Debate this: Community Rep Forum Involvement

[SenorPatty]

In line with MomomiMomi - also adding our forum is not only spiriting that freedom sense but that we also have a /massively/ more diverse culture pool meaning we will more often not see eye to eye. It would be difficult for us to conform even if we wanted to... where to start the line itself would be confusing lol.

Would be nice to see our community leaders more often though. I'm sure they have a lot of hoops to get through but if we could lower / make easier / more often that would be cool.

That's a really good point.

Now I'm torn lol.

On one side, I like that our opinions aren't swept under another's rug, agreeable ones or not.

On the other hand, it'd be nice if community reps could more involved, not just on an organizational scale but also on a interpersonal one.

(Insert something about having my cake and eating it too here)

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.

I keep thinking of those movies scenes where everyone's trapped in a dark cave/hole with hostile people then suddenly, this ray of light pops from above ground and everyone scrambles for it.

[HiraQin]

Can you pls refer to english forums and not NA forums..such doesnt exist..not everything thats in english is NA

[MomomiMomi]

Can you pls refer to english forums and not NA forums..such doesnt exist..not everything thats in english is NA

Totally off topic but I can't help but notice that you're a male with a female name. Totally bugging me!! If that was intentional though... carry on. :P

[Kingmanath]

French section is easier to moderate, less topics

[Texa]

I don't think anyone with harsh and mean spirited things to say would vent it out in the Japanese forum on their side of things. That's what 2ch is for. If you want actual dirt you have to check stuff like http://hakkisi.blog.fc2.com/ . They're going to be civil with stuff that actually has their name attached to it.

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.

[JunseiKei]

Can you pls refer to english forums and not NA forums..such doesnt exist..not everything thats in english is NA

ENG forums it is.

[SenorPatty]

Can you pls refer to english forums and not NA forums..such doesnt exist..not everything thats in english is NA

"I did not understand a single word you said. Try speaking american, it's the only language I understand."




/jk will refer to ENG forums from now on. Bonus points though for anyone who recognizes the quote.

[JunseiKei]

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.

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.

[LalaRu]

...Should we have Community Reps manage our threads a la Land of the Rising Sun style?...

Merged thread are usually hard to follow because the intersection of posts. I view the threads being merged more as a "please stop make new threads for same thing" alert, than "forum cleanness".

Forum modding here is at its best, mods are barely noticed other than some announcement they made, and this is a good thing. I don't see anything to change.

[Airget]

EDIT and relevant:
One of the greatest thing about America is you can say whatever you want within reason. However, that makes most people think their opinions are well thought out.

This is where the error lies though, NA forums aren't American Forums, they are English Forums, for the English Speaking players.

Forums are not split based on country of origin otherwise we would have NA, UK, EU or whatever country of origin you are from but it's not, it's English. That's why the English forum gets chaotic, a lot more people speak fluent English or have a better understanding of the English Language compared to French, Dutch and Japanese. Japanese is mainly spoken in Japan, can you state any other country which also uses Japanese over English as a Primary or secondary language? This is pretty much why the chaos will exist because the English Forums will have a lot more voices from a lot of different locations all over the map compared to the Japanese Forums which will have a huge portion of their playerbase from Japan.