Regardless of the days color its quite an achievement for an entire guild to go flawless. Purple is one of the easier days and I get bored with it so I try new things often. Been running tds, drake rider, asha, elem with 100% success last couple weeks.
Exactly, leaving us without some proper communication only tends to make Saltypatra’s work unnecessarily complicated/harder…
And every new variable on how things are conducted from case to case leaves room for a lot of interpretations.
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Quoted for truth
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First offence = 24 hour ban.
Second offence = 1,000 year ban.
I’m sorry, I don’t see the thread in question as proof that Vangor can’t behave like a decent human being. I can understand the other lifetime bans that I’m aware of, but I can’t understand this one (and I use “lifetime” loosely).
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In the case of one of those bans, the person (a regular) never even got a “first” 24 hour ban or warning before getting banned for “life”. Yet, he had several posts flagged. So, it’s pretty obvious that they aren’t consistent when it comes to this topic.
From my observations, it seems that the final banhammer falls on people that generate too many flags for them to have to clean up. Right or wrong, that seems to be the deciding factor imho.
To be fair, the ones that you’re talking about pre-date the community guidelines. Sirrian made a call on those and that’s his right. I wouldn’t hold him to a standard that was enacted after the fact.
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They had rules for posting before Salty. So, my point still stands that how they handle bans isn’t consistent.
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Yes, so we can assume that from this point it’s up to Salty all decisions pertaining Community Management. To think otherwise sort of undermines the importance of her job.
Yes, and right in the guidelines, they have two inconsistent sets of rules. For global chat, there is a gradual escalation of consequences ending with a permaban on the 4th offence. For the forums, it goes from “post deleted with an explanation” to permaban in one easy step.
Third offence. Unless I am mistaken there has been a 1 week ban after the 24 hour one.
Could be. I wasn’t keeping score and only recall one brief timeout. In any case, the letter of the law doesn’t specify any temporary bans for forum activity (though I think the mods ought to have some flexibility in how they deal with forum discipline).
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Can’t say I agree fully with this. No guild name was mentioned so if you don’t know what guild the OP of T2 is in (which I do not) you can’t know who they’re referring to.
Completely agree with this.
It feels as though the Devs gave Salty the forums and then vacated. I for one wouldn’t want her job.
Based on what everyone else has been saying I feel as though the answer to my original question is that there has been a user who has been unfairly treated.
Thank you all for commenting. I shall tread carefully from now on.
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It reminds me of a forum i used to visit with a system that would “keep scores” of your infractions, some would be permanent and others temporary, and said scores were visible (only for you and moderators) in your profile. It surely helped people at managing themselves properly.
I believe the employees who have to deal with the forum bs are becoming quite exasperated. I would not be surprised it plans were quietly underway to make adjustments. This can’t keep going on as it has for over a year, can it? I mean the constant fighting, hard feelings, surly replies, squabbling, accusations, callouts, borderline posts, etc. I think the company tried to let everybody play nice and we boxed them into a corner. They have never had the resources to deal with this growing problem, and they’ve said it before.
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My thoughts exactly, we had recently new moderators and new hires on Human Support, so it’s not such a surprise. Well, i took a look at the community guidelines just out of curiosity and a good rework with more clarifications would surely be of great help.
The OP of T2 was given a 24 hour ban for violating community guidelines. When he had additional issues, he was given a 1 week suspension. Despite additional warnings, he continued in the same behavior. The permanent ban was not for one thread. It was for a consistent pattern of unacceptable behavior.
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I’m trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent, so please bear with me.
I don’t like talking about bans, but in this case I’m going to give you all a little transparency behind my thought process to help clear things up. The forum member in question that was banned frequently violated community guidelines. They did not receive one ban, then a lifelong ban, just for opening threads, even though they went against forum policy. There were a lot of instances which added up and contributed to the ban. The player in question would constantly cause dissent in threads, derail conversations and argue with other users needlessly. There were so many occurrences, alongside frequent violations of our community guidelines that forced my hand. In addition to this, the member in question never reformed after their bans and even when the reasoning was explained to them, their behaviour remained the same, and in some cases, worsened.
The reality is, I do not like banning players. I do my best to make sure that players can discuss Gems of War at will. I leave up a lot of posts that can be considered abusive towards the devs, I let anyone and everyone criticise us. I think this is fair, I think a forum should encourage discussion as long as it remains civil and productive. I also let players get away with a lot more towards us than each other. Part of my job as a community manager is to field online vitriol, I am aware of this, I took this job knowing what I would be dealing with. However, I do not want any member of my community to be treated this way. The player that was banned had accused, called out, and harassed other players and forum members, which is not something that I turn a blind eye to anymore. They were given a chance to reform and showed themselves incapable of doing so.
As I said earlier, I did not want to issue this ban. However, there were many instances which were not public (even though a lot of them were) that weighed in on this decision being made.
I love my job and I love our community. I want players to feel safe, which unfortunately seems a little hard to accomplish right now. I will continue to work hard and make hard decisions. Please be aware for the future that I never ban players lightly, in fact, I am much more likely to turn a blind eye in the hopes that someone improves with time.
And with that, I am going to keep getting ready for my day. I was in the process of putting on my face so I could go to the office.
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Today’s a good day to call in sick 
Hi Salty,
Let me just say that I really appreciate your transparency here. Whether I agree with your decision or not, and I am fully aware that there are aspects of this that I’m not privy to, I respect the job that you do. I know this wouldn’t have been an easy decision.
Stan
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In addition to what was said before, let me add that I personally am amazed at the work you and the other devs do here on the forums. I have, over the years, played a lot of games and I have never seen a forum for a game where the devs/mods were as active as they are here.
I don’t have much to say about this certain instance here; GW isn’t a huge thing to me so I haven’t even really watched the topics in question. But I have, over the time I’ve been on here, seen what you guys have to field and are still here and not abandoning the community like so many other devs of other games have.
I know I said a lot of mean things about the new UI (and still stand by what I said), so I am likely not always a pleasant to read forum member for you mods/devs, either. But I want to make sure that you and the other devs know that, at least in my case, I also post here so much because I know you guys read it and care. I sometimes complain, sometimes post silly things and sometimes point things out because I love this game, I want it to succeed and I feel here that, more than in any other game I ever played, what I say actually does matter. Simply because you guys are interacting with the community so much, despite so much rage going on sometimes.
And for that, I want to say thanks. You have a rough job and I wouldn’t want it, to be honest. From the new UI to the current Soulforge rage to GW issues, you guys suffer a lot. And despite personally agreeing with UI hate and Soulforge rage, I still appreciate your work, your passion for the game, your love for your community and I hope that this game and you guys stay with everyone here for a very, very long time and that we don’t drive you away. And that includes this thread. Because I think that what brings everyone here is that we love GoW.
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