Moderation weirdness

[flammenherz]

Aighty, so this is an issue i have watched unfold for some time in these forums (ever since i was here actually) and it doesn’t seem to be addressed yet, so let me just start:

Moderation seems unbalanced.

Lets start with the first point i got to see!
Unfair punishment for things or punishment for issues not on the list.
(Let me put it straight that my tone, for this entire post, will be /neutral, albeit i will use flavour words that may seem to differ from such.)

Punishments

So, the stocksounds situation. We already saw what happened, he already got his punishment and to be clear, i am not wanting to extend such in any way, i simply just desire to address the issue i watched happen and which several other forum users have made comments about.

Racismn? Five days mute.
Ragebaiting vetex? Mute until January.

The weight of such actions and the punishment connected to such does not seem to make true sense- especially because ragebaiting usually does not seem to be off the table on these forums as many forumers create comments explicitly ment to do so and do not receive any punishment.
This is quite… hypocritical, to say the least- if an action can result in a mute, it should result in a mute for everyone that does such action, not just a select few.

As for the severity issue, balancing the punishments out is… probably quite needed, seemingly minor offenses should not possess a longer punishment then racismn.

The next issue is, simply put, lack of clear communication with the modteams in some areas.
Often, the forums seem unmoderated and turn more and more into a cesspool of hatred- which should not happen at all.
Yes, a situation is likely eventually dealt with, but often only when it has went down already- and that is an issue.

Communication issues

Many moderators seem inactive or straightup do not respond to send messages. I am unaware if the artist request thing has gotten better by now, but when i first joined, it took me having to contact someone on discord to even get a response to my issue at all.
To this day, said issue still has not been aknowledged on here/has not been looked at.

Then, also the suggestion moderation issue- i’ve heard that suggesters are currently no longer being accepted, albeit i am unaware if such is true or not.
If it is, such has not been said in a spot that has been visible to the general audience- the application link is also still usable.

If not, it means that many applications have just been ignored without an actual reason being given.

And onto the last topic, toxicity.

You know who you are

So, to put it simple, the sheer wrath some people on the forums emitt here is… not particularly good. Insults are flung around, conflicts are started in the middle of topics where they do not belong in and people do not respect others boundaries.

Most often, i noticed such in “now draw her pregnant” or outright sexual comments towards art drawn and while such may be fine in other places… this is a PG 13 forum.

People that participate in drawing borderline NSFW artwork SEVERAL TIMES are not banned nor suspended, i do not think i have to elaborate on why such is bad.

Why the fuck are people like such allowed to remain on here?
There are underage people on this forum that need to be protected from such.

If there is more issues with the current moderation, please feel free to comment.

I am aware not everything is bad about current moderation- i as example quite enjoy the fast lockdowns of stuff like scammposts etc- the issues addressed here are just things i noticed that need dire fixing to make the forum more welcoming to others.

[BlueFighter15]

Throwback to the one time I described as fort Castrum experience being an assfuck and getting 3 day ban
Meanwhile I called a third party the r word on FANDOM once, for the first time, and got 3 month ban
After I repeated the offense multiple times, intentionally insulting FANDOM and got 1 month ban
Still extremely fucking salty

[wesree]

@flammenherz

now draw her pregnant” or outright sexual comments towards art drawn

i hate this stuff

[NickyZ1]

Cope

[Zormego]

@flammenherz

Most often, i noticed such in “now draw her pregnant” or outright sexual comments towards art drawn and while such may be fine in other places… this is a PG 13 forum.

Teens are damn weird, but that’s not an excuse. It shouldn’t be that hard to not make sexual remarks around kids, but it is apparently.

@flammenherz

Then, also the suggestion moderation issue- i’ve heard that suggesters are currently no longer being accepted, albeit i am unaware if such is true or not.
If it is, such has not been said in a spot that has been visible to the general audience- the application link is also still usable.

If not, it means that many applications have just been ignored without an actual reason being given.

I had to message someone for my Suggestor role after about a week or a month of waiting; it definitely needs to be improved.

@flammenherz

Racismn? Five days mute.
Ragebaiting vetex? Mute until January.

Boom, there it is. Stock served the time given to him, and while I’m not advocating for further punishment right now (because I’m typing this a little less than 20 minutes before I have to go to school), he should’ve gotten a lot more time for blatant racism. Getting banned for ragebaiting Vetex should’ve gotten the five days instead, if it is so severe that it warrants a mute. It is very alarming that racism and other cumulative infractions warrant a work week’s ban, while getting the developer mad warrants a ban for the rest of the year.

[opticalcord]

yeah ik mods are biased and people have said they’re corrupted (they are just vetex’s friends)

but they also stop us from talking about them (rule 10) which the only reason it could be put in place is if mods are doing something sussy and they don’t want people to talk about it bec if they were just why prevent people from talking about it?

anyways I don’t think this post (mine) breaks rule 10 bec I’m just discussing the rule not actions so don’t remove pls
but just shows that we need to ask not to remove our posts bec they just might

[opticalcord]

@flammenherz

There are underage people on this forum that need to be protected from such.

cough @rpeeguy cough

[LichdaDerp]

Did not read post but wanted to point out how weird it is we are not allowed to talk about mod actions.

[Snook]

[Randomness]

@flammenherz

forums seem unmoderated

The forums are unmoderated. There are four admins, and no hate to any of them but they use the forums very little anymore.
There’s like two active forum mods currently + divanochi. The rest of them sometimes act but very rarely.

Once again, nothing against the mods because it can clearly be a lack of people causing these issues but after the whole issue with the absolutely disgusting DMs that some users were apart of, I have noticed that a lot of things that should be moderated (and would be in places like vetcord) are not.

[Jared]

solution? make me an admin.

[Divanochi]

I’d say you make valid points about your concerns regarding the forum’s moderation situation, some of the things you say I probably lean towards agreeing with. I have some thoughts on your perspective as well.

@flammenherz

Racismn? Five days mute.
Ragebaiting vetex? Mute until January.

I know that Stock’s short mute was pretty controversial as most people believed it should’ve been longer compared to other moderative actions. However, it’s fairly in line with how punsihements of this nature have been handled for a long time; the forum’s rules matrix outlines that the punishment for “discriminatory jokes” is typically an official warning. The same case has applied to multiple other instances on the forums where users received a relatively short punishment for similar (or worse) punishments for these types of comments/jokes.

The issue here lies in the rules matrix being outdated and no longer serving as an appropriate measure of how severe certain punishments should be. I know it periodically gets updates with minor rules being added or modified, but for it to be the case that racist jokes are still a minor punishment after 4.5 years, it calls into question whether the punishment is fitting for the action.

@flammenherz

The weight of such actions and the punishment connected to such does not seem to make true sense- especially because ragebaiting usually does not seem to be off the table on these forums as many forumers create comments explicitly ment to do so and do not receive any punishment.

I do agree that the forums does have too much ragebaiting/engagement baiting which should be classified as trolling or causing drama, but with how much of it is present in the current state of the forums it basically makes up a large portion of many discussions and becomes hard to moderate due to how excessive it is. Not only that, but in some cases it can be hard to determine if a person is purposefully trying to ragebait/ cause drama or if they had benign intentions. I’m tired of closing a post that will inevitable lead to drama just to have the OP message me saying “hey why did you close my totally innocent post ” while the post is titled “why manufacturing pipe bombs in animal shelters is good for the environment”. Overall there’s just too much bait content to deal with effectively, in my opinion.

@flammenherz

Many moderators seem inactive or straightup do not respond to send messages.

That’s an unfortunate truth that I agree with. There’ve been a few instances where I watch something happen and don’t act upon it in hopes that moderation will handle it accordingly (because I don’t enjoy involving myself in actual moderative affairs), only to come back hours later to the issue not being resolved. The forum has 19 moderators, 15 of which have posted this year and 7 that have posted this month. I’d be very surprised if more than 3 moderators interacted with this post.

@flammenherz

artist request

An issue similar to this was brought to attention relatively recently, where a member had their artist role removed without any contact from the art team regarding why this happened. That situation was eventually resolved, however I’m personally not very aware about how things are going for artist requests and things of that nature since I’m not involved with the art community at all.

@flammenherz

Then, also the suggestion moderation issue- i’ve heard that suggesters are currently no longer being accepted, albeit i am unaware if such is true or not.

This is true, the last suggestor was approved on August 7th - over 3 months ago. I have quite a few qualms with the suggestions category in its current state, but overall I think that if it’s the case that vetex currently isn’t accepting suggestions, the category should be closed again so that members of the forum don’t go through putting effort into suggestor requests and suggestions for no reason.

@flammenherz

the sheer wrath some people on the forums emitt here is… not particularly good. Insults are flung around, conflicts are started in the middle of topics where they do not belong in and people do not respect others boundaries.

Has unfortunately been the case for quite a while. A while ago I compared the site to twitter;

@flammenherz

Most often, i noticed such in “now draw her pregnant” or outright sexual comments towards art drawn and while such may be fine in other places… this is a PG 13 forum.

The sexual comments are also a problem when they are unwarranted or unwanted by the artists. Not everyone is comfortable with suggestive comments towards their work; most people aren’t unless that was the intent behind the art. The comments are not only borderline NSFW at times, but they’re also just repetitive and add nothing to the discussions.

Overall as I said earlier, I think you raise good points. Things like this contribute to how enjoyable of an experience using the forums are, and if these issues continue to be as pressing as they are I don’t see how this place can operate under the guise of a positive gathering for the community.

[LiterallyLoki]

I’ve become a bit of an optimist on this site. I don’t know if it’s the antidepressants I’ve started taking coursing through my system, but I truly believe we can be better.

Maybe it’s because I’m normalized to it, but art that depicts nudity is fine. Art will be art, so I have no problems with seeing someone draw a naked Iris if it’s a good excuse for them to practice their anatomy. Power to you.

I will also still, defend my opinion of Gamehero’s drawing of that one woman being very gender goal and pretty. That is a compliment to your art, my friend.

I’ll say this with no regrets. This forum can be better. We can be better. I believe everyone deserves another chance to be better, I live by this rule with no regrets, but I understand some people can’t get better. I also understand that at some point, you either get better, or you have to go.

I’m rarely mean. I think I took a disrespectful tone ONCE at Warm Water (I regret nothing) and I told someone they are a bad person over saying people who are groomed or manipulated are stupid. (I lost my temper. Once again, no regrets.)

But please, people, take a page out of my book. Endless bickering and arguments will just hurt the experience for everyone. I may not act in the game discussion category much, but I don’t enjoy watching people argue until someone gives in.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I know we can be better. I know you can. You may not see it in yourself, but I do. Don’t let yourself down like this.

I believe in you all. Let’s be better.

That includes the mods, you aren’t safe from my scolding.

[flammenherz]

What i’d probably suggest to solve some of the issues is maybe talking about getting more moderators and getting rid of the ones that do not do anything?
Such may seem like a drastic action, but it would probably help a lot with clearing such up- especially if the moderation rule itself would be removed immediatly upon misuse being noticed.

Usually, such seems to work relativly well i guess- if one finds people that can be trusted with such tasks.

[CookieTank12345]

this is pretty true ngl, toxicity is definitely something you notice(especially when directed towards stock who’s somehow hated by most forumers)

[Cryonical]

As a biased, inactive, corrupt, and immature forum mod, I’m agreeing with what I’m seeing here. Why are the forum mods like this!? Something should be done!

[Cryonical]

Yeah idk what’s up with that rule, I never got the point. Will not be enforcing that myself

[flammenherz]

Jail

[Cryonical]

Agreed!

[Cryonical]

Wait