Suspended for Otter Nonsense

[HyoMinPark]

I already made one post in here about this—I just wanted to add something else. And it’s a bit more...personal, is the word I think I’m looking for here.


I’m honestly very hesitant to post specifics here, because I just got my own temporary suspension lifted (that was due to this incident) and I don’t want to further risk my forum account—because I really do like posting here, and I have met a lot of people that I’m now friends with through these forums. However, I still wanted to say something since it’s clear that I wasn’t the only one affected by this. I just hope I don’t get bit again, to be honest...I’m really nervous to post this lol. And that’s a first for me, really. My post is not meant to be any kind of attack against this forum or their moderation team. I want to disclose that first and foremost. Mostly, it is just a collection of my thoughts regarding this matter—written down as I try to work through them.


The thread in and of itself was being actively monitored by moderators, I was aware of that before any post involving otters was made. There were posters in the thread that had asked for it to be locked by the moderators because it had long since devolved past the point of constructive discourse, but the moderators chose to not lock it. I honestly do not understand this decision; but, like Joven, I am not a moderator of these forums, so I don’t really know how things are run around here with regards to things like that. However, I have moderated a forum in the past, and we always chose to:
—drop in to let people politely know to remain on topic;
—drop in to tell people to calm down if things got too heated;
—or we outright locked the thread if it had reached the point of no return.

As opposed to just dishing out suspensions. I can’t recall a time where we ever allowed a thread that needed to be locked continue, and I personally think that the thread in question here should have been locked after it became clear that it wasn’t really going anywhere. However, I don’t see many threads locked here—I can only really recall one about 4.0 WHM that was locked after being merged with several other threads of the same flavor and reached well over 100 pages—so perhaps that’s not something commonly done around here? I’m not sure.


It was actually quite heartening to see members of the forum community united in such a silly way. There were people posting in there that I haven’t always agreed with or who I have butted heads with in the past, but everyone was in there joking around with one another in that instance. It was quite nice, and I thought it gave a positive atmosphere to the thread, despite how terrible the thread had became. I only posted a few times myself due to my daily post limits being eaten by other threads, but it was something light, not particularly aggressive, and I usually stayed on topic even with the few otter pictures I posted. I didn’t find it any more harmful than the thread’s original intention.

If the moderation team wanted to punish me for being “spammy” or “off-topic”, then fine. It is what it is—I’ll take it in stride. But I don’t think that a 10-day temporary suspension was the right punishment to give, especially since I had never been suspended before (and it’s my understanding that 10-days is fairly high on the list of punishments versus a warning or a 24-hour ban or something else). A lesser one would have made more sense, in my opinion; or a warning within the thread itself to remind posters to stay on topic—since it’s clear that I wasn’t the only one affected by this or participating in it.

I have to agree that I think punishments are sometimes fairly heavy-handed around here, as well as a bit inconsistent. And I agree that I share a desire for more transparency and consistency. I also wish that it was easier to communicate with moderators about things like this—perhaps via a DM-style system? Personally, I wish there was a DM system in place on the forums already. It would be nice to discuss tangents with someone privately rather than over the course of multiple post edits that may detract from a thread’s original purpose.


All in all, I probably won’t stop posting here entirely—but I am extremely hesitant to continue posting as of writing this, and I can understand it when some say that they feel the same. When some actions go punished but others that could be objectively considered more worse aren’t, it really makes you sit back and think about things. I’d like to be able to continue to give feedback, but previously mentioned, my desire to post here is honestly diluted quite a bit. I will probably be a bit more less active compared to normal for a while.


These are just my thoughts. Again, I’m not trying to attack anyone or start drama. Just...thinking out loud about this, I guess. And I thought I would share my thoughts here since this is being discussed; and this is something that I have thought about a lot the last 10 days.

[LaylaTsarra]

Some people are toxic on purpose and try to get a rise out of people. Many of those same people are probably the first to report someone who responds back in kind.

[Imuka]

Doesnt suprise me. Free speech is one thing but actively spreading hate and vitriol is another.

On my FC name inspiration threat there was a top comment that was essentially a guy making very homophobic comments towards me. It got deleted in a heartbeat, however other hateful comments still linger.

Like it wouldn't suprise me at all if it IS automated

There is one thing that seems many people don't get about Laws protecting free speech.
The laws protect a person from the goverment and other govermental institutions for expressing their opinion or criticising the goverment in any way, but those laws do not protect a person from another person.
If someone walks into a lets say...italian Restaurant and insults all the people, those laws do not protect this person from getting told to leave and never enter the restaurant ever again.
But today many seem to believe that those laws protect them, when they spread hate everywhere and people are not even allowed to tell them to "shut up".
For me this even is an insult to those laws created to prevent people being imprisoned for their opinion like in a dictatorships.

Edit: changed the example. The old one was indeed not that great as an example.

[SerLuke]

Lol, #ottergate, I like that

That works.

[Joven]

-snip-

I completely understand your apprehension about posting on this. I was hesitant to even start this thread since bashing the mods is considered a violation of the ToS and they could perceive this as negativity towards them if they wanted to. However, I felt like this was something that needed to be addressed and I'll gladly eat a perma-ban if it comes that. At least it got a discussion going about it. If we can't offer criticism about a system then how can that system improve?

[Iscah]

If someone walks into a lets say...italian Restaurant and insults all the people, those laws do not protect this person in any way and he will get quite a beating and such a kick in the butt, that he can't sit for weeks.

I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure that's not a good example scenario.

The first guy wouldn't be protected against hate speech laws, or perhaps some other kind of laws punishing his actions - but by the same token, the other people aren't protected against assault laws if they physically retaliate.

[Joven]

That works.

CHEERS!

[AnnaRosa]

I already made one post in here about this—I just wanted to add something else. And it’s a bit more...personal, is the word I think I’m looking for here.

Just follow the new ToS I guess and you won't have your forum account suspended.

[LyraKuroneko]

It would benice to have an option to talk to the mods to know what's wrong with our post and delete them ourselves if needed, or at least discuss over the post being removed.
To know better what the ToS rule we broke, because it is very unclear sometimes.

10days ban without even anything close to a warning really felt weird. While it's true I never posted a lot I still liked to participate or sharing ideas. Now I don't know if I shouldn't do anything beside bug reports.
And to me it is a bit of a problem that if I ever get permaban for an unknown reason, I won't be able to ever take part in a community event or report bugs. All this pass by the forum and nowhere else.
(even if yes, it doesn't happends often, or I did it often either, I still enjoyed the possibility to do so).

If I even got a message in forum or a mail that told me to stop or to remove posted because of this or that reason I would have done it or at least asked for more detail. Before action is taken.
I would have imagined too that for a 1st ban, a 24h ban existed, seems not. I sure was surprised.

[HyoMinPark]

Just follow the new ToS I guess and you won't have your forum account suspended.

Forum Guidelines are separate from the in-game ToS that was updated recently. The Forums actually seem to have stricter moderation than in-game does, from what I have seen over the years of playing FFXIV. But this is not the issue that I am addressing. I am addressing concerns about heavy-handedness when it comes to punishments and infractions, and the inconsistencies that I have witnessed over the years.

These are all my personal thoughts on the matter. They are not meant to be an attack on the moderation team, but an attempt at discourse and coming to a mutual understanding.