TOPIC: My opinion on this current "no opinions" drama...

This is a genuine, 100% serious post. I am not seeking to start drama and urge people to do the same, if you can't handle a simple discussion of something that's clearly causing a lot of problems for people then just don't bother engaging in this thread.


I doubt this thread will last very long but this whole "you can't have an opinion" thing is getting a bit out of hand, okay yeah I can see where people are coming from but at the same time I really do not understand it and almost side with the community team and other forum staff regarding this issue. I am very much on the fence with this situation.

My main reason for this is because a handful of the time this argument comes up is because someone has blatantly just broken TOU by saying something intentionally to cause problems, and then saying this exact phrase -- presumably to get more of a rise out of someone. Which only ends up blowing up in their face and leading to more drama and disputes.

I understand I am no saint myself when it comes to being a player within the community, but there was a point in time I would say I was pretty well respected and I suppose still am, just for different reasons which I wouldn't even like to claim praise for.

But when I was staff and I noticed drama starting to occur I wouldn't just immediately lock a thread. I would try my very best as a moderator to at least calm the situation and start warning people, that if they don't start behaving like civil people then their "discussion" would start to be moderated more heavily (i.e - bans for those really not wanting to stop), or locked if the amount of people arguing was too much. I never had any issues with this method raised to me when doing this.

There seems to be more of a trend now of the moment a topic gets one reply against the TOU posted up on it, it will either get launched into the drama hole or locked and that being that. Which is fair enough but then raises more of a problem with the argument spreading to new topics or just spreading into the community through the servers.

This is where I think is where the problem of "my opinion" or "my freedom of speech" is starting to occur, especially when some of the people who are being banned are just being banned for "TOU", but not being told which part of the TOU they broke. I believe that was covered in this suggestion although never fully read it, I will admit.

Effectively what I am trying to say is that, there needs to be a bit more lenience when a post seems to start getting heated. And that rather than just immediately shutting it down there should be some more moderation in terms of dealing with the ones causing the issue. The most recent example of this could be found on the Community Team meeting outcome (13/09/2020).

Heated discussions don't always lead to outright insults and problems and can actually bring good change, providing they are done properly. But I just don't feel shutting them down is really the right way to do it. Of course if you really think your opinion is being taken away from you that badly and you genuinely believe you haven't said or done anything wrong. Just go to someone in the community team directly.

Sorry no opinions on zarpgaming.com

I rate what you put but I've just come to the conclusion its safer to not speak than to speak so I haven't. Fair few topics I wanted to chime in on but just didn't and I dont feel like im gonna speak out again because it leads to issues. But I like this post

As a side note I think heated debates can be done in a healthy manor, as long as it doesnt escalate to insults or worse I think debate is a good thing and its nice to have a debate. A debate becomes heated when the two people involved have passion about their position/point. When that gets taken away its incredibly frustrating for the party who has passion about a point and can't express or defend it because the other person has removed their ability to do so.

Gotta agree with this. There has to be more leniency when threads are getting heated. It can lead to legitimate discussion and there is no need to lock every post just because a disagreement has occurred.
For more transparency, TOU shouldnt be used as the sole reason, rather the specific part that was broken should be used in the ban reason.
Arguments are necessary for opinions to be heard effectively, if you are not willing to engage with those who disagree with you, positive change can never happen. (And no, Im not calling anyone out with this, rather Im just saying this in general).

I made a suggestion for staff to perhaps not be so trigger-happy with locking and was told: "We and the forum staff team reserve the right to moderate our forums as we see fit" and the thread was immediately locked. They say complaints should go on the forums. Therefore, I made the suggestion to see if this style of moderating/attitude could be changed - there was no ability for anyone else to discuss this in any capacity, just "we can do what we want" and that was that. It was very disappointing.

Forums system are so old to the point of where it is too difficult to develop for so I doubt you'd ever see a warning system on here, honestly just switch to a better forum system that supports forum warnings with everything transferred over if possible.
Also agree with the post itself, way too many issues even after the community Q&A problems are still arising which is not good at all and more discussion has to be done.

And into the drama hole, it goes...

I'm sad to see it go into the drama hole really. Had I still been Global Moderator I'd have moved it straight back cause I don't quite see the drama in it. Regardless, I didn't expect you, Nafe of all people to make such a post - had I not seen it with my own eyes I'd say the one telling me is crazy.. but reading through it I did feel the need to add a piece of our minds to the table. SO! Enough being off topic lets get to it.

Times have really changed... and I wholeheartedly agree that this is getting out of hand. The core definition of a forum is, quote "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.". But really if any conversation starts to spark up between forum members a post is locked or tossed in here...

I in most cases tend to get both sides, the users on this forum certainly are far from angels, the amount of shit posts and less than useful contributions are way more than I'd like and I get that Forum Staff wish to keep the forums clean and clear - but simply locking each post that starts to pick up traction really is a bad habit.

I recall in the past trying my best to always have a valid reason to lock a post, and to post a solid reason before even doing so. I had to deal with a fair share of troublemakers (such as people that would then just repost the topic again and again) in the past and some were really difficult to deal with but in the end of the day it made me feel like I did something right.

Any community needs a central place, a heart where discussions about it can be had. Not everyone has the time to get onto discord or team speak and have a discussion there as those are even more likely to break down into unending screaming and drama.. The forums are the prime location to have such discussions, it is at the heart of the community, its public for all to see and it can include just about anyone, no matter their rank or preferred server who wishes to participate in discussing topics...

Discussion is healthy for a community, for anything really. Swapping ideas back and forth is great, it is important and will lead to things being seen from many different aspects. And I agee with Henny TOU should NOT be used as a sole reason for banning people, (I'm not accusing anyone, I actually failed to find anyone who was banned for that sole reason in 30 seconds of searching so good on the forum staff) at that point they are literally putting more effort into banning bots than they are in banning players. Adding a reason to a ban is not difficult, I'd know, I've done it.

There's really not much more to say... I appreciate you taking the time in trying to bring the issues to light, and most people won't even see it or this post for that matter... I guess there's little we can do now... or is there? Welp, guess I'll go back to doing research for an upcoming suggestion...

How is this in the Drama Hole?

Moving this thread and locking the other to "protect" the staff is really silly. It's like the excuse being used in many places in the world at the moment, lumping in legitimate issues and complaints with fringe groups (eg. all protestors are antifa, etc.). It's incredibly dumb. This community is falling apart and they are doing worse than ignoring it, they're actively making it worse.

While I understand why this post was moved, given the amount of personal attack towards members of the community, I would like to believe the intent was to protect those members and not to "silence an opinion" which you as a collective seem to think is going on, the same collective need to understand these members are also getting personally attacked every other day. While they try not to let this cloud their judgement it will always have some sort of impact, people need to understand not everyone is as desensitised or experienced to these sort of attacks. In turn everyone needs to be better understanding for the betterment of the community!

I also believe that this post isn't aimed at one or two staff members and more so the staffing teams as a whole, to which it would make contacting the relevant staff member(s) a little too much work for a community member. When it comes to the forums a lot of discussions can be seen as clutter and very prone to starting drama given the public nature, however it is the forum staff's role to declutter and clear out the drama before it goes too far.

The forums should be as open to debates as TeamSpeak, while it is easier to debate in voice form people may not always feel using their voice at certain times, or are just unable to access the server at times in which they have access to the forums.

Respects to whoever moved this back in GD, if posts that shows genuine concern aren’t being looked into properly and just moved into drama hole with no answer as to why then something has gone terribly wrong.

Just listen to what people are trying to tell some of you staff members and reflect on it, it was never this bad at all and the report abuse created by Studio is another big thing that should be looked into regardless if it has been denied. I have to say however, I just don’t think someone should have to come on the TS just to solve something when they are not comfortable doing so and would rather use the forums, after all we are always advised on creating a report if there is a problem.

Staff ethos has been completely forgotten about and even people who do not intend on breaking a rule are being punished so harshly, my discord ban being a prime example however it was thankfully removed AFTER the rule was added.

It’s a terrible thing to do to dig for other reasons as to keeping someone banned when the dispute of a punishment is practically accepted but denying it based on how they reacted over it, how would you feel if you were wrongly punished? Think about it and please try put yourselves in the users prospective a lot more, improvements can be done and if we are not being shown improvements based on staff’s judgement which has been heavily slated as of lately then this is going to continue and people will end up giving up trying to help this community out, a community many may consider a second home as wholesome as it may sound, it is where people have made great friends and had loads of great times to then seeing it as a toxic wasteland with poor decision making.

I would like to end this post by saying in no way shape or form am I trying to attack someone or anything malicious at all, these are my genuine concerns from what I have seen on these forums recently. I also typed this from a phone so excuse any grammar errors and what not, again I do not mean any harm with this post.

Make a report on a staff member if they have done anything wrong I was told. Forced to go on Teamspeak and use voice chat when I was perfectly fine to use Discord DMs and type - Chute knew I didn't like using Teamspeak for several weeks and kept trolling me with it, which is surreal. I shouldn't be forced to voice chat, and quite frankly if Chute likes to overreach, then I'm saying that Chute used my inability to use voice chat to deny a valid report.

The report is denied for starting drama and trolling.

No wonder people don't report staff members. I am constructively exhausted.

Studio Banter wrote:
Studio don't miss out the full truth as you always do. I've been trying to contact you for weeks because I genuinely have wanted to talk to you and see what your issues were with how certain bans have been handled. However instead of accepting my invitations you instead decided to troll me and meme me. You don't take anything seriously and this is your major problem. You might also want to tell people how I reached out to you on Discord DMs weeks ago to resolve your issues and you straight up ignored them.

Chuteuk wrote: That still doesnt deny that staff reports are utterly useless, thats one thing I noticed the past few years, staff reports are 99% denied or just a slap on the wrist

Chuteuk wrote:
Yes you did contact me once on Discord about a post on I believe Spectrum's resignation. I am not denying that, the post was deleted. Drama resolved and I saw no reason to reply to you as I didn't continue after that. I apologise for the non-constructive posting on that thread.

I am not memeing you nor trolling you. I declined your Teamspeak advancements as I already laid out my reasons, way before my report on Xnator - so the belief that I'm using my dislike of Teamspeak as a way of causing drama is out of the question.

---

However please tell me how typing on Teamspeak serves a different purpose to Discord dms? We were practically discussing the issue, forget about the unrelated drama you posted, but you were adamant on me using voice chat - going on Teamspeak.

Tell me, how different is typing on Teamspeak to Discord DMs?

On side note, look at your own Report Abuse policy, it is not mandatory.

Studio Banter wrote:
You are lying again you have trolled and memed me several times when I've invited you to come and talk to us and Yes on TeamSpeak because that's what I mainly use, there's nothing wrong with that? The same as there's nothing wrong with Discord? They're both free and I have made it clear to you that you may type if you don't want to use voice chat which you know for a fact so honestly its disappointing how your going around the forums saying I practically forced you to use voice chat, in-fact it's an outright lie.

I've tried to contact you on Discord DMS as you just screenshotted on 7th September. I messaged you because at the same time in General Discussion you were complaining about Narexas ban so I wanted to discuss it with you and you outright ignored me.

Props to whoever moved this post back into the light of day, I genuinely want to see a discussion around and it. Although I completely understand why the community team would like some users to come onto teamspeak, to discuss issues they may have. Some things should be more of a community discussion, which in reality can only be done on the forums.

I believe this is one of those posts...

imagine wasting time to report xnator