Moderator Complaint

[tinafrombobsburgers 367]

1 hour ago, Gustav said:

...how on Earth did we go from answer sharing being banned, then EXPLICITLY ALLOWED AGAIN, to this again, without notice and without anyone agreeing to it? Yeah, the trivia channel in the league server has always had its own set of rules, but let's not pretend like those rules have always extended outside of it.

 

Moreover, WHY IS IT SUDDENLY A MOD ISSUE? I'd like to see what sort of "punishment" exists for sharing answers. Can't wait to be punished as if I just said something racist on the forum because I told someone what an answer was instead of linking them to something that states the answer just as directly.

 

CONTEXT that led to the ban from 2 years ago being almost immediately revoked--I can't find the original post or the revision for some odd reason... 

 

If anyone does find the original post, you'll actually find that I was initially in favor of banning answer sharing, despite being responsible for a very substantial portion of the league's trivia TPE at the time. I like to think I can admit it when someone has changed my mind, and I'll also say that my mind mostly changed later on for a lot of the reasons that @Victor mentioned in that linked post. 

 

 

And honestly, the fact that we've got people in here who have mod powers and are more or less mocking this post says a lot. Disagree with it if you want, but at least do it respectfully and provide reasoning for said disagreement. I don't think the point Sam made about hiding channels from mods or whatever does enough to justify the way this was handled (or even the fact that it's seen as something that needs to be handled in the first place), but at least it's a response and not a cool pickle GIF.

 

 

I'd find the irony of this combined with the rest of the thread funny if it didn't also concern something I tend to feel more strongly than others about in this league.

 

 

So yeah. I'm sure this will get laughed at as a "hands off muh freedom"-type post, but I really think it's a fair one to make. We're taking something that we never actually banned, turning it into a CoC issue, going behind someone's back to gather evidence that a rule that was never publicly extended outside the league server is now being broken outside the league server, and not taking what's ultimately a fair response to that seriously.

 

 

 

Amen, but powers at be with dismiss it

[ShawnGlade 1,010]

The mods are tryna do their jobs, is it even trivia if we know the fucking answers already? Just shut the fuck up and do what they tell you it isn't hard

[Beketov 9,033]

49 minutes ago, rory said:

rules only matter to you when someone you don't like breaks them lmfao

1. How did you get that from what I said?

2. What have I ever done to show I dislike anyone? Your level of victim complex is getting old.

[Josh 1,671]

2 hours ago, fishy said:

is it really a moderation complaint thread if gustav doesn't write a fucking novel

 

I think it's so he can use every type of font decoration in one post.

[UnknownMinion 728]

Love me some forum drama, reading the next chapter of the Gus Novels  is a great time 

[Nykonax 1,564]

mod team gonna lock this thread zzzzzz

[ThePerfectNut 563]

The Ricer causing drama? I'm all in for this

[ThePerfectNut 563]

  7 hours ago, Spartan said:

You realize that answer sharing will get you punished right? Feel free to help people if they need it, just point them in the right direction instead of handing out the answes

Can't prove shit if it's in DMs

[8Ovechkin8 262]

Or just quit being a bitch its honestly not that hard 

[Gustav 6,430]

4 hours ago, Beketov said:

While I never expressly asked for this crackdown (there is a glitch at least one person was exploiting which SHOULD be cracked down on but that’s different) I will say that I could have sworn we re-outlawed it when we changed the trivia to the portal. Looking through the announcements and the rules though it appears we didn’t, it was just implied by the fact that questions get randomized. I still think the questions are reasonable enough that people shouldn’t need someone else to tell them what to pick but that’s beyond the point.

 

As for why this was a “mod issue” … I present two things:

 

1. The CoC specifically mentions cheating which if this is interpreted as such it would cover. Therefore that falls under mod jurisdiction.

 

2. The aforementioned glitch is more of a dev thing which I think is where this all started, thus @Dil’s involvement at all.

 

I do wish we would have been consulted before any kind of crackdown since there’s obviously a discussion to be had but that didn’t happen. I’m not sure exactly what evidence is present and perhaps it indicates something more than just a pool of answers but I’m uncertain. That’s not necessarily Dil’s fault, I just didn’t know anything was going on aside from the aforementioned glitch abuse.

 

That's all well and good, but honestly the fact that it "was never re-outlawed" is way more than enough reason to say that it's not an issue unless specifically re-outlawed publicly. Answer sharing was a thing for years on end--I should know; I'd do trivia myself as soon as it was posted as a VHLM GM and a certain someone would immediately distribute it to every server he was in, all without complaint from anyone. Anyone with any sort of knowledge of the history of answer-sharing in this league (I'll add, by the way, that Ricer was a player of mine while I was doing that) would have absolutely no reason to believe that sharing answers wasn't (and isn't) still OK outside of the league server.

 

Re: point 1: I think the above is a more than fair response.

 

Re: point 2: I don't know and don't need to know what this is referring to, but as long as it has nothing to do with this thread it's really beside the point. I'm talking about the principle of sharing answers itself.

 

I'm not trying to blame anyone in particular and nothing I've said has been intended to be a shot at Dil specifically. I just find it concerning that this is another instance of the mod team doing more or less whatever they want without regard to what the league itself wants.

 

 

Btw, I do find the comments about me writing novels funny. I get that it's a meme at this point and that's OK--just please understand that there are real thoughts in there and I hope you get where I'm coming from.

[jacobcarson877 2,541]

Few thoughts as the other unnamed party directly involved

- My relationship with Dil and Ricer is strong and will be fine after all this.

 

- I was put in a position where if my relationship wasn't as strong with either of them, it truly could have been a conflict somehow where I wouldn't be fine after this. Having to choose between lying to a mod to back my team or ratting out my team to a mod isn't a spot that I'd like to ever be in again.

 

- As a GM, I was very generous with trivia, knowing that my forum expertise was much higher than most and people from outside my team would come to me in confidence for trivia help. At first I was very cautious about it, helping slowly, but as we know over time people began just sending the direct link to the answer, and then eventually just the answers. At that point, instead of wasting everyone else's time when they get the question, it only makes sense to keep track of the answers somewhere for quick access. I get why these happen, and I know for a fact that they have been happening for forever, and will likely happen again in another month without a change in the rules explicitly or constant moderation.

 

- I've voiced my concerns about the effect this will have on our welfare+ players, who we desperately need more of, who have been getting 2 easy trivia TPE for the entirety of the time I've been around. Trivia isn't as simple as just exploring the forum, and for our newer members, or those of us not constantly on the forum, the questions made available are simply too difficult in my opinion to be viable usages of time. Those players are often hesitant to write, outside of maybe a press conference, so the "other options" aren't really viable.

 

- When we redid the trivia system, as has been mentioned here before, there was no explicit banning of sharing answers. My interpretation at the time was because we were constantly adding questions and there were going to be so many questions that by the time someone had begun compiling the answers, there would simply be more. In my opinion this was actually working rather well, I'd usually get questions about the same trivia question for a couple weeks then I wouldn't hear about it again. Maybe others don't feel its working well however.

 

- I can understand answer sharing being wrong, and could be convinced to really go for it without the threat of punishment if a few things happen. Trivia questions have to get easier for first-gens. Seriously it is 1 TPE stop making me count individual rows in a spreadsheet that wasn't updated since S43. The questions don't have to be interesting. Honestly if we could keep it just to things on the portal or just on the forum that would be a game-changer. We don't need to uphold some divine standard showing how good we are at finding information. Also, we need a written standard of what is and isn't allowed. I had a very productive chat with Spartan, Josh and Sam today on this topic and everyone kind of had a different idea of what was fine. And honestly, that's okay. But at some point, if we're going to start throwing around punishments, it can't be subjective, or else its going to look like targeting people individual people of power aren't great with.

 

- There was obviously more to the story with Calgary and the conversation with Ricer and Dil that isn't my story to tell, but I am hoping that the seriousness of the conversation and the urgency was carried forward to other GMs across all of the leagues as well. This was more than just a friendly reminder, with a tone of far more than I expected. If the same energy was carried over to the other teams then all is fine in my mind.

 

- I can understand where people are beginning to feel as though a lot of the recent changes (some of which I'm thrilled about and some I haven't been and that's okay) have been very anti-TPE earning. It is harder than ever to earn TPE in an era where your TPE goes way less distance. Obviously we know it has to go less distance or else the hybrid attributes would be useless. I understand we have to uphold a standard and the Updaters do a great job with that, but watching those "easy" TPE sources like trivia and fantasy zone take the hit over and over again doesn't feel great.

 

- Obviously I am not privy to a lot of the high-up conversation about changed and such but I do find it somewhat concerning that the commissioners didn't know this crackdown was happening. This definitely feels like something that should have come from them first, then enforced by the mod team afterwards, with threat of punishment, instead of this weird other way around that has happened now.

 

- I definitely feel like I have far more questions now than I have answers, and I hope over the next few days we get a LOT more clarification on what is going on with trivia and its future. It is obviously a broken system that has been encouraging borderline cheating for literal years, and unless we get meaningful changes (which I would be very excited for) I don't see any of the events of today as a win for anyone.

 

THE END

[Dom 1,445]

4 minutes ago, jacobcarson877 said:

Few thoughts as the other unnamed party directly involved

- My relationship with Dil and Ricer is strong and will be fine after all this.

 

- I was put in a position where if my relationship wasn't as strong with either of them, it truly could have been a conflict somehow where I wouldn't be fine after this. Having to choose between lying to a mod to back my team or ratting out my team to a mod isn't a spot that I'd like to ever be in again.

 

- As a GM, I was very generous with trivia, knowing that my forum expertise was much higher than most and people from outside my team would come to me in confidence for trivia help. At first I was very cautious about it, helping slowly, but as we know over time people began just sending the direct link to the answer, and then eventually just the answers. At that point, instead of wasting everyone else's time when they get the question, it only makes sense to keep track of the answers somewhere for quick access. I get why these happen, and I know for a fact that they have been happening for forever, and will likely happen again in another month without a change in the rules explicitly or constant moderation.

 

- I've voiced my concerns about the effect this will have on our welfare+ players, who we desperately need more of, who have been getting 2 easy trivia TPE for the entirety of the time I've been around. Trivia isn't as simple as just exploring the forum, and for our newer members, or those of us not constantly on the forum, the questions made available are simply too difficult in my opinion to be viable usages of time. Those players are often hesitant to write, outside of maybe a press conference, so the "other options" aren't really viable.

 

- When we redid the trivia system, as has been mentioned here before, there was no explicit banning of sharing answers. My interpretation at the time was because we were constantly adding questions and there were going to be so many questions that by the time someone had begun compiling the answers, there would simply be more. In my opinion this was actually working rather well, I'd usually get questions about the same trivia question for a couple weeks then I wouldn't hear about it again. Maybe others don't feel its working well however.

 

- I can understand answer sharing being wrong, and could be convinced to really go for it without the threat of punishment if a few things happen. Trivia questions have to get easier for first-gens. Seriously it is 1 TPE stop making me count individual rows in a spreadsheet that wasn't updated since S43. The questions don't have to be interesting. Honestly if we could keep it just to things on the portal or just on the forum that would be a game-changer. We don't need to uphold some divine standard showing how good we are at finding information. Also, we need a written standard of what is and isn't allowed. I had a very productive chat with Spartan, Josh and Sam today on this topic and everyone kind of had a different idea of what was fine. And honestly, that's okay. But at some point, if we're going to start throwing around punishments, it can't be subjective, or else its going to look like targeting people individual people of power aren't great with.

 

- There was obviously more to the story with Calgary and the conversation with Ricer and Dil that isn't my story to tell, but I am hoping that the seriousness of the conversation and the urgency was carried forward to other GMs across all of the leagues as well. This was more than just a friendly reminder, with a tone of far more than I expected. If the same energy was carried over to the other teams then all is fine in my mind.

 

- I can understand where people are beginning to feel as though a lot of the recent changes (some of which I'm thrilled about and some I haven't been and that's okay) have been very anti-TPE earning. It is harder than ever to earn TPE in an era where your TPE goes way less distance. Obviously we know it has to go less distance or else the hybrid attributes would be useless. I understand we have to uphold a standard and the Updaters do a great job with that, but watching those "easy" TPE sources like trivia and fantasy zone take the hit over and over again doesn't feel great.

 

- Obviously I am not privy to a lot of the high-up conversation about changed and such but I do find it somewhat concerning that the commissioners didn't know this crackdown was happening. This definitely feels like something that should have come from them first, then enforced by the mod team afterwards, with threat of punishment, instead of this weird other way around that has happened now.

 

- I definitely feel like I have far more questions now than I have answers, and I hope over the next few days we get a LOT more clarification on what is going on with trivia and its future. It is obviously a broken system that has been encouraging borderline cheating for literal years, and unless we get meaningful changes (which I would be very excited for) I don't see any of the events of today as a win for anyone.

 

THE END

I wonder if you can claim this for tpe lol

[jacobcarson877 2,541]

1 minute ago, Dom said:

I wonder if you can claim this for tpe lol

I'm sure if I copy and pasted it into a Media Spot I could get away with it, its definitely 500+ words and definitely league related? I'll keep it on the backburner for a while haha

[Bojovnik 487]

I 100% support Ricer in this.

[Beketov 9,033]

2 hours ago, jacobcarson877 said:

It is harder than ever to earn TPE in an era where your TPE goes way less distance.

How do you figure that? We have literally more options than ever to hit the cap. If someone feels like their trivia is too hard they can just go and do something else. Minor tasks account for much more total TPE than people are actually able to claim so I’m not sure I really subscribe to this notion that “oh trivia is too hard” when you can just go do something easier if you find that to be the case.

 

2 hours ago, jacobcarson877 said:

with threat of punishment

Also where does this “threat of punishment” keep coming from? From what I have seen no one has ever said there will be any kind of punishment. It was more a “hey, if you’re doing this please stop doing it” sort of thing.

[Baozi 1,658]

Im pretty sure all this was from a "Please stop" perspective.

 

As someone that doesnt do trivia, i feel like people are taking advantage of system if its answering sharing or referencing some database.

 

I mean when you goto a trivia night nobody is allowed to use their phone and google. Like it feels like it should be common sense to play trivia as it was intended.

[rory 1,916]

rory's trivia master sheet only provides helpful links to direct you. please contribute via my profile.

[Shindigs 1,771]

From a VHLM GM perspective I see the main purpose of trivia as a type of tutorial on how to maneuver the forums/portal/index. That's basically the primary purpose and you get 1 TPE per correct answer for taking the tutorial. As long as you treat it that way and let your players use it to learn, I really don't see the problem. But if a question is simply made in such a way it doesn't actually achieve that purpose. Because it's making you do something so niche and/or tedious that it'll never ever be useful to you. Then yeah, I'll just let them skip that part of the tutorial, because it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

[Viper 530]

am I late

[v.2 1,406]

I know the true secrets to trivia.  Not tellin dil tho.

[Ricer13 2,796]

6 hours ago, Baozi said:

Im pretty sure all this was from a "Please stop" perspective.

 

As someone that doesnt do trivia, i feel like people are taking advantage of system if its answering sharing or referencing some database.

 

I mean when you goto a trivia night nobody is allowed to use their phone and google. Like it feels like it should be common sense to play trivia as it was intended.

Completely respect if it was MEANT to be a “please stop” method. It clearly wasn’t handled as such from the moderator dealing with the issue. It seems like there was a lot of miscommunication amongst the mods, commissioners, GMs, etc. and it turned into something that was not just a “please stop” issue. 
 

I just want this to be a learning experience for everyone. It wasn’t handled the right way, people made mistakes and it’s a time to take a step back and learn how this could have been handled differently.

[Esso2264 774]

10 hours ago, Gustav said:

a certain someone would immediately distribute it to every server he was in

bruh at least credit me

[Gustav 6,430]

3 hours ago, Ricer13 said:

Completely respect if it was MEANT to be a “please stop” method. It clearly wasn’t handled as such from the moderator dealing with the issue. It seems like there was a lot of miscommunication amongst the mods, commissioners, GMs, etc. and it turned into something that was not just a “please stop” issue. 
 

I just want this to be a learning experience for everyone. It wasn’t handled the right way, people made mistakes and it’s a time to take a step back and learn how this could have been handled differently.

 

Exactly. It's an entirely different discussion (and one that would get to me a lot less) if this were only ever "please stop". The "threat of punishment" @Beketov mentions comes from other members being deputized to gather evidence--clearly, you can ask someone to stop without launching an investigation. 

 

There's also the conflicting logic of this:

 

[Beketov 9,033]

58 minutes ago, Gustav said:

 

Exactly. It's an entirely different discussion (and one that would get to me a lot less) if this were only ever "please stop". The "threat of punishment" @Beketov mentions comes from other members being deputized to gather evidence--clearly, you can ask someone to stop without launching an investigation. 

 

There's also the conflicting logic of this:

 

Have we considered perhaps not treating the mods as if they are crown persecutors? Them looking into something doesn’t automatically mean anyone is going to be punished for it. I don’t know precisely how this all went down but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with “please stop doing this thing” which isn’t saying “or else” in any way.

 

Again, I wish I would have known more about what was going on because this whole crackdown doesn’t seem to be what I saw discussed but that doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for the mods to look into anything. If we only allow the RGB teams to handle that kind of thing we’d gonna burn out faster than we already do.

[Achilles 91]

wait, I am allowed to search the forums on trivia? news to me. I thought I was cheating if I did. I was guessing the whole time lol sweet. now I can finally get more than 1 point.