Forums » Suggestions
(Response to OP, no we are not adding a forum vote-mute)
Why in the fuck have I not been muted?
We haven't done anything recently, because traditionally any major administrative action has only been taken by me (personally), and I'm really busy (especially this past year). I give people a certain amount of leeway to vent against me, when they're frustrated with the state of development; but I don't have a lot of patience with inter-player disputes that get out of hand.
I have told Whistler he's welcome to start thread-muting people.
But here's a few other points to keep in mind:
1) The RoC exists to give people direction of how to behave, and to give us a framework to point to for enforcement, when we should choose to take action. But, realistically, we're a 3-person game company, we don't have time or resources to be chasing people every second for every possible in-game RoC violation. Especially because people throw around "RoC" violations every other second.
2) Instead, we utilize the system on particular individuals when they cross a certain threshold (realistically, it's usually just a few individuals that are the problem). Being the individual who crosses that threshold is ill-advised.
3) Creating a problem of sufficient scale, then failing to change one's behaviour when asked, and then circumventing whatever mitigating systems we put in place (creating 20 accounts to avoid a mute), then further continuing to exacerbate the problem.. that paints you into a pretty bad corner. If things really decline.. it puts me into the uncomfortable position of having to protect the game/community from you, with very limited time and resources, just like you were any other spammer or DDoS attacker. And that pushes my back up against an unpleasant defensive wall, and precipitates an aggressive nuclear response, which goes way beyond game access or mechanics. Before starting a game company, I also created and ran the "abuse" department at a major tier-1/tier-2 internet provider; I'm intimately familiar with that world and the available options (on any continent, country, or legal framework), I just never want to employ that knowledge against anyone who actually cares about our game.
4) So, basically, if people tell you to dial it down, listen to them. If someone mutes you, don't circumvent it, just let it go. Saying that you're just going to keep behaving as badly as you want, forever, because you haven't seen enough of a response yet, is a very bad strategy, as by the time you do see a serious response, it may be one from which there is no coming back. We aren't Blizzard, we can't pay a zillion people to watch our forums or click on mute buttons, or keep telling you to "behave". Phaser and Whistler are volunteers, and they both pay for their accounts, because we're so small and poor we can't even give them free accounts for their time (embarrassing for me, as they both put in a lot of time, on a pretty thankless "job").
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So, to recap: We're a small indie, with no time or resources, working our butts off to build a huge game, and with only a couple of volunteers who try to keep an eye on the forums when they have time. If things get bad, we do react. We also have a ticket system for reporting particularly bad behaviour.
We do also try to talk to people individually, and give them the benefit of the doubt, because we're inclusive and want everyone who cares about the game to have a place here.. so our first response is not a ban-hammer, but a request to be nicer. We've been live for nearly 14 years, and in that time we've had a few bad situations between players, but mostly people have gotten along pretty well. Historically our "community" has been pretty great. If things are changing now, and people are turning nastier for some reason, then we'll evolve our response to meet that, albeit with some sadness.
Yes, any administrative action or response to "drama" takes time, because there's oversight involved to try and make sure we know what's going on, reading long threads and writing responses, etc. Any time taken is not applied towards forward development. Every ticket we read and respond to, every.. well.. forum post like this one. It all slows down the development of the game. Keep that in mind.
Try to be nicer, people. Dial down the personal jabs. Argue less, play the game more.
Why in the fuck have I not been muted?
We haven't done anything recently, because traditionally any major administrative action has only been taken by me (personally), and I'm really busy (especially this past year). I give people a certain amount of leeway to vent against me, when they're frustrated with the state of development; but I don't have a lot of patience with inter-player disputes that get out of hand.
I have told Whistler he's welcome to start thread-muting people.
But here's a few other points to keep in mind:
1) The RoC exists to give people direction of how to behave, and to give us a framework to point to for enforcement, when we should choose to take action. But, realistically, we're a 3-person game company, we don't have time or resources to be chasing people every second for every possible in-game RoC violation. Especially because people throw around "RoC" violations every other second.
2) Instead, we utilize the system on particular individuals when they cross a certain threshold (realistically, it's usually just a few individuals that are the problem). Being the individual who crosses that threshold is ill-advised.
3) Creating a problem of sufficient scale, then failing to change one's behaviour when asked, and then circumventing whatever mitigating systems we put in place (creating 20 accounts to avoid a mute), then further continuing to exacerbate the problem.. that paints you into a pretty bad corner. If things really decline.. it puts me into the uncomfortable position of having to protect the game/community from you, with very limited time and resources, just like you were any other spammer or DDoS attacker. And that pushes my back up against an unpleasant defensive wall, and precipitates an aggressive nuclear response, which goes way beyond game access or mechanics. Before starting a game company, I also created and ran the "abuse" department at a major tier-1/tier-2 internet provider; I'm intimately familiar with that world and the available options (on any continent, country, or legal framework), I just never want to employ that knowledge against anyone who actually cares about our game.
4) So, basically, if people tell you to dial it down, listen to them. If someone mutes you, don't circumvent it, just let it go. Saying that you're just going to keep behaving as badly as you want, forever, because you haven't seen enough of a response yet, is a very bad strategy, as by the time you do see a serious response, it may be one from which there is no coming back. We aren't Blizzard, we can't pay a zillion people to watch our forums or click on mute buttons, or keep telling you to "behave". Phaser and Whistler are volunteers, and they both pay for their accounts, because we're so small and poor we can't even give them free accounts for their time (embarrassing for me, as they both put in a lot of time, on a pretty thankless "job").
----------------
So, to recap: We're a small indie, with no time or resources, working our butts off to build a huge game, and with only a couple of volunteers who try to keep an eye on the forums when they have time. If things get bad, we do react. We also have a ticket system for reporting particularly bad behaviour.
We do also try to talk to people individually, and give them the benefit of the doubt, because we're inclusive and want everyone who cares about the game to have a place here.. so our first response is not a ban-hammer, but a request to be nicer. We've been live for nearly 14 years, and in that time we've had a few bad situations between players, but mostly people have gotten along pretty well. Historically our "community" has been pretty great. If things are changing now, and people are turning nastier for some reason, then we'll evolve our response to meet that, albeit with some sadness.
Yes, any administrative action or response to "drama" takes time, because there's oversight involved to try and make sure we know what's going on, reading long threads and writing responses, etc. Any time taken is not applied towards forward development. Every ticket we read and respond to, every.. well.. forum post like this one. It all slows down the development of the game. Keep that in mind.
Try to be nicer, people. Dial down the personal jabs. Argue less, play the game more.