We need a community rep that interacts with the community

[Kallera]

The lack of explanation is kind of tricky. If a thread is deleted, it's no longer there for them to post an explanation as to why it's been deleted...

That is why mods used to lock the thread first, which had been done in the past.

[kikix12]

That is why mods used to lock the thread first, which had been done in the past.

Locking prevents further escalation in the given thread. It does not prevent escalation in new threads, and believe me...a particularly heated response WILL get players to post "I wanted to post this volatile stuff in the original thread, but it was locked, so I'll bash the poster X in this new thread" threads. All over the place.

If a thread will be deleted...well, not only is the offensive content (when it is offensive) out of sight, out of mind, as they say...but people are going to be far, far less likely to make references to it...thus they won't post threads "Hey, I've been having a flame war in thread X, but it no longer exists, so here's my response to something that you can no longer read.".

Basically, deletion is done when a thread does more bad than good and simple post deletion won't change much (or large chunk of posts would need to be deleted). And believe me...a swamp of threads about the exact same topic ALREADY does more bad than good, let alone what kinda stuff can be found in some of them.

[Kallera]

If your only goal is to silence people, then yes, deleting threads without any word sounds like a wonderful idea.


But that is not a goal a community should want to endorse. Take a look at the popular threads and Dev Tracker and ask yourself if those are really accurate representation of what people are talking about right now. Some of those 3 threads haven't even been posted this year, and the dev tracker looks even more out of place.

[KaivaC]

Locking prevents further escalation in the given thread. It does not prevent escalation in new threads, and believe me...a particularly heated response WILL get players to post "I wanted to post this volatile stuff in the original thread, but it was locked, so I'll bash the poster X in this new thread" threads. All over the place.

If a thread will be deleted...well, not only is the offensive content (when it is offensive) out of sight, out of mind, as they say...but people are going to be far, far less likely to make references to it...thus they won't post threads "Hey, I've been having a flame war in thread X, but it no longer exists, so here's my response to something that you can no longer read.".

Basically, deletion is done when a thread does more bad than good and simple post deletion won't change much (or large chunk of posts would need to be deleted). And believe me...a swamp of threads about the exact same topic ALREADY does more bad than good, let alone what kinda stuff can be found in some of them.

That wasn't the case with the Eureka threads, save for Pyros. It certainly wasn't the case with housing either. People are going to vent however they need to, and deleting a thread is not the right way to go about it. It could be encouraged by the mods to keep all related criticism and concerns into a megathread - but that would require the mods actually communicate in the first place. And no, just having forum rules pinned somewhere is not adequate. When you have a hot topic that frustrates posters, they're going to speak up. Getting rid of it doesn't make those complaints less valid just because some people feel it does more bad than good. Posters are rightfully upset about some things that have happened, and the basic lack of decent acknowledgement that our worries have even a little bit of merit is flat out frustrating to see.

And in spite of what you and another poster said, advocating for reporting people just for stating their opinion on content in a manner that honestly is not offensive in nature is not the right way to go about handling things.

[Hyperia]

At the last Fanfest, Yoshi said that he has the top 10 threads each week translated so they can review them so we are being heard.

But yes, I agree that the NA CMs are rather rare, I tend to see a lot more action out of the EU staff than the NA staff. If you go to the JP forums, you will see so many little crown responses it will make your head spin.

[Iscah]

If a thread will be deleted...well, not only is the offensive content (when it is offensive) out of sight, out of mind, as they say...but people are going to be far, far less likely to make references to it...thus they won't post threads "Hey, I've been having a flame war in thread X, but it no longer exists, so here's my response to something that you can no longer read.".

Basically, deletion is done when a thread does more bad than good and simple post deletion won't change much (or large chunk of posts would need to be deleted). And believe me...a swamp of threads about the exact same topic ALREADY does more bad than good, let alone what kinda stuff can be found in some of them.

I would take a guess that mods might also be quicker to delete one thread that's turned nasty if there are multiple threads on that topic - even more so if the same actual debate-arguments are being posted in both places.

[Penthea]

At the last Fanfest, Yoshi said that he has the top 10 threads each week translated so they can review them so we are being heard.

But yes, I agree that the NA CMs are rather rare, I tend to see a lot more action out of the EU staff than the NA staff. If you go to the JP forums, you will see so many little crown responses it will make your head spin.

You should separate the staff by language instead of region. A large amount of EU players play the english client of the game and don't read the french or german forums. Might seem a tad pedantic to say this, but I don't want people to be under the impression that all EU players benefit from the extra CM activity on the french and german forums.

[Reinha]

You should separate the staff by language instead of region. A large amount of EU players play the english client of the game and don't read the french or german forums. Might seem a tad pedantic to say this, but I don't want people to be under the impression that all EU players benefit from the extra CM activity on the french and german forums.

I agree. This is the English language forum, not the NA forum. More people in the EU region understand English than they do German or French. To put it into perspective, Canada has a higher percentage of French speakers than the EU. For some reason the French forum is never referred to as the Canadian forum.

Regarding the topic it would be nice to have more direct communication with the staff. When we have to get tickets to an event in another country in order to ask questions or upvote posts in specific threads to get them translated and delivered to the devs more or less intact, it doesn't feel like the OF has any purpose other than discussions with other players.

[kikix12]

If your only goal is to silence people, then yes, deleting threads without any word sounds like a wonderful idea.

Deleting threads is not done to silence people but to remove violations and flaming! That's what my entire post was about, so how did you get the idea of it saying that it's to silence valid concerns!

Deleting anything won't silence people. But it will make people reflect on what they wrote and 'just in case' post their complaints in a toned down manner, possibly in a different thread that ALREADY exists instead of making a new one.

But that is not a goal a community should want to endorse.

First and foremost the community should endorse actually paying attention when reading in each other. That'd remove majority of arguments right off the bat.

And without those stupid arguments based on someones inability or unwillingness to read correctly, communications from the developers and community managers would have much lower risk of backfiring, making them far more likely.

As for your talk about dev tracker and what not...just read my previous post. I won't waste time repeating myself.

People are going to vent however they need to, and deleting a thread is not the right way to go about it.

Like above, there is nothing wrong with complaints. But there's a difference between a 'constructive criticism' and 'senseless bashing'. Deleting a post is a localized countermeasure against localized drivel like that, deleting a thread is a nuke when the tread as a whole is the problem.

Just look at the forum. There are numerous criticizing threads. They're not removed because they manage to not cross the border. If a thread was deleted then it clearly means they were somehow different from the ones that were not removed, in a negative way.

It could be encouraged by the mods to keep all related criticism and concerns into a megathread - but that would require the mods actually communicate in the first place. And no, just having forum rules pinned somewhere is not adequate.

That's the problem. You think that you have the right to decide what's adequate and what's not because you think you somehow are some sort of oracle on what people should do with their property.

Forum rules being publicly available IS adequate. IT IS VERY MUCH ENOUGH! If you went to, say, Saudi Arabia and drunk alcohol in public, you have only yourself to blame if you end up being executed. It's YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to learn what is allowed on another persons property! Stop making excuses for lazy, inconsiderate, egoistical, self-centered people!

And in spite of what you and another poster said, advocating for reporting people just for stating their opinion on content in a manner that honestly is not offensive in nature is not the right way to go about handling things.

I didn't advocate any reporting. All I said was that moderators would need to be far less lenient and far more active in enforcing the existing rules if the community managers would actually interact with people on forums. And even then, stop taking things out of thin air. No one said anything about reporting people for opinions, sans you and possibly people that side with you.

And yes, I've grown rather irked here so I won't post beyond this on this thread. Suit yourselves.

[Tiraelina]

We used to get a lot more feedback.

You know those people with the housing comment in their signatures? The ones who can't let go anytime the devs change something that's planned or something doesn't get implemented?

Yeah, that's why we don't get that anymore.

No. We didn't get a lot more feedback before, it was all cross posts just like it is now. That's been about as unchanging as the content release schedule after ARR came out.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... after 2 years of asking about the status of the male bunny outfit and not asking actual questions of the game or story when presented to the NA player-base, I can definitely say I am actually embarrassed to be part of this side of the community.

Yes, it's all the community's fault. It couldn't possibly be that they hand pick every question and aim for the most meaningless non-answers they can find. This is the same as trying to portray the forum as some kind of indecisive hive mind instead of individuals like they are.