Fundamental problems with the Mods/Admins of NS. My experience and analysis

Before I get to my primary analysis, I think it’s necessary to give a timeline of the events which led to my interaction with the mods. I should also say that while I’ve been on NS off and on for over fourteen years, I had never posted on the NS forums, or even visited the forums, until a few days ago. I won’t be naming the mods by name. After my experience, and even though this forum exists outside of NS, it wouldn’t surprise me if naming them here is part of some obscure rule that I’m unaware of.

Timeline:
Two days ago: I sent a private telegram to a few of the admins/mods about issues with the nation name release policy. At the time I didn’t realize that telegramming the admins/mods individually about NS policy was frowned upon. The reuse policy is important to me and I didn’t want my objections/solutions to be lost, buried, or accidentally overlooked on the forum. The telegram that I sent, which I can share here if anyone cares to see it, was not in anyway rude, inflammatory, abusive, etc. In fact, I made it a point to be polite and respectful.

Five hours later: I received a reply from one of them telling me, rather curtly, that a private telegram is not the appropriate venue for technical suggestions and that I need to post it in the Technical forum. When I tried to reply in order to apologize for bothering them, I realized that this particular mod (I’m not sure if the others I messaged did the same) blocked me from contacting them again.

Minutes later: At this point I’m already irritated that I was blocked from contacting at least one mod after sending a single telegram that was perfectly friendly in tone, so I took their suggestion and posted it as a new topic in the Technical forum. Within minutes the topic disappeared and I mistakenly assumed it was deleted, which irritated me further. So, I re-posted the topic, went to the mega thread, and accused them of deleting it. After I posted the accusatory comment, I saw my original post in the mega thread and mistakenly assumed that I must have accidentally posted it in the mega thread to begin with instead of as a new topic. So, I deleted it, thinking that the mega thread wasn’t the proper place to post such a long piece. When I went to delete the comment accusing them of deleting the topic, another mod had beaten me to it. The mod then brusquely told me that he had merged the topic into the mega thread, something I was hitherto unaware was standard practice on the NS forums. He went on to accuse me of doing it on purpose and issued me with a Warning for Spamming. When I tried to explain my ignorance, he doubled down on the accusation and even went so far as to allude to my other “antics elsewhere.” At the time I was taken aback by the accusation of antics elsewhere since I’ve never really interacted with anyone on NS outside of the RMB. I asked him what he meant by that and received no response. Now that I’ve had time to reflect, I’ve come to the conclusion that he probably just said that as a way to make me look bad.

The next day: I appealed the warning. While I was waiting for a response to the appeal, I perused the Moderation forum for other appeals in order to gauge my chances of having the appeal approved. I got over twenty pages and didn’t find a single appeal reversal, not a good sign. Unsurprisingly, my appeal was denied. To be fair to the mod who denied my appeal, however, he was at least polite about it.

I’ve since had time to reflect and look at things with a clear head. Let me first say that I am fully aware that mistakes were made on my part. Some I made through no fault of my own, while others could have been avoided. Let me also say, however, that many of the mistakes I did make would never have been made in the first place if the mods had handled the situation differently from the outset. This brings me to what, I think, are some fundamental problems with the NS admins/mods:


  • 1. The generally adversarial, and heavy-handed, way in which they approach practically everyone, regardless of the context or situation. For example, if the mod who blocked me from sending him/her telegrams hadn’t blocked me after a single friendly telegram, I wouldn’t have gone to the forum with a negative disposition, which opened me up to making further mistakes based on emotion. If the mod who slapped me with the spam warning had taken the 30 seconds required to look at my forum profile, they would have seen that I was a new poster and was probably telling the truth. Etc. And it isn’t just me either. If you go to the Moderation forum, you can read page after page of issues and appeals that likely wouldn’t have been necessary if the moderator in question had approached the situation charitably rather than adversarially. On the one hand, I can appreciate the fact that they have to deal with a lot of riffraff on a daily basis, which is probably a source of a lot of their rudeness. On the other hand, it doesn’t excuse their behavior. To give a real-world example, I’m a supervisor at a retail store. In my line of work, not a day goes by that I don’t have to deal with some issue with a cashier. Time and time again I’ve seen other supervisors become so jaded that they begin to treat all cashiers like ne’er-do-wells in their first interaction with them. The cashier becomes angry and speaks out of turn, which leads to further infractions. As a former cashier myself, I try very hard to handle every issue individually without inserting any past experience bias. My point is that if someone can become so easily jaded, they probably shouldn’t be in a leadership position.

    2. The appeals process, or at least the first level, is effectively worthless. At the time of this post I’m almost 40 pages into the moderation forum and, unless I’ve overlooked some, I’ve only seen two appeals approved. Now, from my research, there are three basic types of appeal. The first, which makes up the smallest number, are the appeals that don’t warrant being approved. The second are the appeals that, while not technically warranting approval, only exist because the moderator who issued the warning/ban was either overly adversarial or obtuse. The third, which makes up the largest number, are the appeals that should absolutely be approved because the ban/warning in question was obviously egregious, nitpicky, or just plain malicious. The issue, as I see it, is that mods are very reluctant to overrule fellow mods, at least in public (I have no idea what the appeal approval rate is for secondary appeals.). If this is the case, and I think it is, why even have the first level appeals process?

    3. The admins. Where to even begin? From their strange ideological belief that people should be able to permanently reserve nation names after only logging in a few times well over a decade ago, which is causing stagnation, to their blatant disregard of mod abuses. The reuse policy isn’t within the purview of this post, so I’ll only address their enabling of the mods. While I’m aware that you can submit a GHR to the admins concerning moderation abuse, I’m not sure it would do much good. Put bluntly, many of the mods are petty tyrants which I’m sure the admins are well aware of. Maybe they just don’t care, or maybe they’re in favor of it because it keeps the riffraff in line. I don’t know, I’m not an admin. What I do know is that systemic problems with middle management are almost always the result of systemic issues at the top. Show me a retail store with a team of rotten assistant managers and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that it stems from the store leaders or store manager. It’s as consistent as gravity. I saw one appeal in the moderation forum where the player filing the appeal was so frustrated with the way the mod handled the situation that he wanted to go higher up. The mod told him that while he could report mod abuses to the admins via a GHR, the admins aren’t nearly as patient as they (the mods) are, so be warned. I’m paraphrasing, but that told me all I needed to know.

I’m not posting this in angriness or bitterness. If I currently feel anything, it’s defeat. Many of the mods (Three in particular from my experience/research.) are rude, malicious, nitpicky, purposefully obtuse petty tyrants, and the admins enable them. So unless hundreds, or even thousands, of players do something about it as one (Not exactly the likeliest of scenarios.), what’s the point? Any complaints or suggestions are either buried under a mountain of bureaucracy or outright ignored.

Am I wrong, crazy, too sensitive, etc.? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
 
Well from what you said, *looks cautiously around for Mods*, it seems that the Mods have acted wrongly in this situation. The appeals situation seems especially ridiculous. I'm considering what would be safe to do so that I could say something.
 
Mzeusia:
Well from what you said, *looks cautiously around for Mods*, it seems that the Mods have acted wrongly in this situation. The appeals situation seems especially ridiculous. I'm considering what would be safe to do so that I could say something.
I wouldn't, it's a waste of time. They'll tell you that if you have an issue with the moderation team, file a GHR. It's a pretty good racket for them. Basically, any mod criticism can be quietly swept under the rug via the GHR because a GHR is quiet and private, whereas publicly posting about it on the NS forum is loud and far too public.
 
Constantinolia:
Mzeusia:
Well from what you said, *looks cautiously around for Mods*, it seems that the Mods have acted wrongly in this situation. The appeals situation seems especially ridiculous. I'm considering what would be safe to do so that I could say something.
I wouldn't, it's a waste of time. They'll tell you that if you have an issue with the moderation team, file a GHR. It's a pretty good racket for them. Basically, any mod criticism can be quietly swept under the rug via the GHR because a GHR is quiet and private, whereas publicly posting about it on the NS forum is loud and far too public.
I'm not talking about on the forums. This is a problem so it must be dealt with. When minority influence changes the majority belief, that's called social change.
 
Mzeusia:
Constantinolia:
Mzeusia:
Well from what you said, *looks cautiously around for Mods*, it seems that the Mods have acted wrongly in this situation. The appeals situation seems especially ridiculous. I'm considering what would be safe to do so that I could say something.
I wouldn't, it's a waste of time. They'll tell you that if you have an issue with the moderation team, file a GHR. It's a pretty good racket for them. Basically, any mod criticism can be quietly swept under the rug via the GHR because a GHR is quiet and private, whereas publicly posting about it on the NS forum is loud and far too public.
I'm not talking about on the forums. This is a problem so it must be dealt with. When minority influence changes the majority belief, that's called social change.
True, good point. :yes:
 
For what it's worth, I'm reasonably sure that "antics elsewhere" referred to here.

(This is not a response from moderation, I'm not a moderator, et cetera et cetera...)
 
EDIT: Just to be clear, I've taken off the Mall persona for this post. I'm not speaking on behalf of NS Moderation, just as a single player who is also a Mod. END EDIT

I'm not interested in getting into a back and forth debate regarding all the pros and cons of NS Moderation so I'll keep this brief.

Why do we block users who send us TGs about mod stuff?

Because what we find is that individual users who do that once have a high propensity for continuing to do that even after having been told not to, and that those users get very upset and combative if the mod continues to try to explain that a private TG is not the appropriate venue. Additionally, we don't moderate via private TG because of the issue of people shopping for moderators and the issue of oversight.

Are appeals ever granted?

Sure. I searched my own posts and found this one from January which makes sense since I haven't been that active lately. Most appeals get denied which makes sense because we get a fair number of frivolous appeals and generally speaking us mods are probably right more than 50% of the time. I've granted a few appeals, seen some final appeals get granted. I'm not saying it's frequent, but keep in mind that digging through the moderation forum doesn't account for appeals submitted via GHR or gameside violations which are always appealed via GHR.

Are the mods tyrants/can we report them to admin?

Hopefully we aren't tyrants. We're here to make the game better for users and because we honestly love NS. We aren't paid to do this, we do it for the love of the game and the communities within it. If you think that a specific mod is acting in a way which is outrageous, tyrannical, or for some reason REQUIRES admin attention then you can file a GHR. Note that accusations of moderator abuse are taken extremely seriously, so if you're going to submit such a GHR you should link to specific evidence of abuse. We get vague accusations of abuse about the team as a whole but those are useless since the users never link to anything showing what they're talking about.

Are the mods perfect?

No. We're human, we make mistakes. At the end of the day it's a case of "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." Players don't see what goes on behind the scenes in terms of our debates, discussions, etc. on specific issues, but the perception that the mod team is a single hivemind that is only interested in protecting its own is painfully misguided, though I understand that since users can't see behind the curtain they don't know that.


Again, not looking to get into an argument, just looking to provide some insight into moderation on NS.
 
Eluvatar:
For what it's worth, I'm reasonably sure that "antics elsewhere" referred to here.

(This is not a response from moderation, I'm not a moderator, et cetera et cetera...)
Ah, fair enough. However, to be fair to myself, I think I provided reasonably good proof that I made a mistake in that regard. The accusasion I made doesn't prove that I spammed purposefully. The first mod I interacted with handled the situation poorly and I got upset and jumped to a false conclusion.
 
Mall:
EDIT: Just to be clear, I've taken off the Mall persona for this post. I'm not speaking on behalf of NS Moderation, just as a single player who is also a Mod. END EDIT

I'm not interested in getting into a back and forth debate regarding all the pros and cons of NS Moderation so I'll keep this brief.

Why do we block users who send us TGs about mod stuff?

Because what we find is that individual users who do that once have a high propensity for continuing to do that even after having been told not to, and that those users get very upset and combative if the mod continues to try to explain that a private TG is not the appropriate venue. Additionally, we don't moderate via private TG because of the issue of people shopping for moderators and the issue of oversight.

Are appeals ever granted?

Sure. I searched my own posts and found this one from January which makes sense since I haven't been that active lately. Most appeals get denied which makes sense because we get a fair number of frivolous appeals and generally speaking us mods are probably right more than 50% of the time. I've granted a few appeals, seen some final appeals get granted. I'm not saying it's frequent, but keep in mind that digging through the moderation forum doesn't account for appeals submitted via GHR or gameside violations which are always appealed via GHR.

Are the mods tyrants/can we report them to admin?

Hopefully we aren't tyrants. We're here to make the game better for users and because we honestly love NS. We aren't paid to do this, we do it for the love of the game and the communities within it. If you think that a specific mod is acting in a way which is outrageous, tyrannical, or for some reason REQUIRES admin attention then you can file a GHR. Note that accusations of moderator abuse are taken extremely seriously, so if you're going to submit such a GHR you should link to specific evidence of abuse. We get vague accusations of abuse about the team as a whole but those are useless since the users never link to anything showing what they're talking about.

Are the mods perfect?

No. We're human, we make mistakes. At the end of the day it's a case of "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." Players don't see what goes on behind the scenes in terms of our debates, discussions, etc. on specific issues, but the perception that the mod team is a single hivemind that is only interested in protecting its own is painfully misguided, though I understand that since users can't see behind the curtain they don't know that.


Again, not looking to get into an argument, just looking to provide some insight into moderation on NS.
Thank you for shedding light on some things, I appreciate it.

In regard to why you all block users who send TGs about mod stuff, with all due respect, this is exactly what I was talking about and why each situation should be treated individually. I would not have continued to send send them once I had been told not to. And yes, as a supervisor myself, I'm aware that taking this approach is more difficult, it's much easier to approach everyone with a one size fits all disposition. But when you begin to treat all future interactions as past ones, problems develop.

As far as the appeals. I never said all appeals are denied and I made it very clear that since I can't see the results of appeals filed through GHR, I have no way of knowing the success rate of secondary appeals. And yes I'm aware, and I'm pretty sure I alluded to the fact, that searching the mod forum is not a perfect method, but it's all I have at my disposal. Personally, I think there are a LOT of appeals that should obviously be approved, from what I saw. I'm also not the end all be all arbiter, and I invite anyone to peruse the moderation forum in order to come to their own conclusions.

As far as mod tyranny: Again, with all due respect, I think you're probably a wonderful person. In fact, I very much appreciate you taking the time to even respond, I really do. And tbh, you're not one of the mods I had in mind when I made this post. I harbor no ill will toward the mods, nor do I dislike any of them. I just don't think some of them belong anywhere near a leadership position. I've seen countless examples, and have bookmarked a few of the ones I found particularly egregious, of mod hypocrisy, heavy-handedness, and borderline corruption. The problem I have with filing a GHR is that, and correct me if I'm wrong, it goes to the admins, right? Put simply, I don't really think the admins care all that much, or at least not as much as they should. I also think that they enable some of the mods' behavior. Whether they enable it by endorsing it, or through a more hands off approach, I don't know. But filing a GHR about mod abuses, from my estimation, would be a complete waste of time because the mods are very good at staying right inside the line when it comes to perceived abuses of authority.

And of course the mods are human. I made it fairly clear in my initial post that as as supervisor myself, I feel the mods' pain to a certain degree. But their humanity doesn't excuse their behavior no more than it excuses mine. Many of them are insufferably rude to players from the outset and go into just about every interaction as if the player on the receiving end is their adversary. They treat players (and I have first hand experience in this regard lol) as if they're evil masterminds who set out to purposefully, and maliciously, break the rules instead of taking an extra few seconds to weigh the evidence.

Anyway, thank you again for responding and I'm sorry if this post is rambling. I haven't had any caffeine yet, so I'm sure it's probably a train-wreck. I would have replied later but I didn't want it to seem as if I was avoiding you.
 
mcmasterdonia:
Ha. Everything is more complicated than it seems.
To be clear, and for disclosure's sake, I'm not trying to hide or cover up the mistakes I made. I listed every one of my mistakes in my initial post, in all their glory, for the world to see. I got upset and said something I shouldn't have said. I embarrassed myself, which was compounded by the way the mod handled the situation to begin with. The only thing worse than making an ass out of yourself, is making an ass out of yourself and then getting publicly hammered for it haha :fish:
 
I mean my initial thoughts on this are. I want you to find one site with as many users as NS that accepts personal messages as part of an official process. Hell ones half the size of NS probably wouldn't do it. You would be asking for trouble. Its basic common sense and internet etiquette, especially when there is an easily found official process.

I am just the cartographer for a sub-forum on this forum and I heavily discourage Private Messages just because the shear volume of messages I was getting some days was downright ridiculous.

Starting with a round of private messages to every person possible was just a way to provoke an entire team. I honestly would say that in itself constitutes spam.
 
Lord Lore:
I mean my initial thoughts on this are. I want you to find one site with as many users as NS that accepts personal messages as part of an official process. Hell ones half the size of NS probably wouldn't do it. You would be asking for trouble. Its basic common sense and internet etiquette, especially when there is an easily found official process.

I am just the cartographer for a sub-forum on this forum and I heavily discourage Private Messages just because the shear volume of messages I was getting some days was downright ridiculous.

Starting with a round of private messages to every person possible was just a way to provoke an entire team. I honestly would say that in itself constitutes spam.
Fair enough. I guess we just frequent different types of forums. On a Masonic forum with thousands of members I belong to, it's not in any way frowned upon to to message admins, nor is it on a the alternate history forums I belong to. The culture in and around NS is different than what I'm used to, but now I know. Just to be clear though, my complaint isn't that it's considered gauche on NS to directly message admins/mods, it's how it's handled when someone makes the mistake. Some people, like myself apparently, are fools who live in a bubble, and aren't aware of wider internet etiquette lol.

Edit: There's a big difference between someone breaking a rule because they didn't know any better and someone knowingly breaking a rule on purpose. From my experience, at least at work, it's fairly easy to tell the difference if you take the time to do so.
 
Constantinolia:
In regard to why you all block users who send TGs about mod stuff, with all due respect, this is exactly what I was talking about and why each situation should be treated individually. I would not have continued to send send them once I had been told not to. And yes, as a supervisor myself, I'm aware that taking this approach is more difficult, it's much easier to approach everyone with a one size fits all disposition. But when you begin to treat all future interactions as past ones, problems develop.

Don't let anyone tell you not to feel as annoyed as you want, but on this front I think you'd be better off letting it go. To mods, anybody telegramming them individually about a moderation issue is Schroedinger's Complainant. They may quietly accept being told not to do that. They may whine a bit. They may argue. They may flame or get abusive. Mods have no way of knowing, in advance, which of those anybody is, and it's a headache to deal with the ruder ones.

They aren't required to give you a chance to prove you're not someone who will pitch a fit. They're allowed to make the call, for themselves and their nations, that they will block anybody who ever contacts them directly about a moderation issue. It doesn't have to be what you would do and you don't have to think that it's fair - they're still allowed to make that choice. It isn't personal. If it helps, you can blame all the people who can't be gracious for ruining it for everyone else.

This goes for a lot of things in life. Sometimes you just have to accept that someone out there doesn't like you and doesn't want to talk to you. It doesn't make you, or them, a bad person.
 
SillyString:
Constantinolia:
In regard to why you all block users who send TGs about mod stuff, with all due respect, this is exactly what I was talking about and why each situation should be treated individually. I would not have continued to send send them once I had been told not to. And yes, as a supervisor myself, I'm aware that taking this approach is more difficult, it's much easier to approach everyone with a one size fits all disposition. But when you begin to treat all future interactions as past ones, problems develop.

Don't let anyone tell you not to feel as annoyed as you want, but on this front I think you'd be better off letting it go. To mods, anybody telegramming them individually about a moderation issue is Schroedinger's Complainant. They may quietly accept being told not to do that. They may whine a bit. They may argue. They may flame or get abusive. Mods have no way of knowing, in advance, which of those anybody is, and it's a headache to deal with the ruder ones.

They aren't required to give you a chance to prove you're not someone who will pitch a fit. They're allowed to make the call, for themselves and their nations, that they will block anybody who ever contacts them directly about a moderation issue. It doesn't have to be what you would do and you don't have to think that it's fair - they're still allowed to make that choice. It isn't personal. If it helps, you can blame all the people who can't be gracious for ruining it for everyone else.

This goes for a lot of things in life. Sometimes you just have to accept that someone out there doesn't like you and doesn't want to talk to you. It doesn't make you, or them, a bad person.
That's reasonable and I think you're right. Besides, harping on it doesn't really help anyone or anything. Thanks for the advice and input!
 
DoS player here, aside from the worthless ones like Cog who pop up randomly to get mod decisions wrong (the one mod decision against me I really had a problem with was him warning me for flaming when I said it must've been traumatic to ask someone to read a post and/or source, appealed and it was granted), they're mostly fine.

I mean they don't care about natives in the R/D game and are generally pretty salty about offshoots of the site like The Bat Cavern but aside from that, they're alright.
 
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