Moderation Team Feedback

hard agree here i don't know the actual size of the team but i only see like 5-10 members consistently. maybe the rest are doing things internally, but they really are not visible to the community which i think is skull emoji reaction

alternatively for non-trivial cases multiple mods could look over it (not sure if this is already done)

 

Follow up to this, I do appreciate you guys for not locking this thread and actually taking the time to respond. I dont mean any hate or harm, but change does need to happen.

 

You're rad, props to you.

 

I think you bring up a lot of good points, I definitely fall in the category of people that weren't super active in the everyday chatter even before I became a mod, outside of voicechats and sometimes #Questions. It's hard to force yourself to do something that doesn't come naturally, so I do agree that it would help lessen this divide between the mod team and the community if we add more moderators that are more active in the community as is. That being said there is also some work behind the scenes to do, and we've all got our parts to play - the robots too ;). I do think our current trial wave is a step in the right direction though. ^^

Also I just quickly wanted to answer this part:

We have had quite a few moderators resign from the team recently so that feeling of yours is correct, and we are working on getting the numbers back up to normal!

 

Im not withthefish but we (and a few others) discussed this thread while he was making it so heres my personal response

Thanks for the response. In past threads they generally just got locked and ignored with issues being brushed over, so the amount of good communication youve given us is a massive step in the right direction already. Much appreciated.

at the time of sending this I am on my phone and very tired. Ill give a more detailed response to everything later after talking with Mr Fishers.

 

Thank you @Viridian for taking the time to respond and hear us out. This is a monumental step in the right direction and means a lot.

First off, it is genuinely an issue that Moderators are treated that way sometimes, there is no denying that. However, I believe that this will become less of an issue with time as the staff communicate more and more with the community on a casual level- speaking from experience, people are way less likely to flame people they know as opposed to someone they don't know with a role of importance. I understand the fear of mob mentality, and I will be honest it's really disheartening to see even on the sidelines. However, despite how harsh the community can seem sometimes, it's still important to remember that this is a loud minority and that there's still a large portion of the community that is kind and genuine who would be more than happy to be your friends.

I definitely agree mod communication should be natural, albeit encouraged, and not forced. Forcing engagement could lead to it seeming robotic, which is an issue we've discussed many times already. Natural communication will improve over time if more moderators are selected who are already active within the community, as mentioned by @Mimo previously.

Overzealous moderation has been an issue for a long time, but it has gotten much worse over the last year. I will not be singling anyone out, as that's not the point of this thread and should be handled in reports instead, but there has been a dramatic increase in moderation over harmless content such as some gifs and posts/threads recently over the discord and forums. Threads such as the one from Timmah06 the other day being deleted is fair, but sometimes it gets taken too far (For example, profile posts relating to said post being mass-deleted/warned.) As has been stated several times already, gif/meme posting in the Wynncraft discord should be moderated on a case-by-case scenario because sometimes shitposting is relevant to the conversation (or is the conversation itself) as opposed to interrupting/ruining one.

Thank you for clarifying this! It definitely helps to hear from a manager that these reports are listened to and taken seriously. Do you think you could note that on the Moderation Info thread (or somewhere else!) so it's more clear to people in the future? As we've seen today it's quite common that people believe these reports fall on deaf ears.

As for making the report form, Fish Ankarin and I came up with a few simple solutions that you all can work off. First off, adding a thread about Moderator/Staff reports in the Player Reports section with a link to it could help a lot- as well as noting it in #bug_and_player_reports in the Wynncraft discord. If we get any other ideas in the future, one of us will send you a message.


Once again, thank you for your time and effort to make the Wynncraft community a better place. Huge thanks to @Ankarin and @WithTheFish for helping me write this as well as @_purplegiraffe_ @Mimo @Emogla3 and @Viridian for taking the time to respond here, as well as to the 3 trial moderators for doing an absolutely outstanding job these last few weeks. If you have any further questions or wish to discuss anything more, feel free to respond here or message me on the forums or discord.

Thank you,

Komi.

 

(As with most other mods speaking for myself, not mod team)

I feel like this is the root issue behind most of the discontent, due to being seen as just faceless beings it's less believable when we say we are working on things internally. It is something that I do think the team needs to work on more. For this a community manager definitely could be helpful as others have said, provided we find someone that has enough time to do it.

I feel like this is partially present due to needing to separate yourself as a mod and as a person, as a mod you should of course treat everyone equally. So you need to separate away personal biases, this can naturally be done by using very formal language with things like me and other mods tend to do. But that does miss the mark on forming a connection with the community, I do worry it gives us a too corporate, emotionless feel. So a purposeful effort to use more casual language would really help out for things imo. Then of course you won't see many full mods in the discord too often, this is the best place to become more connected with the community imo. So encouraging full mods to interact with the discord more would help fix this issue. On the other hand it should be pointed out that full mods only have so much time they can spend on Wynncraft, so while it's fair to ask them to be more active on the discord they shouldn't reach discord mod activity levels. Secondly reading Viridian's response made me realise how daunting the discord may be for some mods. The pushback we get on moderation actions is insane, I have had to tell the trials that on the discord pushback is to be expected and largely ignored; at the time I didn't pause to think of how it shouldn't be normal for mods to be regularly jumped by the discord. And quite often it's not a local minority either, lots of actions get pushback.

For this there is a reason we're so adamant on gifs in the discord: we need to draw a consistent line somewhere. Now to elaborate on on this, for many people a conversation littered with gifs to just be not fun if you're not involved, this is why we can't just let #wynncraft spam to its heart's content. But we do generally allow intermittent gifs. Now I think handling the gifs on a case-by-case basis would be unsustainable/unfair, because it happens often, and will keep doing so. Looking at each case individually will result in very different outcomes for situations that are essentially the same, this would just be terrible for a number of reasons.

Now for the rumour there are a few reasons why some stuff might get acted on faster than others, that being 1: how long the case takes to handle and 2: is a mod online. In this rumour I think it's all down to mods being online or not, both are easy to act upon. Other cases may take longer for various reasons (such as more proof being needed that may take longer to handle).

Speaking of how fast we moderate things, it's time to derail that paragraph and get into another topic I still think is important and that doesn't fit anywhere else. This being that one issue I've noticed but I don't think is easily resolvable is that quite often it may look like a mod did nothing despite us already having handled/are handling the case. Due to us keeping punishments/procedures private I've heard it feels like we ignore them, when in fact we often can't reveal what we did because it would reveal things we shouldn't. Some way of reassuring people their report has been handled would really solve this case, I do think even sending a short message when we're done saying it was handled would really help feel people reports are looked at. And to also add an extra sentence if people have incomplete knowledge of what happened, so that way you guys at least know we're basing our decision off other stuff as well so our conclusions may not match yours.


For 3 and 4 I don't think I could say anything that hasn't been said already so won't mention those.

 

This was the exact response I would have expected from the mod team tbh. These issues have plagued the community since I was a mod, and the responses to the thread are still as disappointing as ever. The fact that the mods have to clarify that they're not speaking for the whole team is a hilarious metaphor for the lack of centralization and unity on the team. I haven't been really active in the community, but I'm disappointed that I saw another moderator feedback thread with the same issues since I was a mod. However, I do think the mods get a lot of flack for doing their job correctly.

One of my main gripes with the team is the lack of humanity when moderating. Some of the rule enforcement is too strict. Your job should be to determine if posted content is harmful. Deleting gifs because there are too many is dumb and a good way to get hated by the community. Try to read the room a bit, the community doesn't have to be so stiff, and moderate when needed. There is definitely a line between raillery and abuse. My experience with moderating is that the community really tries to push rule boundaries. Most of the time people think they're being smart and subverting the rules. The guild community is notorious for trying to be funny by being edgy. Mods absolutely need to know how to read a room.

I am a proponent of having a public scale of clearly defined punishments. HOWEVER, after being a mod I understand that it is much easier to have a case-by-case system. The community should really be informed that stuff works on a case-by-case basis. There should be at least a skeleton guideline of punishments, just so someone being minorly rude on discord doesn't get a perma-ban. The mod team needs to convene and publically write out said guideline.

________________________________

Also, the fact that you posted this is very cringe.

 

Hey, thanks for all the responses with constructive feedback and suggestions!
I have some "follow-up" questions/comments about some responses to clarify what the mod team could do to work on these issues :)

(to clarify: this is not an "official" response, but I personally think this is an important discussion and I'm interested to know what the community wants and how people think we can change certain things)

Like I said in my previous message on this thread I think this is partly caused by the fact that the outcome of the report usually isn't shared (depending on the case), and i definitely understand that this issue can demotivate players to actually report mods. Are there any things the mod team/mod managers can do to make it clear that reports are taken seriously?

To clarify: cases/appeals are usually handled by one moderator, but complex cases are often discussed with other moderators (in mod chat, at mod nights, etc) to determine what should be done. Not all of the non-trivial cases are handled by multiple mods though, since we just don't have the capacity for that at the moment.
We've also made it possible to request a different moderator to handle a players appeal - from the ban appeals FAQ on the Moderation Info thread:
"Is it possible to request a new moderator for my ban appeal?
If you have evidence of moderator misconduct and a good reason (disliking a moderator is insufficient) for not wanting to appeal with the moderator that banned you, you may ask for another moderator to take your appeal. This may cause the appeal to take significantly longer due to the new moderator needing to learn the details of your case. Additionally if you have any evidence of moderator misconduct please contact a mod manager about it and they will handle it."
If you have any suggestion about other ways we can improve this I'd be interested to hear it!

From personal experience I can say that negative experiences like this have definitely caused me to be a lot less active in the Wynncraft discord than I used to be, it can be very demotivating to get ganged up on, so it's something you naturally start avoiding. It's a lot easier to keep up community interaction in smaller subcommunities (like guilds and other friend groups) so that's what I personally prefer. I do understand that this decreases the mod/community interaction in the main discord though, and it's something I think I personally should work on/improve too.

Thanks for the suggestions! I brought it up and sadly it's not possible to make a seperate thread in the player reports section (due to the way the forums work), but we'll add a section to the current thread there (How to report a player).
If you have any other ideas about this, or about improving the visibility of the Mod Information thread for example feel free to reply, I'd be very interested to hear about that :)

 

I just want to say I'm extremely happy with how this thread has turned out. Plenty of mods (especially happy about this) and players have chimed in with their thoughts and we've gotten some great discussion going. I'll give some misc. thoughts and suggestions of my own:

- The Moderation Information and Announcements Thread feels too hidden. It's been mentioned a bunch, and given that it only has 2000 views (many of which are probably from mods), and barely any likes on posts, I think a lot of the playerbase didn't know it existed until today. Maybe it could be moved to the Wynncraft section and/or mentioned on discord?

- Moderation feedback forms are currently anonymous no matter what. Players should have a chance to opt in to include their discord or forums name, that way a mod manager can reach out to them and give the status of their moderator report.

- Multiple mods have mentioned that the community can be demoralizingly toxic which makes it hard to interact with them. I do think being a bit less harsh in some areas of rule enforcement along with being more active would alleviate this. That would help with some sections of the playerbase, but I think there are some people who will just always be toxic no matter what, and as Komi said earlier, a lot of the playerbase will still be nice and friendly to you.

I actually didn't know about this, this is a really great feature to have!

 

Thanks! All I can really suggest is adding it to #bug_and_player_reports in the discord, having Salted edit that to include it!

Very much appreciate your cooperation and time

 

Now that you brought it up. Years ago I had a moderator threaten me and my safety and got others to attack me on discord by spamming. This was over a trade market mishap. I was told by many to report it but as I was young as well as just really not wanting anymore trouble and the point that you made about not feeling like I could report moderators. This person was quite popular. I kept it to myself. I don't think any of this will happen again but I am hoping as time passes and if it does happen again, my comfort will have changed and I know I can safely make a report.

 

This won't add to the discussion, but i just wanna say i highly support this thread and it's excellent. It also looks like this is actual good feedback for and from both sides for once so this a big W post.

On another note, all the current new trials (both normal and discord mods) are all very awesome and definitely a thumbs up.

 

Small bump and also I want to do a little thanks to all the moderators who have responded and I do that eventually we can make some changes :)

 

I'll take my post here in a bit of a different direction as I'm like an equivalent of a Wynncraft Admin on a different gaming network (one of the biggest gaming networks in my country, however, our Minecraft servers are quite small compared to Wynncraft (as we're not just a Minecraft network, we have servers across multiple games))

First of all, moderation practices will of course differ for various reasons, a lot of the time it'll depend mainly on the server size, as it's much easier to moderate a server with 30 concurrent players than a server with 300 concurrent players (just giving examples).

As I mentioned, our Minecraft servers are a lot smaller than Wynncraft's, that's why our practices work the way they work, not sure if they would be sustainable if our servers got 1000+ concurrent players on average, but I still want to point out the differences in our and Wynncraft's practices as I think our Network handles things such as transparency and community engagement in a much better way than Wynncraft at its current state.
Also, while I'll write about our practices, keep in mind that our "Admins" are the equivalent of "Moderators" on Wynn.

Our admins are basically players with extra permissions to make sure everyone is happy and rule-breakers are dealt with accordingly. At least from my point of view, players on our servers never viewed the admins as "not human", or some beings that are above them. Because they were right there, playing the same game with them. Engaging with them and being friends with them. They just had a different prefix in front of their name and had some extra responsibilities. Even I (and other Admin Managers, Senior Admins, etc..) managed to keep pretty good relationships with the players to make sure they aren't "scared" of us, or to make them feel like I think I'm above them. I would be on the server with them and mess about the same way as when I used to be a player on the very same server. Of course not every Admin Manager or even normal admin in the history of our server was like this, there are some that were power hungry, or became distant after becoming admins, or "too professional", but those were always a minority on our servers.

When it comes to rule-breaking, we have a system that all admins have to follow, so that even players know if everyone is treated equally and if there's some bias. Excluding obvious exceptions like cheating or bug abusing where you get banned instantly, our system is this: Warning -> Kick -> Ban/Mute (ban lengths are fixed for all punishments). Every rule-breaker will first get warned, then kicked if the rule breaking continues, and only then banned or muted. And most players know that that's how the system works (for better or for worse). So they always know if an admin is treating someone with bias (either being too lenient or too harsh).

Another big thing on our server is transparency: We have a section on the forums for both Player reports and Admin reports. Both of those sections are public and visible to literally everyone. That way it's almost impossible for something to get swept under the rug. Because everything is visible to everyone. I personally don't get the "privacy" thing, that's on Wynncraft, I think that'll only inevitably lead to more sweeping under the rug. And you can report not only the admins, but the senior admins, admin managers, and even the owner of the entire network. And even when the owner fucks up, he can be held accountable. Players will also always know how their report got resolved publicly (in both the player and admin report sections). So they don't feel like they've been left in the dark. Keep in mind that whenever a player reports someone, doesn't matter if it's an admin or a player, they need to have evidence to back up their claim, otherwise, we always trust the admin over the player.
Also when someone gets banned and the person submits a ban appeal, the Admin needs to have evidence for the punishment they handed out and they need to show the evidence to the player in the ban appeal. And an admin is forbidden to resolve a ban appeal that's been created against them. Admin can never resolve their own ban appeals so that there is no bias.


Wanted to make this longer, however, I feel like it's long enough and I think I made my point, you don't have to agree with it, but this way we always managed to keep our transparency and I feel like we managed to never alienate our own player base (except the rule-breakers)

 

One last little bump for this thread to see if we get any more responses and then I’ll let it fade away

 

Disclaimer: I write in Aussie english, not the American standard We live down under yes ahahahahahaha

Wassup everyone! It’s been a pleasure reading your comments over and over before I wrote mine. The dedication put into the comments proves just how much you value change and the community. Not only that, the flair which some of you write makes it much more enjoyable to read I actually had to edit out many bigger words/add alternative words to make this comment much more readable for the general audience. I hope it helps!


Issue 1: Community/staff divide

The community/staff divide issue is undoubtedly riddled with many solutions that could prove effective. As Viridian mentioned, time is truly of essence due to real-life commitments and etcetera. As such, I do agree with choosing the most effective solutions with respect to time!

I’d now like to voice some of my thoughts on improving such interactions between the mod team and community :)

Starting with the Moderation Info thread, perhaps a “meet the moderators” section could prove to help ease the inhumane-vibes :o Similar to the very punny posts that introduce the new trial-moderators, all the moderators could slap in a few artistic and witty sentences to introduce themselves as individuals. It’d be great to see such a section in discord also due to the burgeoning/growing activity on discord nowadays. It definitely feels like a small step towards redeveloping the humane feel of mods Personally, I think it’d ease up on the time required to participate in discord conversations just to prove yourself being a human. 2 birds with 1 stone? Sounds like it! ;)

An additional suggestion I’d like to add is for all the mods and perhaps, other staff, to group together and do both a discord and forum event every once a few 4-6 months. This would definitely prompt/push for better interaction with the community once in a whileMaybe shouts and playful conversations between staff members in-game could also work, bringing out that human spirit New players definitely don’t all access the forums and discord, something I noticed when I read through and replied to all the comments in my giveaway. Perhaps this shout-conversation strategy could work in-game to introduce the staff to newbies!

Moving onto the nuances that play a role in online communication, tone is the first one on the list! I do admit how much more difficult it is to understand human emotions solely based on words online. Our own interpretations of how people react and say things, are definitely a bias associated with interpreting the vibes from others’ sentences. I personally like the use of emojis to clarify and reduce any misinterpretation of the tone which I talk in The online medium really does push our communication language skills to the max, due to the lack of physical factors. Truly a worthy skill, one hard to perfect!


Another point which has already been covered is the increased use of casual and simplistic language. Hands down , this is probably one of the most essential factors out there to get rid of this disconnection. Wynn at its essence, is a game filled with a range of players, with varying skills in English. It thus makes it very, very important that we prioritise using language that allows everyone to understand! We must first eliminate that academic language (perhaps ego also), to break that inhumane feeling It’s time to stand on the same level as others through our actions and words :)

It’s still completely possible to use bigger words, proven that alternative simpler words are written beside. An example would be the “burgeoning/growing” example above. One would take this as a learning opportunity , people which I know would approve of from helping people I've met on Wynn, with their English.


Issue 4: Bias

Just a curious question here, but are moderator actions standardised from time to time for consistency and bias and fallacy mitigation? I’m not sure what happens internally, but I think addressing the biases and fallacies apparent in any cases to the entire team within would be a valuable teaching experience for all inside. As it is internal and confidential discussion, It sounds like a good idea to grow the team, if it already isn’t implemented.

I think the lack of posts on the forums is indeed a correlation to the community divide. However, it definitely isn’t the only reason to relate to the divide. There are undoubtedly many nuances to consider that create appeal to the general audience, through both virtual actions and words. As a result, I believe there is no single fix, but a collective of factors over time.

I believe being community members is a factor, as being well-accustomed with the public will prompt for increased quality of case handling. People will be more likely to open up, and relate to the mods as respectable and well-known friends or humans as a result. The collection of natural information is particularly important to make the most informed decisions in cases and appeals, along with mitigating bias and potential fallacies!

As always, being someone easy to talk to isn’t all down to respect, but also individual nuances/small details in language



I would like to extend my dearest thanks for voicing out your perspectives on these topics! I hope you'll find some insight into my perspectives, just like I have from reading all of yours