Years of Moderation

[SuF]

Depends how you word things friend. If you act like a total cunt and come out with nothing but deconstructive criticism, you're gonna get your ass deleted.

Plus I don't think the current practices are any worse than those used previously. We used to not even have warnings, only infractions. There also used to be an incentive to delete posts so it happened more often. I really don't believe that overzealous moderation is causing any of what is depicted in the graphs.

 

Feedback section, but they also have the ability to delete posts on their own threads I believe.

Sectionals cannot delete in feedback section due to lack of permissions (Cas excluded since he's a community mod). Provided you can word your frustrations in a manner that is actually constructive criticism it will be left. As for your more recent infraction and our "Lack of leniency" you were told on more than one occasion.

I've had posts deleted by a staff member on that staff members feedback thread. The system here is a complete joke.

Link me to these deleted feedbacks I'd like to see if they were worded in anyway that is constructive criticism or if they were simply just hatred. As well I kind of want to see if they even ever existed.

Depends how you word things friend. If you act like a total cunt and come out with nothing but deconstructive criticism, you're gonna get your ass deleted.

This x 100.

Plus I don't think the current practices are any worse than those used previously. We used to not even have warnings, only infractions. There also used to be an incentive to delete posts so it happened more often. I really don't believe that overzealous moderation is causing any of what is depicted in the graphs.

I agree. From a personal standpoint I only usually infract for blatant disregard of the rules. I.e excessive bumping, really bad swears directed to people on their market threads ect.

 

[Tyler]

That's a good rule. I like that moderators (unless it's attacking or swearing, ect) stay off of moderating their own feedback thread

 

[SuF]

That's a good rule. I like that moderators (unless it's attacking or swearing, ect) stay off of moderating their own feedback thread

What does that have to do with this thread?

 

[TradeFortress]

Did you contact someone about it? It's not a regular thing that happens

Yeah I'm sure it doesn't happen a lot especially since the feedback section isn't very active, but it's a prime example of the things that are heard from the community over and over again. Even if it was an inaccurate post, deleting your own feedback because of your personal opinion on how it makes you look is ridiculous. It's not up to the person receiving feedback to decide whether or not someone giving you feedback is right or not.

@Suf, I'm sure it has something to do with it, but it's only a part. I've been here for awhile and the forum has been moderated poorly ever since I've been here. Ridiculous rules, poor decisions, unprofessional staff (Ex. Read here: http://www.sythe.org/individual-staff-feedback/1527409-feedback-sythe-2.html) all contribute to the decrease in activity. It's worse that when horrible decisions are made they are either backed up or the person making the decision has to much of an inflated ego to admit he's wrong or made a mistake and instead destroys the integrity of the forum to try to prove his point.

 

[SuF]

Yeah I'm sure it doesn't happen a lot especially since the feedback section isn't very active, but it's a prime example of the things that are heard from the community over and over again. Even if it was an inaccurate post, deleting your own feedback because of your personal opinion on how it makes you look is ridiculous. It's not up to the person receiving feedback to decide whether or not someone giving you feedback is right or not.

@Suf, I'm sure it has something to do with it, but it's only a part. I've been here for awhile and the forum has been moderated poorly ever since I've been here. Ridiculous rules, poor decisions, unprofessional staff (Ex. Read here: http://www.sythe.org/individual-staff-feedback/1527409-feedback-sythe-2.html) all contribute to the decrease in activity. It's worse that when horrible decisions are made they are either backed up or the person making the decision has to much of an inflated ego to admit he's wrong or made a mistake and instead destroys the integrity of the forum to try to prove his point.

It's always been like that.

 

[TradeFortress]

http://www.sythe.org/dispute-ban-twc/1773842-xkronic-banned-dispute.html

http://www.sythe.org/dispute-forum-...ernally-requesting-major-pardon-scamming.html

Just another example of staff not following the rules and doing what they want. Whichever one is true, allowing a person to pardon if they show attempts of contacting the victim, or not allowing them to pardon if they haven't repaid, it needs to be followed. Whichever one it is, it will either get complaints and be changed (In most places at least), or it won't and it will stay. In my opinion it's just another indicator that rules aren't really followed and staff just do what they want (Even though in this case I agree with Dave if he's wrong), which is why there's so many ridiculous bans, community members leaving, unnecessary infractions, and unprofessional/poor decisions that damage the forums amount of activity.

 

http://www.sythe.org/dispute-ban-twc/1773842-xkronic-banned-dispute.html

http://www.sythe.org/dispute-forum-...ernally-requesting-major-pardon-scamming.html

Just another example of staff not following the rules and doing what they want. Whichever one is true, allowing a person to pardon if they show attempts of contacting the victim, or not allowing them to pardon if they haven't repaid, it needs to be followed. Whichever one it is, it will either get complaints and be changed (In most places at least), or it won't and it will stay. In my opinion it's just another indicator that rules aren't really followed and staff just do what they want (Even though in this case I agree with Dave if he's wrong), which is why there's so many ridiculous bans, community members leaving, unnecessary infractions, and unprofessional/poor decisions that damage the forums amount of activity.

Those are very tricky situations. I have personally raised issues with how pardons were being closed in the past before debts were repaid. However, what do you do when the scammer attempts to contact the victim and the victim doesn't reply within 1-2 weeks? Just leave the pardon unanswered until the victim finally responds?

It's a tricky situation. Personally, I feel that if the victim doesn't reply for one week, the pardon process can begin. Any proof that the victim has trouble getting repaid once contact is made, that pardon is immediately halted and the scammer is banned if he/she was unbanned from their pardon.

The reality is that these cases are rare and have little effect on the average user's experience. Your argument is that this site is dying and staff are alienating users. You blame the staff, but personally, I think the problem lies more in the community itself. The quality of content on this site just isn't that high. The Spam Forum is basically a bunch of kids banding together teaming up on anybody who is new / disliked by the group. A new user will often get ganged up on and bullied.

Furthermore, new users come to this site and try to trade, and are scammed. They fall for the typical shit here, Skype imposter scams or Account recovery scams. These users immediately get a negative view of the forum and are unlikely to continue trading.

What's the solution? Really hard to say. Personally, I think the easiest thing to do is to try and educate new users on popular scams. Perhaps before they want to make their first market post, or first market reply, they will need to answer a really simple 3 question test.

EXAMPLE:
Q1: How do you check if someone on Skype is not an imposter?

A) Make sure their Display Name matches the one posted on Sythe
B) Right click their name, press View Profile, and check their contact name
C) Right click, view profile, check contact name, and also get a Sythe confirmation message containing details of the transaction
D) Get a Sythe PM and make sure the Display name matches the one posted on Sythe

 

[TradeFortress]

For pardoning,

Those are very tricky situations. I have personally raised issues with how pardons were being closed in the past before debts were repaid. However, what do you do when the scammer attempts to contact the victim and the victim doesn't reply within 1-2 weeks? Just leave the pardon unanswered until the victim finally responds?

It's a tricky situation. Personally, I feel that if the victim doesn't reply for one week, the pardon process can begin. Any proof that the victim has trouble getting repaid once contact is made, that pardon is immediately halted and the scammer is banned if he/she was unbanned from their pardon.

The reality is that these cases are rare and have little effect on the average user's experience. Your argument is that this site is dying and staff are alienating users. You blame the staff, but personally, I think the problem lies more in the community itself. The quality of content on this site just isn't that high. The Spam Forum is basically a bunch of kids banding together teaming up on anybody who is new / disliked by the group. A new user will often get ganged up on and bullied.

Furthermore, new users come to this site and try to trade, and are scammed. They fall for the typical shit here, Skype imposter scams or Account recovery scams. These users immediately get a negative view of the forum and are unlikely to continue trading.

What's the solution? Really hard to say. Personally, I think the easiest thing to do is to try and educate new users on popular scams. Perhaps before they want to make their first market post, or first market reply, they will need to answer a really simple 3 question test.

EXAMPLE:
Q1: How do you check if someone on Skype is not an imposter?

A) Make sure their Display Name matches the one posted on Sythe
B) Right click their name, press View Profile, and check their contact name
C) Right click, view profile, check contact name, and also get a Sythe confirmation message containing details of the transaction
D) Get a Sythe PM and make sure the Display name matches the one posted on Sythe

Just made a long post about this and it got deleted so I'll just summarize. That is a tricky spot to be in. I could compare this situation to a country. If the government doesn't function right, it will start to fall apart and be destroyed and fill with crime and corruption. Other things can contribute like lack of resources and location. All of these things cause a lot of problems. It eliminates people's ability to prosper. Successful countries may lack in some places, but they have most things going right for them. So I don't think it's just one thing, but a lot of bad things put together. This isn't a country and it's a forum so all of this could easily be changed with time and the right decisions, but it has to be done before we get to the point of no return.


That's a good idea to make new users aware of the potential scams so they can stay away from them. I think the average scam is pretty low in amount, but it could definitely contribute to decrease of activity because it would put people off from the site before they got a chance to explore. I agree that a new user or someone that's disliked often get's bullied and harassed, with the harsh criticism and posts made around the forum it doesn't make it very welcoming. It doesn't help that staff either partake in it or ignore it (Ex. http://www.sythe.org/14156422-post11.html / Why I think this is unnecessary http://www.sythe.org/individual-staff-feedback/1527409-feedback-sythe-2.html), because they definitely set a tone in some way for what's acceptable and what's not. The quality of content isn't very good, and there's not very many interesting places to post at least for me. This could be a reason why so many people go to the spam forum, because people's interests are diluted by the barely active sub forums around. The forum structure could have a lot to do with the decrease in activity because it seems so repetitive (Ex. Other MMO's/Other Games - Off Topic/Something For All [Critical Discussion/Sharing Thoughts should be common sense for a serious thread]). I don't think the issues that are contributing to the decreased activity are really being addressed, and if they are it's not being thought about fully). Roary made a good thread, but I've seen threads like that over and over and nothing really worked. Getting a lot of opinions and discussion on the problems is great but if bad suggestions are being applied with good suggestions it won't really help much. Increasing a forums activity is indeed a tricky situation, it takes a lot of time and thinking to work.


For pardoning, it seems stupid to me for extensively punishing people more for coming forward and taking responsibility for their actions unless there's good reason to. Definitely not having to wait another half a year without knowing if you'll be accepted or denied again. Only to have someone smugly deny your request, or post one or two words. I feel explanations should be encouraged when replying to pardons, not the other way around. For the majority of the age group on this site, it's like a presentation that's going to judged by a panel of people, except it's mostly personal. I don't think a lot of the responses are appropriate for the age group. Either way it's a hard decision deciding what to do when a victim can't be repaid. There's always the option of making people pay twice. Once at the start (Where it would go to would have to be heavily discussed), and then again if the user ever came back. This could put people off from pardoning though and is contrary to some of the things I just said. However, it is part of taking responsibility, coming forward and dealing with the outcome. I think waiting 1-2 weeks is the best idea so far though, and then repaying the victim(s) if they ever come back.


By the way, why is there only a week for a pardon to be accepted or denied? I see pardons constantly not getting enough posts and being denied, or minimum time put into posts to get it out of the way . If you're only required (by rule) to not post an explanation, the least you could do is post one or two words, literally. They're going to have to wait half a year to pardon again, at least show some sort of respect for them coming forward and trying to take responsibility.

 

[!!!Nick!!!]

Nice find, it's interesting to see the sites progress throughout all these years.

 

TF - I agree with you on pardons. There should be a brief explanation on why something is denied / supported. Denied especially should include a brief reason why (and not just "you're a piece of shit"), something relevant to the situation. If someone is a scammer and they haven't paid back their victims, and they were going to be denied anyways, it's tricky. You want to still give them incentive to repay their debts.

Another issue with the site seems to be that new users will try to build post count in order to appear more trustworthy. The by-product of this is that they post a ton of really shitty content which contributes nothing. Perhaps moving away from post count and instead towards a Reddit-style karma or "likes" counter, where users can like another user's post anonymously if it's good. This may encourage new users to actually post good content.

 

For pardoning,

Just made a long post about this and it got deleted so I'll just summarize. That is a tricky spot to be in. I could compare this situation to a country. If the government doesn't function right, it will start to fall apart and be destroyed and fill with crime and corruption. Other things can contribute like lack of resources and location. All of these things cause a lot of problems. It eliminates people's ability to prosper. Successful countries may lack in some places, but they have most things going right for them. So I don't think it's just one thing, but a lot of bad things put together. This isn't a country and it's a forum so all of this could easily be changed with time and the right decisions, but it has to be done before we get to the point of no return.


That's a good idea to make new users aware of the potential scams so they can stay away from them. I think the average scam is pretty low in amount, but it could definitely contribute to decrease of activity because it would put people off from the site before they got a chance to explore. I agree that a new user or someone that's disliked often get's bullied and harassed, with the harsh criticism and posts made around the forum it doesn't make it very welcoming. It doesn't help that staff either partake in it or ignore it (Ex. http://www.sythe.org/14156422-post11.html / Why I think this is unnecessary http://www.sythe.org/individual-staff-feedback/1527409-feedback-sythe-2.html), because they definitely set a tone in some way for what's acceptable and what's not. The quality of content isn't very good, and there's not very many interesting places to post at least for me. This could be a reason why so many people go to the spam forum, because people's interests are diluted by the barely active sub forums around. The forum structure could have a lot to do with the decrease in activity because it seems so repetitive (Ex. Other MMO's/Other Games - Off Topic/Something For All [Critical Discussion/Sharing Thoughts should be common sense for a serious thread]). I don't think the issues that are contributing to the decreased activity are really being addressed, and if they are it's not being thought about fully). Roary made a good thread, but I've seen threads like that over and over and nothing really worked. Getting a lot of opinions and discussion on the problems is great but if bad suggestions are being applied with good suggestions it won't really help much. Increasing a forums activity is indeed a tricky situation, it takes a lot of time and thinking to work.


For pardoning, it seems stupid to me for extensively punishing people more for coming forward and taking responsibility for their actions unless there's good reason to. Definitely not having to wait another half a year without knowing if you'll be accepted or denied again. Only to have someone smugly deny your request, or post one or two words. I feel explanations should be encouraged when replying to pardons, not the other way around. For the majority of the age group on this site, it's like a presentation that's going to judged by a panel of people, except it's mostly personal. I don't think a lot of the responses are appropriate for the age group. Either way it's a hard decision deciding what to do when a victim can't be repaid. There's always the option of making people pay twice. Once at the start (Where it would go to would have to be heavily discussed), and then again if the user ever came back. This could put people off from pardoning though and is contrary to some of the things I just said. However, it is part of taking responsibility, coming forward and dealing with the outcome. I think waiting 1-2 weeks is the best idea so far though, and then repaying the victim(s) if they ever come back.


By the way, why is there only a week for a pardon to be accepted or denied? I see pardons constantly not getting enough posts and being denied, or minimum time put into posts to get it out of the way . If you're only required (by rule) to not post an explanation, the least you could do is post one or two words, literally. They're going to have to wait half a year to pardon again, at least show some sort of respect for them coming forward and trying to take responsibility.

You're deluded if you think professionalism is the backbone of maintaining activity on a forum. We can all agree that FireZ takes a route different from others that isn't professional, however he may be the only staff member with a vigorous personality that is necessary to have when dealing with these kinds of disputes. There is no obligation to have a dandy attitude with site offenders, heck I don't even blame him for not supporting my pardon. The site activity depends on the users. If no one is creating discussions outside of the market, there is no one to blame. I fail to see how being unprofessional in a response to a pardon can ignite that effect.

 

[Tyler]

You're deluded if you think professionalism is the backbone of maintaining activity on a forum. We can all agree that FireZ takes a route different from others that isn't professional, however he may be the only staff member with a vigorous personality that is necessary to have when dealing with these kinds of disputes. There is no obligation to have a dandy attitude with site offenders, heck I don't even blame him for not supporting my pardon. The site activity depends on the users. If no one is creating discussions outside of the market, there is no one to blame. I fail to see how being unprofessional in a response to a pardon can ignite that effect.

What about professionalism on pardons?

Its not surprise that me and FireZ dont get along, especially when he blatantly dosent follow the rules. There has to be somebody who is blunt.


But when I was going through the pardon process Some moderators didnt even read my pardon before posting support/non support.

 

What about professionalism on pardons?

Its not surprise that me and FireZ dont get along, especially when he blatantly dosent follow the rules. There has to be somebody who is blunt.


But when I was going through the pardon process Some moderators didnt even read my pardon before posting support/non support.

What would you consider being unprofessional? Him not saying no support, or his demeanor? I don't take it too seriously because we're on a black-market forum. I don't find what he says being excessive, or trying to stir conflict with the user pardoning. I guess it's all up to interpretation. I think it's a fact that some staff members don't fully read pardons, but it's impossible to enforce that even though they should.

 

[Tyler]

What would you consider being unprofessional? Him not saying no support, or his demeanor? I don't take it too seriously because we're on a black-market forum. I don't find what he says being excessive, or trying to stir conflict with the user pardoning. I guess it's all up to interpretation. I think it's a fact that some staff members don't fully read pardons, but it's impossible to enforce that even though they should.

I (and I assume most banned members) would like to see reasoning behind things. There's countless threads in dispute forum archive where he just writes "denied" without giving reasoning for doing so. You have to remember the average sythe user is stupid and wont understand "denied" means you didnt put the correct title on a pardon or understand they were banned for vading for conicendence.


I understand the second point but when a moderator blatantly states that they didnt even read a pardon before posting?

You know how moderators are with pardons the majority of the time. They just read whatever the first global+ says and follow like sheep without doing any research themselves.

 

Perhaps the main issue with Firez style of responding to disputes is that, while the user may deserve to be told to "fuck off" or something, these pardons are publicly displayed. Anything said on these pardons represents the website as a whole. Some users who view these threads will see a well-thought out, long pardon, and the staff simply saying "fuck off". This can lead users to believe that the staff do not care about the userbase, and are stuck up and difficult to communicate with.

This is not the reality of the situation, but the impression can be just as important as the reality. Remember that forum posts, unless specifically deleted, are left for users to browse indefinitely. As staff, it is important to remember that your words will be more heavily scrutinized than others'.

Once again, I do not believe this is the biggest problem with the site. But it is still an issue which has an impact on Sythe's userbase. Staff are role models, and they shape the expectations for the rest of the forum.

 

I (and I assume most banned members) would like to see reasoning behind things. There's countless threads in dispute forum archive where he just writes "denied" without giving reasoning for doing so. You have to remember the average sythe user is stupid and wont understand "denied" means you didnt put the correct title on a pardon or understand they were banned for vading for conicendence.


I understand the second point but when a moderator blatantly states that they didnt even read a pardon before posting?

You know how moderators are with pardons the majority of the time. They just read whatever the first global+ says and follow like sheep without doing any research themselves.

I think it's been suggested that they should add a reason for not supporting a pardon, but it got denied unfortunately.

Can't be helped. The first person usually digs up some stuff that was not said in the pardon, and the effort of doing that may be off putting. Blindly saying support even though they fully read the pardon can cause some animosity in feedback. At least Jack Goff is combating that issue.

Perhaps the main issue with Firez style of responding to disputes is that, while the user may deserve to be told to "fuck off" or something, these pardons are publicly displayed. Anything said on these pardons represents the website as a whole. Some users who view these threads will see a well-thought out, long pardon, and the staff simply saying "fuck off". This can lead users to believe that the staff do not care about the userbase, and are stuck up and difficult to communicate with.

This is not the reality of the situation, but the impression can be just as important as the reality. Remember that forum posts, unless specifically deleted, are left for users to browse indefinitely. As staff, it is important to remember that your words will be more heavily scrutinized than others'.

Once again, I do not believe this is the biggest problem with the site. But it is still an issue which has an impact on Sythe's userbase. Staff are role models, and they shape the expectations for the rest of the forum.

Perhaps, but it's very unlikely.

 

[Tyler]

I think it's been suggested that they should add a reason for not supporting a pardon, but it got denied unfortunately.

lol why the fuck,


that's literally the exact same thing as this.

http://www.sythe.org/suggestions/765922-i-support-spam.html

 

[Add My Msn]

Move on slowly from runescape to esports games such as League of Legends, CS:GO, Starcraft 2 and DotA 2, have people donate for tournament prizes in return for advertisement on stream, set up livestreams, have people register to participate, job done. You can also post the League of Legends tournaments on their website, a lot of people check and we can get a few to register from there as well and that way I can also invite people from Kosovo to join (we have a group with 1k people and I'm an admin on it). Riot also offers prizes in RP and sythe could offer a bit extra or nothing at all, Riot prizes are good enough on their own to bring people over. I made this complex sorry if you have any questions reply.

 

[TradeFortress]

@Ghast Of course there's something that can be done, it would be insane if there wasn't. Re-format the pardon system so every pardon gets the proper attention, because from the replies and responses an average pardon gets right now you can see that the system being used is broken. However I'm not talking about the pardon system, I was just using that as an example. It's crazy that for every example someone gives of staff misconduct it automatically gets isolated into one incident and then an excuse is made up. Darkest Dream LITERALLY just said he got an infraction for stating his opinion about a staff member via PM, and there's constantly threads coming up of people complaining about the choices staff make. There's a lot of staff that are doing great, but in my opinion some of the moderators picked here I wouldn't in 100 years choose them to moderate a forum.

The community is what makes a forum active, but the people in charge decide what way it heads. If the people in charge aren't responsible, make poor judgment, can't accept being wrong, have an inability to listen, ect. the list goes on, then obviously forum activity is going to be affected in one way or another. I never said it's the main source of decreased activity but it definitely contributes to it.


@BLUESKITTLE - Good find. Just because someone is a staff member doesn't mean they don't make mistakes. Staff not having to explain their decisions and being allowed to just make choices is just asking for poor decisions and abuse of power.


Another example of irresponsibility by the staff - http://www.sythe.org/account-recovery/index2.html - there's thread from two months ago that have never received a response. You can say good bye to those people. Also this - http://www.sythe.org/account-recovery/1777696-dil-srb-recovery.html - this guy wants to be active in the community, yet he's had to wait a month and he still isn't unbanned. Most of the requests here could be people that want to actively contribute to the community. There has to be someone that can deal with these because there's a lot of moderators, but this is just another example that the way the forum is being moderated plays a destructive role in the increase in activity.