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Allowing players to moderate their own in-game rooms and in-Forum topics


Sage Stoner

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I know this has been suggested before, but I would like to reiterate the need for allowing someone who creates a room in the game to be able to kick out or ban disruptive users from their room. Plus, in a similar vein, I think we could use something like that in this Forum, as well. I think that the person who starts a thread ought to be allowed to block disruptive users from posting to that thread. 

 

We are seeing an increase in disruptive behavior on the Forum, which includes people who were banned making a new account and continuing their disruptive behavior.

 

Since Gizmo has made it very clear that he has no intention of actively moderating either in-game activities or in-Forum behavior, I think it would only be fair to allow people who originate content---be it a room in the game or a topic in the forum---to moderate the content they created.

 

This is just a suggestion for discussion, and there might be some negative aspect of this that I have over-looked, but it is something worth considering. 

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I know this has been suggested before, but I would like to reiterate the need for allowing someone who creates a room in the game to be able to kick out or ban disruptive users from their room.  

 

I think you will find this has already been implemented, but in a round a bout way   .... If you iggy someone they won't see your room in the list of appartments and won't be able to enter your room :)

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Moderating our own rooms is a must and long overdue. I can't think of any reasons against it.

 

Moderating the topics we start on forum ? Definite no. It's a public forum, and it just becomes pointless if the OP, gets to cherry pick who can post and what can be posted on their topics. Not to mention mods get to edit anyone's posts as they wish. Ofc there could be limited abilities, but still bad in my opinion. So I personally think that's a terrible idea for this forum.

 

 

But yes admins should enforce their rules properly, or at least get someone to do it.

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Moderating our own rooms is a must and long overdue. I can't think of any reasons against it.

 

 

Hey shanti read my post above   ..... If you want to throw someone out of your room or stop them entering just iggy them   ... your room now becomes invisible to them so they cannot enter :)  .... that is moderation and has been included already :)

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I saw someone who did request a "Kick from Location" Button for Location owners.

Iggy and this kick Button would be the best solution :)

 

About the Forum Topics I don't think it would a good Idea because someone could start a topic with personal attacks and the victims get no chance for clarification...

This and a lot other reasons brings more disadvantages as positive effects :)

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Hey shanti read my post above   ..... If you want to throw someone out of your room or stop them entering just iggy them   ... your room now becomes invisible to them so they cannot enter :)  .... that is moderation and has been included already :)

 

Ya that's a work around, but not enough I think. If the person is already in the room and disrupting whatever you have going on, it gets annoying having to have everyone else iggy that person, when you, as a room owner could simply kick him out.

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Iggy and this kick Button would be the best solution :)

 

 

 

As I have said the iggy button now hides your room from anyone you don't want to enter your room   .... I haven't tried it, but I am assuming the iggy button would also act as a kick button   ... I will try it with a friend to see if it works  .... but once iggied a person can't enter your room :)

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Ya that's a work around, but not enough I think. If the person is already in the room and disrupting whatever you have going on, it gets annoying having to have everyone else iggy that person, when you, as a room owner could simply kick him out.

 

Yes I see what you are saying .... I was under the impression that the room disappearing would make the person invisible to everyone   ..... If thats not the case then yes a kick button should be added :)  but I will experiment to see what happens :)

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As I have said the iggy button now hides your room from anyone you don't want to enter your room   .... I haven't tried it, but I am assuming the iggy button would also act as a kick button   ... I will try it with a friend to see if it works  .... but once iggied a person can't enter your room :)

 

Some ppl does it extra for example to good visited partys, they come to disturb because the only one way to kick this person is iggy and re-open the room and most of the time is it exactly what they want :)

About this Kick and Iggy (gladly in one Button) and all is fine!

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Some ppl does it extra for example to good visited partys, they come to disturb because the only one way to kick this person is iggy and re-open the room and most of the time is it exactly what they want :)

About this Kick and Iggy (gladly in one Button) and all is fine!

 

Yes just tried it and you are right :(

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Moderating the topics we start on forum ? Definite no. It's a public forum, and it just becomes pointless if the OP, gets to cherry pick who can post and what can be posted on their topics. Not to mention mods get to edit anyone's posts as they wish. Ofc there could be limited abilities, but still bad in my opinion. So I personally think that's a terrible idea for this forum.

 

 

Well, I think your logic is quite muddled here.

 

First of all, this is only a public forum in the sense that Gizmo allows anyone to participate. He is entirely within his rights to block anyone's access at any time and for any reason. So I am not sure what you mean by public forum or how that is relevant.

 

Moreover, I never suggested that anyone should be prevented from viewing anything. I said that there has been an increase in disruptive behavior and that the OP of a topic ought to be allowed to prevent disruptive individuals from posting. So, I fail to see how blocking disruptive individuals equates with "cherry picking who can post." It is true that being able to block individuals might be abused as a way to silence those who present opposing points of view, but is that seriously a concern here?  I really don't think so. 

 

As you yourself mentioned, ideally, Gizmo should start enforcing his own rules promptly and properly. I am hoping that a lively discussion of this topic will provide some impetus for that. The fact that anyone with administrator privileges can modify the content of posts is a minor concern, but really is only rarely anything more than an annoyance. But the main point is that far too many threads are turned into pissing matches lately, and ways of dealing with that is something that ought to be discussed. 

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The thing is, outside of the ignore function; the ability to modify, block, or delete a user post should remain in the hands of the admins or mods. Most user forums work this way. I usually don’t block anyone, so I could start a topic on hairstyles and then cherry pick who I want to boot from the topic. It could be someone I do not like. I could do it because I don’t like a poster’s opinion as it differs from mine. The person may not be disruptive but I may be feeling petty and/or spiteful.

 

I know that we are all adults but I think that the activity here proves that not everyone acts like one. At least not all of the time. In my opinion it defeats the purpose of an open discussion forum. In the sense that users will have the ability to censor open discussions. Which would lead to a spamming of posts by blocked people to get their point across. In which case, a properly moderated forum would merge those threads.

 

I think one way to address the issue is once I block someone, they can no longer see my post. It disappears from their view. If they try backspace or use the ole copy and paste methods, access is denied.

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In a utopian view this may sound like a wonderful idea, just like the idea of communism may sound great on paper.

 

Unfortunately, it never works out that way. You end up having large amounts of group think and those who are disliked are pushed out of participating because of the overall bias of the community. We are all equal and paying for 3DX, so if you are hated by a group, rightly or wrongly, then why should you be pushed out? Also, there is a difference between well debated differences of opinions where people may disagree and out and out trolling. Some people just see a difference of opinion as trolling. If you want a safe space, then don’t participate in an open forum.

 

Also, if someone trolls a room whether it is colds or just spamming local, then people can just ignore the individual in question. If you want to keep a room strictly for a set group of people then you can open the room for group only or just friends.

 

If people are violating the rules and harassing and bullying people then these people should be dealt with, which is a decision to be made by the developers, not the community.

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Ya that's a work around, but not enough I think. If the person is already in the room and disrupting whatever you have going on, it gets annoying having to have everyone else iggy that person, when you, as a room owner could simply kick him out.

 

Them! :lol::P

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Indeed them. Trust me, I'd kick myself out if I could ! :lol:

 

 

First of all, this is only a public forum in the sense that Gizmo allows anyone to participate. He is entirely within his rights to block anyone's access at any time and for any reason. So I am not sure what you mean by public forum or how that is relevant.
 

 

And I used public instead of open. I do think it was pretty easy to get what I meant, but my bad. Oh wait, open is actually a synonym of public. Anyway.

Considering I'm not Gizmo, nor are you, nor is anyone that wasn't appointed as a moderator, the right to restrict access or posting, should remain theirs (by theirs I mean gizmo + moderators, but I could use his if it's better use of english in refering to gizmo, or the one moderator taking action on a specific instance).

 

 

So, I fail to see how blocking disruptive individuals equates with "cherry picking who can post." It is true that being able to block individuals might be abused as a way to silence those who present opposing points of view, but is that seriously a concern here?  I really don't think so. 

 

As you yourself mentioned, ideally, Gizmo should start enforcing his own rules promptly and properly. I am hoping that a lively discussion of this topic will provide some impetus for that. The fact that anyone with administrator privileges can modify the content of posts is a minor concern, but really is only rarely anything more than an annoyance. But the main point is that far too many threads are turned into pissing matches lately, and ways of dealing with that is something that ought to be discussed. 

 

Those are minor concerns in your eyes. Not in mine. If an administrator or an official moderator removes or edits my posts, I'm fine with it. If everyone gets to decide on their own threads if  I can and what I can post, i'm not fine with it. As Camden and Mulan have pointed out, in an utopic alternative dimension people would stick to limit disruptive posts. This is 3DX, which I'm proving myself in this very post.

There is also no option to block one person from posting on a specific thread, therefore it is cherry picking who posts and what is posted since the moderator would be choosing which posts to keep or not. And if you fail to see how it equates, well, I can't help you with that.

 

 

Ps : Third language english speakers are thankful to the english professors roaming this forum. Wat woold oui doo wizout yall :wub:

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Also, if someone trolls a room whether it is colds or just spamming local, then people can just ignore the individual in question. If you want to keep a room strictly for a set group of people then you can open the room for group only or just friends.

 

I agree with your post, except for this part. As the room's owner, I personally think it's fair for the owners to be able to kick out someone from their space, even if it's open for "all". One could equate it to the forum thread owner rights I suppose but I personally see them as different on different levels. For one, I pay for access to the game, and having my own room, so I think it's fair to want to have control over it. Forum is free. If I squatted a room and complained about an intruder would be different than if I complained about an intruder in a room I am renting. (I know this is not real life, I'm not equating both, I'm just trying to illustrate how it comes accross in my mind.)

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Moderating our own rooms is a must and long overdue. I can't think of any reasons against it.

 

 

Those are minor concerns in your eyes. Not in mine. If an administrator or an official moderator removes or edits my posts, I'm fine with it. If everyone gets to decide on their own threads if  I can and what I can post, i'm not fine with it. 

 

Interesting. You are fine with people "cherry picking" who can visit their "open rooms"  but you are not fine with people doing the same when they post something to an "open forum."  Well, frankly, I see the two as being roughly analogous, so I am in favor of both. 

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Interesting topic, SS. My thoughts on this are still a bit muddled but I shy away from putting forum moderation in the hands of the OP's - it provides too much opportunity to manipulate discussion to reflect a particular agenda. I guess it comes back to the mods failing to do their job. But then it's up to them, I gather forum moderation is a time consuming and thankless task. It's clear, to me anyway, that the people who behave badly on the forums do so because they think it's fun to make it impossible for people to have a sensible discussion or because they deliberately want to bring a discussion to an end, for whatever reason. If they're horrid enough they may even bring about the deletion of a thread. Instinctively I feel there is a need to find some way of dealing with them, the what is the difficult bit like banning them, as so many people have said, only causes them to reappear under a different account. It seems to me we've also seen that they'll pay extra subs in game to be able do their thing.

 

Is restricting the number and size of images, embedded vids etc a possible way forward? Maybe even restrict the word count? I'm not so sure about the latter as people who write well and have interesting points of view need longer posts to get their points across, and should be actively encouraged.

 

As for in game moderation, yeah the room owner should have the right to eject people, they own the room. No argument required really. Gizmo will only make the code if it supports his business model. I suspect his apparrent lack of response to things is because he is still trying to increase his number of users so doesn't see the point of moderating anything. I don't suppose his approach will change until he starts to see his user base fall. At the moment he competes very effectively with the alternatives, especially now people are putting together ace places to go using the world editor. Can someone make an irish pub, with good music and a chance to chat with people? I would if my building skills weren't so embarrassing, believe me I've tried.

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I shy away from putting forum moderation in the hands of the OP's - it provides too much opportunity to manipulate discussion to reflect a particular agenda.

 

I disagree. In fact, I think that allowing OPs to moderate their own threads could actually improve things overall, because all of us would then be involved in moderating the Forum.

 

As I said, the intent is to enable the OP to protect a discussion from disruptive behavior, not to allow him or her to manipulate the discussion. So, for example, suppose it is set up so that the OP has to specify the reason for the block, the block is temporary for the first offense, and a message is posted to the thread saying "OP has blocked Player X for 24 hours due to [brief explanation]." That alerts all participants to what is going on, and if other reasonable people say "Hey, isn't that being a little harsh," then the OP has an opportunity to rethink the decision.

 

Now, I realize that even this has potential to cause drama. But there is already plenty of drama as it is. And as long as it is used judiciously, I think it might enable an OP to exercise a degree of control that would keep the discussion both cordial and on course. For example, if this system were in place and someone went wildly off-topic, the OP could then simply say "please stay on topic or you will be blocked."  As it stands, anyone who wants to thrash a thread can do so with virtual impunity, because Gizmo does not respond to Forum reports in a particularly urgent manner. 

 

Anyway, I used to moderate a forum that had more than 1,000 members and dozens if not hundreds of messages a day in its heyday. So I know that heavy-handed moderation is no substitute for consensus building. This idea is a work in progress, and if this discussion can serve as an opportunity to brainstorm ways to improve the Forum, then so much the better. 

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I believe I mentioned all of this a while ago, and i'm still not very certain what to think of it. The ability to kick users can be pretty excellent, since it removes unwanted users..but that's exactly what would turn me away too. Some people are overly sensitive and would look for just anything to permanently ban you from their "public" location, causing nothing but unecessary drama in the end. I mean what's the point of it all when you know the system will be abused to shaft some people who are pretty harmless in my opinion, it's more like a weapon than anything else..Creating your own online safe-space where you can't see any opinions different than your own. Think about it how well-known users could basically cause a person to be banned from all great rooms..through a sphere of influence just because they dislike them..way to ruin a game for someone else lol

 

I've noticed disruptive users that basically add nothing to a topic aside from being a goof, or just taking up alot of space with vague text that's better off not being read since you understand less every sentence. Or just try to troll and cause things to spin out of control and end up in the fight club 3dx usually is ;p

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I kinda thought, SS, that you'd be coming from a point of experience. I guess good moderators are worth their weight in something quite precious if not gold. SImilarly a good OP will not pull comments that are well thought out but disagree. As I said my thinking is a bit muddled on it. I hope this discussion will cause me to sort that out. The key point is uncontentious, we all want to reduce disruptive behaviour but not at the expense of a diverse range of opinions.

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I only set people on ignore if they're being  rude(Cold inviting over and over, or like the other day someone from WC coming into my room to call it "shite"). That's just how I feel about things. Someone else can have a totally different opinion about what's okay, even if it might seem overly sensitive to you. It's their room on 3dx and it's their subscription. So I don't see anything wrong with someone having full control of their room on 3dx.

 

With the forums, I don't know. I haven't really posted that much but I come on from time to time. This is more of a public place I think so I can see how giving users the ability to censor opinions they don't like might be a little abused. But there is a block feature on the forums though, no?

 

Anyway, I wish everyone would get along and have fun and enjoy themselves but I know there are some people that just don't mix well(which is okay). That's just my opinion though :P 

 

Oh and Happy new year, 3dx~! ;)

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