Proposed DDO Community Guidelines Changes (February 2014)

[Phaeton_Seraph]

It's somewhat predictable, seeing this notice so quickly after the announcement of your new position.

What I think, after reading the whole post and observing the forums for few years now, is that you've been frustrated for some time. Now that you've been given the "new broom" you're setting the groundwork to sweep the floor.

I would like to suggest that you resist the temptation. The forums are less than optimal, and I could even sympathise. But they're Turbine's client base. A client base that is not growing.
Alienating (more) customers will not revitalise the game, but accelerate its demise.

This is by no means a threat, but please also keep in mind that just because you can silence people on these forums doesn't mean those people won't be heard elsewhere, in places where you can't moderate or monitor, and you won't have a voice.

Cleaning house, as I suspect you may want to, will just cause people to congregate elsewhere, and more people will join them, because they're a community, with or without these actual forums. It's just the nature of the internet.
The more that happens, the more Turbine will lose touch with the people it allegedly designs its product for (and after Shadowfell, I think that would be... well, not good).



I won't be surprised if you shoot the messenger, but I think it needed to be said.

---

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

I don't buy it. This may be your publicly stated reason, but my opinion is that it is disingenuous. I guess you had to put it up there in writing, but I'm disappointed.

We both know people don't publicly say "farewell" because of their personal connections. They're making a statement to Turbine, in front of us. And you're setting the groundwork to silence them; which you've been doing for some time now anyway.


As for infractions and bans for this, what kind of business slams the door behind a customer who cancels his or her subscription?
Will this keep them amenable to Turbine's other products?

I'd state my opinion of this, but I'm already expecting an infraction... or something.

[Drakos]

We have never allowed these posts for numerous reasons. I agree that a thoughtful goodbye is probably fine, but historically, time and again, it has been proven to us that we can't allow these posts, because a thoughtful goodbye often becomes a thread to bash Turbine or players, debate who's better than who, cry "doom!" over some change or another, etc. While I appreciate the sentiment of allowing a thoughtful goodbye, we also have to base the rules on actual behavior, and that behavior tells us to not permit goodbye posts.

I have to respectfully disagree here. I have been on the forums since launch and seen many threads where people said goodby that were not deleted/moderated. It usually took the form of a "goodby" post followed by "so long we'll miss you" posts and the occasional "can I have your stuff".

If you wish to moderate these types of threads I am OK with it, but to say they were "never allowed" is at best a misrepresentation. They have been allowed in the past, or at least allowed to remain, I can't say weather the OP's were given infractions for them or not since infractions are never public.

[sirgog]

Odd. I interpreted most of the guidelines to be aimed at catching the Rest and similar posters.

These forums would be a much less interesting place without Rest.

[Seikojin]

I mean really, it says in the opening post, nothing is really changing. These additions and changes just give us more insight into why something would happen and clears up some of the mystery on how these things happen. I am pretty sure bans and infractions occurred for the very things spelled out here, yet were not spelled out as they will be.

[Jeromio]

I think that some strict examples might be needed, perhaps in some kind of complement FAQ or such, e.g. for usage of "internal knowledge" things that is not allowed, e.g. the phrase "Hi, Welcome". There are things that new forum users might not be aware of, and examples clarifying the rules might help a lot.

Also, perhaps mentioning that other web sites with certain content might not be referenced in any way or even be hinted at. I suppose this is a tricky one though. I didn't see anything about this, or did I miss it?

[Singular]

It's somewhat predictable, seeing this notice so quickly after the announcement of your new position.

What I think, after reading the whole post and observing the forums for few years now, is that you've been frustrated for some time. Now that you've been given the "new broom" you're setting the groundwork to sweep the floor.

I would like to suggest that you resist the temptation. The forums are less than optimal, and I could even sympathise. But they're Turbine's client base. A client base that is not growing.
Alienating (more) customers will not revitalise the game, but accelerate its demise.

This is by no means a threat, but please also keep in mind that just because you can silence people on these forums doesn't mean those people won't be heard elsewhere, in places where you can't moderate or monitor, and you won't have a voice.

Cleaning house, as I suspect you may want to, will just cause people to congregate elsewhere, and more people will join them, because they're a community, with or without these actual forums. It's just the nature of the internet.
The more that happens, the more Turbine will lose touch with the people it allegedly designs its product for (and after Shadowfell, I think that would be... well, not good).



I won't be surprised if you shoot the messenger, but I think it needed to be said.

---

I don't buy it. This may be your publicly stated reason, but my opinion is that it is disingenuous. I guess you had to put it up there in writing, but I'm disappointed.

We both know people don't publicly say "farewell" because of their personal connections. They're making a statement to Turbine, in front of us. And you're setting the groundwork to silence them; which you've been doing for some time now anyway.


As for infractions and bans for this, what kind of business slams the door behind a customer who cancels his or her subscription?
Will this keep them amenable to Turbine's other products?

I'd state my opinion of this, but I'm already expecting an infraction... or something.

I could agree more with you.

How can Turbine be changing its communication to more open while becoming more draconic in its policing of the forums???

The two do not go hand in hand.

[Enepttastic]

Few bits of criticisms here after working on a wholly different way of replying to this where I broke down each rule and shared my thoughts on it. Pardon me as I channel George Carlin and suggest a clean-up to the rules while lacking the ability to add some humor onto it.

On areas that don't need changing, I'll say as much. Areas that could use minor tweaking will be have the changes added to the original text in italics. Areas that I feel need more substantial work will be explained prior to the suggestion revision.

Suggested rules revamp:

1. One Person, One Account: Fine as-is.
2. Harassing, Insulting and Abusive Behavior: Original text is fine, to start. However, there are several rules that fall under the umbrella of this rule and I do believe it would be better to have them listed as subsets instead of being scattered throughout. My suggestion change follows the original text like so:
   Such behavior includes, but is not limited to:
   
   • Calling out other players
   • Personal information and Private conversations
   • Grammar Police
   Posts considered abusive to the forum population will not be tolerated either, examples include but are not limited to:
   
   • Provoking, Trolling, and baiting: Self-Defense posts should be covered here as well.
   • Hate Speech & Groups
   • Profanity
   • Inappropriate Conduct
   • Impersonation
   • Fabircated and misleading information
   • Spam
3. Derailing/Disruption of official discussion threads: Standard text is fine.
4. Discussion of Disciplinary or Moderation Actions: Fine as-is.
5. Reposting and Quoting: More or less fine, I feel it's a coin toss to have reposting here or under the previous rule though.
6. NDA: Originally didn't want to keep this on the list but realized it also applies to those who didn't break an NDA but are instead (re)posting info obtained from an NDA breach.
7. Illegal Activity: The copyright rule, if you really feel the need to spell it out, should be mentioned here instead of being another rule on its own.

----

That's it. Now, one may notice that I did leave out a few rules. There's reasons for each and I'll explain them now.

• Polls and Petitions:
  If you guys want feedback, don't limit the methods you get it. While I'll admit, many poll threads on forums are started poorly, just as many can be started well. As for the pages of "/signed" and "/unsigned" posts, this could easily be subverted by adding polling functionality to thread creation. It'll reduce the issue while letting people who agree with an option presented but have no additional feedback to mention at the moment.
• Goodbye/Farewell Threads:
  These threads are from customers who are quitting your service, why on Earth would you want to limit the chance of finding out why? If the thread degenerates, that's when the moderation team should take action. Again, don't limit the methods available to get feedback from your player-base.
• Religion/Politics:
  This one would be just fine except for the fact that there is an "Off-Topic" section to the boards. Yes, I understand that such topics are a pain to moderate due to how they can degenerate, however any way they can is already covered by other rules and honestly, if you didn't want to deal with that hornet's nest, you shouldn't have an "Off-Topic" section to begin with.
• TOS, COC, EULA: You don't make a rule that says, "Don't break the rules." That's kinda implied. If nothing else, reword it to cover posting of exploits.
• Inactivity: No, no, no. To make my point clear:
  

  You would not be. This rule gives us an option to deal with people who no longer play the game but continue to be on the forums in order to cause trouble and violate the community guidelines. Nine times out of ten that person would find themselves banned due to infractable behavior such as trolling or insults, but just in case, we have this rule. I would not expect to see this rule used much around here, either.

  Without any idea as to what that one time out of ten is, this rule is meaningless. Either allow inactive players to post or not. If you guys are unable to come up for a reason this rule exists that does not invoke infractions of other rules, there is no reason for it to exist. Especially since, this text already exists:
  

  We reserve the right to take appropriate actions if we feel any post, thread, or comment is, in the sole discretion of the Turbine Community team, inappropriate for our forums or sites, even if it is not specifically called out in these guidelines.

[Kaisoni]

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

I can see where you're coming from with this one. However I don't think it's really a good idea to ban it. If the original idea is so good that a poster thinks that there is nothing that they feel they can add to it but still want to show that they agree and that there is interest in the idea then "/signed" is pretty much just a less long winded way of saying "I completely agree with this and would like to see it implemented". If they don't completely agree with the idea, then more often than not people WILL say so in their post and will usually say why and what they think.

I will agree however that "/unsigned" without anything additional in the post is pretty worthless. If you don't agree with something then there must to be a reason that you disagree with it, and that information is what makes the post valuable (usually). And if there isn't a reason that you disagree with something then the post is even more worthless. Disagreement without constructive criticism is just as bad as trolling (Personally I'd say it's worse, at least trolling can be entertaining to read in some cases).

18. Illegal activity.
You may not violate any local, state, national, or international laws, or regulations.

I'd personally like more clarification on this. Not that I plan to ever intentionally violate this rule, but I really dislike rules that aren't at least somewhat clear. International laws are no problem because as far as I'm aware this game is only played on earth at the moment.

However: local, state and national laws? For where? For where the game servers are located? For the HQ of Turbine (if different from the servers)? For the individual's location? For all places in the world?
This is an international game isn't it? What happens when laws conflict?
Please specify these things, and in the case of it being the laws for where the servers are located or some other specific location then specify that location in the rule if you're going to make a rule like this.

[sephiroth1084]

You would not be. This rule gives us an option to deal with people who no longer play the game but continue to be on the forums in order to cause trouble and violate the community guidelines. Nine times out of ten that person would find themselves banned due to infractable behavior such as trolling or insults, but just in case, we have this rule. I would not expect to see this rule used much around here, either.

Then file this under some other heading--consider my reaction to this. I'm sure others had a similar thought, and I'm sure there would be some people who take a break from DDO and are aware of the TOS and EULA, and feel they are not permitted here. What purpose does that serve?

What is that 10th case where you'd want to restrict someone from using the forums due to their no longer being active in-game, but not because they've racked up enough infractions to be banned?

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm just curious as to how they plan to determine what the "intent" of a given post is.

Having done forum moderation myself (on a SPECIFICALLY religious/political forum, too, talk about Doom), I can tell you any response to "post hurted my feelings" is just going to encourage the chronically butthurt to make nuisances of themselves. Of course, there's no guaranteed way to eliminate this problem, but here are some that help:

1. Moderate based on content, not the snide comments. If there is valuable informational content among snark, the snark is harmless and even useful. Public shaming of staggering absurdity does far more to keep the forum tidy than moderation ever can. Yes, people will complain about it. People also complain about other things that are good for them.
2. Delete posts the vast majority of the time instead of issuing infractions. Infractions should be saved for cases of just nasty, no-content posting. This works especially well with the grammar nazis and the unfortunates who have not yet learned how to communicate in English (for whatever reason) that are their natural prey. If a thread consists of one incoherent post followed by "Whut?" and "I can't understand what you're saying" etc. delete the whole thread and send a message to the OP saying "please try wording that better, thank you".
3. Infractions for malicious reporting should also always be implemented.
4. There needs to always be a line in there about how moderation is not, never will be, isn't intended to be, and doesn't care about being "fair" or "objective". Moderation is the Wrath of God not finely-tuned surgery. Reacting badly to an issued infraction, warning, etc. = insta-ban. This is actually a great way to separate the actual jerks from the merely graceless and mouthy.
5. The "don't feed the troll" policy needs to be one of the strictest policies. "But he started it" is never an excuse.

[Postumus]

I'm just curious as to how they plan to determine what the "intent" of a given post is.

Objectively?

[FlaviusMaximus]

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

/signed

Ha haaaa. Nailed it.

Good riddance to the grammar police, posts that only read "/signed" or "/notsigned," and goodbye posts. It gets a little old to see players making a big deal of their departure from the game and then posting in the forums two months later like nothing happened.

[HungarianRhapsody]

/signed

Ha haaaa. Nailed it.

Good riddance to the grammar police, posts that only read "/signed" or "/notsigned," and goodbye posts. It gets a little old to see players making a big deal of their departure from the game and then posting in the forums two months later like nothing happened.

/signed.

We should absolutely take on the people who make posts that don't add anything positive and ESPECIALLY the posts that castigate other people for doing things that....

hey, wait. I just noticed something....

[MetropolitanCarl]

11. Polls and Petitions. While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

That is absurd. Several pages of /signed or /unsigned (if you can be bothered to count them) offer a quick insight into the opinions of active forum posters about a specific issue. While, that's not a statistically valid cross-section of the general player community, it is at least a good as asking for "meaningful contributions" in a thread where an "I agree" or "I disagree" would be sufficient--or talking to a Players Council. You should abandon this proposed rule.

We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.

Anyone who has ever dealt with In-Game Support or seen hundreds of duped items on the Auction House knows that your ban/suspension/appeal process has huge problems. Banning people who complain about mistreatment by you staff only results in management never hearing about serious problems. I can only assume that's the point of this rule.

20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.

22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

A number of religious groups require their members to publicly proclaim their faith. So doesn't rule 22 indicate you are being intolerant of such groups? Other religious groups require that their members not quietly tolerate various forms of "sexual orientation" or "lifestyle". By removing such posts is Turbine not being intolerant of those beliefs? Does this put make Turbine a "group[] whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their [...] religion"? Does that mean Turbine employees will be banned from the forums? Or perhaps it means that these rules might need a bit of rewording.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

Such threads harm no one and provide a service to the departing player and the community at large. This is probably the most nonsensical rule I've ever seen on a forum. It's nearly offensive. Such a rule could only make even a tiny bit of sense if so many players were leaving, that you were worried about the creation of a preference cascade effect among your remaining player base. Which would mean the game is actually in deep, deep trouble. What that what you were trying to communicate with this rule? If it is not, then you should reconsider it.

[rayworks]

11. Polls and Petitions. While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

That is absurd. Several pages of /signed or /unsigned (if you can be bothered to count them) offer a quick insight into the opinions of active forum posters about a specific issue. While, that's not a statistically valid cross-section of the general player community, it is at least a good as asking for "meaningful contributions" in a thread where an "I agree" or "I disagree" would be sufficient--or talking to a Players Council. You should abandon this proposed rule.

We do not publicly discuss moderation decisions, or disciplinary actions taken against members, on the Community Sites and we ask that you do not either. Any threads or posts that mention infractions, bans, or thread/post deletions or modifications, etc. are subject to removal and may result in further disciplinary action. If you have a question about an infraction or warning, you should contact a member of the community team through private message (PM). Ban appeals should be addressed as described below.

Anyone who has ever dealt with In-Game Support or seen hundreds of duped items on the Auction House knows that your ban/suspension/appeal process has huge problems. Banning people who complain about mistreatment by you staff only results in management never hearing about serious problems. I can only assume that's the point of this rule.

20. Hate Speech & Groups
You may not form or participate in groups whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. The posting of any comment or material that promote or exhibit intolerance are also prohibited. This is considered a very serious offence and may result in the immediate and permanent loss of your forum account.

22. Religion and Politics.
While we respect the right of all players to hold their own beliefs and political affiliations and opinions, we ask you not post comments or start threads of a political or religious nature. These types of discussions rarely end well and are well and truly beyond the scope of discussions of our game. Any threads or posts of this type will be removed.

A number of religious groups require their members to publicly proclaim their faith. So doesn't rule 22 indicate you are being intolerant of such groups? Other religious groups require that their members not quietly tolerate various forms of "sexual orientation" or "lifestyle". By removing such posts is Turbine not being intolerant of those beliefs? Does this put make Turbine a "group[] whose ideology promotes intolerance directed at others based on their [...] religion"? Does that mean Turbine employees will be banned from the forums? Or perhaps it means that these rules might need a bit of rewording.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

Such threads harm no one and provide a service to the departing player and the community at large. This is probably the most nonsensical rule I've ever seen on a forum. It's nearly offensive. Such a rule could only make even a tiny bit of sense if so many players were leaving, that you were worried about the creation of a preference cascade effect among your remaining player base. Which would mean the game is actually in deep, deep trouble. What that what you were trying to communicate with this rule? If it is not, then you should reconsider it.

/signed

Metro makes sense. Guidelines need a little work.

[Cordovan]

The new DDO Community Guidelines have been updated. Please click here to read the Community Guidelines.

Just a note that after consideration of your feedback, we are not specifically calling out the following rules, and have not included them in the updated guidelines:

11. Polls and Petitions.
While we consider this spam, we felt we should explain why. First, several pages of /signed and /unsigned doesn’t really offer us much in the way of actionable feedback. Second, they usually turn into something unpleasant. Instead we recommend a well-considered suggestion posted in the appropriate area that would allow for meaningful contributions and opinions to be shared by all members of the community.

23. Goodbye and farewell.
We appreciate that players have made meaningful personal connections while playing our games and we also appreciate that sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and move along to something else. We feel that heartfelt goodbyes are best done in private with personal messages to those who you will miss and who will miss you, not as missives to everyone who happens to read your post. Posts of that nature typically do not end well and as a result we will close or remove goodbye/farewell threads.

24. Inactivity.
The DDO forums and web sites are aimed at providing a valuable service to players of Dungeons & Dragons Online, and as such are meant to be used by active players of the game. Moderators may remove forum access to inactive players at their discretion, if it is deemed necessary to promote the overall goals of the web site. (One example would be if a player is no longer playing the game and using their community account to violate the community guidelines.)

If it becomes necessary in the future to add these topics to the Community Guidelines, we'll do it then. Otherwise, the things these rules were meant to address can be dealt with using a different or already-existing rule. I fully expect that this stuff will be a non-issue. Thanks!

[Fedora1]

Just a note that after consideration of your feedback

I am impressed and pleasantly surprised.

[Icywave]

Just a note that after consideration of your feedback,

/signed
/approved
/very_happy_we_were_listened_to_on_the_forums
/thanks

[Impaqt]

I'm just curious as to how they plan to determine what the "intent" of a given post is.

I would hope they just use common sense.

People are rarely as sneaky as they think they are.

[geoffhanna]

Nice! And nicely done too