As Requested by a Dev: A Thread about Devs' Actions/Inactions

Feature Requests and Game feedback
537

It’s good to be specific with rules, but I feel this feedback is unfair. “Avoiding controversy” is a very common rule across many communities like this, from forums to Discord servers. Use your best judgement and try to avoid political/religious/social issues - this is not the place for those conversations. Don’t intentionally bring up stuff you can logically assume may spark heated debates. Don’t engage in heated debates.

Is it a little vague? Sure, maybe, but can they realistically name everything that could possibly cause controversy or heated debates? There has to be an amount of common sense used here, and ultimately, as they stated, it is up to moderator discretion - again, this is extremely common on social platforms like this and necessary for keeping things civil.

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538

Of course not, but my point is that the guidelines were written from the cultural context of an Australian of a certain age and gender, who’s assuming that there is a ‘common sense’ set of cultural norms that everyone inherently understands, agrees to and knows how to navigate when interacting with groups of strangers… regardless of cultural context or their ability to understand English - they just assume.

Common sense is absolutely and fundamentally shaped by the environment and culture we grow up in. Common sense is not universal or rational. Try discussing one or two spicy issues that have seemingly common-sense solutions during your next family BBQ. You might want to bring an ice pack. (Or an ice pick.)

I think the guidelines mention combativeness.
Combativeness is one of those things that do not translate across cultures.

On occasion, uor US employees will get upset working with their Dutch/German/… colleagues. It is normal for Dutch people to use less sugarcoating, but that directness is often misunderstood by US staffers as being hostile. But in their corner of the continent, being more direct is perfectly acceptable and encouraged. Predictably, everyone will accuse everyone else of just not getting it.

I used to work requests and tickets for an IRC chat network used by (mainly) Europeans. The system was ‘gamified’ to show how many tickets staffers had worked on in a bar chart. I threw myself at it until I won the game. In hindsight, I did a terrible job. I declined way too many requests for the wrong reasons. The rules were ‘use common sense’ with very little of anything spelled out. At the time I thought I was doing a great job, because speed trumps all, right?

‘Channel not active enough. Declined.’
(I checked at a time convenient for me, but should’ve considered that not everyone exists in my time zone.)

‘Please try again in English. Declined.’
(I didn’t need the form in English anyway, but the rules said ‘in English’. Zing.)

‘You didn’t fill out C, R and F. Declined.’
(They didn’t understand the rules. I should’ve approved the request all the same, CRF didn’t even matter in that case.)

‘Why are you being so hostile, what did I do? Declined and banned.’
(I made no effort to understand the cultural context.)

So don’t be like me. Be more specific with your rules than ‘common sense’ or you’ll end up with staffers making the wrong decisions. Either because they’ve had a bad week or because they’re trying too hard to be the best at their job.

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539

At least we got indirect confirmation that the ticket backlog has been handled and they answered all pending tickets before updating these guidelines.
:thinking: :blush: :vulcan_salute:

540

If you are trying to be respectful you’re not going to have any problems, which has always been the case.

I think the only actual change other than wording and structure of the guidelines is we’ve now explicitly mentioned no talking about religion or politics.

Other than that it’s mostly the same as before, no insults, no swearing, no hate speech, if someone wants those things, the Gems of War community forum is not the place for them. Almost no game forum is the place for that type of person.

If the line is unclear for you and you cross it you’ll be asked to stop, that’s all, it most likely would end there - we’d much prefer everyone just got on than having to resort to banning people. Being asked to stop doesn’t harm anyone in anyway - I’m sure everyone at some point in their lives has been part of a conversation where someone was asked to drop a topic or change topics offline as well. If you continue after that you’ll be banned, at that point we had tried to give you a nudge in the right direction and tried to talk about it and the behaviour wasn’t changed so we have to do something to stop it. Offline if someone continues with unwanted behaviour, the people they’re talking to or around will either leave or tell the person who was asked to stop to leave. It’s rare people just tolerate unwanted behaviour in any setting.

Bans also aren’t personal - they’re a way to make the space for someone to take a breather, get some fresh air and calm down before coming back to the community to participate with a clear head again - if simply talking to them didn’t work in the first place.

If someone comes in with threats, excessive swearing and hate speech they may be banned without warning - no one wants that in our community and we’re not giving that behaviour space here. Most businesses and communities do kick people out for that behaviour. I don’t think this is what you’re talking about though as none of you are this type of person.

If you are banned for something and feel your ban is unfair you can contact support and talk to a manager. If you have an experience where the more senior member of staff agrees with the action taken then it is what it is and you should probably review your behaviour and how it affects the people around you or whether the Gems of War community aligns with your values in a way that makes you feel comfortable, if you don’t share those values then maybe this also isn’t the right place for you.

We get tonnes of messages every day, some happy, some angry, people agreeing with each other and in passionate debates. We don’t generally warn or ban many people at all. Most people complaining or venting or raging don’t have any run ins with staff, because they’re able to communicate how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking without resorting to antisocial behaviour even when they’re angry or frustrated or upset.

Most people will literally not run into these problems as most people in the community are totally normal, respectful people who are just here to engage over the game they enjoy and talk about that.

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541

Just safekeeping in case this gets edited in the future.
:blush: :vulcan_salute:

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544

Weekend is near, you’ll be fine for a few days.
Put in a question about when the promised “extra” vault event finally will take place. You won’t receive much attention after that question.

I never was banned, maybe this posting already is my fate. :wink:
Can you see who exactly issued a (temp) ban / suspension?

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545

Alas, we do not get told which mod issues them, so no transparency there either… :person_shrugging: :vulcan_salute:

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546

What the… I’m with @icy on this.

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549

I’ve deleted the post because it’s a repost of the thing that broke forum rules and caused the last suspension.

To be clear - providing feedback about policies, procedures and about communication etc is fine in the feedback section.

Calling out specific forum users (which includes specific staff members) is against the rules and always has been against the rules. This has not changed. We’ve spoken about it at length in the past.

Basically if your feedback is about a problem it’s ok. The second it becomes about a person you’re breaking forum rules.

If you have an issue with a specific staff member, contact support and a manager will review your complaint. This is something I have also repeatedly communicated over the years both publicly on the forum and privately and directly with users. This is the only appropriate channel to make such complaints.

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550

So thankfully, I don’t have a problem with any staff member. But out of curiosity, is there any recourse available for times when attempted contact could be intercepted by suspected specific staff member and hidden from view from management?

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551

What if the person is or creates the problem, like some people (users) like to try to stir up problems?

A little hard to separate person from issue of issue wouldn’t exist without person being here and creating the issue.

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552

We have different levels of oversight on support as with all our teams so multiple people handle it.

As with any job staff have supervisors.

It rarely escalates but it has in the past and if those users are around they could atest to having spoken to my manager as well.

Then the correct way to report it is by contacting support privately where their manager can address the complaint, not by blasting it in a public forum where the rules state call outs aren’t allowed.

553

The team ignores people who are openly and actively riling up the community so I guess the trust in something being done after a private complaint isn’t very high.

People look for support from others by bringing up public issues publicly.

Just to explain why it’s happening.

I personally don’t care about the trolls being trolls. They don’t bother me. But knowing what we’re expected to do is always good just in case.

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554

I think there have been some actions taken against persistent disruptors here recently: I’ve noticed a few of the frequent fliers catching suspensions as a result of recent threads.

Flagging seems to work fairly well for that; in particular, flagging as Other allows you to add extra context beyond the standard “breaks the guidelines” etc categories.

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555

Oh yeah for non-staff members the way to go is to use the flagging system - there’s a flag button at the bottom of every post if you click the ‘…’. Then staff get a big red blip on their screen that something needs attention, also if enough community members flag something, the community “self-moderates” ie. the community can hide posts that break forum guidelines.

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556

Just a short question. I don’t want to flag anyone but even if I wanted to, on Android there is no such “flag button”. Only a heart (like), a chain (share), bookmark and an arrow (quote). Where is the flag option @Kafka? :thinking:

557

While i understand the reasoning, at least personally, if i had any issue with someone that was a dev, I would have little faith any real action would be taken to resolve the situation.

Whether it be a “bonus” vault event for Christmas auto bans, dragon eggs with copies well exceeding 4 of one troop, or simply a faction event with issues that i swear induced deja vu, it seems unlikely that there would be care if a dev may or may not have been unfair.

I don’t have a problem with any of the devs past or present on a personal level at all. I understand the requirements many of them have to undertake and keep their respective boss/publishers happy. At times my biggest gripe is the messaging, which for whichever theory one may have, has been declining from a few years ago as some of the older players may recall.

Compared to a few years ago, it community feels is a lot less personal with those that run it, and inversely, makes it feel that it can easily get more personal.

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558

You may need to tap the “…” where the heart is to make the flag appear.

559

That’s the problem. No such thing on my phone. I tried. :sweat_smile:

560

If a post has already been flagged and you see the “this message has been hidden by the community” (or whatever it says), AIUI you can’t flag it again.