BuzzerBeater Forums

What to do?

More like: who to believe?

I think you'll need to remove me just to be safe, as long as we can operate with 9 GMs instead of 10.

Amazing, and here I thought pointless posts were supposed to be against the rules of conduct! I also thought GMs should indeed be leading by example and, if we agree with Perpete, we should trust you all to uphold the rules with integrity!

If I remove the comment that you are in a 2:1 minority even though obviously NO GMs has voted against in the poll would it prevent you from trying to derail the thread with more pointless posts?

Edit: I amended the other post so hopefully it will be enough to prevent this from happening again

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/8/2016 9:32:36 AM

What to do?

More like: who to believe?

I think you'll need to remove me just to be safe, as long as we can operate with 9 GMs instead of 10.

Amazing, and here I thought pointless posts were supposed to be against the rules of conduct! I also thought GMs should indeed be leading by example and, if we agree with Perpete, we should trust you all to uphold the rules with integrity!

The specific subsection you're probably referring to is:
"- Useless or irritating posts. This includes single syllable answers, trolling(*) and spamming."

I think levity is not useless. You may disagree, perhaps. I'm not in favor of overmoderating, only partially because of the extra work it might create for me. People should be encouraged to enjoy the forums, not run every post through some content analysis algorithm to see if it contributes some meaningful purpose to the game.

I suppose we could also be harsher on "irritating" or "trolling" posts. But it's also a judgment call. In nearly every case, there is very wide latitude given. There are certain places where the latitude does not extend - the bugs forum, transfer ad threads, election speech threads, etc., where the rules are specifically narrower and explicitly pointed out as being so. Threads that are being derailed far from the original intent and devolve into back and forth arguments generally have some moderation applied to try to nudge things back to the topic (and often, with an invitation to take the other topic to a more appropriate thread).

Now that you've had your fun of pointing out 'oh, my goodness, GM-hrudey dared to make a joke!', consider for a moment if you truly would prefer a scenario where every single non-topical post was deleted, and whether that would be best moved out of a thread that is essentially a complaint about GM action in the first place.

The thing that bothers me ia that there are many who talk here like they knew how things work behind the scene, but that really have no clue.
It's easy to complain though when things seems to be in a certain way.

The thing that bothers me is I have no clue how things work behind the scenes. Or as I would prefer to put it, the opaque curtain behind which GMs secretly decide secret punishments.

I also have no idea what punishments are given, or indeed what misdemeanours I may commit, since its never clear what's a problem and what is not, because, and this is the important part, I have seen posts deleted where I have said nothing wrong, merely because someone misunderstood me, reported me to a GM, who again misunderstood me, and then my post was wrongly deleted. An appeal over something so small wasn't even worth the time it would have taken, but if the "punishment" was wrong in that case, it can be wrong in other cases and would seem to indicate to me that there are some GMs who clearly shouldn't be in that position.

In other cases I've seen posts of mine deleted which weren't even as bad as some GMs have posted.

I have said this earlier in this thread and it seems as it needs repeating. A GM with any personal involvement should not and will not in the big majority of cases handle that said case.

I don't believe you could possibly always know which GM might have personal involvement in a particular issue, but even as you admit by saying "the big majority of cases" you seem to be admitting it does and has happened. Certainly I believe that part.

As for your line about the same people will handle the appeal as the one that handled the case to start with shows just how little you know of how it works.

What I said was

We should be confident in an appeals process conducted by the same group whose decision we would be appealing.

Not the same person, the same GROUP. And I have seen nothing in this thread to suggest otherwise.

That said, I agree with what you said here:

I believe there is far too much negative words going towards GM's.

That is why the process needs changing. Both the process and on rare occasions the conduct of some individuals merit some of those negative words.

Edited to add that I have no particular problem with the job that you or Perpete are doing, although Perpete tends too much toward sarcasm. I actually think you both are doing a good job.

Last edited by Mike Franks at 3/8/2016 3:04:01 PM

Well I have found that as long as you follow the rules of the game and the forum you're in no way near any GM punishment.
If you start going off topic a lot or trolling or use foul language often you may end up under a GM's looking-glass.
Most users will never have this happen though.
And the "punishment" should be scaled on how far you have stepped over the line. So again most users won't ever see big "punishments".

I don't really agree, but I've tried to make my point so won't repeat it.

What many seem to forget is that far from everyone has English as their first language so that someone reads a post in another way then was intended may not be very strange.

Since you've replied to me I'll assume you mean me. I can't say any more than that it is not the case. I'm well aware that not everyone's first language is English, and have said so in posts before. In fact, I have relatives whose first language isn't English. I find it insulting if that is your assumption about me. If not, then I apologise for saying so.

Then a small question to the negative once. How do you think this game would look like if we didn't have users that invested their own free time into keeping this game as fair as possible?

I'm not going to answer that as I never asked for the removal of GMs so its a pointless question.

I believe there is far to much negative words going towards GM's.

Possibly true, but I believe everything I type. And I don't post thoughtlessly.

If they weren't here we would see a lot of unfair things happening.

Fair enough.

That is true, but a bit or sarcasm is needed to keep doing that job voluntarily. That is why sometimes I may go a bit too far, but I try not to and went to the extent of not posting what I wrote or deleting some of my own messages.

Same applies for me as a user, but unfortunately "you guys" (as I don't see who constantly deletes my posts) go as far as necessary. I even discussed that with Ryan who seems to be the most reasonable official I met in years and still not much has changed.

I'm not in favor of overmoderating, only partially because of the extra work it might create for me. People should be encouraged to enjoy the forums, not run every post through some content analysis algorithm to see if it contributes some meaningful purpose to the game.

I suppose we could also be harsher on "irritating" or "trolling" posts. But it's also a judgment call. In nearly every case, there is very wide latitude given.

That preaching water and drinking wine. As usual, double standards are applied whenever it suits you best. Like Lemonshine said, there were absolutely abysmal GMs, who were lauded as the cream of the crop of the BB-universe, just because. A bit more reflection on behalf of the staff would be welcome. But as soon as somebody switches the side every critizism is treatened like a personal attack. You need to detach from that.

Then a small question to the negative once. How do you think this game would look like if we didn't have users that invested their own free time into keeping this game as fair as possible?

What if they invest their free time? They still have a duty towards everyone else, once they accept the job, and the rest of us deserve some assurances.

I counter your question and raise you with one of my own: what did you think would happen if you opened a global channel in the chat, as I proposed? I seem to remember some american GM saying it would be completely wild and unruly because it's not moderated. Now the Global channel is real: go and see if that's the scaremongering had any substance to it.

I understand you all have a very high opinion of yourselves, that's not the issue here. I have a problem that 20k other users need to believe you without knowing anything of how you operate and knowing that the only safeguard is an appeal system which is only available when the matter has already been ruled upon and is also handled by you.

Again tell me what is wrong specifically with having a policy that a different GM will take a look and make a decision. Because, you know, this is the topic of this thread and the nature of my suggestion. It's beyond me that both current and past GMs are repeatingly going off-topic because they feel somehow attacked when this is not about them, but about the rest of us 20k users. Let's all believe that all GMs do an amazing job and never make a mistake (I personally disagree as we all have our stories to tell): what would cost you to have a policy which says you need to step back when your actions could be seen as biased based on your nationality and/or the people involved?

"Yes, that is true. Let's do that". Interestingly enough, that is already the case. So like people would have to believe us with that change, they have to believe us that is already the case. Extending the "personal" part to not handling cases in relation with someone from the same country is foolish.

No it's not. My example, although not subtle was very clear. A GM is a member of a community and when 2 community clash on something, he should think that his actions are likely to be viewed as personal and should not get involved beyond moderating posts (if that).

Besides if you have these rules of conduct for you GMs, then wouldn't it be a good idea to reassure people that you have some rules of conduct to protect the regular users beyond appeals, that they are written, that you are held accountable by someone? Frankly I do not see the point of keeping this information secret to prevent cheating, but this is beyond the scope of my suggestion.

If someone wants to know why his OWN message has been deleted, feel free to send me a message and I'll give a look and an answer. Feeling that the decision was wrong doesn't mean the decision was wrong though. Keep also in mind that context matters. Repeat offenders will have a shorter leash (let's be honest here). Tense threads or strong reactions between some users will see actions from moderation while a joke or a misplaced sarcasm in an otherwise calm thread may have better chance of survival.

Note that in 1 year time you might be done with the game and the rest of us still here might have different GMs to deal with. Said people might not be as nice as you and might follow the rules to the letter. You fail to factor in that you personally do more for the community than it's required by your role (and yes there is praise in there somewhere), others might not be as nice.

However, if the rules state that you shouldn't get involved in a series of situations, then it's there, it's written, it applies to all the current 28 and whoever will come after.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/9/2016 4:12:32 AM