Feedback to the moderation team.

There's been a lot of threads disappearing lately.

Now we have the rules, so when someone is say very aggressive about their housing feedback, or posts staff members' Linked In profiles, or things like that... Yeah, that's pretty black and white, so I can't complain about those getting deleted.

But then I notice some other ones disappearing... like, say, a person honestly wondering if they should continue playing XIV.

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Posting seeking to damage or disparage Square Enix, the forum, FINAL FANTASY XIV, or others.
Posting content that seeks to interfere with the running of FINAL FANTASY XIV.
Posting content with the intention of criticizing either Square Enix staff or specific individuals.

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Now technically according to that, the moderation team can delete and banhammer anyone/anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows. And if someone's blatantly trolling, I can understand wanting to clean that up. And with how volatile things have been here lately, it's understandable to be weary of wading through such posts.

That said, I can't help but feel that a few recent deletions may have targeted posters with legitimate concerns or questions... that the community may be a bit sensitive to, but weren't trolls. I would ask the moderation team, therefor, for a little more leniency towards those posters.

Even if what is said is not necessarily 100% favorable towards Square Enix as a company, I think there's worthwhile discussion to be had... for the poster as a person, if not the game as a whole.

Thank you for your consideration.

you break the rules you break the rules.

SE isn't out to stop peoples opinions.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

you break the rules you break the rules.

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With all due respect, I don't think you've read the rules. Aside from what's already been mentioned, this is there:

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Taking any other actions that are deemed inappropriate by Square Enix in our sole discretion.

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Essentially, they can unilaterally decide anything is inappropriate. Exactly what is and isn't breaking the rules can be very unclear. Now there are a number of active and pretty blunt criticism threads right now (And I even started one :O )... but this just makes it even more confusing when some of the seemingly benign ones get deleted. I couldn't begin to guess what rule was broken.

Now the people that make, for example, a thread directly attacking a certain community rep or simply flaming everyone... it's not unclear why those were deleted. Making a thread like that, I agree, "you break the rules you break the rules."

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

With all due respect, I don't think you've read the rules. Aside from what's already been mentioned, this is there:

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so every rule has to be 100% specific? things aren't black and white.

a thread isn't deleted solely because of the first post it can be deleted cause of someone else's arguement in it.

when it comes down to it, se isn't just deleting threads because they don't want criticism or anyone to not agree on what they do.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

the moderation team can delete and banhammer anyone/anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows.

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And that is pretty much what they do.

The moderators are doing their best keep the troublemakers of the forums. Like the the one the other day where someone just wanted to come here and spew hatred against the LGBT community for no good reason. They took down that thread as they should. And when people start naming names and targetting individuals in game or on the forums those threads should be shut down.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

But then I notice some other ones disappearing... like, say, a person honestly wondering if they should continue playing XIV.

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If it was a legitimately thread that raises topics for discussion without turning it into a flame fest, then a lot of those are still here.

If you wanted to talk about the ones like last night/this morning, where the OP blatantly says they don't want to pay subs for this game anymore because there's better games out there, and then lashes out at anyone that says otherwise. Calling them narrow/closed minded and attention seeking when the whole thread was set up for attention(HAI GUIZ IM LEAVING)/flame fest. Yes, these should be deleted.

I would rather see thread locking then deleting.

Not sure if we are talking about the same one but there was a poster asking if anyone planned on playing WoW, and then started to ask for tips/help on what to look for in FFXIV to make it worth playing.

Technically once that happened ("help me decide why this game is worth playing over that other game") then it is more in line with the forums, but the initial post had nothing to do with FFXIV.. assured deletion. The threads that have lasted so long on the verge of nothing to do with ARR have only lasted so long because of low drama and mostly for good humor, otherwise bang bang banhammered.

Another common thing I see that happens is a thread starts out innocent or a bit heated (but not ban worthy) and then people inside the thread turn it into a subject that is unsalvageable, rather than spending hours trying to keep bits and pieces the whole thing goes. OR related to that they take the thread offline for a bit while they clean it out, and then it comes back up - I've seen that happen quite a few times.

Anyway, not trying to make a judgement call on if this thread is "right" or "wrong", I just wanted to offer some possible things that may have made it appear like wonton deletions (but were not). Maybe if we talked about particular threads that were deleted we could better discuss what happened, although that might lead to us getting in trouble if they were legitimately deleted lol!

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

so every rule has to be 100% specific? things aren't black and white.

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No. I understand why they wrote the rules they way they did.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

a thread isn't deleted solely because of the first post it can be deleted cause of someone else's arguement in it.

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That is a good point.

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Originally Posted by SkylerStorm

And that is pretty much what they do.

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Here I have to disagree. My perception, at least, is that if you keep it civil, criticism can be voiced. Most of the time.

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Originally Posted by Chihaya

If you wanted to talk about the ones like last night/this morning, where the OP blatantly says they don't want to pay subs for this game anymore because there's better games out there, and then lashes out at anyone that says otherwise. Calling them narrow/closed minded and attention seeking when the whole thread was set up for attention(HAI GUIZ IM LEAVING)/flame fest. Yes, these should be deleted.

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The one that comes to mind most recently did not have that; OP wasn't attacking anyone (though after the poster you describe, I can see the mod team being on a hair trigger about those).

But this isn't necessarily an issue just within the last day or two...

The rules are clear. They delete flame threads to avoid trash talk and toxic community and they do well. If I make a thread swearing or flaming or whatever trash talk then yes I deserve to be banned.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

snip!

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Different one. A thread that starts off discussing another game, I'm not surprised if it gets locked (or even deleted).

There's a lot of stuff that gets deleted though.

The thing that worries me the most is how they choose to delete threads over deleting posts or locking threads.

The case that worried me the most was this: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2347801

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Originally Posted by Enkrateia

With the weekend coming up, I won't be responding further to any questions. I hope I was able to provide some insight and clarity; I also know there's a bit of frustrating opaqueness that is a part of my responses as well.

I will be having GMs monitor the thread if it remains active. I'm sure there are discussions left to be had, so please remember to keep it civil and sometimes just accept that the best course of action is to agree to disagree. This will prevent the GMs from having to lock or remove the thread, the latter of which would remove any responses I could give for anyone else looking through the forums or as a point of reference.

LGM Enkrateia

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That thread hosts SE's first (and only) open statement regarding the hunt and their stance on resetting marks, yet they were willing to remove the thread if the discussion turned uncivil, when all they would have to do is remove those uncivil posts, or lock the thread it if things went too far. I feel like they should make use of the lock and post deletion features more often, thread deletion should be saved for the extreme cases.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Different one. A thread that starts off discussing another game, I'm not surprised if it gets locked (or even deleted).

There's a lot of stuff that gets deleted though.

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Ah ok, I have no idea what I'm talking about* :D

I will take my leave from this thread lol <3


*Although my suggestions on some threads appearing like deletions is a real occurrence, sometimes they go down for a bit while being cleaned out and come back later.

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Originally Posted by Riardon

The rules are clear. They delete flame threads to avoid trash talk and toxic community and they do well. If I make a thread swearing or flaming or whatever trash talk then yes I deserve to be banned.

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I agree with you 100%. Except that the rules aren't so clear. Yes, if you do those particular examples you'll get your post deleted and possibly banned. If you read my OP, you'll see I'm not talking about those kinds of threads.

Well it's a private forum, however, it's plain to see those rules are not enforced, from what I have seen again and again, anyways.

While Square can delete threads from people that give constructive criticism if they really wanted to, it would obviously lead to bad relations with the consumer. Like any other forum, mods and admins can lock and delete threads as they see fit. When a thread gets out of control with massive amounts of flaming from multiple parties or whatever, it's usually better to lock/delete threads and inform the offending parties why what they did was wrong while at the same time, everyone else can start over in a clean slate without grievances from the previous thread. Simply deleting offending posts can be very time consuming for a single moderator to do (and they have many other reports to go over in a given day) and a deleted post will usually just result in "OMG WHY YOU CENSORING ME!?", which then results in THAT post being deleted, ad infinity.

Couldn't disagree more. This is one of the most lenient forums I've been on. Blatant troll posts are allowed to stay up for hours and investigations only seem to be carried out when sufficient number of people report them. There seems to be little to no policing on the boards by the mods. Contrast that with wildstar where i quit posts are either locked or deleted and they have a consolidated thread where players can air their grievances. This frees up a lot of clutter. It's also important to note that just because a thread is worded in polite discourse does not exempt it from being inappropriate if the intent is to stir up trouble.

The best example is the housing debacle where certain self important people thought they had to create a new thread even though the front page was literally filled with the same thing. They should have consolidated all complains into a mega housing thread and
gave out warnings to those who continously flouted the rules.

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Originally Posted by Riardon

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I don't even wanna post on forums anymore due to the fact Trolls can report your old post that have anything to do with talking down to a member of the forums and getting you banned.

So basically if I go dig up one of your old topics of you talking down to someone or disagreeing starting a scene i can get you banned just by reporting it.
Even if you have a difference of opinion or you don't like something that is supposed to be shaming someone even if you cuss.
If you think your post is good and you think it's not a bad one it's still bad.

It happened to me someone dug up a 9 month old post from 2013 and I got a email like on it about 4 days ago saying my account will be terminated if I keep it up a post I don't really remember it doesn't even matter if the post was from 2-3 years ago they can still report it that is crappy.

The rules need to be tweaked a bit because I can see this going in a bad direction and I don't wanna post on here anymore if that is the case.

Sooner or later some little mad troll kids are gonna try it and get everyone banned just because its funny and don't say it can't happen it's the internet they've done it on youtube and they do it on other sites this is no different.

Also saying peoples names, if they didn't want that why is everyone's name under their avatar?

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Originally Posted by skaterger

Couldn't disagree more. This is one of the most lenient forums I've been on. Blatant troll posts are allowed to stay up for hours and investigations only seem to be carried out when sufficient number of people report them. There seems to be little to no policing on the boards by the mods.

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Once you've been banned, there's no way to appeal it, or anything.
My problem is, if I got banned or have a question for the Mods, there is NO way in hell to contact them. I've tried too via SE contact. They couldn't do anything.
People seriously are extremely sensitive on these forums imo. You don't even get a warning; you either get a 10 day or a perm ban.
I guess they find it easier to delete the topic as a whole, since whoever is acting up, they have to delete so and so's quote too
and whoever else's quote and sift through posts...so...easier to just nuke it all lol.


@HeroSamson.
I got banned because I reported this guy who was cursing me out and downing me like no ones business, and I have never
seen him again so I'm sure he got banned, turns around and gets me banned lol for saying the A word.
Tons of people say the A word or talk about how bad people are in DF or in-game and I get banned for it, funny stuff lol.
I still have the e-mail of why I got it too.

They are providing a service, they can manage it however they want.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

@HeroSamson.
I got banned because I reported this guy who was cursing me out and downing me like no ones business, and I have never
seen him again so I'm sure he got banned, turns around and gets me banned lol for saying the A word.
Tons of people say the A word or talk about how bad people are in DF or in-game and I get banned for it, funny stuff lol.
I still have the e-mail of why I got it too.

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Trust me I know, Why I said the rules need to be changed or tweaked.
They could pull old topics from years ago if they can pull a 9 month one on me from 2013 they can do it to someone else.

People could lie and say the post was about them just to get the person in trouble, you get banned from someone you don't even know or even met?
That's why its just best to avoid forums now till something is done anyways peace out.