First off, I want to make it clear that this most certainly is not intended as an attack on the current moderator team and what they do. They give up their own free time to improve the contents of these boards by following a set of rules and policies that have been agreed on, and people should be thankful for that.
However, in my opinion the policies themselves could do with some tweaking, specifically for this RvR section (on the whole I think they are quite sound, and apply well to the other DAoC forum sections).
Just look at the current state of the RvR section and you can clearly see something is a miss:
25 Threads on Page 1:
40% (10) are grats threads.
20% (5) are movie threads.
Leaving 40% actually related in someway to discussions on RvR, the whole point of this forum section. Of these 40%, around half are locked. Thats right, half of the actual RvR related discussions, were locked, leaving approximately 20% of the total RvR forum for open RvR discussions. Surely, its easy to spot something needs changing here.
So, the issues I want to cover in particular:
Flaming
All too often I am enjoying a heated discussion, either between opposing guilds, or opposing realms, to notice that is has been locked because it has deteriorated in to some kind of flame war.
As we all know DAoC is a game based on the 3 opposing realms and there is obviously going to be guild and realm bickering. These politics form an essential aspect of the game, and I personally (so long as they stick to game issues) don't see why they should be discouraged. If anything it adds the in game experience. There is nothing more gratifying than slaughtering a group in game you have just had a passionate argument against, and nothing more embarrassing than being on the losing end of the same thing.
When the thread deteriorates into personal attacks its different. These obviously are of no benefit, and need to be dealt with in an appropriate manner. The current trend is to lock the thread, perhaps because its the easiest thing to do, but at the expense of a potentially enjoyable thread. If feasible I propose that the offending posts are just deleted (and repeat offenders warned). This way we get to keep interesting threads until they have run out of steam (i.e. nothing left to debate - boring).
Bans
Not only is the amount of bans now utterly ridiculous, but the reason for the bannings are getting more and more flaky. I'm also getting the feeling of "oh I disagree with you, so I'll find an excuse to use the ban stick". Perhaps this is unfair of me? But as an observer this is the impression I receive.
(Sorry Flim, but you created a perfect example to prove my point today, with Jjuara being my martyr).
https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showpost.php?p=2677548&postcount=156
A heated debate, where you obviously didn't agree with each other. The ban stick was brought out. The justification for this...? A 5 MONTH old post, for which he was banned for previously? I hope you can see the reason why I get the impression I do.
Add Whine
Well this is going to be a controversial subject I guess, but I don't feel that in the previous threads on the topic the underlying issues have been covered.
When people are added on / zerged, they (normally) lose the fight, and there is nothing they can do about it, this is true both in 8v8 and small scale RvR. The problem is that this is often frustrating and provides a disincentive for that player or group of players to return. On a server where the population is already 'troubled' this is by no means a good thing. People log, resulting in less enemies to kill, resulting in *both* sides becoming frustrated.
Add whine is just an extension of this frustration. I agree that there is no rule against it, and that players should not be forced to play in any particular way. I disagree however that these opinions should be censored. There is no rule about giving misleading prices on your CM, there is no rule about people misguiding others in terms of loot rolls. In both cases the frustration is allowed to be vented, and more importantly, subsequently discussed, and often the culprits "named and shamed". Why is "adding" the exception to the rule? It seems inconsistent, they are all legal in game actions unbound by the rules set by GoA, all resulting in an immense amount of frustration for the affected players.
</Ethilds>
PS: If you need to ban someone, please make it MKJ
.
However, in my opinion the policies themselves could do with some tweaking, specifically for this RvR section (on the whole I think they are quite sound, and apply well to the other DAoC forum sections).
Just look at the current state of the RvR section and you can clearly see something is a miss:
25 Threads on Page 1:
40% (10) are grats threads.
20% (5) are movie threads.
Leaving 40% actually related in someway to discussions on RvR, the whole point of this forum section. Of these 40%, around half are locked. Thats right, half of the actual RvR related discussions, were locked, leaving approximately 20% of the total RvR forum for open RvR discussions. Surely, its easy to spot something needs changing here.
So, the issues I want to cover in particular:
Flaming
All too often I am enjoying a heated discussion, either between opposing guilds, or opposing realms, to notice that is has been locked because it has deteriorated in to some kind of flame war.
As we all know DAoC is a game based on the 3 opposing realms and there is obviously going to be guild and realm bickering. These politics form an essential aspect of the game, and I personally (so long as they stick to game issues) don't see why they should be discouraged. If anything it adds the in game experience. There is nothing more gratifying than slaughtering a group in game you have just had a passionate argument against, and nothing more embarrassing than being on the losing end of the same thing.
When the thread deteriorates into personal attacks its different. These obviously are of no benefit, and need to be dealt with in an appropriate manner. The current trend is to lock the thread, perhaps because its the easiest thing to do, but at the expense of a potentially enjoyable thread. If feasible I propose that the offending posts are just deleted (and repeat offenders warned). This way we get to keep interesting threads until they have run out of steam (i.e. nothing left to debate - boring).
Bans
Not only is the amount of bans now utterly ridiculous, but the reason for the bannings are getting more and more flaky. I'm also getting the feeling of "oh I disagree with you, so I'll find an excuse to use the ban stick". Perhaps this is unfair of me? But as an observer this is the impression I receive.
(Sorry Flim, but you created a perfect example to prove my point today, with Jjuara being my martyr).
https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showpost.php?p=2677548&postcount=156
A heated debate, where you obviously didn't agree with each other. The ban stick was brought out. The justification for this...? A 5 MONTH old post, for which he was banned for previously? I hope you can see the reason why I get the impression I do.
Add Whine
Well this is going to be a controversial subject I guess, but I don't feel that in the previous threads on the topic the underlying issues have been covered.
When people are added on / zerged, they (normally) lose the fight, and there is nothing they can do about it, this is true both in 8v8 and small scale RvR. The problem is that this is often frustrating and provides a disincentive for that player or group of players to return. On a server where the population is already 'troubled' this is by no means a good thing. People log, resulting in less enemies to kill, resulting in *both* sides becoming frustrated.
Add whine is just an extension of this frustration. I agree that there is no rule against it, and that players should not be forced to play in any particular way. I disagree however that these opinions should be censored. There is no rule about giving misleading prices on your CM, there is no rule about people misguiding others in terms of loot rolls. In both cases the frustration is allowed to be vented, and more importantly, subsequently discussed, and often the culprits "named and shamed". Why is "adding" the exception to the rule? It seems inconsistent, they are all legal in game actions unbound by the rules set by GoA, all resulting in an immense amount of frustration for the affected players.
</Ethilds>
PS: If you need to ban someone, please make it MKJ
.
