BuzzerBeater Forums

a GM has to take care is not t let things go wild

I'm not talking about moderation obviously. And I am not talking about measures that are taken correctly. I am talking about the possibility that a GM appears to take a particularly lenient action towards his countrymate (demonstrated by subsequent posts by him). I have no appeal for that and I feel like reporting, as it is, is not enough IF a GM from the same country as the reported will take up the case. We're back to square one. Therefore extend the rules for personal involvement (NOT for moderation, but for fines) to nationality of the GM.

Its not a case that a GM will risk his ''reputation'' or his position just to give an advance to a country mate in a forum discussion.

Frankly the reputation of some GMs emerged to be so low on the forums (nobody participating here of course) that I think there is no worth even discussing this. I just disagree. Just because your perception is this, it does not mean the users see things the same way you do.

Now in case that the ''foreign'' user believes that he didn't violated any rule or the forum violation of GM's country-mate is still there,he can defend himself by reporting the GM and the user. In this case the GM will not be able to handle the report as he is personally involved so someone else will take over.

BRAVO! Finally we're getting somewhere. As things stand now, I have no ground to report the GM because, according to the current policy, he did his job, he is not 'involved personally' as described by you, so he did nothing wrong. If the additional safeguard was in place (ie. the current policy was extended to the situations I described) and a GM still went ahead and ruled (once again I don't care about moderation) then I would have AUTOMATICALLY ground for reporting him.

If he still believes that justice was not applied he can appeal in the known e-mail address.

Here is the other problem: we users don't know what you did or didn't after we reported someone. We see the person reported continuing to offend others on the forums and we think nothing has been done. We also think that since a GM of the same country was involved that is the reason nothing has been done. You want us to report again? Sure, but if you are fined and the other clearly hasn't since he keeps posting, do you not see how this may look suspicious? In fact, I'm pretty sure you are aware that I did exactly that: I reported a GM for not doing his job to other GMs, fully knowing that I had no ground for it just because he let someone from his community have a free pass.

(who i'm almost sure received the same warning/fine)

Don't offend my intelligence. What is it with you folks? One lies about the number of posts the other also needs to lie about something? I had to report the user multiple times, since after the situation was dealt with by the GM he KEPT offending foreign people on their own forums, despite reports against him and a clear warning on the forums. Now, you can say this does not prove anything, however other members of staff believe that the GM acted correctly in NON sanctioning that user the first time, which actually proves beyond doubt no serious measures were taken and that you take me for an idiot.

At the end what is more important?

The most important thing about moderation is that mods appear to be fair in doing their job.

I ask again to you since there are plenty of GMs 'participating' here as if I am attacking them. What is the problem with extending the current rules of conflict of interest to when a person of your own community and a person of another community are involved? In particular if this happens in national forums of another community and not in global forums? Again NOT moderation, I don't really care about that, although others might have a problem since they believe some of you moderate to cover up evidence or don't understand the nuances of a foreign language

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/10/2016 5:31:55 AM

But honestly i dont see the big problem here at all since if you play by the rules you will never bee in trouble and have to use the appeals system.

Nickleon understands the problem better than anyone else, it seems. I think I clarified there.

I'm just saying what I'm asking is so minor (and I still haven't heard a single reason why it would be wrong to add it in, other than we are already covered by the current policy, which I disagree with) that I don't understand why there is so much hatred against this proposal.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/10/2016 4:14:47 AM

Damn, my initial reply was accidentally deleted...I'll have to be short:

The case that propelled you to start this thread was rightfully handled. And to think we are doing all this talking about three deleted messages that were rigthfully deleted is quite astonishing

If the case was rightfully handled then how come the foreign user posted additional offensive posts on our forums AFTER the situation was 'handled'? Maybe you want us to believe he did so after he was sanctioned and also ignoring a warning to everyone in the thread? Sure. Since you keep insisting and missing the point of the whole thread trying to make it personal, you should know better than anyone else that I know that the foreign user was not sanctioned in any way...

You see, I'd understand you trying to dig yourself out of this if you had swiftly moderated that thread, but since you were all quite slow we got to see ALL of the posts. I know exactly who said what and when, all of it.

The point is. If another GM decided on the sanctions, instead of the GM of that other nation it would be a lot cleaner and would not leave the suspicion that double standards are applied. Sure, it does not guarantee we will be treated fairly, but at least we know for sure the GM was not biased based on his nationality. It's already better than nothing.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/10/2016 4:53:24 AM

You either take my word for that this is how it happens or you believe in what ever scenario you want to paint up.
But the truth still remains the same.

You're saying I don't know what happened to me, what the posts contained and the conversations I've had with 3 different GMs? A fourth GM yesterday joined the email party, the more the merrier I suppose.

I'm sorry I think it's you coming short here. The situation is exactly as it is portrayed, nothing more and nothing less. GM acted selectively at his discretion.

If you chose to go down the same line as the one that started it all you are well aware of what may happen and you have made an active choice.

I never claimed that someone was 'wrongfully' fined. Nickleon understands the situation perfectly. For the last time, I started this proposal because I have an issue with GMs being too lenient towards other people involved, possibly because of their nationality.

And again if i read your posts in this thread it becomes clearer and clearer to me that the problem lies in your trust towards people and not much more.

This is possible, but if trust didn't play any part in 'moderating' we wouldn't be even talking.

Last post for me in this thread: unless someone answer my question (on why they think it would be a problem to explicitly extend the current policy to cover cases as described), I feel I said all I had to.

1. If you feel you've been wronged by a GM decision, you may appeal.
2. If you feel someone else should be punished, you may report them.
3. If you want to know if/how someone else was punished, as a rule that information is not divulged.

1. I've never found GMs decisions towards me particularly harsh. If anything, I thought in some cases they could have been much harsher. This does not apply to me.
2. That's fine, but I also don't want a GM to decide at his discretion when the situation involves only members of 2 communities, on national forums of one of these communities, if the GM belongs to any of these communities. If a GM goes ahead and does that, I want to be able to report him as well and have someone not involved take a look at the situation. However without a policy that states that GM shouldn't rule in such circumstances this is a moot point: I would be reporting a GM for doing something that is fine with the current policy, which makes no sense whatsoever.
3. I can understand that someone has not been punished if he continues to post offensive or demeaning messages...

Also to be perfectly clear, according to the rules, I should report both EGMs and every single GM in this thread, because, against the rules, they divulged information about a specific case, which is against the rules and common users do get fined and banned for it. They did so in order to claim I was just sour about the situation, instead of discussing the merit of the proposal. If this proposal makes no difference because this is what you already do, as some of you GMs claim, then you should just support this, since it should not change anything.

Anyway I'm done with this. I feel like I've said all I had to and now I'm talking to a wall.

Feel free to reply to any of the last messages and then lock the thread.

Last edited by Lemonshine at 3/10/2016 5:25:07 AM

User 1 broke the rules in the forum by answering ironically to User 2.

This alone is ridiculous. As you stated yourself, you are using irony/cynicism quite often - everybody should do so once in a while. So how can this be a case of breaking the rules in the first place.

User 1 broke the rules in the forum by answering ironically to User 2.

This alone is ridiculous. As you stated yourself, you are using irony/cynicism quite often - everybody should do so once in a while. So how can this be a case of breaking the rules in the first place.

Since we're giving some details, it was specifically in a transfer ads thread, which have the following notification at the beginning of every authorized transfer ads thread:

Special rules for players advertisements
- They are only allowed in the specific threads located in the national forums(this one). These threads can only be created by a staff member, if your country needs one or the old one is closed, ask a staff member to open a new one.
- Only one ad. per week is allowed. You may post as many players as you like in your ad.
- Local users may advertise any of their players that is listed for sale, foreign users may only advertise players who have the nationality of the forum country. Players should be on the roster of the user who lists them for sale on the transfer list.
-No values (TPE) requests or discussions about the players are allowed.

It's similar to the difference between discussions that are allowed to go on indefinitely in the global or suggestions forums, but that are not allowed and usually cut off quickly if they're in the Bugs forum.

2. That's fine, but I also don't want a GM to decide at his discretion when the situation involves only members of 2 communities, on national forums of one of these communities, if the GM belongs to any of these communities. If a GM goes ahead and does that, I want to be able to report him as well and have someone not involved take a look at the situation. However without a policy that states that GM shouldn't rule in such circumstances this is a moot point: I would be reporting a GM for doing something that is fine with the current policy, which makes no sense whatsoever.

I've read the bolded part numerous times now. I can't help but think you are suggesting that all national forums should be moderated by someone *not* of that nation, and then if someone from a nation who is moderating the forum sees a post from someone from his/her own country, (s)he must abandon moderating that thread and summon another GM from a third country.

We do often handle issues and reports from other countries' users and occasionally have to ask local GMs who are native speakers for advice on whether, for example, a team name or a message sent is offensive. But since those GMs are also part of those communities, there's still inherent bias possible.



Last edited by GM-Perpete at 3/10/2016 1:41:38 PM

I appreciate that but if you get people advertising their players directly on the English forums at massively inflated prices then people who have been playing the game for a little while are going to be a bit pissed off.

I'm not talking standard levels of inflation but 'literally every one that isn't a scrub listed at 1 million' kind of inflation.

Last edited by Manon at 3/10/2016 7:16:15 PM