Update to our Game Moderation Strategy

[Foobrother]

Hello everyone,

 

Since the original thread has been brutally closed (for some timing reasons apparently), I'm just creating this topic to allow people to continue discussing with ALL the community (not only 1 staff member via feedback).

Because there were on-going discussions with interesting exchanges between various members.

 

To continue with what people said recently, while I can understand why we stop showing moderators names and the ban durations: to avoid having harassing moderators or getting spammed with people complaining about not good enough bans given. Why don't we punish these few people who are abusing the feedback/appeal/DMs instead of hiding information to 100% of the players? 

[Stan]

The people that can answer this question are Game Moderation Managers, which is why you have already been directed to the feedback system.

 

This would be the best place to discuss this, and actually find some answers, rather than just speculate or guess.

 

Thanks, and I hope you take this advice on board.

[Bеаn]

How long till this gets taken down then I wonder. @StateCA [NL] Hiya, pal. Fancy explaining how what I said has anything to do with tinfoil? 
 

3 minutes ago, Stan said:

The people that can answer this question are Game Moderation Managers, which is why you have already been directed to the feedback system.

 

This is a forum with a discussion section for a reason.

[Foobrother]

9 minutes ago, Stan said:

The people that can answer this question are Game Moderation Managers, which is why you have already been directed to the feedback system.

 

This would be the best place to discuss this, and actually find some answers, rather than just speculate or guess.

 

Thanks, and I hope you take this advice on board.

Thanks for your feedback. But I'm more than happy to exchange publicly with 100% of the members of TMP (the ones on this forum at least) even if I won't get the attention of some staff members who don't want to discuss these topics publicly.

Maybe I won't get a clear answer, but I will get the opinion and point of view of all the other members which is very valuable to me 

 

Thank you.

 

PS: but I might in parallel post questions in the feedback section and the answers will be quoted here for the benefit of everyone.

[Stan]

5 minutes ago, Bеаn said:

This is a forum with a discussion section for a reason.

 

I’m aware of what a forum is, and what it’s sections entail. 

 

I’m just advising the best place to get some solid and reliable answers, if it is a matter that people are genuinely concerned about.

[Bеаn]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

I’m just advising the best place to get some solid and reliable answers, if it is a matter that people are genuinely concerned about.

Thanks for the advice. We've already been told and are awaiting a reply from doing so. However, in the meantime, we're trying to discuss something we feel passionate about—a discussion, I might add, that you rudely and abruptly broke up for no apparent reason. Thanks once again.

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, Foobrother said:

Thanks for your feedback. But I'm more than happy to exchange publicly with 100% of the members of TMP (the ones on this forum at least) even if I won't get the attention of some staff members who don't want to discuss these topics publicly.

Maybe I won't get a clear answer, but I will get the opinion and point of view of all the other members which is very valuable to me 

 

Thank you.

 

You are welcome to do that here, as long as your conversation keeps in line with our rules and doesn’t turn into another topic full of arguments and bickering.

 

However, you will not receive the answer to the question you have asked here. Personally, I see no point in chasing opinions from others regarding a matter when you could just find out the reason yourself, from the very people who made the decision. If you disagree with it, then a conversation with them would be by far the most constructive way to move forwards.

 

But hey, each to their own - you appear to have a lot of time so by all means, crack on, if speculation and conspiracy is what you’re after, rather than addressing your concerns properly.

[Foobrother]

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

as long as your conversation keeps in line with our rules and doesn’t turn into another topic full of arguments and bickering.

Don't worry, when it happens I do contact you and your team (via reports as well). But again, I'm still waiting for feedback on these reports! 

 

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

However, you will not receive the answer to the question you have asked here. Personally, I see no point in chasing opinions from others regarding a matter when you could just find out the reason yourself, from the very people who made the decision. If you disagree with it, then a conversation with them would be by far the most constructive way to move forwards.

As much as I'm interested about the answers, I'm also interested about what you call the "Community"'s opinion about what's going on or not.

 

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

But hey, each to their own - you appear to have a lot of time so by all means, crack on, if speculation and conspiracy is what you’re after, rather than addressing your concerns properly.

Thank you. And when you will have 1min, ask "the very people who made the decision" to come here and talk with the players

[Bеаn]

2 minutes ago, Foobrother said:

ask "the very people who made the decision" to come here and talk with the players

Like that'll ever happen. They'd rather you make a feedback ticket to ask the question when they could very easily comment on a discussion thread just like this and answer our questions without creating more work for themselves.

[_raffaele_]

How sad, to open another post to rail against TMP after the main one has been closed,

The purpose of this post is to bait people to argue, that's what trolls in forums do, beware people!

they will most likely try to bait/make reports against you 

 

 

[Leon Baker]

4 hours ago, Bеаn said:

Like that'll ever happen. They'd rather you make a feedback ticket to ask the question when they could very easily comment on a discussion thread just like this and answer our questions without creating more work for themselves.

 

I can't speak for other members of the management, but personally, I find it challenging to engage in these conversations. The reason being, there's a group of individuals who offer criticism, but they often struggle to participate in constructive discussions without misrepresenting our words, making it seem like we're clueless about what we're doing. Every discussion turns into "them vs TruckersMP" scenario, which isn't helpful when the goal is getting answers to the questions.

 

Honestly, I was hesitant to leave a comment here, but I still hold out some hope that some will reconsider this "them vs TruckersMP" mindset. We're all on the same side, all aiming for the growth and progress of our project. It just doesn't help when people jump to conclusions without in-depth knowledge and make assumptions.

 

Hopefully this comment won't be twisted and misinterpreted too.

[Bеаn]

4 hours ago, _raffaele_ said:

they will most likely try to bait/make reports against you

 

I don't know about the others in this topic, but my intentions aren't to "bait" people or report people. I just want to discuss and get answers. I don't think that's much to ask for. I most certainly didn't ask for you to get involved and turn a peaceful discussion on its head. 

 

4 hours ago, _raffaele_ said:

How sad, to open another post to rail against TMP after the main one has been closed

There's a topic we feel needs discussing, so we're discussing it. Until discussions are banned or we get what we're looking for, we'll continue to do so. If you think such a discussion is sad, disinteresting, or pointless, find the metaphorical door and use it. 

I've now mentioned countless times what the goal of my discussions is. Once again, if you have a problem with my goal, raise it, but don't just slander me because you feel like it. 
 

3 hours ago, Leon Baker said:

I can't speak for other members of the management, but personally, I find it challenging to engage in these conversations. The reason being, there's a group of individuals who offer criticism, but they often struggle to participate in constructive discussions without misrepresenting our words, making it seem like we're clueless about what we're doing. Every discussion turns into "them vs TruckersMP" scenario, which isn't helpful when the goal is getting answers to the questions.

Deary me. I think you've had a little running with misinterpretation too. Maybe my points or requests haven't been delivered in the easiest of ways, but my intentions were never to argue with anyone. My intentions were to discuss and voice an opinion. As with any good debate, people disagreed and people agreed. I tried to answer questions from across the board the best I could, sometimes failing miserably. Nevertheless, any confrontation caused by me or because of me would never have occurred had a proper explanation been provided. Aside from the official blog post, there has been no official comment on the matters raised by the community - despite our repeated asking. All we've ever gotten is the old chestnut of "make a feedback ticket." Why you'd rather us all create separate feedback tickets with the same questions, inevitably making more work for yourselves, is beyond me. Answer us, we shut up — at least, I do.

[_raffaele_]

7 hours ago, Bеаn said:

 

I don't know about the others in this topic....

 

Discuss about what? In the other post you and the same 3/4 users argued enough that it was closed because it turned into a discussion about every thing the staff told you without anything constructive, what more do you need to argue about? what's the point of arguing if what they tell you doesn't work for you anyway and you don't believe them? in fact you have discussed practically every response from every staff member, as if they don't know things or are trying to deceive you,

 

You were told to do a feedback ticket, did you do that? good, did you get a response? clearly not because you keep arguing about the same things,

You'll see that what they reply to you will be used as more reason to argue here, the thing is that they won't tell you the internal policies anyway, so it's a cat biting its own tail, 

 

Your arguments will be based on things you don't know and that you won't know,

What you are left with is arguing about assumptions and accusations made about things you don't know and you won't know exactly how they work, just to argue, as you have been doing until now; especially you want answers from members who can't give them publicly because of internal policies as they explained to you, but in your head it doesn't fit,

 

In general, claiming/acting/pretending to be smarter than others is what people who are unsure of what they are or know do; you have demonstrated exactly that by complaining and accusing about things you have no idea how they work, especially now with the new changes,

 

There is a famous saying, "only the dead and stupid never change their minds."

[Leon Baker]

7 hours ago, Bеаn said:

Deary me. I think you've had a little running with misinterpretation too. Maybe my points or requests haven't been delivered in the easiest of ways, but my intentions were never to argue with anyone. My intentions were to discuss and voice an opinion. As with any good debate, people disagreed and people agreed. I tried to answer questions from across the board the best I could, sometimes failing miserably. Nevertheless, any confrontation caused by me or because of me would never have occurred had a proper explanation been provided. Aside from the official blog post, there has been no official comment on the matters raised by the community - despite our repeated asking. All we've ever gotten is the old chestnut of "make a feedback ticket." Why you'd rather us all create separate feedback tickets with the same questions, inevitably making more work for yourselves, is beyond me. Answer us, we shut up — at least, I do.

Decisions behind the changes were explained within the blog post, plus the questions were answered within the comments. What question was left without an answer? I have been paying attention to that topic for a while and I have not seen anything constructive being dicussed or asked there other than some people arguing over the same thing that was already answered.

 

In case there is a question that was unnoticed feel free to repeat it here.

[Foobrother]

13 hours ago, Leon Baker said:

 

I can't speak for other members of the management, but personally, I find it challenging to engage in these conversations. The reason being, there's a group of individuals who offer criticism, but they often struggle to participate in constructive discussions without misrepresenting our words, making it seem like we're clueless about what we're doing. Every discussion turns into "them vs TruckersMP" scenario, which isn't helpful when the goal is getting answers to the questions.

 

Honestly, I was hesitant to leave a comment here, but I still hold out some hope that some will reconsider this "them vs TruckersMP" mindset. We're all on the same side, all aiming for the growth and progress of our project. It just doesn't help when people jump to conclusions without in-depth knowledge and make assumptions.

 

Hopefully this comment won't be twisted and misinterpreted too.

Like Bean said, we are only trying to get explanations/answers. But the only answers we got so far are:

• It's been removed/changed because you don't need this. It's not important.
• We have internal reasons/rules which explain why we are doing this. But we can't communicate about it.
• I don't know why but I don't think it's an issue and I don't see why you're complaining?
• And many other arguments like that... 

None of the above are valid/clear explanations to me. They are either patronizing unjustified answers or vague answers without any real clue about the REAL reason taken by higher management (because it wasn't communicated to them either).

 

My advise: if you don't know the answer, don't try to answer. Because you will be questioned by people like me and Bean who want to understand the logic behind these answers.

From what I can see many of the staff persons who have discussed the topic, know just a little more than us on why these changes have been decided. Either because they just discover like us the changes or because they just have a few information which they can't even communicate.

 

If you think I'm wrong: please do share the information you have to provide explanations instead of questioning us on why we are against these changes.

 

@Stan advised me to open a feedback request ticket to get the answers. But these will be shared here for the benefit of all. I hope people aren't going to complain again about it!

 

 

[Foobrother]

3 hours ago, Leon Baker said:

Decisions behind the changes were explained within the blog post, plus the questions were answered within the comments. What question was left without an answer? I have been paying attention to that topic for a while and I have not seen anything constructive being dicussed or asked there other than some people arguing over the same thing that was already answered.

 

In case there is a question that was unnoticed feel free to repeat it here.

Oh yes I have a few questions for which I'm still waiting for an answer:

• Why hiding the ban length has not been announced and just pushed silently recently?
• Why hiding the ban length?
• What is the benefit in hiding ban length?

 

[Foobrother]

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I think now in-game when game moderators are kicking/banning people, we can't see it or just see less information? Can someone confirm what was the change? Again not announced!

[Interstate Nomad]

In addition to the questions raised by @Foobrother:

 

Who benefits from hiding the ban length?

[_raffaele_]

2 hours ago, Foobrother said:

we are only trying to get explanations/answers

 

Not a single logical reason said as to why for example you need the moderator's name, not even why you need to know the length of the ban, but you guys pretend that this information is needed or useful to you in some way,

 

They are only useful for stalkers,

 

You guys are hilarious 

[Foobrother]

49 minutes ago, _raffaele_ said:

 

Not a single logical reason said as to why for example you need the moderator's name, not even why you need to know the length of the ban, but you guys pretend that this information is needed or useful to you in some way,

 

They are only useful for stalkers,

 

You guys are hilarious 

Thank you for proving what I said in my previous post : 

 

[_raffaele_]

18 minutes ago, Foobrother said:

Thank you for proving what I said in my previous post : 

 

 

You should take the sentences, you link the whole post as if you don't know or remember what you write 

 

What did I prove? I proved that your complaints have no basis, because you can't answer even a simple question of why you need it 

 

This is the level of your reasons and answers in the main post that was closed, we need it TMP! but we don't know why 

[Leon Baker]

3 hours ago, Foobrother said:

Oh yes I have a few questions for which I'm still waiting for an answer:

• Why hiding the ban length has not been announced and just pushed silently recently?
• Why hiding the ban length?
• What is the benefit in hiding ban length?

 

 

If the user wants their punishment history to be hidden it makes sense for them to keep their ban lengh private too, so it is up to the user whether they want that information to be public.

 

I have seen people asking “Why now?”. The answer is simple. Nobody has thought about this in the past, so this was never considered since we introduced the ability to make punishment history private. But since this was brought up recently, it logically made sense to give players ability to keep the lengh private too. So, this covers both, game and website. The only people who know the lengh of the ban is the player and our team. Hopefully nobody will ask why our Game Moderation team got access to that…

 

Benefits? It does not have to give you personally any benefit. It is done primarily for the banned users, they have the ability to choose whether this information has to be public or not.

 

As to why these changes were done “silently”, it was classified as a minor change, so no blogs or posts were considered.

 

The only reason why this topic turned into a heated discussion and arguments is the fact that many here enjoy making assumptions and believe in conspiracy theories that we are doing everything for the sake of hiding the work of our team, so they are “protected” from judgement, which means they can issue bans in the way they want to and get no punishment for abuse. Now that I answered these questions I hope people will stop with these nonsense theories.

[Foobrother]

1 hour ago, Leon Baker said:

If the user wants their punishment history to be hidden it makes sense for them to keep their ban lengh private too, so it is up to the user whether they want that information to be public.

I'm not talking about the ban history but the current active ban. And especially when the ban is delivered and the reporter wants to see which punishment was given for the offence reported (normally different offences have different ban lengths, especially with the number of active bans in the history).

 

1 hour ago, Leon Baker said:

Nobody has thought about this in the past [...] But since this was brought up recently...

Who asked for it? I've not seen any survey about this sort of change?  Who is benefiting from it if not the people being banned?

 

1 hour ago, Leon Baker said:

The only people who know the lengh of the ban is the player and our team

Again, what is the benefit? And don't you think this is removing the opportunity to have mistakes raised by reporters if the wrong length was given or if a mistake was made? Hiding the current ban length is preventing the reporter to raise a problem to GM Leads.

i.e. 

FakeUserName
The user is currently banned.
TruckersMP ID: xxxxxxxx
Steam ID: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Role: Player
Member since: 22 Dec 2020 21:05
Active bans: 5

that's a player I reported a bit more than a week ago and who got banned for the 5th time! I would expect this player to be banned for minimum 3 months? But I have no idea and can't see if that's the case! Maybe the moderator didn't check the history and gave just 2 weeks by mistake?

 

BTW your messages are not up to date because for that example it says: "Please make sure the evidence you submitted remains available for the entire length of the issued ban, plus an additional thirty (30) days." 

In theory for this one I should leave it for 90 days minimum (not 30 which is the only duration given now).

 

1 hour ago, Leon Baker said:

Benefits? It does not have to give you personally any benefit. It is done primarily for the banned users, they have the ability to choose whether this information has to be public or not.

OK. Interesting point of view. So you prefer to remove some capability/benefit from the good players who are trying to help, in order to protect the bad ones who don't want their ban to be public? Very interesting point of view! But thanks for providing an answer here!

 

1 hour ago, Leon Baker said:

The only reason why this topic turned into a heated discussion and arguments is the fact that many here enjoy making assumptions and believe in conspiracy theories that we are doing everything for the sake of hiding the work of our team, so they are “protected” from judgement, which means they can issue bans in the way they want to and get no punishment for abuse. Now that I answered these questions I hope people will stop with these nonsense theories.

100% wrong. If people are making assumptions it's only because staff (or others who might know the answer) don't want to provide answers to their questions.

As far as I know I'm not the one saying "it's internal, we can't communicate on these aspects" or "you don't need to know" or "you don't need it" etc...

And it's not because people don't want to answer that we should shut up and just accept changes we don't understand or agree with. Like it or not.

 

Summary of the questions (in case you didn't see them):

• Who asked for it?
• Who is benefiting from it if not the people being banned? Can you confirm it benefits only the banned person?
• Don't you think this is removing the opportunity to have mistakes raised by reporters if the wrong length was given or if a mistake was made? Hiding the current ban length is preventing the reporter to raise a problem to GM Leads.
• Bonus question: why don't you hide the number of Active Bans and the banner showing the player is currently banned? That would be even more logic if we follow your point of view? Why allowing people to hide the ban length and not simply the fact they are banned or have been banned?

[Foobrother]

Forgot one question which wasn't answered yet: Why hiding the ban length has not been announced and just pushed silently?

[Leon Baker]

3 hours ago, Foobrother said:

Who asked for it? I've not seen any survey about this sort of change?  Who is benefiting from it if not the people being banned?

 

It was brought up internally. Why there should have been a survey or anything similar? We do not conduct a survey for every change we deem necessary. As explained above, we found a logical reason to keep the ban lengths private if the ban itself is also private, so that information should be kept privately between us and the user. Why should this benefit you in any way? If we apply your logic, we should remove the ability for the players to keep their punishment history private, so that you could benefit from it? This makes no sense for me.

 

3 hours ago, Foobrother said:

Again, what is the benefit? And don't you think this is removing the opportunity to have mistakes raised by reporters if the wrong length was given or if a mistake was made? Hiding the current ban length is preventing the reporter to raise a problem to GM Leads.

i.e. 

FakeUserName
The user is currently banned.
TruckersMP ID: xxxxxxxx
Steam ID: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Role: Player
Member since: 22 Dec 2020 21:05
Active bans: 5

that's a player I reported a bit more than a week ago and who got banned for the 5th time! I would expect this player to be banned for minimum 3 months? But I have no idea and can't see if that's the case! Maybe the moderator didn't check the history and gave just 2 weeks by mistake?

 

BTW your messages are not up to date because for that example it says: "Please make sure the evidence you submitted remains available for the entire length of the issued ban, plus an additional thirty (30) days." 

In theory for this one I should leave it for 90 days minimum (not 30 which is the only duration given now).

 

The benefit is that the players who decide to keep their punishment private have the full ability to keep it private, instead of having the ban information partially available to everyone who visits their profile. As for the mistakes related to the ban lengths, the chance of a history ban being missed is extremely low nowadays, because our team has the tools to track such bans, plus we got leaders and trainers who use those tools too to minimize the chances of such mistakes being missed in case that happens anyway. This is why you don't have to worry about wrong ban lengths.

 

As about the report message, this has been brought up and got fixed, the report messages should have up-to-date quote of the rule 1.4 from now on.

 

3 hours ago, Foobrother said:

OK. Interesting point of view. So you prefer to remove some capability/benefit from the good players who are trying to help, in order to protect the bad ones who don't want their ban to be public? Very interesting point of view! But thanks for providing an answer here!

 

Benefit of what? What's the benefit of you seeing the length of the banned user? Put aside your argument that it can help us with catching mistakes, I have already responded to that argument. Provide me with at least one strong, valid argument on why you should have access to that, other than reporters boosting their ego and getting self-satisfaction after seeing someone banned for a long period of time. What's your goal as a reporter? Ensuring the players who don't follow the rules get punished, or getting that feeling of being better than others after someone getting banned? If you were here just to help as a reporter, you would not be speaking so much about your personal benefits from this change, despite having answers to your questions.

 

3 hours ago, Foobrother said:

Bonus question: why don't you hide the number of Active Bans and the banner showing the player is currently banned? That would be even more logic if we follow your point of view? Why allowing people to hide the ban length and not simply the fact they are banned or have been banned?

 

That is a good point considering these changes. I have shared this idea within the Management.

 

2 hours ago, Foobrother said:

Forgot one question which wasn't answered yet: Why hiding the ban length has not been announced and just pushed silently?

 

I have responded to this question within my comment above.