The censoring

[Rhyse.8179]

This game is huge. It may not be WOW, but it has a LOT of people that play it. In spite of that, the official forums are nearly dead. The main discussion forum moves about a half page per day; class forums may move only 1 or 2 posts per day. I've seen pages for 20-person guilds that move more then the GW2 official forums for the entire game.

 

Maybe there is something special about this particular forum that has driven them away? I can only speculate at what it could be.

 

PS. Please don't ban me for sarcasm, I don't speak any other languages.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

> @"Rhyse.8179" said:

> This game is huge. It may not be WOW, but it has a LOT of people that play it. In spite of that, the official forums are nearly dead. The main discussion forum moves about a half page per day; class forums may move only 1 or 2 posts per day. I've seen pages for 20-person guilds that move more then the GW2 official forums for the entire game.

>

> Maybe there is something special about this particular forum that has driven them away? I can only speculate at what it could be.

>

> PS. Please don't ban me for sarcasm, I don't speak any other languages.

 

Honestly it is age. The reason why I visit the forums is because I've been doing it for... 20 odd years now. Not necessarily these forums, but back when they were new, the forums were kind of a big deal.

 

But now? We have reddit, we have facebook groups, we have discord, we might still have yahoo groups, we have tumblr, etc. and so on. The social media landscape has been centralized into a few giants. People who visit the official forums are relics of a bygone era.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Hey guys -- to be sure you know the facts: I did not say that calling someone condescending involved "foul language" or was "foul." Someone posted that in this thread, and at least one more has quoted it as fact. It is not fact. My comment was: "In your case, you insulted a member, calling them condescending. You did not say _their comments_ were condescending, you said _they_ were condescending. That's insulting, contributes nothing of value, etc., etc."

 

I called it an insult, and I believe it was. I said it contributed nothing, and indeed it did not. It was mildly rude, mildly insulting, and the points given reflected that. (Please keep in mind that someone can acquire a time-out by receiving multiple one-point warnings in a short period of time.)

 

> @"OrbitalButt.5708" said:

> I got an infraction for quoting Shakespeare. SHAKESPEARE

 

Hey -- I'm curious. What was the quote? And did you e-mail for a review?

 

> @"Rhyse.8179" said:

 

> This game is huge. It may not be WOW, but it has a LOT of people that play it. In spite of that, the official forums are nearly dead. The main discussion forum moves about a half page per day; class forums may move only 1 or 2 posts per day. I've seen pages for 20-person guilds that move more then the GW2 official forums for the entire game.

 

I have to differ with you, because I aggregate the stats for this forum every week. I'm not going into chapter and verse, but I will say that one of the more significant measures of a forum's activity levels is Page Views, and when they number in the millions every single week, I don't think this forum is on its death bed. :D

 

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> People who visit the official forums are relics of a bygone era.

 

Ummm... see immediately above? :)

 

> @"sephiroth.4217" said:

> My assumption is the moderators are up to their toes in reports and don't always have the time to check previous comments.

 

The report queue is generally reasonable in volume, and checking previous comments should be done as part of a review. Of course, that's easy if someone quotes, but less easy if a mod is having to go through an entire thread to find the back-and-forth that was going on. Ideally, moderators are able to take the time to do that, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to review two people's posting history through multiple threads -- that could be a huge time sink. The report system is more for the immediate issues, and if there are issues beyond that, e-mailing would be best.

[Mewcifer.5198]

> @"Egorum.9506" said:

> The moderation here has no interest in healthy discussion, even questioning anet's decisions is enough to have the post removed. What's more, certain mods will monitor your account and remove all posts for no good reason because it's a power trip.

>

> And if you appeal it or try and report harassment by a forum mod, it has to go through that same forum mod via email so they can safely just ignore you. Reporting harassment by a forum mod is completely moot.

 

This seems unlikely to me. How would you even know if it's the same mod. You have no way of knowing who is doing what behind the scenes. This is all speculation on your part.

[Egorum.9506]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> I called it an insult, and I believe it was. I said it contributed nothing, and indeed it did not. It was mildly rude, mildly insulting, and the points given reflected that.

 

Your opinions on what is insulting/rude are wayyyy off from the majority of the population. You seem to be easily offended and take offense at every remark on this forum asif it were a direct insult to you or your profession. Negative feedback is just as valuable as positive, heavily censoring it only angers your consumer base while solving none of the problems brought up.most people are not very conservative.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I was surprised at the number of posters that had obtained the 'Photogenic' medal: nearly 20,000. It doesn't seem that dead, to me, for a just-recently-started-compiling-stats 5-year old game forum.

I imagine there is a lot for which the Mods to keep track.

[vesica tempestas.1563]

> @"Egorum.9506" said:

> The moderation here has no interest in healthy discussion, even questioning anet's decisions is enough to have the post removed. What's more, certain mods will monitor your account and remove all posts for no good reason because it's a power trip.

>

> And if you appeal it or try and report harassment by a forum mod, it has to go through that same forum mod via email so they can safely just ignore you. Reporting harassment by a forum mod is completely moot.

 

I don't think that's true, I have seen plenty discussions that have got to the edge of being arguments and have been allowed to run. The moderators do make mistakes ofc e.g i got an infraction once because a mod did not seem to know what 'dev-op maturity' meant and thought it was insulting their devs maturity lol, but in general when i've had an infraction it has been because i've got a bit hot under the collar.

[Raithwall.8201]

I know this is anets own forums and they can make their own rules.

But I wont support a platform where everything which someone, somewhere on the worldmaybe finds insulting. censoring for something like condescending is utterly ridiculous.

I'd rather hear the true viewpoint of another person than being protected "for my own good" by oh so insulting laguage.

If i have to take three times to read through my own post if it might maybe insult someone i just wont bother to post it here but do so somewhere where i can express myself to the extent i want to.

Of course there should be a red line somewhere. I'd consider that when persons are blatantly mobbed or there are flung real insults - which we all know - and i dont count condescending towards them. and even real insults might be fine to the people adressed - there is a reason things like diffamation is only pursued by law if the person adressed brings it to the courts.

But I understand that you dont want to have such language on your forum and therefore remove it.

 

Another thing is censoring for thing like calling people condescending or a liar. if someone says something/posts a statement and later lies about it he is exactly that. A liar. and speaking the truth should NEVER be prosecuted.

Another thing is calling someone condescending, which is actually saying that you get the feeling that another persons contribution/view seems to treat you without due respect and is highly subjective. why on earth would you censor something like that? there is no downside to that statement. the one person speaks out its feeling the other one might think about their original statement and might or might not change future behaviour.

 

I value free speech as one of the most important rights (if not the most important right) a person can have. Limiting free speech should only happen if another persons RIGHTS are blatantly harmed elsewise.

There is and should not be a right to not be offended.

 

Since alot of people seem to have a similar stance on this topic this forum wont be used as much as less censoring platforms.

Have a good day

 

[ratche.6204]

> @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > I called it an insult, and I believe it was. I said it contributed nothing, and indeed it did not. It was mildly rude, mildly insulting, and the points given reflected that.

>

> Your opinions on what is insulting/rude are wayyyy off from the majority of the population. You seem to be easily offended and take offense at every remark on this forum asif it were a direct insult to you or your profession. Negative feedback is just as valuable as positive, heavily censoring it only angers your consumer base while solving none of the problems brought up.most people are not very conservative.

 

 

This is your opinion and I don't think it's the majority opinion of the world, it's certainly not mine. I hear this often in discussions, people will defend an immoral or irregular opinion by saying this. Saying "well most people think like me" isn't a defense for rudeness in my opinion.

 

 

 

[Zohane.7208]

> @"Raithwall.8201" said:

> I know this is anets own forums and they can make their own rules.

> But I wont support a platform where everything which someone, somewhere on the worldmaybe finds insulting. censoring for something like condescending is utterly ridiculous.

> I'd rather hear the true viewpoint of another person than being protected "for my own good" by oh so insulting laguage.

> If i have to take three times to read through my own post if it might maybe insult someone i just wont bother to post it here but do so somewhere where i can express myself to the extent i want to.

> Of course there should be a red line somewhere. I'd consider that when persons are blatantly mobbed or there are flung real insults - which we all know - and i dont count condescending towards them. and even real insults might be fine to the people adressed - there is a reason things like diffamation is only pursued by law if the person adressed brings it to the courts.

> But I understand that you dont want to have such language on your forum and therefore remove it.

>

> Another thing is censoring for thing like calling people condescending or a liar. if someone says something/posts a statement and later lies about it he is exactly that. A liar. and speaking the truth should NEVER be prosecuted.

> Another thing is calling someone condescending, which is actually saying that you get the feeling that another persons contribution/view seems to treat you without due respect and is highly subjective. why on earth would you censor something like that? there is no downside to that statement. the one person speaks out its feeling the other one might think about their original statement and might or might not change future behaviour.

>

> I value free speech as one of the most important rights (if not the most important right) a person can have. Limiting free speech should only happen if another persons RIGHTS are blatantly harmed elsewise.

> There is and should not be a right to not be offended.

>

> Since alot of people seem to have a similar stance on this topic this forum wont be used as much as less censoring platforms.

> Have a good day

>

 

Ok, so a couple of thoughts come to mind here:

* What would a proper definition be for a "real insult"? I would suspect that it differs between people so I'd be curious to know how that would be defined in a way that everyone would approve of.

* You draw the analogy to defamations brought to justice. In fact I do believe that Anet will only look at topics reported to them - I see that as similar to your example.

* As has been pointed out many times already, it's not your job to "correct" people who - in your opinion - lie. They may well honestly believe what they say, and in such a case it just isn't right to give them a shameful label like "liar". If you think someone is playing foul on the forum, simply report them and Anet will look at it.

* I can somewhat agree that actioning "condescending" might be a bit too harsh, but then again, someone must have felt it bad enough to warrant a report.

* Lastly, the term "free speech" almost always means that no government insttution shall limit your right to express your opinion. This is true here as well, and in fact no government institution is involved in moderation on this forum, at least as far as I know. The rulebook here is that everyone agreed to a number of rules, set up by Anet, when joining the forum. If people break those rules they rightly should be actioned for it. Everyone is free to express themselves on this forum (and on any other privately owned forum for that matter) but only as long as they follow the rules ("code of conduct" or similar labels).

[dace.8019]

I got a warning for an inoffensive, succinct, light-hearted humourous post that simultaneously answered the post above mine, reflected the state of the conversation and insulted nobody.

 

Apparently, there is no place for the humour part of that on this forum.

[Raithwall.8201]

>

> Ok, so a couple of thoughts come to mind here:

> * What would a proper definition be for a "real insult"? I would suspect that it differs between people so I'd be curious to know how that would be defined in a way that everyone would approve of.

> * You draw the analogy to defamations brought to justice. In fact I do believe that Anet will only look at topics reported to them - I see that as similar to your example.

> * As has been pointed out many times already, it's not your job to "correct" people who - in your opinion - lie. They may well honestly believe what they say, and in such a case it just isn't right to give them a shameful label like "liar". If you think someone is playing foul on the forum, simply report them and Anet will look at it.

> * I can somewhat agree that actioning "condescending" might be a bit too harsh, but then again, someone must have felt it bad enough to warrant a report.

> * Lastly, the term "free speech" almost always means that no government insttution shall limit your right to express your opinion. This is true here as well, and in fact no government institution is involved in moderation on this forum, at least as far as I know. The rulebook here is that everyone agreed to a number of rules, set up by Anet, when joining the forum. If people break those rules they rightly should be actioned for it. Everyone is free to express themselves on this forum (and on any other privately owned forum for that matter) but only as long as they follow the rules ("code of conduct" or similar labels).

 

- I'd define a "real insult" as a statement with the explicit meaning to insult somebody - e.g. good old "excretory organ"

- you got a point here, however just see my first sentence. I just criticise the implementation of the code of conduct.

- its not my "job" to correct people - true - but i should be to speak freely what i think about someones statement. if someone blatantly lies he deserves to be called by what he is - a liar. You are not a liar if you dont know it better, lying is telling untruth intentionally.

- there is always someone who will feel bad about any given statement, this should not lead to censorship.

- I acknowledged that and its their right, but I dont like their implementation of said right. There is a reason government should not restrict free speech more than absolutely necessary and appropriate.

 

 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> I have to differ with you, because I aggregate the stats for this forum every week. I'm not going into chapter and verse, but I will say that one of the more significant measures of a forum's activity levels is Page Views, and when they number in the millions every single week, I don't think this forum is on its death bed. :D

>

> > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > People who visit the official forums are relics of a bygone era.

>

> Ummm... see immediately above? :)

>

 

I'd contest that page views is not the best measure of forum activity, since a single person will generate dozens of page views just ambling about. This doesn't produce any meaningful movements on the forums, nor does it represent the level of popularity of the forums in either the game community or the internet at large. To contrast, Reddit gets 95 million visitors a day. The forums themselves get 4.5 million views [a month](https://www.similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com "https://similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com").

[Egorum.9506]

> @"ratche.6204" said:

> > @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > I called it an insult, and I believe it was. I said it contributed nothing, and indeed it did not. It was mildly rude, mildly insulting, and the points given reflected that.

> >

> > Your opinions on what is insulting/rude are wayyyy off from the majority of the population. You seem to be easily offended and take offense at every remark on this forum asif it were a direct insult to you or your profession. Negative feedback is just as valuable as positive, heavily censoring it only angers your consumer base while solving none of the problems brought up.most people are not very conservative.

>

>

> This is your opinion and I don't think it's the majority opinion of the world, it's certainly not mine. I hear this often in discussions, people will defend an immoral or irregular opinion by saying this. Saying "well most people think like me" isn't a defense for rudeness in my opinion.

>

>

>

 

I'm not defending an immoral or irregular opinion, I'm stating that gaile has her sensitivity turned up too high. Most people are not so conservative, she shouldn't apply her personal moral code to moderating a multimillion dollar video game forum as that is not professional.

 

If I took offense to your statement, believing that you are implying I am immoral, and reported it- how well would you take that? You believe that you are not being rude, but I've been actioned for similar comments. Turning down the sensitivity is best for everyone

[robertthebard.8150]

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > I have to differ with you, because I aggregate the stats for this forum every week. I'm not going into chapter and verse, but I will say that one of the more significant measures of a forum's activity levels is Page Views, and when they number in the millions every single week, I don't think this forum is on its death bed. :D

> >

> > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > > People who visit the official forums are relics of a bygone era.

> >

> > Ummm... see immediately above? :)

> >

>

> I'd contest that page views is not the best measure of forum activity, since a single person will generate dozens of page views just ambling about. This doesn't produce any meaningful movements on the forums, nor does it represent the level of popularity of the forums in either the game community or the internet at large. To contrast, Reddit gets 95 million visitors a day. The forums themselves get 4.5 million views [a month](https://www.similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com "https://similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com").

 

How many single people generating dozens of views does it take to generate millions of views?

[robertthebard.8150]

> @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > > @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > > > @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > > > > @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > > > > > @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > > > > > > @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > > > > > > > @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> > > > > > > > Just going to poke in and reiterate the fact that the infraction points are indeed temporary. Over the few years I've been active on the forums, I've certainly gotten more total infraction points than are necessary for action (I think my total is around 5 or 6, and I believe action is taken at 3), but since it was all spaced out, I've seen no punishment.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > I don't dispute that I earned every one of them (I know I can get rather hot-blooded and stubborn), but ANet's forum moderation policy is definitely set up to be forgiving of the occasional bad day.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > On the same logic of infraction points and their lack of impact, I still cannot understand how the thumbs down feature, which is also divorced from any meaninful impact on the post or the account, was deemed as negative and needed to be removed. The continued existance of the thumbs up feature at all is a testament to the lack of consistency and purpose of the decisions made with regards to the forums.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > What's the intent? In DDO's forums, they had to disable it because, there, if you got enough down votes, you couldn't post on the forums. All it took was to go to what passed as the meta build forum there, and question the wisdom of their design choices, when they're posting builds that required max past lives, and considerable investment in stat tomes, for new players. I know about this first hand, as I got hit with that one. Up votes here add badges, as I can attest to since I've picked up a couple since I started posting, were down votes going to take away from that rep? If so, it's a very easily abused system, that could "punish" someone for having the audacity to disagree with someone else. If it served no function at all, then it doesn't matter if it exists at all, other than for someone being able to say "hey look, you suck so bad you got x down votes, maybe you should just stop posting", which is detrimental to a healthy forum too. "but reddit..." doesn't cut it, any more than pointing to Steam reviews as a reliable measure of how good a game is. Take a look at what happened to the original version of Skyrim as an example, since the community was unhappy with new mod system, and voted down a game that isn't even eligible for it.

> > > > >

> > > > > Downvotes had no impact. None. It didn't take away posting privlages, it didn't remove rep, it didn't affect badges.

> > > > >

> > > > > If your argument is that if it had no impact then it didn't need to exist, then can you explain Gaile's post here:

> > > > >

> > > > > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > > > > Hey Neural: I'm really accustomed to being downvoted. I've had a history of downvoted "don't like the message" or even "shoot the messenger" comments on more than one forum. :D So removing the feature wasn't because of the downvoting of an official thread or threads, and it wasn't prompted by a overage of company sensitivity. The decision was based on community experience, observation, and member input.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Actually, the discussion of downvote removal initially started because reports from our European team members indicated the feature was quite disruptive on the non-EN forums. From there, widespread, sometimes private, feedback resulted in its removal across all languages. Feature consistency is desirable in a multi-language forum, therefore it would be all in or all out for any feature.

> > > > >

> > > > > And the purpose of a downvote would be to better facilitate the former rather than the latter of the following example:

> > > > >

> > > > > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > > > > Let's step back and look Big Picture. It's one thing to say, "I disagree with your idea," It's quite another to say "I disagree with your idea, I think you're stupid to offer it, and hey, is that rumor I heard about you having stinky feet true?" :dizzy:

> > > >

> > > > There's a world of difference between "no purpose" and "no impact". A worthless feature can, indeed, have a ton of impact if it's abused, and this system, as I have already illustrated, can easily be abused. It's not going to do anything but give someone a "wild card" to try to shut someone else up with the line "you have x down votes, you should just shut up".

> > >

> > > You can't shut someone up with that line.

> >

> > ...and it's never stopped anyone from trying, has it?

>

> So?

 

So what does it bring to the forum? What intrinsic value does it have? If it's just another "my epeen is bigger" thing, which it seemingly would be, there's no reason for it. I'm not a fan of upvoting either, by the way, but it's a lot less likely to lead to people over on 4chan high fiving each other for "pwning that noob on the forums".

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

> @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > I have to differ with you, because I aggregate the stats for this forum every week. I'm not going into chapter and verse, but I will say that one of the more significant measures of a forum's activity levels is Page Views, and when they number in the millions every single week, I don't think this forum is on its death bed. :D

> > >

> > > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > > > People who visit the official forums are relics of a bygone era.

> > >

> > > Ummm... see immediately above? :)

> > >

> >

> > I'd contest that page views is not the best measure of forum activity, since a single person will generate dozens of page views just ambling about. This doesn't produce any meaningful movements on the forums, nor does it represent the level of popularity of the forums in either the game community or the internet at large. To contrast, Reddit gets 95 million visitors a day. The forums themselves get 4.5 million views [a month](https://www.similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com "https://similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com").

>

> How many single people generating dozens of views does it take to generate millions of views?

 

Well, according to the link provided, the average is 4.5 pages per visit (view), so....

I wonder if that's Reddit (in toto) that gets 95 million visitors, or the GW2 sub-reddit. I'm guessing all of Reddit, which would not seem comparable.

[Mourningcry.9428]

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > I have to differ with you, because I aggregate the stats for this forum every week. I'm not going into chapter and verse, but I will say that one of the more significant measures of a forum's activity levels is Page Views, and when they number in the millions every single week, I don't think this forum is on its death bed. :D

> >

> > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> > > People who visit the official forums are relics of a bygone era.

> >

> > Ummm... see immediately above? :)

> >

>

> I'd contest that page views is not the best measure of forum activity, since a single person will generate dozens of page views just ambling about. This doesn't produce any meaningful movements on the forums, nor does it represent the level of popularity of the forums in either the game community or the internet at large. To contrast, Reddit gets 95 million visitors a day. The forums themselves get 4.5 million views [a month](https://www.similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com "https://similarweb.com/website/en-forum.guildwars2.com").

 

It's posts like this that pave the way to infractions... posts that throw out some at first seemingly impressive statistics, yet in reality lack any kind of analysis, or even significance or even attempt to offer any.

 

What exactly is the reader supposed to conclude from the contrasting of these two nearly incomparable numbers aside from the fact that one of the largest websites on the internet receives more traffic than this one? How does this at all lend to challenging or even relate to contesting that page views do not constitute activity?

 

If I were to continue relating the merits, or lack there of, of posts like this, I'd no doubt end up being on the receiving end of said thread topic.

 

It's understood that some level of moderation is expected and perhaps even necessary on these forums, but when it comes at the cost of allowing mis-information to be left unchecked, I personally question, and have questioned, this necessity. Is it better to leave a well spoken falsehood unattended while at the same time silencing a perhaps offensive truth?

 

[ratche.6204]

> @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > @"ratche.6204" said:

> > > @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > > I called it an insult, and I believe it was. I said it contributed nothing, and indeed it did not. It was mildly rude, mildly insulting, and the points given reflected that.

> > >

> > > Your opinions on what is insulting/rude are wayyyy off from the majority of the population. You seem to be easily offended and take offense at every remark on this forum asif it were a direct insult to you or your profession. Negative feedback is just as valuable as positive, heavily censoring it only angers your consumer base while solving none of the problems brought up.most people are not very conservative.

> >

> >

> > This is your opinion and I don't think it's the majority opinion of the world, it's certainly not mine. I hear this often in discussions, people will defend an immoral or irregular opinion by saying this. Saying "well most people think like me" isn't a defense for rudeness in my opinion.

> >

> >

> >

>

> I'm not defending an immoral or irregular opinion, I'm stating that gaile has her sensitivity turned up too high. Most people are not so conservative, she shouldn't apply her personal moral code to moderating a multimillion dollar video game forum as that is not professional.

>

> If I took offense to your statement, believing that you are implying I am immoral, and reported it- how well would you take that? You believe that you are not being rude, but I've been actioned for similar comments. Turning down the sensitivity is best for everyone

 

If you took offense, and I was ticketed or whatever I'd argue it. If I still lost then I'd take it, for the simple fact that to me at least, I have much more important things in life to worry about than getting ticketed. Honestly that's why I think I have a problem understanding the point of view of those who argue for it. In the grand scheme of life getting actions on a forum for a game I enjoy playing is not even a blip on the radar.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

> @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > @"ratche.6204" said:

> > > @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > > I called it an insult, and I believe it was. I said it contributed nothing, and indeed it did not. It was mildly rude, mildly insulting, and the points given reflected that.

> > >

> > > Your opinions on what is insulting/rude are wayyyy off from the majority of the population. You seem to be easily offended and take offense at every remark on this forum asif it were a direct insult to you or your profession. Negative feedback is just as valuable as positive, heavily censoring it only angers your consumer base while solving none of the problems brought up.most people are not very conservative.

> >

> >

> > This is your opinion and I don't think it's the majority opinion of the world, it's certainly not mine. I hear this often in discussions, people will defend an immoral or irregular opinion by saying this. Saying "well most people think like me" isn't a defense for rudeness in my opinion.

> >

> >

> >

>

> I'm not defending an immoral or irregular opinion, I'm stating that gaile has her sensitivity turned up too high. Most people are not so conservative, she shouldn't apply her personal moral code to moderating a multimillion dollar video game forum as that is not professional.

>

> If I took offense to your statement, believing that you are implying I am immoral, and reported it- how well would you take that? You believe that you are not being rude, but I've been actioned for similar comments. Turning down the sensitivity is best for everyone

 

This is one of several posts in which you try to make this general topic into a personal review. Actually, several members believe you've resorted to personal attacks, which is unfortunate and unnecessary.

 

You disagree with a professional, company-based decision on what standards we set for discussion on our private forums. You disagree with our [Forums Code of Conduct](https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/the-forums-code-of-conduct/ "Forums Code of Conduct") and the way it is enforced. Let's look at both:

 

The contents of the FCoC were determined and frequently are reviewed by a significant number of people both inside and outside the Forums Team. The FCoC also is subject to careful legal review, because we need to be respectful of laws in various areas of the world. The purpose of the rules is to create a desired atmosphere for the forums. They are determined by a group of professionals who possess a reasonable and player-focused frame of mind.

 

Enforcement of the rules is handled by a team of people who come from wide variety of locations and backgrounds; different ages, genders, and personal beliefs. I do not try to ensure that every moderator walks lock-step with my _personal_ opinions, but rather than they enforce the _neutrally-set forum rules_. I do not inject my personal values -- my "personal moral code" -- into this forum any more than I would retain any moderator who did that. (In fact, you would have no idea what my "personal moral code" is and may be surprised to learn that I actually personally disagree with some of the rules, but understand that we have them for reasons of law, forum culture, or consistency.) My personal feelings do not sway my judgement in handling appeals, and as many here have attested, the appeal process can be very effective when an error has been made or a subsequent review shows that a reversal was warranted.

 

You suggest 'turning down the sensitivity." I ask, to whose level? Yours? Your neighbor's? The opinion of a parent, grandparent, member of a religious group, folks of a specific political party, a member of a specific gender or age group, those who belong to a certain culture... ? It's easy to say lighten up a little but it's hard to know what that means, when there are many different opinions about what the standard or norm should be. That is exactly why we're careful to have rules and to enforce them neutrally and fairly. For instance, some people use the "F-word" frequently in their casual conversation, but few would argue that it should be allowed on the forums. We have different gradients of infractions -- from a single-point warning to a suspension -- to distinguish the difference between something that's mildly rude and something that's utterly unacceptable.

 

On one thing we agree: Negative feedback is very important. But where our views separate is in the _presentation_ of that negative feedback. And for most, as it seems clear in this thread alone, not being subject to personal attacks or required to plow through a minefield of swearing is a very good thing, and it encourages more feedback, both positive and negative.

[Leo G.4501]

> @"vesica tempestas.1563" said:

> > @"Egorum.9506" said:

> > The moderation here has no interest in healthy discussion, even questioning anet's decisions is enough to have the post removed. What's more, certain mods will monitor your account and remove all posts for no good reason because it's a power trip.

> >

> > And if you appeal it or try and report harassment by a forum mod, it has to go through that same forum mod via email so they can safely just ignore you. Reporting harassment by a forum mod is completely moot.

>

> I don't think that's true, I have seen plenty discussions that have got to the edge of being arguments and have been allowed to run. The moderators do make mistakes ofc e.g i got an infraction once because a mod did not seem to know what 'dev-op maturity' meant and thought it was insulting their devs maturity lol, but in general when i've had an infraction it has been because i've got a bit hot under the collar.

 

What does dev-op maturity mean? Like dev operation maturity, i.e. the level of completness of a project?

[Leo G.4501]

> @"Raithwall.8201" said:

> I know this is anets own forums and they can make their own rules.

> But I wont support a platform where everything which someone, somewhere on the worldmaybe finds insulting. censoring for something like condescending is utterly ridiculous.

> I'd rather hear the true viewpoint of another person than being protected "for my own good" by oh so insulting laguage.

> If i have to take three times to read through my own post if it might maybe insult someone i just wont bother to post it here but do so somewhere where i can express myself to the extent i want to.

 

You don't have to support, like or agree with their rules and enforcement. Regardless of the opinions held about this topic, the actual impact here is minimal. The topics that can be discussed are outline in their rules and the infractions system they use to enforce those rules do not last long. You can hold resentment for those facts (I tend to, myself) but that resentment is only going to impact yourself, in the long run.

[Leo G.4501]

> @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > > @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > > > @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > > > > @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > > > > > @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > > > > > > @"robertthebard.8150" said:

> > > > > > > > @"Leo G.4501" said:

> > > > > > > > > @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> > > > > > > > > Just going to poke in and reiterate the fact that the infraction points are indeed temporary. Over the few years I've been active on the forums, I've certainly gotten more total infraction points than are necessary for action (I think my total is around 5 or 6, and I believe action is taken at 3), but since it was all spaced out, I've seen no punishment.

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > I don't dispute that I earned every one of them (I know I can get rather hot-blooded and stubborn), but ANet's forum moderation policy is definitely set up to be forgiving of the occasional bad day.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > On the same logic of infraction points and their lack of impact, I still cannot understand how the thumbs down feature, which is also divorced from any meaninful impact on the post or the account, was deemed as negative and needed to be removed. The continued existance of the thumbs up feature at all is a testament to the lack of consistency and purpose of the decisions made with regards to the forums.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > What's the intent? In DDO's forums, they had to disable it because, there, if you got enough down votes, you couldn't post on the forums. All it took was to go to what passed as the meta build forum there, and question the wisdom of their design choices, when they're posting builds that required max past lives, and considerable investment in stat tomes, for new players. I know about this first hand, as I got hit with that one. Up votes here add badges, as I can attest to since I've picked up a couple since I started posting, were down votes going to take away from that rep? If so, it's a very easily abused system, that could "punish" someone for having the audacity to disagree with someone else. If it served no function at all, then it doesn't matter if it exists at all, other than for someone being able to say "hey look, you suck so bad you got x down votes, maybe you should just stop posting", which is detrimental to a healthy forum too. "but reddit..." doesn't cut it, any more than pointing to Steam reviews as a reliable measure of how good a game is. Take a look at what happened to the original version of Skyrim as an example, since the community was unhappy with new mod system, and voted down a game that isn't even eligible for it.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Downvotes had no impact. None. It didn't take away posting privlages, it didn't remove rep, it didn't affect badges.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > If your argument is that if it had no impact then it didn't need to exist, then can you explain Gaile's post here:

> > > > > >

> > > > > > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > > > > > Hey Neural: I'm really accustomed to being downvoted. I've had a history of downvoted "don't like the message" or even "shoot the messenger" comments on more than one forum. :D So removing the feature wasn't because of the downvoting of an official thread or threads, and it wasn't prompted by a overage of company sensitivity. The decision was based on community experience, observation, and member input.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Actually, the discussion of downvote removal initially started because reports from our European team members indicated the feature was quite disruptive on the non-EN forums. From there, widespread, sometimes private, feedback resulted in its removal across all languages. Feature consistency is desirable in a multi-language forum, therefore it would be all in or all out for any feature.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > And the purpose of a downvote would be to better facilitate the former rather than the latter of the following example:

> > > > > >

> > > > > > > @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > > > > > > Let's step back and look Big Picture. It's one thing to say, "I disagree with your idea," It's quite another to say "I disagree with your idea, I think you're stupid to offer it, and hey, is that rumor I heard about you having stinky feet true?" :dizzy:

> > > > >

> > > > > There's a world of difference between "no purpose" and "no impact". A worthless feature can, indeed, have a ton of impact if it's abused, and this system, as I have already illustrated, can easily be abused. It's not going to do anything but give someone a "wild card" to try to shut someone else up with the line "you have x down votes, you should just shut up".

> > > >

> > > > You can't shut someone up with that line.

> > >

> > > ...and it's never stopped anyone from trying, has it?

> >

> > So?

>

> So what does it bring to the forum? What intrinsic value does it have? If it's just another "my kitten is bigger" thing, which it seemingly would be, there's no reason for it. I'm not a fan of upvoting either, by the way, but it's a lot less likely to lead to people over on 4chan high fiving each other for "pwning that noob on the forums".

 

Well firstly, if someone has to resort to bringing up the number of thumbs up or thumbs down, they likely are not very good at discussion or are just a [kitten] anyway.

 

Secondly, you're asking me to answer the question I asked that started this line of discussion. I asked you what actual effect or impact the thumbs down feature has and presented Gaile's comment that an effect was there. Then I presented another of her posts expressing two positions, one favorable and one less favorable, a binary set of options where the favorable position is wholly duplicated by the thumbs down feature. The logic I'm leading you through is the thumbs down feature, whatever non-tangible impact it might have, might have been considered for removal based on premises that contradict their own rules. Think of the thumbs down feature as a post and people are reporting that post to the moderators to be removed. On what premise do they argue to have someone's "I disagree" post removed?

[IndigoSundown.5419]

> @"Raithwall.8201" said:

> - I'd define a "real insult" as a statement with the explicit meaning to insult somebody - e.g. good old "excretory organ"

 

If I understand correctly, it isn't that words are necessarily what is being moderated, it is the act of moving into a discussion of the person you're talking to rather than keeping it focused on the topic -- which by the forum rules should be some aspect of the game. "Your argument ignores the fact that perfect balance is never ideal because it leads to stagnation." versus, "You're ignorant if you think perfect balance would be good." Being called ignorant might not be insulting, but the latter statement would have moved the discussion to the person, rather than the point. This is certainly not the way people think and speak in general, but I can understand _why_ it's the rule. It is much easier to objectively check for derailing the discussion from the game to the personal.

 

> - its not my "job" to correct people - true - but i should be to speak freely what i think about someones statement. if someone blatantly lies he deserves to be called by what he is - a liar. You are not a liar if you dont know it better, lying is telling untruth intentionally.

 

What would be wrong with saying, "Your point is wrong because _reasons_."? I get that there's a degree of satisfaction in calling someone out, but _if_ the intent is to discuss the game, at best moving the discussion to a personal arena is derailing the thread.

 

> - there is always someone who will feel bad about any given statement, this should not lead to censorship.

 

See above. What's being moderated is taking the discussion into the realm of the personal, no matter whether the words used are insulting or not.

 

> - I acknowledged that and its their right, but I dont like their implementation of said right. There is a reason government should not restrict free speech more than absolutely necessary and appropriate.

 

There is also a reason _good_ government does not interfere with a person's right to determine what types of speech he is going to allow in his home.

[OrbitalButt.5708]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

>

> > @"OrbitalButt.5708" said:

> > I got an infraction for quoting Shakespeare. SHAKESPEARE

>

> Hey -- I'm curious. What was the quote? And did you e-mail for a review?

 

The quote was "Brevity is the soul of wit," and it was in response to a very long thread about making legendary weapons or somesuch. I was trying to think of the least insulting way to say "This is too long and the length kills what humor there was" and I settled on a fairly well known quote by Shakespeare.

 

I didn't submit it for review because I am an extremely dense person and wasn't sure of the proper procedure, also I didn't think it was worth it. It just seemed totally absurd to be infracted for Shakespeare

 

Thanks for asking though