I grow weary from all the negativity.

[Vandervahn]

I think people cant wrap their heads around that the defining part of the rules is that moderators use their "powers" at their discretion after individual evaluation. Its right up there in the header of the rules section.

If all rules were always enacted as written, this would be a really poor place. Just imagine if you couldnt even engage in some playful banter because much of that actually violates a rule. The rules are in place to give moderators "legal" leverage if they choose to intervene. Being a probably 65:35 negative poster, I have never seen rampant censorship - and I´ve been in a LOT of heated debates.

More than that, I think one still has to respect that this is the private backyard of Turbine. You dont have to agree with your host, but you have to accept that they have authority. Personally, I´ve had 3 infractions so far. The last one was way over the top. The middle one was the least they could give me. The first was completely normal (Rule #17 alert!!!) None of it has any lasting impression on my view of circumstances we are in here. One has to accept that objectivity in this setting doesnt naturally mean 100% equal treatment.

In the same vein, while Turbine chooses curious wording in places, I dont think everything a Turbine member writes should be measured up to press release standards. Let them be a bit sloppy and conversational as well

[Laire]

I've seen some deleted posts that I don't think should have been deleted, like for instance, topics concerning other MMOs in Off-topic from time to time. I would prefer if all topics were locked rather than deleted... but at the same time, this is Turbine's playground and it's their rules. There are alternative places to talk about LOTRO if it bothers someone so much (and for some, it does, which is their own right).

All in all, interesting conversations throughout this thread.

[Rainothon]

I generally feel unhindered to speak my mind here, save rule #17.

So I will say what I have to say about rule #17. For me, #17 is not really an issue. There are rules and someone has to keep us in check, how simple is that? I may not always like seeing threads get closed, but I have little trouble understanding that, because I also see why someone would do it, and what the benefit is in the larger picture.

But for people who have a natural tendency to go against authority, or who have the tendency to become unreasonable in their anger when a rule is imposed upon them and they think it's unjust, rule #17 is and will always be like a red flag to a bull.

And that red flag is where all the trouble begins. The red flag of anger obscures people's view to the other side of the story. Once we fail to try to understand both sides of a story, we start breaking 'The Golden Rule'. Wikipedia that if you will.

The system of warnings and infractions is a way to deal with the red flag. The hope is that the warning or infraction will cool down and lower the red flag, allowing the angered person to see both sides again. And listen to their voice of reason. It's not a perfect system. Sometimes the cooldown period may be too short. Sometimes there's just no cooling down the person. But it does give everyone the opportunity to listen to their voice of reason.

[Aestivan]

I moderate a (much smaller) forum, for a rather different but no less diverse and contentious community. The goal of moderation is always, first and formost, what will promote productive, engaging discussion on the boards. Different communities have different standards, but those used here are straightforward, reasonable and pretty much standard for the genre.

Also remember that moderators are, necessarily, human beings. I work as a volunteer, where I moderate, as a favor to friends. We have a pretty good system of balances in place to keep any one mod from going all axe-crazy or making it personal against community members. It works pretty well, but of course some die-hard anti-authoritarians insist we are fascist brutes.

As for these forums, I find them actually really relaxed for an MMO, with a lot more regular Dev & community representative posts than some. Also, I am sorry I didn't make the 8-hour drive up to Buffalo for the recent meet-and-greet, because I would have liked to have bought Sapience a drink. Were I in his shoes, I'd want one.

[Whiteberry_Laurelin]

I'm a big supporter of most things Turbine do and their reasoning. However, I grow weary from Turbine telling us to not be lazy and go read the Dev Tracker to keep track of things, and when I do, I have to chew through posts like this in case there's some news or updates somewhere in a post.

[Wanderv]

Would appreciate a link to the forums where criticism of Lotro, its staff, Turbine etc. results in instant infractions & bans for the poster - and the forums, therefore, would be page after page of positive feedback without a whiff of negativity, dissent or trolling. Because it is blindingly obvious it isn't these forums. Obviously me being a "fanboi" would say that, it's not like a couple of seconds spent just looking at topic headers, never mind posts, proves the whole thing to be untrue.

Yeah, this forum is hatersfest where same dozens of haters troll and lie for years without any visible punishment. And now they tell us about 'censorship'. Oh lol.

[PoeticNightmare]

No one has ever been infracted for following the rules. As I mentioned above, in most cases someone has reported a post before we ever look at it, so at least one non-turbine employee thinks something is wrong. Then a PM is sent explaining what and why.

It's a bit like those who claim to have no idea why they got pulled over by the police. You did something to catch the officer's attention. It wasn't because he was bored and just looking for someone to chat with. Your shiny new ticket is also probably a sign that you were doing something you shouldn't have been.

But, that's pretty much what I was trying to say. Look at it this way. A guy who speeds around town everyday who happens to know a lot of the police officers versus the guy who keeps his head down, doesn't know many people at all and gets pulled over for stopping a few inches past the stop sign. Yes, he broke the traffic law but its a little discouraging to sit there getting a ticket for something like that, while watching the cop wave to his friend who just sped by doing 70.

There is someone who is consistently nasty to other posters on many occasions and ended up on the players council. Again, something just doesn't jive here.

And, I think it's laughable that people think you get censored for speaking against Turbine. Most of what i am referring to above are those nasty responses to people who are staying positive and not giving in to the ridiculous doom and gloom.

[Lothirieth]

3) And the beauty is, since the CoC precludes people from discussing specific moderation decisions, no one is allowed to present the voluminous evidence of the double standard.

Ain't that the truth. It would be quite simple to show examples of infractions being given out for the poster posting a view that the moderation team here doesn't like yet broke no rules. But we cannot without receiving infractions ourselves, so one can't really counter and prove statements aren't fully truthful. Obviously plenty of criticism is let through, I do not deny that at all.

Yeah, this forum is hatersfest where same dozens of haters troll and lie for years without any visible punishment. And now they tell us about 'censorship'. Oh lol.

Well here's a prime example of the type of posts that have been allowed to go on for years as the poster is largely pro Turbine.

[Televir]

I really think this topic should just be closed. Looking through the comments it seems to have gone completely off topic from what the OP posted. Not only that but it has become incredibly toxic (the posts that is). I think there really ought to be more respect for Sapience. It looks to me that some comments have been made with the intent of being as obnoxious a possible while arguing against Sapience and other people over the most inane and technical things. Lets all calm down and have a slice of cake .

*Offers cake to everyone*

[Pendraken]

I have tossed them money over the past 5 years. In fact, I've tossed them well over $1,000 real American cold hard cash that I earn working every day.

When I see them taking that money and putting it into content of less and less quality and that holds little interest to me as a player I voice my opinion regarding the product I pay for. In short - I love this game and I hate what they're doing to it. Hobbit presents are a waste of time but whatever. Lack of playable content is a deal breaker for many of us, and when we perceive our hard earned money that we spend on this game going to frivolous freebies that do not benefit us in any significant way we protest.

We've been patient. But supporting a bad direction by paying for second-rate content simply ensures you get more second-rate content. Again - I love this game. I protest because I want them to know I love it and want it to be better.

I don't think you realize how expensive it is to make a game. Millions. It costs millions to make a game so sorry if a thousand dollars doesn't get them far. They do what they can with what they are allocated. Oh and hobbit presents, Those things are side-projects.

[Sapience]

Ain't that the truth. It would be quite simple to show examples of infractions being given out for the poster posting a view that the moderation team here doesn't like yet broke no rules. But we cannot without receiving infractions ourselves, so one can't really counter and prove statements aren't fully truthful. Obviously plenty of criticism is let through, I do not deny that at all.

You make this claim often. I know you believe it. I also know it's false. And yes, I know that beliefs like this are not often swayed by truth or facts so I won't bother trying.

A quick check shows you have never had an infraction, warning, or any other action against your account so I'm left to assume that your information comes from the innocent poster who did nothing wrong what-so-ever and got infracted out of the blue.

Well here's a prime example of the type of posts that have been allowed to go on for years as the poster is largely pro Turbine.

Do you feel it should receive an infraction? If so why didn't you report it?
You can give negative rep and have had no issue giving it out based on our records, yet you gave none to him.
Clearly you felt it wasn't a violation (and you are correct) as you did none of these things. So I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.

[ararax2]

Again, I miss the vulgarity entirely. Perhaps you could enlighten me?

I think he was saying that to him/her you were making an anatomy reference.

Which Ironically is one of those things where people get infractions.
Cases where things can be read 2 ways, and one of those ways lead to an infraction.
The english language is quite tricky in that way, especially with the use of commas to break up flow of thought.

And speaking of which, I've had some infractions disappear (not even the oldest), I think when you respond to the moderator sometimes they re-review it and decides that maybe the forum member did not mean exactly what the moderator first thought he meant?

I think if it is an undeserved infraction sometimes you will convince the moderator that you did not mean exactly what they thought you meant.

[cossieuk]

If someone gets an infraction, but then appeals and the infraction is overturned doesnt this mean the infraction was given out when it shouldnt have been.

[Mysterion]

As for how many points get you what type of bans (note there is no '30 day' ban), please see this section of the community guidelines.



None of this information is hidden. None is secret and it is the same across all of our titles.

You used to be able to see your infractions on your preferences page. I can't seem to find it any longer. You forgot to mention that you put people on moderated status in addition to banning them. I don't know how many infractions it takes to get to that level either.

Will the new forums include more information about our infractions or number of times a post has been reported or possibly "liked"? Without negative reputation telling me how I'm doing I'll be lost. I'm a sucker for a reddit type system of fake internet points.

Which is a super fun forum to go and post something negative. The ten users of that subreddit will downvote you in a second. That's where the fanatic lotro lovers live. They put to fanboi's here to shame.

[Crell_1]

Isn't that information listed under
my preferences > my forum settings ?

Only for some accounts. It has not been listed there for quite some time for myself and others I know.

[furtim]

We do this because while some players like to make some pretty interesting claims about their infractions, bans, warnings, or what not and we can't really reply to them in any meaningful way publicly. By that I mean literally taking their player history and dumping it out in the forums and saying "well.. actually.. here's what you got, when you got it, why you got it, your PM about it, the language you used, the warnings you were given before the infraction, etc etc." I mean, we could there's nothing really stopping us except that rule which we follow. That and it would be pretty embarrassing for the person involved and would more or less make us look like some kind of bully or worse.

As much as I respect Turbine's policies here, it used to be a routine occurrence on the Riot Games forums that someone would post a "Tribunal is broken! I got banned for nothing!" thread, then someone from Riot's player behaviour team would pop in to explain exactly why, with quotes from the in-game chat logs, that person actually got banned. They always deserved it.

After a while, people stopped posting those threads on Riot's forums.

[ColorSpecs]

I have to just shake my head at all these rationalizations and justifications I'm reading in the dev tracker. I've been around the forums for a while now and I've seen the locked threads and the bans. So many of my friends in the pvmp community in fact that have been banned, it made me decide to protect my in-game account by picking an anonymous forum one because as it has been related to me, Sapience and Celestrata haven't traditionally been content with merely banning forum accounts, they also like to find excuses to go after in game ones.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This is the term that resonates in my head as I read Sapience's justifications for the things he does. I see him referencing the set of rules he created. The so called "Code of conduct". All throughout history despots have created laws to legalize being a despot so when the people balk at the things they do, they just say they're abiding by the rules.

Having a rule that states they will not discuss moderator action does in a way protect the privacy of the player being moderated, however, it also protects the moderator from having to justify his actions. And it is really easy to hide behind.

Also in the CoC is these little gems that allow Sapience and the moderator team to adapt the CoC to suit their needs when they want a player gone.

1. While participating on the Community Sites, you must respect the rights of others to participate in the community. To this end you may not harass, defraud, threaten or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other members or Turbine staff.

If they want you gone, they can just choose to agree with whoever that you caused distress. Pretty subjective term and its a common tool.

4. You may not impersonate any Turbine, Inc. employee, past or present. This includes the use or modification of the Turbine logo as a My LOTRO avatar.

I was once infracted under these rule for in my response to sapience, changing the quote to get my point across. Hardly impersonating.

8. Making short posts for the sole purpose of moving your thread up the Forums ("bumping") or adding to your post count is not allowed.

People who have been close to hitting the ban limit have been infracted for this, retroactively - meaning, getting dinged for posts years old - to get them over the ban limit.

9. You may not abuse the Forums Reputation System. This includes posting requests for positive reputation or other means of “farming” reputation, targeting an individual or group for negative reputation, or any other means of artificially influencing your Reputation or another user’s.

Same with this one. All it takes is an accusation of using the system, and if Sapience already wants you gone, he'll use to to send you over the limit.

12. You may not re-post Private Messages on the Community Sites without the express consent of the sender.

Another one that can be used to send you over the ban limit if needed.

14. Do not re-post or quote any materials which violate the Community Guidelines. This includes re-posting a thread or topic which has been previously closed or removed by the Turbine Community Team.

Another to protect the moderator team from accountability? How many threads have been closed simply because the topic at hand isn't one the community team is comfortable with?

Of course if these things happen you can always appeal -- to the same people who worked so hard to ban you in the first place lol.

The players too have learned this game. How common is it to report a post not because its truly detrimental to the community, but simply to get the player infracted and eventually banned?

I find it doubly ironic that Sapience tries to give us the impression that banning is a last resort action of a benevolent and just overseer.

Or maybe they just think its fun?


A picture of Celestrata with the "ban hammer" posted by Celestrata.


Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And I call BS on all this.

[Sapience]

If someone gets an infraction, but then appeals and the infraction is overturned doesnt this mean the infraction was given out when it shouldnt have been.

In the view of the second set of eyes, maybe. Remember we do have moderators who also can issue infractions. Sometimes the Community Team reviews these and either lets them stand, converts them to warnings, or in increases them or changes them to a more accurate infraction based on the post.

Most of those that get reverted usually are infractable, but are pretty minor or first infractions and probably should have gotten a warning or a PM telling the person to knock it off (we send a lot of those). As a general rule you'll find the community team goes to great lengths to avoid giving infractions and bans (despite opinions to the contrary).

Which brings me to the moderation question. Moderation is actually called 'time out' on the back end (don't look at me, I didn't name it!). The most common use of moderation is for those who have gone over the top and decided they're going to 'take a stand' or 'won't be silenced'. These people are usually at risk of racking up infractions at a lightning fast pace and could probably get themselves banned within an hour. Instead we put them in moderation to so we don't have to constantly monitor that one person, and so that people aren't constantly reporting them (they can't see the posts to report them) and they aren't piling up a ton of infractions.

Most people come out of moderation in a day or two and realize they flew off the handle and could have gotten themselves banned and apologize. For some people it just makes them eternally angry and they start posting, knowing only we can see them, some pretty profane and vulgar things. Usually even this stops in a day or two, but some start making other accounts and trying all over again and this usually gets them the ban we were trying to prevent in the first place.

Even perma-bans aren't really always permanent. If you appeal a ban and make your case ("I realize I went over the top, I apologize I would like to be part of the community again") and enough time has passed you'll probably get a "You're being unbanned but the next infraction will result in an immediate ban and no appeal".

of course we also have ban appeals that throw in liberal use of the word Nazi, communists, and colorful metaphors. Those people are usually turned down flat.

[ColorSpecs]

Even perma-bans aren't really always permanent. If you appeal a ban and make your case ("I realize I went over the top, I apologize I would like to be part of the community again") and enough time has passed you'll probably get a "You're being unbanned but the next infraction will result in an immediate ban and no appeal".

I have never ONCE among all the players I know that you have banned, heard of this happening. Not. One. Player.

[ararax2]

I have never ONCE among all the players I know that you have banned, heard of this happening. Not. One. Player.

Actually I know one player this happened to. He hasnt posted in a while but I know he posted up to a year after his ban.

Honestly in spite of the fact that sometimes it seems like moderators are going after you hard, the best thing to do is just stop caring.

Just take a month or 5 off from the forums and say it aint worth it to fight.

Many of my infractions came from responding to trolls who really just kept moving the conversation in the wrong way.

They arent worth it.

[Sapience]

I have to just shake my head at all these rationalizations and justifications I'm reading in the dev tracker. I've been around the forums for a while now and I've seen the locked threads and the bans. So many of my friends in the pvmp community in fact that have been banned, it made me decide to protect my in-game account by picking an anonymous forum one because as it has been related to me, Sapience and Celestrata haven't traditionally been content with merely banning forum accounts, they also like to find excuses to go after in game ones.

This is false. CS handles in game and Community handles out of game. We can't ban an ingame account if we wanted to. The only time any mention of an in game ban is made is for clear violations of the EULA (which is bannable anyway through CS). I can think of two exceptions to this and in both cases the person involved had a lengthy in game record and had decided to create more than 40 forum accounts to constantly post profanity, pornographic images, and hate speech all aimed at GMs, Turbine staff and the person he/she felt reported them. Even that took piles of supporting documentation from us before CS would even entertain the idea.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This is the term that resonates in my head as I read Sapience's justifications for the things he does. I see him referencing the set of rules he created. The so called "Code of conduct". All throughout history despots have created laws to legalize being a despot so when the people balk at the things they do, they just say they're abiding by the rules.

I didn't create the rules. They were her when I got here.

Having a rule that states they will not discuss moderator action does in a way protect the privacy of the player being moderated, however, it also protects the moderator from having to justify his actions. And it is really easy to hide behind.

Actually we have to provide supporting documentation when someone appeals. So this not remotely accurate.

Also in the CoC is these little gems that allow Sapience and the moderator team to adapt the CoC to suit their needs when they want a player gone.

Cant' think of a single COC I have ever seen that doesn't have this. It's about as standard as fries with a big mac. Even your credit card privacy policy says they can change it at any time.

People who have been close to hitting the ban limit have been infracted for this, retroactively - meaning, getting dinged for posts years old - to get them over the ban limit.

False and pure fabrication.

Same with this one. All it takes is an accusation of using the system, and if Sapience already wants you gone, he'll use to to send you over the limit.

False.

Another to protect the moderator team from accountability? How many threads have been closed simply because the topic at hand isn't one the community team is comfortable with?

False.

Of course if these things happen you can always appeal -- to the same people who worked so hard to ban you in the first place lol.

False it's a different group.

The players too have learned this game. How common is it to report a post not because its truly detrimental to the community, but simply to get the player infracted and eventually banned?

That's probably a better way for the person making the false report to get infracted than the person being reported. We'd consider that griefing and abuse of the reporting function.


In fact, it's clearly spelled out in #15

15. Please do not respond in kind to posts that violate the Community Guidelines, as this may result in disciplinary action against your own account. Report the post to the moderation team for review by using the appropriate link:

• On the forums, use the Report Bad Post function by clicking on the red and white triangle icon on the post
• On My LOTRO, click on "Report this post"
• On the Lorebook, click on “Report Article”

Abuse of the Reporting System is prohibited.

[ColorSpecs]

Actually I know one player this happened to. He hasnt posted in a while but I know he posted up to a year after his ban.

Good for him I guess. One out of how many?

Honestly in spite of the fact that sometimes it seems like moderators are going after you hard, the best thing to do is just stop caring.

Exactly. But if I were a person at Turbine or WB who cared about revenue and market share, and I heard I had employees who were engaging in little power plays to drive my customers away, I'd do a little banning of my own.

[ColorSpecs]

This is false.

You can say its false all you want to. There's far to much evidence to the contrary. You've got a completely opaque system here, you're free to make any claims you want. Doesn't mean I have to ignore reality to believe them. For example I've heard all about the appeal process. The "judges" are totally anonymous. How do I know what you say is true? Because you tell me so?

That's probably a better way for the person making the false report to get infracted than the person being reported. We'd consider that griefing and abuse of the reporting function.

Not the case. You have any idea how many players you've banned for sharing a computer with a banned player?

[ararax2]

People who have been close to hitting the ban limit have been infracted for this, retroactively - meaning, getting dinged for posts years old - to get them over the ban limit.

False and pure fabrication.

I can explain what happens here through personal experience.
1. I flame war with a troll.
2. Troll looks at posts I've made
3. Troll looks up most flameworthy post I made and reports it.
4. I recieve infraction for a many many months old post.

So it does happen, but honestly I don't think its the moderators doing it I think it's other players who really dislike us.

I've made my share of enemies on the forums.

[LongMarch]

I really think this topic should just be closed. Looking through the comments it seems to have gone completely off topic from what the OP posted. Not only that but it has become incredibly toxic (the posts that is). I think there really ought to be more respect for Sapience. It looks to me that some comments have been made with the intent of being as obnoxious a possible while arguing against Sapience and other people over the most inane and technical things. Lets all calm down and have a slice of cake .

*Offers cake to everyone*

This.

It's quite telling that the original poster was lamenting the negativity being expressed on these forums and we get 9 pages and almost 350 posts feeding into exactly that...negativity. I come back to this thread after a few days to find dissertations on the behaviour of Sapience and the mods. Huh?!?

I do not understand the compulsion for some people to just spew venom like a jaded lover at Turbine, its staff, and this GAME. It's a game!!! My goodness. If you're disenchanted (or worse), please remember that we all have complete freedom to either walk away from the game completely, taking a "break" or trying to find a new way to enjoy it. (I suggest rolling an alt and re-living the game again from the ground up if you've burnt out on the end game offerings. Quite refreshing in many respects.) From the sounds of it, some people might do themselves a favour by taking a break from the forums.

This has been an interesting thread on human behaviour and the internet. And, as is often the case, we find ourselves in an nose dive, spiraling and out of control. Enough already. Nothing positive coming out of this.