Guild Wars 2

Out of sheer confusion from gaining some infractions all in one go, I’m just sitting here wondering…how…what….I don’t even.

I’m not going to state exactly what my infractions were, but the context were
- Stating Lions Arch has is where a lot of people are (this is obvious – it’s in metrics, it’s in screenys, it was even part of ANet’s plan to make it the Hub of tyria)
- Stating something that was reported on an reputable MMO site about ANet

Not too long ago, after the forum was flooded with the snowflake junk – there were legitimate posts being deleted (as opposed to merged) – really informative, well discussed posts that I’d seen one second, then it was gone, or the thread was locked.

This only leaves me wondering….why are the lines so blurred on what’s considered as “uninformative” from the Mod’s point of view. From the mod’s side everything under the sun could be labelled as an infraction-worthy post.
I’m not raging — I’m just mega confused..and a lot of people probably have been in the same position. Mod’s – why are the lines blurred?

This will most likely get locked or whatever, but hey, like I said, I may think it’s informative to inform people where they stand when posting on these particular forums – but any mod’s reading this will see it as some sort of negative post.

Hi Nethykins,

Lines aren’t really that blurred. There is a CoC that players must adhere to when posting and moderation always goes along those lines. When we infract something for being “non informative” or “non contributing” it is simply because it doesn’t add anything worthy to the thread. Single worded posts like “this” the famous “+1” or the “^” ones are that, not adding anything important to the thread. When posting, make sure what you are about to say can help those who are reading the thread, or supplements anything already said. Otherwise you are just filling the thread with things already said.
Also that is not the only requirement. You state that during the Snowflake event informative and well discussed posts were deleted. Maybe they contained other kind of infractions like rudeness – remember, one can post in frustration and still, angry or not, make a constructive and friendly post" – or they contested the actions of the mod team or the CS team which is not allowed. These are just a couple of examples, as said above moderation happens for a reason and we do not take kind of pleasure in “censoring” (as many like to call it) the playerbase opinion, but we do have to make sure posting follows the correct procedure.

Anyway, if you ever feel something done by the moderator team was wrong, please write to forums@arena.net.

Thanks for your understanding.

Aye, it’s difficult. Posting on this forum feels often like walking on a razor thin line of “getting the mods approval”. This is actually the first forum ever where I have been banned.

Worst thing is though, that you can not complain anywhere. Forums@arena.net is pointless – you will not get a reply. Complaining on the forums is not allowed.

Overall, my conclusion is that anet has no clue how to manage their own forums, and it’s NOT benefiting the community.

Moderator.1462:

Anyway, if you ever feel something done by the moderator team was wrong, please write to forums@arena.net.

Pointless – you won’t get any reply. I know, I’ve tried it three times.

Hi everyone

Tosha Daydreamer, even though you don’t get a reply it doesn’t mean that is is pointless. The team deals with a lot of emails, and they can’t answer to each and every one of them. Other players have received answers.

Thanks for your understanding,

I can agree with nethykins that it is really confusing from time to time to know what is allowed, and not allowed.

There’s many infractions of ‘’going off-topic’‘. And while I agree on going off-topic shouldn’t appear in a thread discussing something else, I think off-topic posts should just be removed, and not infracted, and the poster should get a notice in something line of ‘’Please, try to stay on-topic and discuss the thread’s contents.‘’ instead of ’’You really are a really good poster, but here’s an infraction and suspension for going off-topic.’’

Then expand your team if the current team can’t handle it. Nothing is as frustrating as having a complaint, yet no one answers. It makes you feel like you are being ignored, and when you are already angry about something, that just ignites the flames and makes it worse. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed the vibe around here – it’s not constructive, friendly or nice. And that is what comes from feeling like you need to shout to be heard, like Conncept.7638 here.

That being said, I do appreciate your time to answer me now and not locking this thread

Had the same problem here, I got an infraction for reporting an exploit in WvW (Where I didn’t say anything bad about anyone) and got a ‘Server Assassination’ infraction for it (on christmas) which left me completely baffled.

Then when sending a ticket about it I never got a response to it and me and the other people who were infracted for similar reasons are completely confused as we were trying to do a good thing, to help and raise an important problem.

I’ve seen posts far far worse on the forums that are obvious jabs at other servers that are still up there and have not been infracted. Yet we get punished for something we didn’t actually do?

Suffice to say I agree with the OP the infractions are confusing, and often punish honest players wrongly, needlessly while others are left free to say whatever they feel like. It’s incoherent. I’m just still completely baffled by it.

As for e-mailing or making tickets, You don’t get a reply to them so it just feels like it wasn’t read. Perhaps if you make it so the status on the ticket goes to ‘Read’ once your team looked over it at least people will know they have been heard even if you don’t respond.

Moderator.1462:

Hi Nethykins,

Lines aren’t really that blurred. There is a CoC that players must adhere to when posting and moderation always goes along those lines. When we infract something for being “non informative” or “non contributing” it is simply because it doesn’t add anything worthy to the thread. Single worded posts like “this” the famous “+1” or the “^” ones are that, not adding anything important to the thread. When posting, make sure what you are about to say can help those who are reading the thread, or supplements anything already said. Otherwise you are just filling the thread with things already said.
Also that is not the only requirement. You state that during the Snowflake event informative and well discussed posts were deleted. Maybe they contained other kind of infractions like rudeness – remember, one can post in frustration and still, angry or not, make a constructive and friendly post" – or they contested the actions of the mod team or the CS team which is not allowed. These are just a couple of examples, as said above moderation happens for a reason and we do not take kind of pleasure in “censoring” (as many like to call it) the playerbase opinion, but we do have to make sure posting follows the correct procedure.

Anyway, if you ever feel something done by the moderator team was wrong, please write to forums@arena.net.

Thanks for your understanding.

Firstly, thanks for responding is such a quick manner. I do appreciate it.

I get the gist of what your’s saying, but would I be correct in saying that the CoC states that it’s at a Mod’s discretion whether something is worthy of an infraction? That alone leads to blurred lines between:

1 – Different mods
2 – Personal assumption of what is considered as uninformative.

That makes the rules wider in scope and for mods to “raise the bar” or overuse their tools to curb any forms of posts that even hinge on the things that would easily be shrugged of by most open forums.

In terms of the snowflake stuff…didn’t mods close a thread on snowflakes because “we’ve got enough information”….not because of any of the CoC was broken, but for a means of stopping forum posters from discussing it in further detail.

Edit – Because I cant spell “discretion”….d’oh!

Hi Fay,

Regarding the infraction you mention, exploits must be forwarded with all evidence you might have to exploits@arena.net. Making threads, posts or whatever poiting at any person/server/guild exploiting (be it true or not) is considered assassination and must never be done. These are examples of well intended posts that, unfortunately, have to end deleted because they broke the CoC.

Thanks for your understanding

If we dont get responses from moderators about things that happens in wvw how are we to know if your just ignoring us or working on a fix at some later time. Plus putting things on forums lets the people on that server know who is doing stuff so they can watch for further exploits and reporting them.

Hi again Nethykins,
That which you state might have happened. As stated, the mod team is not perfect – we are, after all, humans and mistakes can happen – but I assure you that if those threads were closed (not ignored) it is because of a good reason. The snowflake event was, unluckily, kind of harsh for everyone. Once we had enough information, what was the point of having the same info or additional info all over the forums? We could have merged the together, that is for sure, but with events like this it usually ends up messing the threads and making it more difficult to locate the important pieces. Again, threads closed were not ignored, as we keep track of everything.

This thread will be forwarded as well to the team so they are aware of your opinions and improvements can be made.

Thanks for your understanding.

Part of it comes from the vagueness of some of the infraction post I have seen. It seems too much like a form letter then a response to a particular situation. I realize you have to look at alot of post and make quick decisions on what is appropriate and not but clarity helps people understand exactly what they did wrong.

Moderator.1462:

Hi Fay,

Regarding the infraction you mention, exploits must be forwarded with all evidence you might have to exploits@arena.net. Making threads, posts or whatever poiting at any person/server/guild exploiting (be it true or not) is considered assassination and must never be done. These are examples of well intended posts that, unfortunately, have to end deleted because they broke the CoC.

Thanks for your understanding

I suppose that makes sense in a way but it wasn’t intentionally pointing at anyone. I wasn’t aware of the e-mail prior to it and was just trying to help, I think a warning would’ve sufficed.

I’m actually not entirely sure what an ‘infraction’ is. Is it like a point system where points are put on your account that will add up till you get banned? I now feel like my account has got negativity attached to it when I was trying to help.

Is there a way to work towards getting it removed? Like if people +1 some of your posts in points it will remove less serious infractions? Or is it a permanent bad mark on your profile?

I feel a bit helpless in regards to if I do end up making more mistakes over the next few years I might get banned because it stacks up no matter how many constructive or helpful posts I’ve made otherwise.

Also those +1 things on posts, If you use them does it mean Anet will be more inclined to read the posts who have been given a lot of +1’s? Is there a limit to how many +1’s you can give out? I haven’t actually tried it yet and I’m not sure what the use of it is.

Moderator.1462:

Hi again Nethykins,

That which you state might have happened. As stated, the mod team is not perfect – we are, after all, humans and mistakes can happen – but I assure you that if those threads were closed (not ignored) it is because of a good reason. The snowflake event was, unluckly, kind of harsh for everyone. Once we had enough information, what was the point of having the same info or adittional info all over the forums? we could have merged the together, that is for sure, but with events like this it usually ends up messing the threads and making it more difficult to locate the important pieces. Again, threads closed were not ignored, as we keep track of everything.

This thread will be forwarded as well to the team so they are aware of your opinions and improvements can be made.

Thanks for your understanding.

Thanks again. See, THIS is what I like to see in forums. Mods not afraid to discuss stuff with us players. I like this a lot. The thing is, we mostly fear anything of weight just being knocked out of discussion because it’s classified as too risky.
I’m glad you guys stuck with this.

Anyhow…I understand. We’re all human at the end of the day. We all make mistakes and are not perfect. However, in saying that, it would be of great help for both Mods and forum users if the rules were clear, concise and didn’t leave room for misinterpretation on either side.

In regards to the snowflake event, since this was the second big exploit in the game, I would have thought that you can never have too much information.
Closing a thread because you feel that “was enough” is not a strong enough excuse. Knowledge is power, Information is key, and you can never have too much information, especially as a company with a player-base of different ages, mind-sets, walks of life, thoughts, ideas and resolutions to solving issues such as the event exploits. If you cut that thread down early (of course, before it details, or goes off topic, or any other breaking of the CoC) then you only damage yourself, and presume that everyone’s probably going to say the exact same thing, which is never the case in a debate.

Hi everyone,

Regarding the infractions, I would like to forward you all to this post by Mark where he explains the infraction system https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-Message-About-the-Infraction-System/first#post503827.

Nethynkis, even though we understand your statement that “closing a thread because you feel that was enough” is not a strong excuse, remember that, frustrating as it might be, everybody agreed to the forum CoC where it is explained that Anet and the moderator team have full discretion to address any behaviour.

We would like to thank you all for the constructive discussion and be sure that this thread will be forwarded to the team.

Thanks for your understanding. This thread is closed