Update to our Game Moderation Strategy

[MisterAndeh]

Greetings players,

Over the last few years, our core game moderation strategy has remained largely the same, with reports being taken both in-game, and also through our dedicated website report system. This has been with the pledge that every website report will be handled, which in doing so, takes up a lot of resources.

Arguably, this has led to many web reports being generated - 53,934 in Q2 of 2023 - and time being focussed on processing these instances, rather than spending time in-game, looking at the game report system, and rule violations that are occurring in real-time. Additionally, these website reports come with the added complexity that evidence is not always of the best quality, or in line with our reporting rules, found under section §1.4 here.

Furthermore, the fact that every website report will be reviewed at some point has led to a toxic, ‘rec-ban-culture’ forming, where some players make it their mission to report every single rule violation they may come across, no matter how small or trivial, even when it doesn’t impact on their experience majorly. Again, a large portion of time is spent dealing with these reports by our team, some of which involve incidents that occurred weeks ago. This puts undue pressure on our system, and leads to genuine reports being delayed, with perpetrators being able to continue in-game - you can see how a cycle can begin to form, where serious instances are piling up, due to dealing with these trivial reports, and time is detracted from being in-game.

TruckersMP aims to stay true to our players, making changes that enhance the gameplay experience. Ultimately this is a game, and there has to be an understanding that there are instances when a simple mistake may be made, not requiring further action. We believe that allowing our moderators to focus more of their time and resources towards being in-game brings a multitude of benefits, such as increased community interaction, visible presence and also the ability to utilise on-the-spot tools, such as teleporting or kicking a player, which can prevent or deal with incidents, without having to resort to banning a player. At the moment we are very responsive, rather than proactive in our moderation.

In order to make this transition, we are implementing some changes to the way that we handle reports that are made through the website system. This will begin with the maximum number of website reports a user can create being capped at ten. This is because we’ve found that this hits the balance between the need to report genuinely disruptive or inappropriate behaviour, compared with misusing the system and reporting a multitude of trivial rule violations. Reports will continue to be scored, and those who continue to make reports that do not meet the reporting rules will eventually be left in a situation where they may only create one report. In addition, the reporting window on the website has been reduced from fourteen days to seven, once again to ensure reports are relevant, and it is the serious issues being passed onto us, through that system.

We’re trying hard to put a stop to the attitude some players take, being against one another, reporting for very minor things. Equally however, we still intend to deal with those who cause serious issues in-game, that impacts upon players severely, with stringent moderation actions. As touched upon before, it is our hope to be able to be more proactive, focussing our efforts on the here and now, in the game itself.

On an additional note, we have also introduced a system to anonymise our moderation. This means when you are banned or have a report handled, you will not see the name of the moderator who issued a punishment. This aims to reduce the abuse and harassment that unfortunately some of our team have to endure, when they issue punishments in-game. You will still be able to discuss with this moderator in your appeal, but they will just remain anonymous.

We hope that you can see the vision here, and share our thoughts on wanting to make improvements with the way that reports are handled. If you do have any feedback, you can contact Game Moderation Management, by creating a feedback ticket here.

Keep safe, and see you out on the roads!

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[aesthxwolf]

I don't understand.

[ShibaWasbanned]

finally

[Sant1ag0]

Hopefully this move would be a step in the right direction.

[Stones8000]

W update

[Tеddy]

I hope good progress will be made. thanks

[DF-4I]

This is what I want ! ! !

[Nomad Ajax]

Looking forward with the new strategy

[Guest Rebeloutlaw22]

I understand where the game moderation management personnel are coming from in response to the excessive web reports and moderation that goes on and nothing is this. I read throughout the change log and it said that people would not be able to know the person who issued the punishment to them. Now my thing is this when you apply for the team you take on that responsibility and you know what's going to happen some are going to take the punishment nice and easily some or not and to sit there and hide the person's ID because of previous players behavior is not fair. Yes management has to take in consideration how things operate but at the same time my thing is this if a person gets punished obviously they've done something wrong for the most part however the person who issued the punishment also has to understand there's going to be some negativity and there's going to be some criticism and yes they're probably going to be tagged in discord or stuff like that but to sit there and to hide them from the players so they don't know who issued the punishment I see more issues than anything with that. I think when it comes to the website reports I honestly think that it just needs to be done away with because you already have the in-game reports and with in-game reports it's on a demo and it just I mean it eventually gets answered. To go to a website and to submit a report and then b**** about it two or three days later cuz it hasn't been answered I mean I think the best way to resolve it is as it said keep it at 10 reports max but also taking consideration of where the reports are coming from and also I think in the rules it should state when you are submitting a report to the website it has to meet certain requirements I think that would also reflect on how people would submit a report and over time if they can't follow that format then it would reduce their player report limit from 10:00 to 5:00 for a whole month and doing that in the reduce of play reports submitted to the website would hopefully let people know that if you're submitting something to the website it better be very serious

[ColinShark]

Maybe instead of trying to deal with the symptoms - being the incredibly high amount of low-quality reports - you should be focusing on the cause - all the players you have unbanned and have run rampant causing more mayhem than before.

If there is no permanent ban for history any more, why should they care? They'll just get unbanned anyway and continue in three months.

 

Re-introducing perma-bans for history is the only way I can see your report system not being crippled any longer.

[mя sεяκαи]

Nice update, this is what I've been waiting for

[7Yok^]

Nice update, this is what I've been waiting for

[Bello QAQ]

We hope that our Game Moderation can create a green platform for us, and we also hope that all players will help us to create this beautiful environment!
 

TruckersMP Staff, thank you for your hard work!

[azxsq1]

in short, a policy of impunity is being adopted

[MartinV90]

But will in game reports still “Time out”?

 

also, as you mentioned about evidence not being the best online, so why not just close the web reports completely? Why do people actually need to report in game, and then report on web? ofc if you get yourself in a situation which you believe you could be banned for you can always save that clip for the appeal.. I just don’t see point in game reports AND online. 
 

Recently, I have been watching the moderators who post YouTube videos, they are able to review the evidence in any action by clicking on any truck, reports on the web, you only get the angle that it was recorded in (sometimes Just from 1st person view in truck) this must also take up a lot of resources. 

[...AdamCat]

I really believe this strategy will help TruckersMP and the players in this community move forward to a more relaxed and enjoyable gameplay. The fact some players believe that any and all rule violations no matter how much of an impact they will have on another player needs to have a form of punishment is beyond me, but with these changes, hopefully this will come to an end which will allow a reduced workload on Game Moderation and a more enjoyable experience for players.

This is a step in the right direction!

[TruckersLife]

Moderation team should be available at C D road most of time because of most of reports comes from there. Since its busy road and lots of reckless and careless or new driver who are in hurry and don't follow the queue as not following the rules. They should be kicked or banned. 

[HandOfClash]

28 minutes ago, Rebeloutlaw22 said:

Now my thing is this when you apply for the team you take on that responsibility and you know what's going to happen some are going to take the punishment nice and easily some or not and to sit there and hide the person's ID because of previous players behavior is not fair.

Sorry not sorry, but you are not knowing what you are currently talking about, which is fine, as you haven't experienced what some staff members experienced. There been some good reasons why this change has been made. 

I would simply suggest to be a bit more open minded, not directly looking at the negatives and changes which, possibly, impact your own experience, which I do, regardless, fully understand. It might be unfair for you as you haven't treated any staff members (hopefully) "badly", whilst it's equally unfair for the moderator which simply wanted to be here to help, if not help you.

"When you become a game moderator, you should be able to handle serious as well as heavy insults and drama". Do we? I mean, yes, correct, we shall, but not with anything further than that. 

[FayezTMP]

Great Update.

[RB1988]

I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of making the GM team more in-game focused. There still remains the limitations of how many reports can the servers store before they are timed out. Perhaps the players in game can only create a maximum amount of reports in game across a certain time frame? 

 

The anonymous web report feature also doesn’t always work. You click the link to see the uploaded evidence, and a lot of the time it’ll direct to a medal or YouTube site under the username of the moderator who’s applied the ban, that’s also assuming they’ve edited their signature. 
 

1 step forward, half a step back, but at least some of the previous Project Managements terrible mistakes are starting to be undone. 

[HandOfClash]

3 minutes ago, TruckersLife said:

Moderation team should be available at C D road most of time because of most of reports comes from there. Since its busy road and lots of reckless and careless or new driver who are in hurry and don't follow the queue as not following the rules. They should be kicked or banned. 

That's the point of this post, I believe. The more website work we get to do, the less we can be available to help right when a violation happens. That leads to this reporting culture, repeating itself regardless of how much work we do. 

Hence the changes now in place, trying to focus more on in-game violations rather than website reports which been several weeks old. 

[MartinV90]

I also wish there was a way you as a player you could know if a report has been submitted against you (that hasn’t been reviewed yet) let’s just say there was a couple of incidents last week where people said “rec” in the chat that although would be a soft ban you still have to wait a good week possibly two to know if you are getting banned or not. 

[Lena']

a great update and a change that needs to happen.

[xosho]

Working on prevention and being present when problems come accross could work better than handling with reports and less time consuming. But still, admins can't be everywhere, everytime so I don't think report should stop existing.

Hope this system works better. We shall see.

[MartinV90]

I feel like there has to be a set time that you do have to review web reports. Your system is already “heavy” now you focusing on in-game reports, so what is your strategy to deal with the amount of open reports you have on the web and get back down to “Normal” or are reports just gonna sit there for weeks/months