MnF Club, an uncertain future (continuation)

[Claire]

(01-26-2021, 05:00 AM)RedFires Wrote: That's something I actually never thought about. Thanks for pointing it out.

But yes, mods should and must be online. Why? For the same reason police patrol the streets instead of staying at the PD, waiting for them to be called into action: Deterrence.
Mods must act once a problem appears, yes, but they also must prevent problems from happening in first place. The more problems you prevent, the less problem will occur, and the less people will have bad experiences.
So yes, mods should be online. There should be mods online all the time, in fact. Not the same people, of course, they can easily rotate.
Because a mod online means people will behave and will cause less troubles. Because a mod online means reports can be addressed much more quickly. Because mods online will make people believe the staff actually care about them.
A mod online means so much more than just replying tickets.

What are these problems that need to be deterred?
 
Too many servers and sites for Mods to be on all the time.
 
Who is not behaving and causing trouble?  Some generic examples please.

[Emmie]

I understand this argument. But there are several issues with it. First of all, a moderator who is online in the game, is not dealing with reports, since the game and the moderator panel are two sepperate things, and we do not deal with reports in the game.

There are 9 servers currently. There are 13 locations on each server if I ignore places like the Saloon and the Vodka bar. But let's say that we only need 1 moderator per server. And let's say that each volonteer mod needs to be on "active duty" at least 1 hour every day (which is not realistic, but for the sake of this discussion, we'll go with this. That would mean 312 moderators are needed, which is a ridiculous number. There is a reason why NO ONE uses active moderators in a game. Even J's examples can't be compared, cause they are chat moderators, they are not actively moving around in the respective games to deal with issues. Because it is inefficient.

You may try to argue that you've seen moderators online for more than 1 hour straight. But again, we are volonteers, not employees. The idea that we would somehow have to "work" even 7 hours a week for free is ridiculous. As it is done now, we do what we have time for, and energy for. Again, we all have school and work to deal with already. And we have a right to our free time and to spend it as we see fit, just like everyone else.

Also, the idea that ONLY moderators patrolling the game would be a deterrent towards bad behaviour is just factually wrong. I think most people know that if you do something wrong, you risk being reported. And being reported means you may get banned. This in and of itself, is a deterrent.

[SupermassiveMan]

If everything is "too much", "too hard", etc, then of course we are gonna get stuck. Everything can be achieved, or at least be near to (and certainly way closer than now) with a little more compromise.

The current mods cannot be online a few hours a week (or online at all, in most cases)? Then replace them with mods that can. You are right about mods being volunteers, but that doesn't mean they have to do a light job only cause they are not being paid. If you are not fully commit, don't be a mod.
You don't have the time? OR you don't want? Maybe both? Then quit. For what you are telling us, your lifes could use the little time you guys spend into the game.

The thing here is, online communities NEEDs regulation. The people that's currently in charge of that can't/don't want to do it? Replace them. Their aren't losing a job, they aren't losing money by not being mods anymore. If any, they are winning more time for themselves and their super busy lives.

[Claire]

I think that you first need to make a case for why moderators are needed and you have not done this. I have been playing mnf for a long time and don’t feel that they are required in game.

I think that there is a real danger in recruiting a large number of moderators; that some will use the position for their own advantage.

It might be possible to have a moderator on a fixed server and location at a set time each day but I have my doubts that even this would work. You would have to communicate this to players and it would need more than one time slot to account for time zones.

[Yelah]

Yeah, I don’t really see the need for moderators to present in-game at all times, especially when only 2 servers are heavily populated these days. Someone causing a scene in public chat? Ignore and report. Anything else just use the support email.

[Emmie]

Yes, you can also email us at the moderator email, moderators.mnfclub@gmail.com. And I really wanna stress what Yelah is saying, someone causing trouble, report and put them on ignore. That is great advice.

And as Claire points out, I would also like to see an actual case being made for why moderators are needed to such a large extent. It's hard to argue against something that only really argues that I am wrong, but gives no stance as to why and how.

[-J-]

For smaller communities, "wizards", as they used to be called on MUDs, are totally fine. When your player population maxes out around 100 online tops at any given time, you can afford to have wizzes who are very close to the community. When they reach out directly to a vast majority of players, it can show they're personally invested in the small community they work for. (Except of course if they abuse that power, which happened on way too many of those small communities to name, but that's another story.)

But when you have 100 people in one house in some cases, reaching out to even that many people can come across as showing favoritism, since it's merely a fraction of the total population. And professionalism more than direct outreach becomes the best way to show a community they can trust you.

I have never, in five years as a player and a mod, seen that even the most well-intentioned and professional moderator in a room helps a heated situation. Take a loud conversation that turns into a heated slapfight, for example. Fingers pointing, slurs flying, that smug yellow dude who I've taken to calling smugdick popping up; the works. Let's assume for the sake of argument that mods get to it around 2 minutes in. Both people get a warning, they're kicked off and told to calm down in the warning message, and they both decide to follow the advice and just go play Roblox or whatever for an hour. What does the rest of the crowd do? OMG what happened to So-and-So? Maybe they got banned. WTF the mods fucking suck. LOL I got banned once I sold pics for 2k and i got them from some rando on reddit but rly who does that hurt. And so on. In short, a heated discussion, but nothing over the line.

I don't believe a moderator in the room helps at any point during that example.

Mod's watching while the argument starts? They end up getting dragged into it and any action taken pisses them off and anyone watching. Explaining what part of the terms of service was violated? Other people discuss their bans or backseat mod. The further away moderators stray from just being referees, the more toxic they become to players. Because no one is really here for the mods. Players are here for other players. They're here for their friends. Or even just to fuck around to amuse themselves. And they don't need mods for that.

[SupermassiveMan]

If players aren't here for the mods and don't need mods, they why are mods to begin with?
If people gets mad when the mods mod, then the mods just simply won't do anything?

I think you all have a very weird vision of what a mod is and must do.

[Emmie]

First of all, Red, you're the only one here with a weird vision of what a mod is and must do. Cause again, WoW, SWtOR, BDO, ESO, SWL and so on, all MMO's wbere the only way to reach a game master/moderator, is to make a ticket, or report something. There is a reason why all MMO's do it this way, and don't just have moderators all over the game. You are encouraged to use the ignore feature if you take issue with someone. Cause that is the most effective way to stop most issues.
And either you are missunderstanding J, or you're intentionally ignoring his argument to pretend like he's saying something he's not. I hope you're just missunderstanding, cause if you're just making bad faith arguments, there's really no point in this discussion. What J is saying, is that there's less friction and issues between players and moderators, when moderators just deal with the reports, without putting themselves directly into arguments. Cause if a moderator is seen actually getting in the middle of drama, there is a very large chance that players are gonna find issue with the actions of the moderator. This will just make players trust moderators less overall.
I can definitely understand where you're coming from with your argument, but it's very utopian/idealistic, and not at all realistic to achieve. It's also extremely unefficient.

I will consider this discussion closed, unless Red, you can actually bring forth arguments to this discussion, as to why your ideas may be good, and viable. You are still only attacking the views of others, and have yet to put out a single defense in your own views. Which to anyone with a brain, just makes it look like you have no idea what you're talking about.

[muddyduck]

Just wanted to ask why the in game currency is the same after all the years of MNF game and why the casinos don't have a bigger bet and pay out.in 2020 ya'll proved you could make a better game with the Wacko Town why go backwards go forward with the new technology.
Just a lost player after the Flash