Guild Wars 2

We don’t need responses we need direction. You have this great utility at your feet “us talking about every little detail/balance issue” in which we out number you 100-1 and alot of us have more time to play the game then the devs.

So use it. Direct us and this wouldnt happen.

edit: Devs make it easier on yourselves and try to make some topics with polls http://strawpoll.me/ instead of us having 100 necromancer QQ threads. We outnumber you 100-1 and your making a game for us right? and I know alot of us keep asking you to listen to the top 1% focusing on the meta game trying to make it esports and this might be the right idea…. but the other 99% are having to deal with that fallout. Maybe they should have a feather of a weight in the decision and cast a vote; a,b,c what the general population is having the most difficult with.

So use your population, dont just let us create these crazy ideas of we need a whole new energy system because the games to spammy.

CC Danicia.1394:

Also note that if the discussion does not stay civil or constructive, we’ll close the post.

Will you close the post ? Or the whole thread ?

We as players cannot control other players, in a lot of closed or moved threads there was a huge amount of good feedback which is what decent players try to post after big complaints. I understand the need of modding, but how about you mod and move/delete the post and not the entire thread when the main text is not offensive or against the code of conduct (in reference to Xeph’s thread when it was deemed acceptable by John himself for example).

My 2 cents..

the post the whole forum was spammed with was not breaking any single rule.

The “i quit thread” made by Xeph ( which absolutely wasn’t an “I quit thread”, in fact he reposted it exactly because it was deleted with no reason) had even a Dev post ( jon peters iirc) saying there was no reason to delete it.

yet you deleted it.
with a dev post inside it.
the only dev post we had within weeks.

You can do mistakes, surely, but when mistakes are THAT big, the reaction is absolutely understandable.

i hope this will never happen again, because it was really embarassing for you and i have no doubt tons of players uninstalled the game simply for that reason.

Have a nice day.

Xephs first post was a “good bye” post, so if that is against the forum rules, then be it so and the deletion was legit. But in that case somebody very well known in the community did it, plus somebody who defended the game on many occasions. So you could easily decide in that case not to delete the thread but simply close it.. That would have saved you a lot of work and maybe it would have saved you writing this post.

The second post of Xeph was one were he in a very constructive way explained his concerns about the game. Also this post got deleted. Even a Dev responded to it stating that he does not understand why Xeph´s first post got deleted. The deletion of this thread was pure capriciousness and the most ridiculous act of moderation i have ever seen on this forum. It makes you look like you simply can not stand criticism even when it is written in a constructive way. The moderators should be ashamed abusing their permissions in such a way.

I really hope that you change your moderation policy in a way that legit posts do not get ninja deleted anymore. To hush up problems does not solve them, you can not shut up people as you have learned in the past few days

we give you constructive feedback since 12 months. In this period we gave you several possible solutions for every issue that this game still has. I would say about 1% of it was actually worked on. Besides that, helseth mentioned and explained the issues. So there is enough things you could work on. Spamming the forums is a bad excuse for incapability.

The PvP-Community which invested so much time into this game is just frustrated in which pace the issues getting fixed. Especially stuff that is in every other game allrdy available at release (soloQ, leaderboards, different modes etc.). No wonder people are getting upset. But ye, it’s kinda pointless to write on this forum, as you ingore every critical / negative feedback.

CC Danicia.1394:

Mrbig.8019:

the post the whole forum was spammed with was not breaking any single rule.

Whilst the post itself is a different topic, spamming is against the rules. Numerous people spammed the same post, and when members instigate others into spamming, it created an even bigger problem. The folks who were suspended will be back, but we are very clear in our rules about spam and duplicate posting.

still there was absolutely NO REASON to delete the original post in the first place.

It was already a very delicate moment for the community ( terrible meta, great players leaving, Xeph constructive feedback with a dev post inside it DELETED FOR NO REASON) and yet you pursued your “moderation obsession” with one of the better written post in this forum history.

The reaction was deserved, and again, i hope you will never do such mistakes in the future, because it was really embarassing for all the moderation staff.

Danicia, I understand that the forums are currently being polluted with a lot of negativity about the game and the way it is being handled by the developers, and there is a lot of exaggeration from the community that goes around. I personally feel the developers are doing a pretty good job, and that things take time, but I don’t have much experience from other MMOs to compare how they fare when it comes to these things. I still play because I continue to enjoy the game, and think ANet has done a fantastic job with it so far.
That being said, I know there are a lot of people that disagree with the way ANet has handled things in the past, and emotions run high within these people because they love the game, not because they detest it. Now, I’m in no position to tell you what to do, but it would seem as a community coordinator, it should be your job to ensure the negativity on the forums is toned down not by censoring the material that may incite it, but by properly communicating with your community on why things are the way they are (like you have done now). Deleting that particular thread was downright disrespectful towards Xeph and everyone that had posted in it.

With the blessing of CC Danicia I shall discuss the mod’s actions in effort to give feedback on the process. I would not normally do this as it is generally a bad idea too anyways.

Xephs post was indeed a I quit thread.

I usually report those types of threads to the mods myself. I can not remember if I did in that case or not. I can tell you however that I remember stop and asking myself and put myself in the Mod’s shoes.

“Should this thread be allowed even though it is against the forums rules due to who Xephs is and what Xephs did for the community. To allow some players to give their respectful goodbyes.

Or should the letter of the law be followed. For if one post is allowed should not another. "

I hope that went through the mod’s mind when the post was removed. What the answer should be I can not say.

His second post however I did not see. So I can not comment. If I saw it and it was what it was claimed to be I would have emailed forums@arena.net. For that email has served me well in the past.

Personally I think I quit threads should be locked not deleted. They will usually get buried by themselves. Locking the thread also stops the negativity bandwagoners.

Part of the problem is the moderator’s fault as well. It doesn’t take a genius to notice that the devs ignore the class forums and only ever visit the sPvP and WvW forums (and WvW forums only recently. They were ignored as well). This then increases traffic here from players, like me, who only have a passing interest in sPvP. So when people who notice glaring balance issues in WvW try to comment on them in the only place that gets any attention, they don’t always mesh with what the sPvP crowd notices. this then starts the back and forth bickering you dislike.

The devs need to make a much better effort at visiting the class forums. If they got even a fraction of the attention that the sPvP forum gets, the traffic here would be less, the discussions here would be more focused, and players overall would be happier.

CC Danicia.1394:

Mrbig.8019:

the post the whole forum was spammed with was not breaking any single rule.

Whilst the post itself is a different topic, spamming is against the rules. Numerous people spammed the same post, and when members instigate others into spamming, it created an even bigger problem. The folks who were suspended will be back, but we are very clear in our rules about spam and duplicate posting.

I can fully appreciate why you have to run a tight ship to prevent spam, but sadly it seems that it took that spam storm and general outrage/qq on the boards to get the red names actually posting here.

It also served to demonstrate quite how disenfranchised some have become with both the pvp subset of the game and this subset of the forums (and its moderation).

hey how about addressing why helseth’s discussiong of SPVP was moved out of the SPVP forums? this just happened a minute ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/links/Helseth-s-Rant-of-the-Week-PVP-Development/first#post2773675

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Helseth’s stream links belong in linksville because they are links. If somebody was starting a discussion, and happened to link his stream as reference to a point they were making, that would be different. What’s been happening is his stream is linked either with no discussion or with a transcript of his stream. In either case those belong in linksville, as that is what that subforum is there for.

… Even when they’re concerning Structured PvP? That seems a particularly ill conceived rule, applied with little rational thought.

Do the links to the PAX tourney belong in Linksville, just because they’re links? Even though it was the games first cash prize Structured PvP tournament? I mean, that rule just sounds extremely silly.

The more I read your post, the more incredulous I get. That is a particularly awful and narrow minded view for forum moderators to have. It doesn’t take much in the way of rational thought to understand why a Link to a discussion about Structured PvP belongs in the Structured PvP forums. Are we supposed to go to a different sub-forum, watch the video, then bring comments back here out of no where?

Why would I be in Linksville if I was interested in talking about/hearing others views on Structured PvP? This is absolutely mind boggling. If you were following some rule when you moved it, it’s an asinine one that needs a re-examination, post haste. If it was a judgement call on your part, it’s my opinion that it was a poor one, and I hope in the future it isn’t repeated.

So SOAC gaming threads – which are just links to the twitch streams – should be moved out of the class subforums and into links vile? That’s just one example – the rule is too vague, and is not enforced consistently enough to justify moving helseths thread for that reason alone.

I think us players could also help out in this matter.

you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.

We need to think of why rules are in place. Then if we want something somewhere else try to conform to the rules. Want to discuss about a video but not be lost in linksville. Talk about what the video said then post a link to the video.

evilapprentice.6379:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Helseth’s stream links belong in linksville because they are links. If somebody was starting a discussion, and happened to link his stream as reference to a point they were making, that would be different. What’s been happening is his stream is linked either with no discussion or with a transcript of his stream. In either case those belong in linksville, as that is what that subforum is there for.

… Even when they’re concerning Structured PvP? That seems a particularly ill conceived rule, applied with little rational thought.

Do the links to the PAX tourney belong in Linksville, just because they’re links? Even though it was the games first cash prize Structured PvP tournament? I mean, that rule just sounds extremely silly.

The more I read your post, the more incredulous I get. That is a particularly awful and narrow minded view for forum moderators to have. It doesn’t take much in the way of rational thought to understand why a Link to a discussion about Structured PvP belongs in the Structured PvP forums. Are we supposed to go to a different sub-forum, watch the video, then bring comments back here out of no where?

Why would I be in Linksville if I was interested in talking about/hearing others views on Structured PvP? This is absolutely mind boggling. If you were following some rule when you moved it, it’s an asinine one that needs a re-examination, post haste. If it was a judgement call on your part, it’s my opinion that it was a poor one, and I hope in the future it isn’t repeated.

The links are not the problem. It is that they are not the OP original words with reference to links to prove the points or say who persuaded him/her that way.

Good example is when players talk about game design and link to Extra Credits to add credibility to the post.

The rule is more to prevent promotion threads. A promotion thread is “new video look. Here is a link/transcript.” Want to have a discussion about a video talk about what the video is ranting about then link to it.

It is hard to tell a difference between a promotion thread and I want to talk about what XYZ person talked about. To put it frankly want to discuss a video related to sPvP discuss the items in the video link to the video. I don’t think the Mods would be against that. At least that is what I got.

rfdarko.4639:

So SOAC gaming threads – which are just links to the twitch streams – should be moved out of the class subforums and into links vile? That’s just one example – the rule is too vague, and is not enforced consistently enough to justify moving helseths thread for that reason alone.

I do think consistency is a problem. Not much they can do though they are outmanned.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Ideally, a thread to discuss content of the video would start with the points for discussion, then lead into the link and possibly a transcript.

Past threads linking to Helseth’s videos (including a duplicate for this week) tend to be just a link and the word “discuss”. The one you linked happens to also contain a transcript.

Because of the length of the transcript, I missed the points for discussion in the OP’s last post. So, on good faith, I will return that thread to the sPvP subforum so that discussion can continue.

In the future, please open with discussion points to clarify that the thread is a discussion thread and not just an advertisement for a stream or blog post.

“Ideally”, I Should see someone’s interpretation/ discussion points on a video I may or may not have watched, then at the end see a link to the video? I understand how that might make a moderators life easier, but I hope you can also see how silly that appears to a member of the community. Additionally, I personally like transcripts – I’d much prefer to read than watch a video.

Can we get an explanation as to why promoting the video itself (with the word “Discuss”) is banned? The point of the video/transcription was to generate a conversation about the current issues with SPvP – I understand how a rule might be against that in general, but why stifle something specifically designed to generate constructive criticism and help the developers understand our frustrations?

CC Danicia.1394:

evilapprentice.6379:

Can we get an explanation as to why promoting the video itself (with the word “Discuss”) is banned? The point of the video/transcription was to generate a conversation about the current issues with SPvP – I understand how a rule might be against that in general, but why stifle something specifically designed to generate constructive criticism and help the developers understand our frustrations?

Promoting a video would be something for Linksville, which is for promoting interesting sites, videos, and whatnot. The discussion would be about the video itself and the content.

Really, we’d much rather just have all those points as a forum post for discussion, versus numerous people posting the same link in various areas of the forum, to advertise, as it were, the video.

Does that help?

I understand your point, it’s just a bit frustrating. Duplicate posts cluttering the forums is certainly something no one wants, and I do understand that it’s your job to prevent that.

While you’re not wrong, I feel like it’s silly to move a video consisting entirely of SPvP discussion to a sub forum I’ve never once even considered visiting, just so I can watch the video, and bring my comments back to the SPvP forum.

When I’m in the mood to talk about SPvP, I think “lets go to the SPvP forums”, not “Let me scour random other forums in hopes that PvP related content has been posted there”.

If I want to post my thoughts concerning the video, I’m going to have to Link to the Linksville post (which is literally just 1 step removed from linking the video itself) so that people who haven’t seen the video have some idea what I’m talking about.

They dont like him hes banned not allowed on forums, evil you know thats why lol even if allie said otherwise.

CC Danicia.1394:

evilapprentice.6379:

Can we get an explanation as to why promoting the video itself (with the word “Discuss”) is banned? The point of the video/transcription was to generate a conversation about the current issues with SPvP – I understand how a rule might be against that in general, but why stifle something specifically designed to generate constructive criticism and help the developers understand our frustrations?

Promoting a video would be something for Linksville, which is for promoting interesting sites, videos, and whatnot. The discussion would be about the video itself and the content.

Really, we’d much rather just have all those points as a forum post for discussion, versus numerous people posting the same link in various areas of the forum, to advertise, as it were, the video.

Does that help?

I appreciate the difficulty of moderating a large forum, I really do, I’ve done it. But moving a post with a video to a forum no one visits just smacks of burying it, even if it’s not intended. What is really so bad about leaving something like that here for discussion?

“versus numerous people posting the same link in various areas of the forum”

How is posting/referencing a video repeatedly any different than just transcribing it and quoting that repeatedly?

Maybe they’re advertising the video because it makes good points and promotes discussion. I don’t know why you would find something wrong there.

anzenketh.3759:

rfdarko.4639:

So SOAC gaming threads – which are just links to the twitch streams – should be moved out of the class subforums and into links vile? That’s just one example – the rule is too vague, and is not enforced consistently enough to justify moving helseths thread for that reason alone.

I do think consistency is a problem. Not much they can do though they are outmanned.

Well, now that they have seen this specific example, will they move those threads to linksville? Those threads that have much less discussion then helseths threads, they are literally just ads for the soac gaming podcast, will they now get moved? I doubt it. Maybe that’s more an indication of the lack of moderation in the profession/ dungeon forums (which, mods, please stick your nose in the dungeon forums once in a while, the inmates are running the asylum over there). But I don’t really blame anyone for questioning the motives behind the move, when the excuse is a rule that is so infrequently enforced. Perhaps going forward they will be more consistent.

Maybe the problem is that linksville is a bad idea in the first place. Why make a forum nobody visits?

Since nobody really visits in, any thread moved there will be perceived like moving a thread to the Trash subforum.

While we are at it, are you planing on doing something about the kitten filter? I swear, this thing must have a 99% false positives rate because I don’t even remember the last time it filtered something legitimate.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

You are free to link the video itself. What we are asking is that you provide points for discussion in the first post. Commonly what happens is only a link or only a link and transcript are posted, and points for discussion are not brought up by the OP. That is what is seen as promotion.

By providing discussion points first, it tell us and others that you have watched the video and these points stood out as something you would like to discuss with others. By just posting the link, it feels more like somebody coming to the forums and saying “hey, my friend/guild mate/whatever made this video, everybody go watch it”.

Think about how many PvPers have youtube channels or twitch streams. Now think about what the PvP forum would look like if we allowed all of those people to post a link to their videos and streams in a new thread with every new stream or video.

That is why we have linksville. It serves as a place for people to promote their videos, streams, blogs and whatever else they want without pushing discussion threads out of the other subforums.

I think people are looking for consistency, either follow the guidelines or not. Not just sometimes or whenever a mod happens to catch it. Whether intended or not, linksville is looked at as a black hole so when you move things there, people view it as such.

You devs know what the video is.
No excuses about “oh think how many” or “hey my friend” etc
If you watched the video youd know its a discussion in and of itself and is posted in place of hellseth.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

You are free to link the video itself. What we are asking is that you provide points for discussion in the first post. Commonly what happens is only a link or only a link and transcript are posted, and points for discussion are not brought up by the OP. That is what is seen as promotion.

By providing discussion points first, it tell us and others that you have watched the video and these points stood out as something you would like to discuss with others. By just posting the link, it feels more like somebody coming to the forums and saying “hey, my friend/guild mate/whatever made this video, everybody go watch it”.

Think about how many PvPers have youtube channels or twitch streams. Now think about what the PvP forum would look like if we allowed all of those people to post a link to their videos and streams in a new thread with every new stream or video.

That is why we have linksville. It serves as a place for people to promote their videos, streams, blogs and whatever else they want without pushing discussion threads out of the other subforums.

Ok now that you made that clear it sounds fair, promote the discussion on the things the video talks about rather than the video itself.

Players join, players quit. No need for Xeph to make an “I quit” thread in the first place. Did Voz do it? No. Folly? No. Who cares.

I once received an infraction when I was defending ANET. I learned that defending ANET is not a good idea.

stof.9341:

While we are at it, are you planing on doing something about the kitten filter? I swear, this thing must have a 99% false positives rate because I don’t even remember the last time it filtered something legitimate.

Personally, I think the kitten filter is actually the single most hilarious implementation on this forum. I hope ANet never removes/replaces it. Seeing a false positive and trying to guess the original meaning is always a fun game. Also, I actually started using “kitten” as a curse word in real life.

~MRA

MRA.4758:

Personally, I think the kitten filter is actually the single most hilarious implementation on this forum. I hope ANet never removes/replaces it. Seeing a false positive and trying to guess the original meaning is always a fun game. Also, I actually started using “kitten” as a curse word in real life.

~MRA

It’s fun the first few days. The last thing I want is having to spend kitten per post trying to understand what was said. Forums are for communication, this is obfuscation.

Question : what is under the kitten ?

I would like to thank the mods for their willingness to discuss this issue.

A few points. First, if Xeph’s original post is purely about him quitting, then I would be 100% on your side. However, this is not the case. A vast majority of the post was intended to be constructive feedback, with the leaving part a mere footnote. I understand that this is a matter of interpretation, and we can agree to disagree on that.

Second, I do not understand why the mods would delete the post rather than just close it. I have seen blatant “I quit” threads closed before, the mod stating the reason why the thread was closed. Surely, this would be a much better way to handle things. It would give the community a reminder of the forum rules, and give the original poster a chance to rectify his/her post. The way it was handled had zero transparency, and in my opinion extremely suspect. I would rather not second guess the moderator’s motives, but you have to understand our frustration when several of our threads were deleted without stated justification over and over again.

The spamming of the threads did not happen until the thread with Jon stating that he did not see anything wrong was deleted. Many of us tried reason, but our posts keep disappearing off the face of the earth. Spamming was not our first course of action.

Finally, with regards to sending an email to forum at arenanet.com, I’m am sorry but this approach does not inspire confidence. For instance, I sent an email a couple of days back and have still yet to receive a reply. I am rather curious if anybody sent an email to anet after the first post was deleted and if they received a prompt reply. I would love to stand corrected here.

Spamming the forum wasn’t ideal and I hope it doesn’t happen again. I will not make excuses, but don’t I have any regrets. I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if we didn’t do what we did.

I would like to request that if you find something inappropriate in a post, close it and state the reason why. Deletion, at least for me, seems like a course of action you would take if you have something to hide. It makes me wonder what other threads were deleted and for what reason.

tichorum.2415:

Players join, players quit. No need for Xeph to make an “I quit” thread in the first place. Did Voz do it? No. Folly? No. Who cares.

Xeph’s thread was more of his feelings of what he felt was wrong with the game, why he felt he quit and others. It was not just solely an “I quit” thread, which I feel can be helpful towards making this game better as in, “what cant we (Anet) do to want to make players want to come back?”

Krayiss.4926:

You devs know what the video is.
No excuses about “oh think how many” or “hey my friend” etc
If you watched the video youd know its a discussion in and of itself and is posted in place of hellseth.

I think I’ve been pretty critical of the moderators points so far, and it’s only fair to be just as critical of the community – this suggestion is ludicrous. You can’t expect the mods to sit and watch every video and judge whether or not the content is appropriate for the forum. That would be a gigantic waste of time, money, and effort.

The specific video I was referencing is a special case for a few reasons (The video makers reputation, there was a transcription, there was even a set of bullet points that made it apparent the video belonged in the SPvP forums), but in general, just a video link and the words “discuss” shouldn’t be enough to force the moderators to waste time watching a video and judging its merit.

Hellseths rants have been going on for weeks, pretty sure they know by title or any previous discussions they moderate :/ but nice 1 tho

Then it wouldn’t be an exception…

and of course you wouldn’t, the point of an exception is that general rules cover general cases, not specific ones. If you can make an reasonable argument for a specific case not being relevant to toward the reason the rule was created it should be an exception.

This is the entire idea of an exception, and this is a concept that anyone working on anything rules related should understand. The reason not to have exceptions is because you can’t trust the people who judge the system to be reasonable. In such a case there is a good argument for not having exceptions, this would almost be one of them except* in this case you do give some exceptions so…

and cause I didn’t use this word enough, exception exception exception.

delete this thread! it’s not constructive anymore cuz ppl are arguing! don’t just close it, delete it like you always do! delete all the thoughtful criticism! flush all of it! i hope danicia made a backup!

Well since the Dev responded I guess; Hellseths rants deserve to be in the Spvp forums make all the excuses youd like to. They talk about everything Spvp, Anet you should be discussing with us in the topic not hiding it come on. Own up to your mistakes. Allie makes a post with no discussion idea really just that they were not bad people Lol. It was basically a PM which she decided to share with the community that was kinda just drama.
So hmmm

So putting up a props to CC and SYNC saying “they arent bad people” had discussion points? or am I missing something? pretty sure most comments were drama. Where Hellseths was video was Spvp constructive and did it generate any constructive feedback idk it got removed.
But ya your right whoever posted it should have said he agreed with Hellseth or something.
That should be all

what about instead of deleting ENTIRE threads, you guys just close the thread?

or are the mods

1. lazy and find it easier to simply delete.

2. scared that a forum with many closed threads make mods look bad.

3. less chance that people will see evidence of good posts being erased due to entire thread deletions

xeph’s thread had THREE PAGES, including a DEV POST by jon peters. if you simply closed the thread, atleast people would get to read the helpful posts it generated.

obviously a thread like “OMG IM SPAMMING CUZ IM DRUNK” should be deleted, but many deletions have removed a lot of helpful feedback and insight.

I like the open communication guys! :-)

Even though the community out lash was childish, I’m really happy the Community Team has decided to make more of a presence around these (and probably) other subforums.

Makes me feel like I’m actually talking to someone. :-)