Why do the misreble types post on weekends?

[AngryDude]

It is the booze? Why arth they a bunch of mireble *****. Probably the booze.

[FranOhmsford]

It's because they know Cordovan ain't watching and won't remove their posts until Monday!

They get all weekend to fill up the forums with trashposts then during the week they make a new account to do it again the following weekend!

While the Cat's away the mice will play!


SSG need to employ a Weekend Forum Moderator or at the very least Cordovan needs to take a quick look at the forums when he gets a minute over the weekends - It wouldn't take him long, It's not like he has to spend all day on them, just a quick check at 10 am and 6pm on saturday's and sunday's!

[AbyssalMage]

It's because they know Cordovan ain't watching and won't remove their posts until Monday!

They get all weekend to fill up the forums with trashposts then during the week they make a new account to do it again the following weekend!

While the Cat's away the mice will play!
Not sure how accurate that is (that they just create a new account) but it is definitely related to the fact that SSG has no moderators over the weekend.


SSG need to employ a Weekend Forum Moderator or at the very least Cordovan needs to take a quick look at the forums when he gets a minute over the weekends - It wouldn't take him long, It's not like he has to spend all day on them, just a quick check at 10 am and 6pm on saturday's and sunday's!
Cordovan needs a break from work just like the rest of us. I have my very public problems with how SSG runs DDO but Cordovan (and every other employee) deserves a break from work, and DDO is work.

Now them hiring an employee (or three) who works Thursday - Monday or (part time) Friday - Monday would be great.

[dunklezhan]

Cordovan needs a break from work just like the rest of us. I have my very public problems with how SSG runs DDO but Cordovan (and every other employee) deserves a break from work, and DDO is work.

Now them hiring an employee (or three) who works Thursday - Monday or (part time) Friday - Monday would be great.

Agreed on all counts. My biggest worry about all this is that if it gets bad enough and they can't afford to pay for that kind of cover, they'd potentially have to lock the forums down at the weekend, which would have a tremendously deleterious effect.

But they do need to do something, of late it's becoming a real problem in terms of the impression given to someone skimming the forums to find out about the game before trying it out.

Heh, new business idea: cloud sourced out of hours forum moderation.

As a company running a forum, when out of hours you pay for a 'share' of a moderator's time instead of on call or overtime. That share costs some formula based on #users per forum per "shift", 3 or 4 "shifts" a day.

There would need to be an understanding that said moderators would basically have a light touch for everything but the highest priority infractions, for which they would come down like a ton of bricks, including forum bans that will cover until the 'real' mods come back online. There would also have to be SLAs, cunning metrics and regular reviews of bans and such that prove beyond doubt that the cloud moderator is in fact doing their job, of course (the word 'trust' would need to feature pretty heavily I think in both directions). Reputation of the cloud mod company would need to be near-unimpeachable.

If I could be bothered to manage staff properly, and do the level of management and financial paperwork required to run an actual business, I'd set that up. I'd certainly apply for a job on the cloud-based mod team, I'm entirely happy with paperwork of the operational variety.

[Kriogen]

Don't know how it is now, but on SW:TOR forums you could only post with VIP account, subscription. No cheap, disposable free account.

A bit draconic solution. Maybe a hybrid solution:
- work days - all
- weekend - VIP or "old" accounts

[Eryhn]

Don't know how it is now, but on SW:TOR forums you could only post with VIP account, subscription. No cheap, disposable free account.

A bit draconic solution. Maybe a hybrid solution:
- work days - all
- weekend - VIP or "old" accounts


that would be a bit harsh, imho. speaking as a premium I mean ... :D

besides, so much hassle to achnowledge him? no way. this is most likely one disturbed individual that is burning his army of year old alt and sock accounts bit by bit. experience from other places accross the web suggests that such people get all the more enthusiastic the more the admins actively go after them. so the fact that we get the weekly monday morning ****stain purge and nothing else is maybe for once not the worst solution.

that being said, if you put the creator of the first idiotic thread on friday late afternoon on ignore you have a 66% chance to sail through unharmed. I say 66% cause it's a crafty bugger - when he gets real bored he does these threads that look legit at first glance and get 3 page replies before he slowly topples them over to idiocy. those, only people who have already filtered out certain amounts of various internet based degeneration will spot early as "probable troll-bait"

[cdbd3rd]

All it would take is recruiting a couple/few volunteers who could be signed on to anonymously flag and temp-ban abusive individuals over weekends and off hours.

In a perfect world & all anyhow.

[Saekee]

A bit draconic solution. Maybe a hybrid solution:
- work days - all
- weekend - VIP or "old" accounts

I am premium and am ok with this!

maybe let premium accounts with a certain level of forum favor to post on weekends.

[Chai]

All it would take is recruiting a couple/few volunteers who could be signed on to anonymously flag and temp-ban abusive individuals over weekends and off hours.

In a perfect world & all anyhow.

This,

Even if they don't want to hand the ban hammer to a volunteer for a few days at a time they could have that person put blatantly obvious sock accounts and troll posts into auto-mod status which means they wouldn't appear on the forum until Ok'd by the mod on Monday.

[Rys]

This,

Even if they don't want to hand the ban hammer to a volunteer for a few days at a time they could have that person put blatantly obvious sock accounts and troll posts into auto-mod status which means they wouldn't appear on the forum until Ok'd by the mod on Monday.

According to you I am a sock too so I vote no. To much space to abuse the power.

[FranOhmsford]

This,

Even if they don't want to hand the ban hammer to a volunteer for a few days at a time they could have that person put blatantly obvious sock accounts and troll posts into auto-mod status which means they wouldn't appear on the forum until Ok'd by the mod on Monday.

Agreed - This would be a decent solution.


According to you I am a sock too so I vote no. To much space to abuse the power.

And then when Cordovan sees the power was abused the abuser is the one that gets banned - And come on we're not talking about borderline situations here.

[SiliconScout]

There really isn't an easy solution to the problem. Not unless you are willing to potentially alienate legitimate users.

One thing that I think that should be able to be done is that new accounts could be restricted in their posting. Say they can create threads in the support forum only but be able to reply to existing posts. They should also have to have a minimum post count and minimum account age before they can create a new thread anywhere else.

The idea of volunteer mods isn't a bad one, you need to be careful on who you pick and provide them with an extremely clear set of criteria. Give them the ability to block a post but not delete it directly and they can issue a 24 hour "read-only" type of ban on an account. All of their moderator actions would then need to be reviewed and if they attempt to abuse the system then it results in a permanent ban of their account. Since they can only issue a 24 hour ban and can't delete the posts they can't do any real damage even if they try to abuse the power. I am a volunteer moderator on a couple of different forums that are setup similar to the above and I honestly have never heard of a mod being disciplined. There have been the odd marginal call here or there, things that technically are against the rules but I personally would have let slide, but the mods are VERY careful in what we do. For a while the ban actually required 2 mods to approve it but after years without a single disagreement they took that requirement away.

At any rate it for sure could work. The difficulty is just how easy it is to create an account. Something as simple as requiring Cordovan to "approve" the account prior to being able to post anywhere other than support might be a good step. Sure they could fill the support forum with their bile but how many people actually read that forum? And yes they could set a sock up and groom it for a period of time replying in threads and what not until they can post a new thread. Most of these trolls aren't going to go through that trouble just to have fun one weekend.

[Eryhn]

According to you I am a sock too so I vote no. To much space to abuse the power.

this. there is a number of people with impressive repbars around that make me inwardly cringe when picturing them with a banhammer, temporary or not.

neighbourhood watch style things are generally not a very healthy thing for communities.

too much fuss being made, just friggin ignore the dude, end of story.


edit: what I could maybe imagine is giving memnir the power to replace troll posts with gifs from friday to sunday night ...

[Enoach]

There really isn't an easy solution to the problem. Not unless you are willing to potentially alienate legitimate users.

...

Well there is a more straight forward solution, people simply stop being jerks on the internet. But to truly do that you would need to wipe out the anonymity the internet provides.

[Enoach]

...

Actually at this point since I do not subscribe to a Turbine game I would not care how good a job they do. But your post does point out the fact that some people find it easier to be a jerk then to not be and that is because of the anonymity of the internet.

[Blastyswa]

Any account that isn't VIP or hasn't been active for at least a year has fully moderated posts that have to be approved by a moderator before appearing the following monday. Or, if that's too much, make it just for starting a new thread. Trolls can still respond to stuff, but they can't post 30 threads with slurs against the mentally incompetent and homosexuals.

[Wizza]

Your ideas are actually insane guys, no offense. Why wouldn't Premium be able to post? Please.

We either need just a 2nd official moderator, or the first one to check in few times during weekend. I don't even think it's needed. Just ignore the threads and move on, they will be deleted /shrugs

[Cordovan]

Thing is, I do check the forums most weekends, so while weekend trolls get maybe up to 12 hours or so to do their thing, I nuke 'em as soon as I see them. I was not around yesterday, though. Keep in mind, I've been reading these forums for 10+ years, and actually do it on my own time for fun and to enjoy this part of DDO (yes, I am that crazy.)

We've thought about volunteer moderators in the past, but there are just too many issues with it, both as a business and for community reasons. It's possible we could utilize some of Daybreak's contract moderators, though, in the future, if needed. They are already on contract to do off-hours/weekend work, so we could get in on that maybe.

Overall, though, outside of issues like the ones this weekend, it doesn't seem to be - too - big of a problem.

[Wonedream]

Making a claim is one thing. Adding a call to action over it means now the claim needs to be more carefully observed. Doing this, I request supporting evidence to your claim. If you do not provide this evidence, I will not support the call to action being made about it.

Also, since I have been accused negatively myself, this seems to me an appeal to a totalitarian power grab being set up by people who would prefer to use deception as first impression instead of honesty "no really folks, nothing is ever wrong". Are these the same people who daydream of having their narrow views dictate what can and can not be said, until it gets so narrow no one participates in their mind numbed my-way-only constraints?

Whether they are or are not, I do not see the "miserable" types showing up on the weekend. I think referring to others in this way is offensive and trollingly provocative. So far this thread itself seems like unintentional troll bait. But, no, I am not going to whine and groan that YOU need to be moderated, you are allowed to vent your mind so long as you do not directly offend anyone, or threaten anyone with affirmative action.

[Gremmlynn]

Not sure how accurate that is (that they just create a new account) but it is definitely related to the fact that SSG has no moderators over the weekend.


Cordovan needs a break from work just like the rest of us. I have my very public problems with how SSG runs DDO but Cordovan (and every other employee) deserves a break from work, and DDO is work.

Now them hiring an employee (or three) who works Thursday - Monday or (part time) Friday - Monday would be great.I would think pretty much everyone at SSG could handle simple forum police duty. So they likely could find someone every weekend who wants a few extra bucks to check the forums a few times a day. Or just set up a schedule to do so if hiring more bodies isn't feasible.

[Seikojin]

Thing is, I do check the forums most weekends, so while weekend trolls get maybe up to 12 hours or so to do their thing, I nuke 'em as soon as I see them. I was not around yesterday, though. Keep in mind, I've been reading these forums for 10+ years, and actually do it on my own time for fun and to enjoy this part of DDO (yes, I am that crazy.)

We've thought about volunteer moderators in the past, but there are just too many issues with it, both as a business and for community reasons. It's possible we could utilize some of Daybreak's contract moderators, though, in the future, if needed. They are already on contract to do off-hours/weekend work, so we could get in on that maybe.

Overall, though, outside of issues like the ones this weekend, it doesn't seem to be - too - big of a problem.

I hear ya. Usually the forums don't get too troll infested. Some days definitely have them and thank you for taking the free time to swoop in and be here. I know how generally thankless support and moderation is. B.T.D.T.

[AbyssalMage]

Thing is, I do check the forums most weekends, so while weekend trolls get maybe up to 12 hours or so to do their thing, I nuke 'em as soon as I see them. I was not around yesterday, though. Keep in mind, I've been reading these forums for 10+ years, and actually do it on my own time for fun and to enjoy this part of DDO (yes, I am that crazy.)

We've thought about volunteer moderators in the past, but there are just too many issues with it, both as a business and for community reasons. It's possible we could utilize some of Daybreak's contract moderators, though, in the future, if needed. They are already on contract to do off-hours/weekend work, so we could get in on that maybe.

Overall, though, outside of issues like the ones this weekend, it doesn't seem to be - too - big of a problem.
Thanks for "surfing" the forums on your weekends :)

It really does feel like the weekends are getting worse, not better. Regardless, you go "above and beyond" what is called for you by your employee contract. Which is to say, "We all thank you."

[Aelonwy]

Thing is, I do check the forums most weekends, so while weekend trolls get maybe up to 12 hours or so to do their thing, I nuke 'em as soon as I see them. I was not around yesterday, though. Keep in mind, I've been reading these forums for 10+ years, and actually do it on my own time for fun and to enjoy this part of DDO (yes, I am that crazy.)

We've thought about volunteer moderators in the past, but there are just too many issues with it, both as a business and for community reasons. It's possible we could utilize some of Daybreak's contract moderators, though, in the future, if needed. They are already on contract to do off-hours/weekend work, so we could get in on that maybe.

Overall, though, outside of issues like the ones this weekend, it doesn't seem to be - too - big of a problem.

Thanks for the weekend cleanup Cordovan.

[Aelonwy]

edit: what I could maybe imagine is giving memnir the power to replace troll posts with gifs from friday to sunday night ...

That is too funny. I would support this wholeheartedly. I can imagine there would be the occasional So long and Thanks for all the fish!

[cdbd3rd]

....It's possible we could utilize some of Daybreak's contract moderators, though, in the future, if needed. They are already on contract to do off-hours/weekend work, so we could get in on that maybe.

Overall, though, outside of issues like the ones this weekend, it doesn't seem to be - too - big of a problem.

That's an idea. We don't really need anyone to sit and babysit us, but just to thwart the occasional special person/bot that shows up. I mean, I most *certainly* wouldn't want another "Kommunity Kobold" situation. Too many folks carrying permanent scars from that.

And what was mentioned above, even just a temporary "read only" restriction on posting privileges would fix things up just fine for weekend duty.


Thanks for stopping by. :)