A Call to DE for Help:The Community is Growing again, and it's More Toxic than Ever: we need more Mods and GOTL please!

[(PSN)THREEKLAW]

      I have been playing Warframe since 2014,and have seen it grow from a small IP into what it is today.  We have seen growth in our community before as new content was added: this is to be expected.  However, Warframe is enjoying more popularity than ever before, due to better visibility and recognition.  Now that Plains of Eidelon (poE) is coming out soon I believe we will see even more players joining up.  Lately I have been noticing that our in game chats, particularly Region chat are getting more toxic than I've ever seen.  In the past week I've seen racism, bigotry, trolls and hateful behavior like I've never seen before.  Now I do understand that the chat-bots, monitor and catch a lot of negative behavior, but the individuals who participate in this kind of negative behavior manage to get around a lot of the things that would get them auto-kicked by misspelling words or by structuring their chat in a way that slips by the filters.  Even in council chat, I have been subject to character assasination, for no more than mentioning that I though that something "seemed fine to me."  

      I understand that there will always be trolls, and that there is simply no way to filter out would be trolls or hateful persons.  I also very much believe in free speech.  My concern is repercussions for those who engage in the kind of activity that brings a community down.  Warframe has been lauded for it's positive player base,and I'd like to retain that aspect of our community. When I was last attacked in game chat, I responded by telling the person that there was no need for person attacks."  A little later, it was remarked that we can say anything we like,because DE doesn't read chat and that there aren't any repercussions: I do not believe that DE has this attitude, but I do believe that DE is fully engaged in making new content and may not be fully aware of the rising toxicity levels in game.  When the community managers play the game, or even streamers, they are exposed to a much different environment- even so, I'm sure the DE mods have their hands full in live chat with lewd comments about Meg or Space Mom.

     As a leader (I'm retired now) I was always taught not to bring a problem unless you have a solution.  So here is my proposal: we need more and better chat moderation in game.  The last time I saw purple text in chat that wasn't a bot was over three months ago: I play nearly every day for a few hours (I'm retired, remember.)  The last time I saw a GOTL in a relay was well over Six months ago.  Now I know DE doesn't have the resources to have on payroll Mods for each region 24/7.  So the community needs to regulate itself.  We need a more stringent and updated process of screening Mods and Council Members.  I think GOTL screening is good,and I know they also have Mod powers-that's great.  We do need more though, and we need more DE oversight to ensure that there is sufficient coverage as well as ensuring the enforcement is also following the rules .  A few days ago we had some racist chat in region: really hateful stuff, and I could not find a Mod anywhere, not even in council- and I was on for several hours.

    So the short of what I'm asking for is better Mods,and more mods: the sheer volume of chat requires better enforcement than what we currently have.  We have a growing influx of players from communities that are known to be toxic: this problem will not resolve itself.  I have left a game and community over offensive behavior: I won't leave Warframe.  But I don't want to see our community regress into a cesspool either. And I won't simply stand by and do nothing.  I will continue to ask for better for the community.

    I still believe our community is a good and positive example in general,and I still stand by it.  And this isn't a plea for myself to become a Mod.  I just want a more consistent Mod and GOTL presence in our community: we need it.  Whether it is a real community or a virtual one, it's residents have the right to feel safe and to welcome.  

 

Edited August 17, 2017 by (PS4)THREEKLAW
Title Edit

[Archistopheles]

Can't you do it yourself?

http://imgur.com/a/GqNRg

Has it changed since then?

Edited August 17, 2017 by Archistopheles

[Matak-FR]

Well, all is in the title.

[Tagsen]

Too long, didn't read.

[AlphaPHENIX]

Speaking of Guides of the Lotus, I have never seen one in game. Have been debatting if they even exist sometimes.

[MagPrime]

We do need more volunteers.  

From what I've  heard though, a great many of the ones we have, have turned out to be sub par and DE may be a little jaded on the whole concept.

 

[KingOfNightmare]

I'm a really old veteran player that can only pug since 2 years because my clan and friends are dead (virtually speaking). To be fair i found none to little  "toxic" players. I'm used to LoL and Dota2 level of toxicity and here in warframe i don't see any . Guides of the Lotus are real .They are not many and the game needs more of what we have now.The first thing you can do to prevent rising toxicity is to immediatly report those kind of person.

[LuckyCharm]

10 hours ago, KingOfNightmare said:

I'm a really old veteran player that can only pug since 2 years because my clan and friends are dead (virtually speaking). To be fair i found none to little  "toxic" players. I'm used to LoL and Dota2 level of toxicity and here in warframe i don't see any . Guides of the Lotus are real .They are not many and the game needs more of what we have now.The first thing you can do to prevent rising toxicity is to immediatly report those kind of person.

Pretty much nail on the head here. The only toxicity seems to be coming from trade chat. I'm a LoL player too, and on average one game in Bronze/silver nets more flame than I've seen in 3 months of Warframe. At least you cant intentionally feed the corpus. Or pick yasuo in warframe. 

[Doxorn]

Guys.... of course you don't see that much toxicity as OP said. You missed a tiny little detail. OP is playing Warframe on PS4, while you are all on PC (as I am).

PS4 community =/= PC community

By my experience I can say PC community is very positive. It's sad that the PS4 community gone toxic as OP said.

[aerelm]

As much as I appreciate the time and effort guides and mods put into the game, I personally don't believe they can have much of an impact on the community on their own. It's never the toxic players that make a community "toxic", but rather, lack of effort from non-toxic players. A community as a whole won't be considered toxic unless toxicity becomes the norm it in (and fortunately, Warframe is far from that point so far), and toxicity won't become the norm unless the majority of the community become indifferent and apathetic and let the toxic players define the direction of the community.

This being the internet, having toxic individuals around the place is inevitable, but each community tends to attract like-minded people based on what the established norm of that community is, and if the trolls aren't fed they'll just get bored after a short while and move on. So, in my opinion the only way to prevent a toxic community would be for the non-toxic players to actually go out of their way and put extra effort into being welcoming and friendly toward players (old and new alike), to establish the norm as a nice and helpful community. If the majority of the community are nice people and fun to play with, toxic players won't last long and won't be able to shape the general image of that community.

So, to put it bluntly, if anyone wants to have a friendly community, they themselves have to work for it and can't expect another group of people like guides or whoever to do it for them. Being (even) nicer to other players, helping out newer players and having a generally friendlier attitude toward other community members does wonders... Or when ending up in a team with a toxic player, just ignoring em or even leaving the game and finding another match rather than going on a loop of pointless arguments with them which only motivates them to repeat that same harmful behavior again. Being friendly can spread much easier and faster than being toxic, so even if only a handful of people put some effort into actually encouraging a better attitude, eventually more and more people will be motivated to do the same, and at the end of the day, everyone will prefer the enjoyable encounters they've had with nicer players to the unpleasant encounters they might have had with the toxic ones, and will try to get more of the better experiences on their future game sessions.

Though, I'm not denying that having a "governing body" overseeing the community (be it in form of ingame mods or guides or DE's community team) can have a considerable impact on the situation, but unless the majority of the community also work for it and try to enhance the player experience in the game, anything the guides or mods do will only have temporary impact on the game, and things will be back to how they previously were soon after, which would make their efforts go to waste.

tl;dr - Want a better community? Make it so yourself.

Edited August 18, 2017 by aerelm

[Sloan441]

Go check out some Blizzard forums.

After that, go check the Destiny forums.

We'll wait for you here...

Now. See if you can make the same post with a straight face.

I don't play on the PS4, so I really have no clue what goes on is the chat there. I'm betting it's not that different from PC. I have played Destiny and many Blizz games I and I recall quite well what goes on in their forums. WF is nothing like that, even when kids get rowdy in /chat on occasion. Also, there's an /ignore button. I use it quite frequently and it's amazing how decorum returns to region after a couple of strategic ignores.

[(XBOX)R3d P01nt]

25 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

Go check out some Blizzard forums.

After that, go check the Destiny forums.

We'll wait for you here...

Now. See if you can make the same post with a straight face.

I don't play on the PS4, so I really have no clue what goes on is the chat there. I'm betting it's not that different from PC. I have played Destiny and many Blizz games I and I recall quite well what goes on in their forums. WF is nothing like that, even when kids get rowdy in /chat on occasion. Also, there's an /ignore button. I use it quite frequently and it's amazing how decorum returns to region after a couple of strategic ignores.

"Those other places are worse" isn't the best defense of the place where we currently are.

I do like that we have an ignore function, and I use it as well.  It kinda doesn't solve the issue though, it only hides it from us.  That said, sometimes I just don't want to deal with it and the ignore function is brilliant for that.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

2 hours ago, (Xbox One)R3d P01nt said:

I do like that we have an ignore function, and I use it as well.

You are free to ignore people, but you shouldn't be allowed to permanently shut them up. There's a huge difference there that you're probably missing.

[(XBOX)dude1286]

The Xbox region chat feels more like a 9gag comment section, and it is glorious. Sometimes I spend hours trying to reply to other people in the most hilarious of ways. As long as you don't take most remarks seriously, region chat can make you laugh more than a great stand-up comedian. Region Chat is true endgame.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

32 minutes ago, (Xbox One)dude1286 said:

The Xbox region chat feels more like a 9gag comment section, and it is glorious. Sometimes I spend hours trying to reply to other people in the most hilarious of ways. As long as you don't take most remarks seriously, region chat can make you laugh more than a great stand-up comedian. Region Chat is true endgame.

this as well. 

The best way to blow a problem out of proportions is to forbid people from laughing at it. And laughing at a problem is the only way to leave it behind us someday for good. 

[Sloan441]

2 hours ago, (Xbox One)R3d P01nt said:

"Those other places are worse" isn't the best defense of the place where we currently are.

I'm just sayin'. It could be far, far worse. DE does keep a pretty tight rein on forms and even chat.

Again, I can't speak for the PS4--and it might very well need more mods--but for the most part things are pretty good here when it comes to game chat.

[Tsunero]

Dude, that's the internet for you, it will always be toxic no matter the community and game :D.

[Troll_Logic]

21 hours ago, (PS4)THREEKLAW said:

 In the past week I've seen racism, bigotry, trolls and hateful behavior like I've never seen before

I doubt that.  Dude, why not learn to live and let live.  Nothing said in chat threatens you and only offends you if you give them the power to offend you.

There are other threads in this forum about people who have been waiting a week for support and something tells me that reporting players because "you're offended" is helping bog down support.

Anyone who upsets your delicate nature, simply ignore.  We all know that such people are a tiny minority and if everyone ignores them, which takes all of two seconds, then you never see the problem again.

21 hours ago, (PS4)THREEKLAW said:

And I won't simply stand by and do nothing.  I will continue to ask for better for the community.

"Continuing to ask" is doing nothing.  Just ignore the people you don't like and the problem goes away.

[Andaius]

1 minute ago, Troll_Logic said:

I doubt that.  Dude, why not learn to live and let live.  Nothing said in chat threatens you and only offends you if you give them the power to offend you.

There are other threads in this forum about people who have been waiting a week for support and something tells me that reporting players because "you're offended" is helping bog down support.

Anyone who upsets your delicate nature, simply ignore.  We all know that such people are a tiny minority and if everyone ignores them, which takes all of two seconds, then you never see the problem again.

"Continuing to ask" is doing nothing.  Just ignore the people you don't like and the problem goes away.

I hate to feed the Troll here. (haha a moniker joke!) He has the right about it. Just ignore those guys. It's the internet, they are all over if you get offended so easily by random annoyms who knows where, I'd say grow some thicker skin.  Like he said they can only hurt you if you let them in this case. Your problem can litterally be solved with a push of a button. Thats what ignore is for after all.

 

[OvisCaedo]

Hm. More Guides of the Lotus before the PoE thing comes out and brings a flood of people who don't know or care about anything other than the phrase "open world" could be a good idea.

...Or maybe a futile one?

[DreamsmithJane]

36 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

You're mixing the concepts here. Freedom of speech is about being able to say whatever you want wherever you want, but the private owners (and governments or ideoloical groups) will often prosecute or just straight up use force against you to stop you from speaking your mind on their poperty (whatever they consider their property).

No, you're the one who's mixed up. Freedom of speech, as a legal concept, is in fact about the inability of the government to punish you for speaking your mind, and only that. It does not include having a right to be in private spaces (real or virtual) while you speak your mind, and you can rightfully be removed if the owners don't like what you're saying. They can't stop you from saying it, but they don't have to let you stay, and they don't have to associate with you. It also doesn't include having a right to encourage or incite crimes, or put people in danger with your words, as in the infamous example of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater to create panic. And bullying and harassment are crimes, not protected by "free speech".

You want to talk about "both sides"? One of those sides is going out of their way to make things unpleasant for other people, and the other side just wants to play a game without that toxicity. Government can't come in and silence those toxic people (unless they're inciting crimes or harassing people, and it can be proven), but DE absolutely can and should insist that they GTFO. Looking at any kind of violence, whether in the form of words or physical force, and insisting that the perpetrator has a "side" to be considered equally as valid as the victim, is repugnant.

51 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

You are free to ignore people, but you shouldn't be allowed to permanently shut them up. There's a huge difference there that you're probably missing.

And DE can't "permanently shut them up". But those people can and should be removed from the game, if that's how they're going to behave. They can mouth off somewhere else. Speech has consequences, like any action, and the concept of "free speech" does not protect anyone from them. There is nothing even a little bit wrong with having standards of behaviour in a community build on private property (i.e. DE's servers).

Some "free speech" advocates just aren't able to differentiate between one kind of speech and another. It offends them that it's possible for a person to be held criminally liable when the crime in question consisted of words, regardless of the nature or circumstances of those words. But that is just too bad, because we don't have to protect people who indulge in harassment, or hate speech, or threats, or anyone else who derives pleasure from causing other people distress. We don't, and DE doesn't. That is not protected "free speech", and these forums and in-game chat are not public spaces.

1 hour ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

You literally asking DE to create an echo chamber for people with the same opinion and ban anyone who disagrees.

See, this is what I'm talking about when I say some people can't or won't differentiate one type of speech from another. This has nothing to do with disagreement. Disagreement is a healthy thing to express. It allows differing points of view to be reconciled. Disagreement is not toxic. There are disagreements right here. But when you try to frame insults and hate speech as mere disagreement, that's when you've lost the thread.

So yeah, don't "both sides" this. Both sides are not equally valid. Spotting conflict and immediately responding "both sides!" is likely to find you defending some really awful people. People who largely cannot be debated, and would like nothing more than for us to waste time and energy trying to engage them under normal rules of civil discourse, while they ignore those rules and do as they please. Such people should be shunned and shut out, not given a platform to spread their influence.

And yes, this is about more than just Warframe.

5 minutes ago, Troll_Logic said:

"Continuing to ask" is doing nothing.  Just ignore the people you don't like and the problem goes away.

No, it doesn't. There's a reason I don't spend time in Region chat anymore. My ignore list continued to grow, until I was surrounded by toxic filth I just couldn't see, including some regulars. I could see others arguing against it, though. The "just ignore it" response has allowed toxic attitudes to propagate across many communities, because "it's just the Internet". It doesn't have to be this way, and we shouldn't let it.

[Chipputer]

4 hours ago, (Xbox One)R3d P01nt said:

If you want to complain about being called a bigot after saying bigoted things, then that's the price you pay for saying bigoted things and having other people exercise their right to criticize you with their own free speech.

Define, "bigoted things."

Do it without buzz words like racism, homophobia, islamophobia, transphobia, etc, etc.
Better yet, define each of those individual things because your definition of those things will probably prove that you're not calling actual bigots out.

[Troll_Logic]

27 minutes ago, DreamsmithJane said:

No, it doesn't.

It's actually doing less than nothing.  It's worse than doing nothing.

Let's go over two scenarios.

Scenario 1:

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

You see chat you don't like.  You ignore the guy.

Problem significantly lessens.  Sure, you'll eventually have to ignore more people, but it does work.

 

Scenarios 2:

You see chat you don't like.  You get mad in region chat and in real life and you engage in region chat.

Then you think "I'm going to protect others!" and you report the player.

The support ticket winds its way through the queue and DE may or may not do anything about it.  The person could have been been saying something hateful or saying something you just didn't like.

Meanwhile, the support queue is getting longer because more people are getting their feelings hurt in chat.

Now, that's ONE line of chat you didn't like.  

Not to mention, while all of this is going on, you're still reading the chats from that person.

Another person says something you don't like in chat.

And the process repeats itself.

 

27 minutes ago, DreamsmithJane said:

No, it doesn't. There's a reason I don't spend time in Region chat anymore. My ignore list continued to grow, until I was surrounded by toxic filth I just couldn't see, including some regulars. I could see others arguing against it, though. The "just ignore it" response has allowed toxic attitudes to propagate across many communities, because "it's just the Internet". It doesn't have to be this way, and we shouldn't let it.

What happens when you ignore someone?  He goes away completely.  You never hear from him again.

What happens when you report someone?  You hope that person goes away and you push the problem to someone else.

Surrounded by toxic filth?  Really?  That sounds like a huge exaggeration, but let's look at that.

This is you surrounded by toxic filth.

Filth  Filth  Filth

Filth  You   Filth

Filth  Filth  Filth

Simply right-clicking on the filth and selecting "Ignore player" you now look like this

 

         You

 

 

See how much better that is?  No more toxic filth IMMEDIATELY.  You're free and clear.

Don't worry about being the protector of everyone else on region chat.  Just worry about you and you'll never have to worry about it again.

 

Just ignore people that annoy you and your WF life and RL will be much better.

I do this as well.  I ignore anyone that annoys me.  Fast.  People who say song lyrics in region chat?  Ignored immediately.  They quote the lyrics so kickbot responds.  But they always get the lyrics wrong.  So they quote them again.  And again.  And again until kickbot responds.  Then other idiots do it as well.  It's a huge snowball that makes region chat spew like a waterfall.  Players who keep repeating the same line.  Sellers who ask 2k for a 50p mod.  Anyone who annoys me.  Just get them out of WF life and everything gets better.

 

Edited August 18, 2017 by Troll_Logic

[sulusdacor]

a lot of "selfish" systems that encourage "bad" player behaviour got added to the game over time. this bares fruit some day and changes the community.

a probably longer lasting step would be to look at those things and adjust/change them. certain games attract certain people and a special type of community. adding more competitive pvp like/selfish stuff will lead to more grief and envy between players not helping the community. if you/De want a long term fix. look at those things and fix them. more moderation will only be a short term thing.

fight on tenno.
 

Quote

 

edit: things i'm refering to for example:

- pvp like events/parts of the game like the index, valentine event

- things that focus on you the players fighting for yourself/collecting stuff even if only in pve (like traces in fissures, like the collectibeles in the index)

- heavily unequal rng based rewards, that are measured by "my number is bigger" (rivens)

- the basicly "removal" of solo prime parts farming. forcing solo players into public matches against there will

especially the fissure farming is a huge part of the endgame where players are conditioned to "you get your stuff done" over and over again. it's the little things that add up. things that you play normaly without doing any pvp at all. just going witht eh game collection stuff and farming. @Andaius

 

 

Edited August 18, 2017 by sulusdacor
clarification

[Andaius]

3 minutes ago, sulusdacor said:

a lot of "selfish" systems that encourage "bad" player behaviour got added to the game over time. this bares fruit some day and changes the community.

a probably longer lasting step would be to look at those things and adjust/change them. certain games attract certain people and a special type of community. adding more competitive pvp like/selfish stuff will lead to more grief and envy between players not helping the community. if you/De want a long term fix. look at those things and fix them. more moderation will only be a short term thing.

fight on tenno.

Well PvP conclave will never be a primary focus for warframe. Stats don't mean as much because of affinity sharing in missions. Warframe is a Co-op PvE game. Aside from Clan events there's not much pvp compitition in WF.