, as a disinterested third party, a moderator must completely understand the situation in order for a fair ruling rather than simply uploading the ideal of a "comfortable environment."

So why is reclaiming your ally's base bad?
1) Ruins the victim experience -> "You will in addition not ruin the game intentionally by any means."
2) Causes a purposeful loss -> "You will not lose on purpose to lower your rating, your rating will be reset in addition to any other sanctions that may apply."

Why does this not apply?
The game in question was an unranked game where people were just having fun. This clearly eliminates the concern of it being an attempt to lower rating. However, Dro's actions also didn't really "ruin" the game. In order for a game to be "ruined" there had to be an intention for the game to be taken seriously from the start. Both teams ended up reclaiming one another's bases, built wall monuments, and just ctrl+k'd for no reason. The only way a meaning can be ascribed to this game to be "ruined" is if a moderator presumes all games to have some inherent meaning which is clearly false. Otherwise a moderator could ban people for "ruining" a 1v1 where a player spawned in a paragon and ctrl+k'd it on the other player without one of the players reporting the other. Farm, the victim of Dro's base reclaiming, did not report Dro or ask Dro to be banned. No one asked or even hinted at Dro being banned including Tex.

In order for Voodoo to ban Dro in this situation, he had to completely ignore the critical part of the first tenet which requires a conflict to exist. He created a conflict where one did not exist in order to ban Dro here. This is an extreme abuse of moderation. It also does not fall under the idea of a "comfortable environment" as, since we previously covered, a game is more of a house and nearly everyone in this game, if not everyone, was fine with the actions Dro was taking.

So what about Farm?
Farm's ban is very interesting. Tex, in game, tells Farm to stop bombing his engies. At first, Farm does not. After the second warning however, Farm proceeded to stop bombing Tex's engies. When Tex informed us in game that he filed reports with Voodoo, he told us that he filed one with Farm as well. One would infer from this information that the report was based on trolling/ruining the game, similar to Dro's report. Yet that wasn't the case.

Instead Voodoo banned Farm for something completely different. Farm was given a client ban due to:


Nowhere in this game did Tex mention he was upset at Farm for his language. Nowhere in this game was Farm told to stop by anyone. Again, this is an example of Voodoo confusing the objective of creating a "comfortable environment" with the first tenet. The rules focused on creating a comfortable environment revolve around aeolus. If this was a client ban due to Farm saying cunt and other words in aeolus, I would understand. However, this is based on an in game situation where the environment is determined by the individuals willingly participating in that environment. Since no one expressed a distaste for this (including even Tex who filled out this report), Voodoo determined it was acceptable to create a conflict by taking offense indirectly. He is breaching his role as a third-party observer in order to become both the complaint issuer as well as the judge. That creates an extreme conflict of interest which ultimately leads to these moderation situations.

I'm actually very worried at how much effort moderators are willing to put into moderating. Here is part of my PMs to Voodoo about this situation:


Voodoo put these client bans into action about 30 minutes after this report was given to him. I think everyone in the game was still online. I know for a fact Dro and Farm definitely were. They received zero inquiries from Voodoo about this situation. They were banned without any consideration being given for the context of the situation.

I feel a lot of this could be solved by increased transparency by the moderation team. I'm very pissed off that I need to track down who banned me/others, find when they are online, hope they are not afk, hope they will take the time to talk to me, and then hope they will provide me with the information I ask. Why isn't there a forum section devoted to ban appeals or discussions on bans? Hell, there could even be a discussion on rules. I hope this creates at least some sort of discussion.

[PhilipJFry]

discussing moderator actions in public is frowned upon
i recommend you pm a moderator about your issue or start lobbying for a mod liason

[biass]

Did you even read the first paragraph

It'll be nice to discuss the mod liaison idea,
Or at least some sort of guidelines to making sure moderator actions are made as an impartial third party.
Sooner or later i'll get wrongly banned by a mod for simply disagreeing with them on something like balance and i would like to stop that scenario from happening before it does.

[FtXCommando]

discussing moderator actions in public is frowned upon
i recommend you pm a moderator about your issue or start lobbying for a mod liason

If I am misinterpreting how moderation philosophy works on FAF, wouldn't it be better for that to be cleared up in the public so that the questions do not come up again? The spirit of that rule, in my eyes, relates to stopping forum threads in General Discussion about "why was I banned" not a discussion like this.

[Exotic_Retard]

now i know there is around 12 seconds before this thread turns into a total shitfest with everyone digging out their own bans and complaining about everything from lame bans to cheat ui mods, but i just wanted to jump in here before that and say that the OP is actually a fairly uh... fair post


i personally wouldn't mind some more transparency, but there are benefits behind opaqueness too, for the mods that is. the thing is, when someone gets banned, they tend to take it personally. and then the ban issuer, is disliked and often blamed for personal grudges and unfair moderation, and doing so shifts the "fault" away from the person who actually committed the offense and to the moderators; "the actions taken on me are too severe for what i did -> i was unfairly banned so therefore i did nothing wrong!"

the important part here is to see that the mod team acts as one whole, so singling people out to be blamed (every time someone is banned everyone looks for who did it, dont they xD ) is not a great idea.

as a mod team we usually discuss stuff and judge each others decisions; so its not necessary to talk to the ban issuer directly about your ban, you message will be forwarded to the whole team for discussion. this is why we ask to pm the whole team on the forums for appeals.

one other thing to note is that we care about the attitude just as much as the actions. ban appealing really does work. the trick there is to show that you recognize your actions, and are willing to try to have a better attitude in the future, instead of trying to prove your innocence and/or that the ban was unfair. asking for clarification is ok too, but the important part is the attitude.

i kinda like the ban appeal forums idea, but i do fear that it will turn into a total shitfest. one of the reasons the admin actions thread isnt really used anymore is because people try to match some offense to a ban duration (i did this too) to prove that ban X was unfair. sadly its very hard to say whats going on behind the scenes, without telling absolutely everything, and any info as we have found in the past does tend to be used against the mods. it doesnt help that people try to justify being on almost-breaking-rules-but-not-quite-so-they-shouldnt-be-banned, when what we are trying to get them to take the hint to change is their attitude to be more respectful instead.


right now i think the most effective way is to find a mod who likes you and pm them about all your troubles, questions and anything else. in general making mods dislike you is probably not a great idea. we try to be impartial but its hard, just think about how you see certain members of the mod team for a minute, and then imagine what we might think of you if you let that show through )

of course, i am a totally perfect being and love everyone, except Tokyto_ obviously

[speed2]

Lets solve the easy ones

There were some that were certainly in a gray area, such as the client ban that utilized aeolus rules on a rule-breaking activity taking place in a non-aeolus channel.

You were spamming MAI in different channel to get very inappropriate content into aeolus later with !chain command. That is no gray area. You knew very well what you're doing, so did others who got banned for this.
If you think it was funny, well it wasn't.


There's a very good reason why discussing mod actions is not allowed in public. It's because it always gets into troll fest and you get 1% of constructive talk if you're lucky.


To judge the rest, I have to watch the game first...

[speed2]

Yesterday there was an unranked game hosted in which 10 people played. Of these 10 people, there were at least 7 that were messing around and having fun with one another rather than seriously playing. As one might expect in an unranked game. Now part of the problem of using real world examples is that gathering all the proper information can be difficult so instead I will need to make some assumptions here. If they are wrong I'd be happy to be corrected.

There are many games hosted every day on FAF and not all of them are rated. With that I dont think any moderator's action should be limited purely to rated games.

Clearly if 7 people there wanted to just mess around, reclaim each others bases, insult each other. There are still other 3 people who expected a normal game. Tex was one of those who expected a normal game and I guess I would as well. Restricting para happens quite often...

Tex complained about this right from the beginning when Dro started to reclaim ally's base. (I remember he asked on slack if some other mod can look at the live replay)



So I think you should either get all 10 people who wont think this game was a waste of their time. Or you can host a private game, and there you can do whatever you want.

When I see game like this:

and just paragon is restricted, me, and I dare to say many more people, will still expect a normal game.

More to come as I'll watch the rest of the game.

[Voodoo]

Both players are unbanned again. You are right at the point that I had not all information about the game. I was looking the live replay and saw Dro reclaiming Farms base. This is against the rules that's why I banned him. Furthermore I saw Farm writing f*** you, c*nt, cuck and so on the whole game. Also I thought cuck means something else. That is why I banned him for his language. He wasn't starting the trolling (reclaiming bases). Furthermore the game was unrated. I personally don't care if a game is rated or not. There are some players who have only time for one game per week. So every game is important for them but if you see the replay, the best choice here was too leave the game in minute 3. So the waste of time isn't so large.

After considering all these points, the ban duration was shortened.

I won't close this thread or lock it now. It shows that moderation is ornate and not easy. We are open for your opinions.

[Mephi]

This quote concerns me more than everything what happened. It shows the attidude of the Moderation Councilor, who can be seen as the head of the Moderation Team. Therefore he should be the ideal of the team in terms of commitment and behaviour, which he is obviously not, following this quote.
Especially in a situation with so many players involved it would be wise to first get as much information as possible, which includes talking with the enganged players, even if it takes time. And then come to a conclusion based on all the facts and the background you get by all that.
But as we can see in this case, nothing like that was done.

the important part here is to see that the mod team acts as one whole, so singling people out to be blamed (every time someone is banned everyone looks for who did it, dont they xD ) is not a great idea.

as a mod team we usually discuss stuff and judge each others decisions

For now the mod team followes this guideline as far as i know:
1. A single mod decides the punishment in spontaneous situation
2. The team discusses the decision

I totally agree to this behavior for small stuff like posting nfsw content, flaming and spamming in aeolus, because the punishment are only temp bans in aeolus, or at least it should be the case ( we all remember some certain 2 weeks lobby ban for a joke).

But everything concerning client bans should be discussed before making a decision, because it effects the respective player a lot more. After collecting data and discussing, the mods can talk to the respective player and inform him about the punishment he gets for his behavior. I see no hurry here, because a client ban starting 1-2 days earlier or later doesnt change anything about the pain.

Sure you can argue, that during the time it is being discussed the player might do it again, but then again you can inform him beforehand, that in case anything comes up during this time the punishment will be carried out immediatly and more severe.

sadly its very hard to say whats going on behind the scenes, without telling absolutely everything, and any info as we have found in the past does tend to be used against the mods.

The misbehavior happened in public, why should the reaction and the process behind it not also be public?
Maybe one reason for inside infos being used against the mods is, that people dont like what they get to hear, because mods are no knights in shiny armor right, they do mistakes too. Sadly they rarely become public and therefore mod team seems to be always "right".


Edit: i just saw voodoos post and like the fact, that made mistakes were corrected. A great step !

[speed2]

For now the mod team followes this guideline as far as i know:
1. A single mod decides the punishment in spontaneous situation
2. The team discusses the decision

Moderators can act on their own, solve the report and take actions. If they aren't sure they ask others for opinions before taking an action.
If the punished person sends an appeal, other moderators will look into that case as well.

It's not possible for every moderator to watch all the reports and discuss every decision. We trust in judgement of others, but that doesn't mean we can't make a mistake. And that's you have a way of appealing.
With that I have to also say that there aren't that many cases where mistakes are made, so we aren't thinking about changing the model.

( we all remember some certain 2 weeks lobby ban for a joke)

I dont know how much of the story you know. It got shortened after the appeal, do you know that?

Also did you see our reply to that appeal?