Quote Originally Posted by Fawkes View Post
I can't say for sure, but I think our reps are lower on the totem pole, so to speak. They have less access to the devs and therefore less ability to answer questions and engage with the community.

And we have a lot of inane threads that probably drive them nuts. They'd have to wade through a lot of garbage to find things worth responding to. And any post they make is like a shining beacon on a thread that drives activity into it and probably gives them even more work to do.
Quote Originally Posted by Texa View Post
As for the community rep thing, I think people would get really angry if they attempted to manage things anymore than they already do. Knowing my fellow Americans people would start yelling censorship and nanny-state micromanagement. If people start completely flooding general with multiple thread about the same thing like the ping issue then yes we do need moderated thread consolidation. But generally people get ruffled about any minor change here for a few days and move on after a while.
Pretty much, these two things, too. Again, back when I worked as an in-game moderator, customer service rep and bug tester (it was kinda great trying to purposely make the game crash through legitimate means on a test servers ) for a completely different game (I absolutely need to state this every time before someone accuses me for posing as a staff member for FFXIV), there were lots of times were communication was an issue and we often did not have answers in timely fashions. When things don't get answered quickly or reasonably by some, flooding does tend to happen, especially if the community feels it's an important issue. This is then made further into an issue when the developers don't regard the situation as important, compounded with any foreign developers and having to wait on information to come as well as if releasing certain information is O.K.'d. Wading through the debris of what can be a disaster zone is not something that is appealing and often times information will come in the form as a completely different topic in a manner that does not address any one comment, but tries to be a cover-all of what will probably happen and the status of what is going on. Great example on our forums: Naoki Yoshida's Comment in Regard to Jump Potions Boost Potions

Again, going back to my days of moderating, I did also have the option of moderating the forums. I did not do this, and I had told my boss why, and he was pretty cool with it and understood. Basically, when we tried to interact with the forums often and speak with community on a regular basis (some people loved it because they felt they could talk with us directly), it became a cesspool of negativity because when you started to say things people don't like. Let's take disabling PvP chat as an example since this is still a hot topic for some, people resort to personally attacking. We had the option of stripping the ability to speak/post or simply banning the person, but sometimes that does compound the issue. Especially if the community, again, feels this is important, the poster has made some valid points (or not, I'm not being exclusive here), but said things in a way that violates the ToS or any "rights" the poster had, people tend to attack the staff as they feel they are justified and in the right.

There's a reason I don't moderate anymore. I won't ever moderate for anything I love. I can understand the grief the players put moderators through.

Basically, it's like working in retail. Once you work in retail, you understand what people that work that job go through. You try not to be that person who makes their day utterly miserable.