This is a serious problem.

[rune_me]

1 minute ago, Sitchrea said:

 

There's a bit more to it, though. A mod was caught boasting about having influenced DE (with the help of other mods) to get anyone who said the words trap or gay auto-banned. This post was later deleted when it became incriminating. 

See the issue, here? This is just one of many examples of moderators being corrupt.

Moderators are expected to give advice and feedback. That is not them being corrupt, that is them doing what they are recruited to do. Just because you don't agree with the advice they give, doesn't make them corrupt. DE clearly did agree, or they would of course have ignored it.

[Sitchrea]

1 minute ago, Letter13 said:

An hour long video full of commentary and speculative statements is not condensed nor concise.

I know I said it several pages back, Letter, but the video is not speculative. it poses possibilities, but does not neccessarily state them as fact. PsyCo is very good about presenting the information, but is obviously displeased with how moderators are held to their actions. As are many of us.

[Sitchrea]

Just now, rune_me said:

Moderators are expected to give advice and feedback. That is not them being corrupt, that is them doing what they are recruited to do. Just because you don't agree with the advice they give, doesn't make them corrupt. DE clearly did agree, or they would of course have ignored it.

You haven't watched the video. This is more than convincing - it's manipulating. And even if they didn't actually manipulate DE into their agenda, the fact they have an agenda in the first place is cause for concern.

[Letter13]

Just now, Sitchrea said:

There's a bit more to it, though. A mod was caught boasting about having influenced DE (with the help of other mods) to get anyone who said the words trap or gay auto-banned. This post was later deleted when it became incriminating. 

See the issue, here? This is just one of many examples of moderators being corrupt.

The post wasn't hidden in order to 'bury' evidence. It was actually the opposite. Most chat moderators do not have forum moderation permission and cannot hide/unhide posts like forum moderators can. We may hide a post because it violates the rules, or we may hide a post because it contains information that we need a DE staff member to review and we don't want the poster in question to be able to edit out otherwise incriminating information--in such cases we hide posts to preserve information for review.

Just now, Sitchrea said:

I know I said it several pages back, Letter, but the video is not speculative. it poses possibilities, but does not neccessarily state them as fact. PsyCo is very good about presenting the information, but is obviously displeased with how moderators are held to their actions. As are many of us.

Still, it would have been much more helpful if it were presented as text.

[Court_Joker]

1 minute ago, rune_me said:

Of course. That is what they are there for. They advice. But it is entirely up to DE to decide whether to listen to that advice or not. If something gets added to the bot, a word or a phrase, it is the result of actual staff, not moderators, making a conscious and deliberate choice to add it.

Yes, but if we think that they are giving poor advice, is it not our duty to tell DE? If we think they're wrong, why should we remain silent? I'll concede that the forums are likely not the best place.

[Sitchrea]

Just now, Letter13 said:

The post wasn't hidden in order to 'bury' evidence. It was actually the opposite. Most chat moderators do not have forum moderation permission and cannot hide/unhide posts like forum moderators can. We may hide a post because it violates the rules, or we may hide a post because it contains information that we need a DE staff member to review and we don't want the poster in question to be able to edit out otherwise incriminating information--in such cases we hide posts to preserve information for review.\

Letter, this wasn't on the Forums. It was on their own personal blog.

[OniDax]

6 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

The post wasn't hidden in order to 'bury' evidence. It was actually the opposite. Most chat moderators do not have forum moderation permission and cannot hide/unhide posts like forum moderators can. We may hide a post because it violates the rules, or we may hide a post because it contains information that we need a DE staff member to review and we don't want the poster in question to be able to edit out otherwise incriminating information--in such cases we hide posts to preserve information for review.

Still, it would have been much more helpful if it were presented as text.

Unless I'm mistaken, he's talking about their Tumblr post, which is where the boasting took place. I'm sure you're very busy, but that's why you should watch the video. I'm not sure you're actually aware of what people are talking about here. These individuals actually boasted about getting DE to change the chat filter, and they boasted about angering people with their actions. These are the same chat mods who have hateful usernames and have used their mod position to call players idiots. My issue isn't even that they influenced DE to change the chat filter. It's the way in which they talk about the community that is problematic, and the other behavior that these chat mods have engaged in that is problematic.

Edited May 31, 2018 by A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n

[DeMonkey]

2 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

Were these moderators actual employees who were paid and bound by a contract of employment, definitely such an agreement should exist. However as all of the moderators are volunteers, DE can remove their moderation privileges at any time for any reason (or even without reason) as they wish. Most companies with 'social media agreements' for employees use them because it may be otherwise illegal to fire an employee for posting media outside of the work environment--it allows companies to legally fire someone without risk of being sued for violating freedom of speech, labor laws (firing for an invalid reason), etc... but this is a non issue for DE and moderators as previously mentioned about it being a volunteer process.

Ah, fair enough.

However is it not something that could be considered a good idea?

You mentioned a NDA earlier. If a legal agreement such as a NDA can apply to moderators surely there's a way to work this in?

I can't see any downside really to such an agreement, especially given the current situation, because whilst moderators aren't employed contractually they still represent the company.

Again, not wanting to provide an opinion on this because I simply don't know the full situation, but if steps can be taken to ensure that moderators are posting responsibly and are protected for posting responsibly, then I'm all for it.

[rune_me]

1 minute ago, Sitchrea said:

You haven't watched the video. This is more than convincing - it's manipulating. And even if they didn't actually manipulate DE into their agenda, the fact they have an agenda in the first place is cause for concern.

No it's not. Everyone has an agenda. DE has an agenda as well. The people trying to change the bot has an agenda. Everyone has an agenda, that should not be surprising.

1 minute ago, Goombpaler said:

Yes, but if we think that they are giving poor advice, is it not our duty to tell DE? If we think they're wrong, why should we remain silent? I'll concede that the forums are likely not the best place.

Of course. That has already been done. Many times. But it is not up to you or me to decide what will happen to them. Just because you think the advice is poor advice, doesn't mean DE agrees with you. Maybe they think it's great advice. Which is perfectly within their right to think.

[Letter13]

2 minutes ago, Sitchrea said:

Letter, this wasn't on the Forums. It was on their own personal blog.

Huh. I might be thinking of a different post then... There was a similarly natured post on the forums at one point over the last few weeks.

[Sitchrea]

3 minutes ago, DeMonkey said:

Ah, fair enough.

However is it not something that could be considered a good idea?

You mentioned a NDA earlier. If a legal agreement such as a NDA can apply to moderators surely there's a way to work this in?

I can't see any downside really to such an agreement, especially given the current situation, because whilst moderators aren't employed contractually they still represent the company.

Again, not wanting to provide an opinion on this because I simply don't know the full situation, but if steps can be taken to ensure that moderators are posting responsibly and are protected for posting responsibly, then I'm all for it.

^This^

A contract gives people boundaries. Without boundaries people can do things which can get them in a lot of heat, which we're seeing now.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Sitchrea
Spelling

[Sitchrea]

2 minutes ago, rune_me said:

No it's not. Everyone has an agenda. DE has an agenda as well. The people trying to change the bot has an agenda. Everyone has an agenda, that should not be surprising.

Of course. That has already been done. Many times. But it is not up to you or me to decide what will happen to them. Just because you think the advice is poor advice, doesn't mean DE agrees with you. Maybe they think it's great advice. Which is perfectly within their right to think.

Once again, this isn't a witch hunt. We don't want anything specific to happen to specific people. We just want DE to tell us they're doing something to remedy the situation. once they put something in place, then we'll critique the specifics. But right now we have nothing but silence... And silence is supportive.

[Noctis_The_Buckethead]

@Letter13 Was my post taken down automaticly? or by you? (completely understandable if it has to do with listing various movements and i should have been more vague) But my point still stands, Mods should be chosen more selectively than CERTAIN ONES (not you, or most of the mods, just a few certain ones)

(Like ones that try to get the word <Y A G< banned from chat, or words that have common uses other than as insults, or ones that try to push political or Social ideologies)

Edited May 31, 2018 by eyf101
Elaboration,

[Court_Joker]

Just now, rune_me said:

No it's not. Everyone has an agenda. DE has an agenda as well. The people trying to change the bot has an agenda. Everyone has an agenda, that should not be surprising.

Of course. That has already been done. Many times. But it is not up to you or me to decide what will happen to them. Just because you think the advice is poor advice, doesn't mean DE agrees with you. Maybe they think it's great advice. Which is perfectly within their right to think.

I'm not saying it's not in their right, I'm just saying that they should listen to the community opinions. At the end of the day, the moderators are meant to appease the people. If they fail at that, they shouldn't be in that position.

I'm going to stop replying for now. I'm tired, and it's 11pm

[OniDax]

1 minute ago, Sitchrea said:

Once again, this isn't a witch hunt. We don't want anything specific to happen to specific people. We just want DE to tell us they're doing something to remedy the situation. once they put something in place, then we'll critique the specifics. But right now we have nothing but silence... And silence is supportive.

My main thing is this: I fully understand and respect DE's choice to ban whatever words they deem fit. But I want to know which words those are, specifically because they're common words a lot of the time. DE talks much about their rules and their ruleset, yet they won't actually reveal what those rules are. It doesn't actually help players when they don't know which words and phrases are banned. All it does is ensures that players will say the wrong thing and get punished. DE talked about wanting to be more transparent. Well, they need to be more transparent in this area.

[Lord-Taco-the-Great]

14 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

An hour long video full of commentary and speculative statements is not condensed nor concise.

To be fair, a lot of it isn't even speculative. Yes, their is speculation, but there are logs and other things that bring to light certain problems with the mods. For example, certain mods have a bias against the playerbase, which is not very healthy. Secondly, there is a clear double standard being set by DE. Yes, they may remove whoever they like for whatever reason, but that does not necessarily make their decision in the right, and it does not disprove that there is a double standard being set.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Lord-Taco-the-Great
Moving my last comment to a new post

[Lord-Taco-the-Great]

I also ask my fellow forumers to try to talk about this as peacefully as possible, as hatred only leads to more hatred. The only way things will change is if we act like adults, and talk about things maturely, otherwise this will just be another locked thread.

[Eldnacpeek]

3 hours ago, Lord-Taco-the-Great said:

otherwise this will just be another locked thread.

 

I consider that an inevitability. It seems no matter how far a discussion goes, the very nature of the subject is enough to warrant a lock, which is not good at all.

[rune_me]

6 minutes ago, Sitchrea said:

Once again, this isn't a witch hunt. We don't want anything specific to happen to specific people. We just want DE to tell us they're doing something to remedy the situation. once they put something in place, then we'll critique the specifics. But right now we have nothing but silence... And silence is supportive.

So? We can assume they're supportive. Like I said, they are allowed to be.

[Letter13]

1 minute ago, DeMonkey said:

Ah, fair enough.

However is it not something that could be considered a good idea?

You mentioned a NDA earlier. If a legal agreement such as a NDA can apply to moderators surely there's a way to work this in?

I can't see any downside really to such an agreement, especially given the current situation, because whilst moderators aren't employed contractually they still represent the company.

Again, not wanting to provide an opinion on this because I simply don't know the full situation, but if steps can be taken to ensure that moderators are posting responsibly and are protected for posting responsibly, then I'm all for it.

NDAs are functionally different; basically it gives DE legal grounds to file lawsuits against volunteers (like me) were we to ever disclose information that's considered proprietary that could damage the company.

Social Media Agreements, while similar to NDAs in that they exist to protect the issuing company, do very different things. Social Media Agreements can override previous legal protections afforded to workers to prevent them from being fired while NDAs do not override previous legal protections.

3 minutes ago, Sitchrea said:

^This^

A contract gives people boundaries. Without boundaries people can do things which can get them in a lot of heat, which we're seeing now.

The 'contract' for moderators, in its current state, boils down to "If you do something we don't like, we're going to terminate your privileges."

The reason why there isn't an actual contract (NDA aside), is because we're volunteers. Volunteers have privileges, while employees have rights. We  volunteers have no legal protections for our privileges, unlike employees who have legal protections (worker/labor rights) to protect them from things like unlawful termination (which can be overridden by social media agreements, as the employee is acknowledging that they waive their right to take legal action against the company for firing them based on what they post on social media).

[Cibyllae]

1 hour ago, rune_me said:

1 hour ago, Cibyllae said:

And in the end the employer will face the consequences of not handling customer relations properly.

In a perfect world, maybe. In the real world, the customers would go on Facebook (or in this case the forums), write an angry post, get a couple of thousand likes, get everyone to swear they will boycott the employer, and then two weeks later, everyone will have forgotten all about it. 'Coz it's easier to talk the talk on the internet than it is to actually walk the walk in real life. 

The grand canyon started with a crack friend, and right about now the singing of the canaries is getting pretty quiet.

[-.SP.-G43riel]

14 minutes ago, Letter13 said:

Still, it would have been much more helpful if it were presented as text.

It could be arranged, a longfull text if that would be better, probably worse

[Sitchrea]

3 minutes ago, A-p-o-l-l-y-o-n said:

My main thing is this: I fully understand and respect DE's choice to ban whatever words they deem fit. But I want to know which words those are, specifically because they're common words a lot of the time. DE talks much about their rules and their ruleset, yet they won't actually reveal what those rules are. It doesn't actually help players when they don't know which words and phrases are banned. All it does is ensures that players will say the wrong thing and get punished. DE talked about wanting to be more transparent. Well, they need to be more transparent in this area.

^This^

What's even worse about this is the auto-ban. What if a player is actually from Niger? What if someone is actually openly gay? Are they not allowed to say their identities because it will offend someone?

Why should we suffer because of someone else's offense?

My point here being we have no way of knowing what, when, and for how long we will be banned. In fact, why the heck are we banned in the first place? Seems awfully draconian to me to be punished for something you don't even know is against the rules.

[Letter13]

7 minutes ago, eyf101 said:

@Letter13 Was my post taken down automaticly? or by you? (completely understandable if it has to do with listing various movements and i should have been more vague) But my point still stands, Mods should be chosen more selectively than CERTAIN ONES (not you, or most of the mods, just a few certain ones)

(Like ones that try to get the word <Y A G< banned from chat, or words that have common uses other than as insults, or ones that try to push political or Social ideologies)

Posts aimed to rile, incense or otherwise provoke people are not condoned. It also added nothing constructive to the conversation at hand, it was a "Let's see a show of hands!" post. This is why it was removed. 

[Vistha-Kai]

4 hours ago, rune_me said:

- "If you have a problem with a moderator, report that moderator via support. We will not air our dirty laundry publicly on the forum and naming and shaming will get your threads deleted" (yours will be gone in a couple of minutes, I predict, since you did just that.)

Except the Support instantly locks down such tickets without any response let alone an inquiry to get more details.