Some concerns about the changes in chat moderation

[Balbersky]

I have not kept up with the whole "corrupted mods" issue, so I'm not sure how legitimate the community's complaints about abusive moderators actually are, but some of the things I've read on reddit and similar sites are a bit alarming, in that they give me the impression that a lot of the complaints come from people that consider that getting kicked or banned from chat for being openly bigoted is somehow unjustified. Every time someone gets kicked for using a transphobic slur in General chat (with Nezha being the trigger, usually), a bunch of people pop up to defend them as if some great injustice had been commited, and these defenses often include a generous dose of contempt towards LGBT people and other minorities (and also the dreaded SJW boogieman).

Now, don't get me wrong, I think the proposed changes in how chat moderation is approached sound great, and if previous moderators were really abusing their powers they should definitely be replaced; but when these changes were mentioned during the latest devstream, twitch chat flooded with "FINALLY THE SJWs WILL GET WHAT THEY HAD COMING" messages, and that gives me some pause. Hopefully DE isn't being pressured to be more lenient with the more toxic and hateful elements of the community. 

Edited December 7, 2018 by Balbersky

[(PSN)sdaly96]

A scenario where DE purposely cause an issue in region to see how a new moderator reacts could help. Kind of like how employees can be secretly tested while they work.

[Vox_Preliator]

There are absolutely serious issues with the chat moderators.  I won't go in to it, but the decision to get outside professional help is a fantastic first step.

That said, it seriously weakens arguments when people act like fools.  Such as making the claim "Just saying the word trap bans you" which is completely false and is known to be false and is demonstrably false yet keeps being said which just suggests the one saying it has no idea what they're talking about, damaging any other statements they make.  Or the whole "Press F to Pay Respects is banned for inciting spam, so I said Press Q to Pay Respects and got banned" thing, as if really obviously circumventing a trigger you know exists doesn't warrant a ban, suggesting that the one speaking believes that if one disagrees with a rule then the rule doesn't apply to them. 

As if non-corrupt moderators would equal no moderation whatsoever, it really feels like some of these people are just incredibly naive.

[Birkenhoff]

Any official statement on the official forum?

[Fabpsi]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb Birkenhoff:

Any official statement on the official forum?

 

DE mentioned the Chat-Moderation in Devstream 120, here a tweet from Rebecca:

And here a link to the Devstream Overview in case you missed the Livestream^^ (they showed pretty cool other stuff there too - sry for the short "offtopic")

https://www.warframe.com/news/devstream-120-overview
Here a Screenshot from the Overview-page (right at the bottom):

Edited December 8, 2018 by Fabpsi
~penguins

[(PSN)Pizza_Parker]

35 minutes ago, Fabpsi said:

DE mentioned it in Devstream 120, here a tweet from Rebecca:

And here a link to the Devstream Overview in case you missed the Livestream^^ (they showed pretty cool other stuff there too - sry for the short "offtopic")

https://www.warframe.com/news/devstream-120-overview
Here a Screenshot from the Overview-page (right at the bottom):

so... mods will be reworked? did they tell us what exaclty are they targeting? (abuse, new rules, etc).

and will it affect the forums or only the ingame?

[Fabpsi]

vor 40 Minuten schrieb (PS4)Pizza_Parker:

so... mods will be reworked? did they tell us what exaclty are they targeting? (abuse, new rules, etc).

and will it affect the forums or only the ingame?

all we know from the Devstream is this:

(that is all they said about this topic in the Devstream aswell, so no further information about it in the Stream imo)

So to answer your questions using this quote from the Devstream 120 Overview:
- Overall Chat Moderation will be looked at, DE has plans
- DE didn't say what the exact future plans will be - we have to keep an eye out^^
- The discussion seems to be about Chat Moderation, not about Forum Moderation in my opinion

All in all: I personally think that we all just have to wait and see what the future holds 🙂 

edit:
a friendly reminder: According to the tweet from @[DE]Rebecca, you should never Hunt/attack people. Ever. 

Edited December 8, 2018 by Fabpsi
~penguins

[CyberProtoTikiHead]

First off yes there is a problem with strange in-game filters being abused by moderators causing unnecessary problems with players. Filters created by moderators who openly hate the community by the way. Vox above sounds like an apologist for these obvious problems because yes saying trap in game region chat can get you banned (personal experience, may have been fixed). [DE] is rightfully taking issue with this and although there are always toxic elements in a community, these two things do not have anything in common. It seems [DE] was more focused on developing content than in-game chat mods, but hopefully this recent acknowledgement will go further in producing a less toxic atmophere and a more stringent mods vetting process. 

Edited December 8, 2018 by CyberProtoTikiHead
reasons

[peterc3]

10 hours ago, CyberProtoTikiHead said:

Filters created by moderators

Any proof mods have the power to directly change what KickBot triggers on?

10 hours ago, CyberProtoTikiHead said:

Vox above sounds like an apologist for these obvious problems because yes saying trap in game region chat can get you banned.

Just saying trap cannot get you banned.

[IgnatiuSgaming]

We need new moderator :v

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

The rules will still be the rules, and breaking the rules will still get you kicked. All we need are more well-defined rules and a way to find out how long your ban will last. An hour? A day? A week? There's no way to know unless you've broken the same rule before. The rules are unclear because it says "No profanity" but you can use as much profanity as you like as long as it isn't targeted directly at someone. I also got banned for an hour once for saying to an admin, "If you keep banning people who criticize you, you'll start proving them right." I don't know which rule I broke there. 

Edited December 8, 2018 by (XB1)Erudite God

[Fallen_Echo]

Theres an official talk about the ongoing problems, it was told that we will get a third party team to fix up moderation problems too.

So i thought its time for providing feedback on the issues. I could post my refined variant of suggestion what would be version 11 currently but i thought its easier to list up the problems instead.

Lets get them in order:

 

1.) No overseeing, as it was told in the reddit post the current moderation team lacks overseeing what resulted in a "free for all" type of sceniario where everybody can do whatever they want.

2.) No clear code of conduct was posted so no one really knows what do moderators need to act on, why and how.

3.) Missing information, players could miss entirely the message what tells them they were banned and even the updated variant still doesnt tell you what did you done, why is it wrong and how long the punishment is.

4.) The support is disconnected from the whole issue, they have no way to oversee bans, act upon undeserved actions and soo on.

5.) Mods who have broken the ToS are still here what raises concerns on how accountable they are.

 

This is all of it what i could think of currently. If you think you can add something to this list feel free to do it.

[NeopetsMaster4432]

Personally, the only hate towards specific groups or bigotry from people in the PC Region chat that I've seen over the past few weeks was a rather hectic incident last night where this one person went on a rant trying to create arguments about being trans and how everyone who doesn't agree with him is the devil, expressing that their opinion and ideal is the only correct one, as if trying to start a mob. Some level headed people were telling him to stop, drop it, and saying stuff about accepting the opinions of others; but unfortunately, there was no mod on at the time to take care of this. And more-so, that individual managed to bait a few people into responding to him and wouldn't stop harassing others for a while.

I didn't witness the chat of the Devstream, but it sounds like the Region chat is significantly better than what happened on there. Apart from that one incident, the worst things that Region chat has had over the past few weeks(from what I've seen) isn't anything hateful or discriminatory, but just generic spam and filter-bypassing for the sake of pushing boundaries. There have also been inappropriate and non-offensive topics that have been quelled too though. 
But that might just be because the mods have already chat-suspended the people who would be the ones doing such rude behavior. 😛

I have also noticed some really nice people in the chat. You know, those people that stay there helping others, answering questions, are always friendly, and never getting into arguments. And even some of those people have warned me about the misdeeds that player moderators have done, like they have an actual concern for players due to how the moderators have behaved.
But then again, I haven't seen any mods totally abuse their power either. Sometimes they'll apply their own opinion too heavy-handedly and kick someone for something they personally don't like, something that other people don't see a problem with, but that's probably unavoidable.

One of the biggest issues would have to be DE's lack of communication about these issues, and how they seemed to have been ignoring them altogether. I think it would be a great improvement if there was some kind of insight or update from them about them being aware of or trying to fix issues. Even though we now know they're trying to fix the moderation system in general, there is still no mention about the past issues, why players' concerns weren't responded to, or why the issues were allowed to exist for so long.

Also, Kickbot has a ton of words that aren't offensive on the banned word list, and that could use a good cleaning~


 

Edited December 8, 2018 by NeopetsMaster4432

[XaoGarrent]

On 2018-12-07 at 3:33 PM, Balbersky said:

(and also the dreaded SJW boogieman)

It's always funny watching the boogieman themself try to tell you that it's nothing but a boogieman. Your bias is apparent and you are in fact part of the problem you're trying to handwave away.

...Then again, I probably shouldn't be trying to correct you. "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake," as the old quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte goes. So actually, please do go on.

[Yousho]

4 hours ago, XaoGarrent said:

It's always funny watching the boogieman themself try to tell you that it's nothing but a boogieman. Your bias is apparent and you are in fact part of the problem you're trying to handwave away.

...Then again, I probably shouldn't be trying to correct you. "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake," as the old quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte goes. So actually, please do go on.

Oh, good God. 

When did "Hey, maybe don't be an asshat to your fellow human beings." become such a bad thing? 

 

[XaoGarrent]

8 hours ago, Yousho said:

Oh, good God. 

When did "Hey, maybe don't be an asshat to your fellow human beings." become such a bad thing? 

 

When rancid ideologues started classifying everything as haram, and like you are here, placing their subjective feelings over reality.

[Yousho]

2 hours ago, XaoGarrent said:

When rancid ideologues started classifying everything as haram, and like you are here, placing their subjective feelings over reality.

What a strange thing to assume about me based on such a small statement. You could win a gold medal with those mental gymnastics - seems somewhat like your response might be kneejerk and pherhaps driven by emotion. Ironic, no? 

Anyway, my observation is this: There are SJW's who are genuinely insane, over sensitive reactionary types... And, in their 'crusade' against them, the anti-SJW types have become a similar breed. Seeing SJW's and political correctness wherever they look. Take, for example, the fairly recent reimagining of 'Lost in Space', one of the characters was cast by a black girl - with the idea that she was not the biological daughter. This added a bit of tension between her and the father, and breathed some new life into the otherwise "Generic American Family Unit #235357". Of course, before the show even released the comments were swarming with anti-SJW's,  screaming and shouting about how it's political correctness gone mad, and how the evil SJW's are trying to destroy western culture! 

Infact, aside from going out of my way to specifically look for them, I don't think I've ever seen an SJW in either real life or online, yes, I'm aware that they exist, but they seem to be a very 'isolated' minority. Yet the Anti's seem to be aswarm everywhere I turn these days, fighting an enemy that doesn't seem to really be there. They don't seem to just take a stance against SJW's, instead they see SJW's everytime somebody suggests any level of social justice. Everytime somebody mentions challenges facing women, racial minorities, the LGBT community etc, you can bet your bottom credit that there's going to be a seething mass of them ready to defend the world against the tyranny of political correctness! This is, of course, a generalisation, but it is my experience. 

Like so many tales of heroes becoming demons to fight demons, do try not to become short sighted in your crusade against the short sighted. 

I refuse to derail BOTH chat moderator threads with my contentious opinions, so I'll no longer respond to this line of discussion. If you absolutely must continue with debate with me, feel free to PM. 

[Vox_Preliator]

5 hours ago, XaoGarrent said:

rancid ideologues

You mean ones like applying labels to people in order to dehumanize and demean them until simply having that label applied is enough to warrant harassment, abuse, and worse?  You're right, we should get right to eliminating such awful ideologies in society.

Consider the Paradox of Tolerance, in order to protect tolerance one much strive to never tolerate intolerance.

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

I wonder how they'll effect Morning Chat...that's the only time Region is actually sane...somewhat...for Region...

[Cephalycion]

Boop.

There are some links in my post, humbly for your information.

Enjoy reading.

[XaoGarrent]

1 hour ago, Vox_Preliator said:

You mean ones like applying labels to people in order to dehumanize and demean them until simply having that label applied is enough to warrant harassment, abuse, and worse?  You're right, we should get right to eliminating such awful ideologies in society.

Consider the Paradox of Tolerance, in order to protect tolerance one much strive to never tolerate intolerance.

You really should be careful not to throw stones in a glass house.

The paradox of tolerance is an utter hock of nonsense, and the concept itself is old as time. It's an idea dreamed up by tyrants as a method to justify their utterly immoral behavior as an aggressor. Note I didn't say SJWs there, I said tyrants. Read a bit of history, you'll find yourself in some not so good company, the logic behind it has been used in some form by some of the worst people the planet has seen, because It's terrific when you need an excuse to attack someone when you can't meet all the rational conditions needed to establish guilt. Most notably the existence of both intent and action. It allows you to remove either the guilty act, or the guilty mind from the equation, which in turn allows you to collectivize guilt along an entire class of people.

(Is this enough hints yet?)

It's an incredibly shallow concept that only sounds good until you apply even the most basic reasoning to determine guilt in an objective, reality based manner, because in doing so properly, you'll immediately come to the understanding that nobody's done anything wrong until someone has... I suppose you could say, "thrown a stone." And not only that, done so with the express intent to harm someone. Or maybe a stick. Sticks and stones? Ringing a bell?

No, of course not, who am I kidding. I know your ideology better than you do. You operate on Calvin ball logic.

Why do you even care? Something is either true or false, if something is true denying it wont change reality, and if something is false... Well, we have laws for written or spoken word that does real world harm, it's called libel and slander. Of course, that would require you to prove guilt, something your lot is not fond of doing...

[(PSN)FadedSpirit]

I agree the way moderation is handled in warframe needs to be fixed, but I've also seen people that are saying things like "power tripping mods banned me for saying the n word, I can't believe it!" Luckily others rightfully pointed out that person totally deserved the ban. However I've also heard stories where people make jokes similar to the ones DE themselves make on stream and get a chat ban for it, and that's not cool. Also I don't think meme spam here and there is that big of a deal, especially in a chat with so many people that's often moving very quickly anyway, and people often get banned for that. I'm not 100% on this but I've also heard people get auto banned by the bot for saying gay in any context which isn't right at all, people shouldn't have to feel like their sexuality is a dirty word. If purple are using it to harrass people let them be banned for harassment, not for saying gay.

If anything ban the real offensive stuff like hate speech (racial slurs for example) and for everything else let people decide on their own. I think it would be cool to be given our own moderation tools were we can curate a list of our own banned words, let us choose if we don't see a message containing those words at all or have it censored with astericks. That way if I don't like people spamming F I can just choose to not have those messages pop up, no need to ban people for stupid memes. Also curse words could be left up to individual discretion, etc, etc...

 

Also one mod is named after hating men and I think that needs to change, sexism is not cool and it's particuraly sad coming from an official moderator. Either they need to change their name completely (they shortened it butit still is very clearly a sexist word) and apologize or be let go.

[Fallen_Echo]

On 2018-12-08 at 2:18 AM, Vox_Preliator said:

Such as making the claim "Just saying the word trap bans you" which is completely false 

Its not hard to see where these claims come from, in the reddit pages we git confirmation that "use sleep equinox to trap animals" is a pharse what gets you banned.

We got someone warned from a mod for saying "baro is always disappointment".

Lot of people disagree with the handling of the mentioned Nezha joke ever since one of the mods posted a message what indicates that its entirely their doing and they work hard to remove the g-word from the filters because people should have the right to call themselves what they want. We even have proofs that you cant even teach others to be a decent human being because some mod can ban you for typing in "n-word" (as written here), you cant even try to tell someone this is not acceptable here. The infamous issue where a mod told people that a banable offence is perfectly okay is still echoing around too.

 

Most of the problems stem from how the moderation is handled. If you get banned all you got is a message stating that you are suspended from the chat, nothing else.

If it would say what you did wrong, why and how long the ban is the amount of problems would drastically decrease since these people wouldnt swarm the reddit/twitter/forums as they already know what they might wanted to ask.