Open Review of FAF Moderation

[Crofis]

Kind of a long answer but i hope you guys can read it all.

Jip you have some really valid points, and i agree with you, it would not be nice for moderators to have to deal with extra work/flame due to general chat being sent after them, and public discussions like this can become uncivilized and ruin the image of FAF (although, if i have to be nitpicky, the 30k number seems a bit inflated, i really wish we had that many people, trust me).

Now, i'd like to tell you about my personal experience with moderation, which wasn't a positive one sadly, and made me realize a lot of the flaws that currently exists in this very important aspect of FAF I'll avoid giving out too many details as it is "forbidden" but i hope this will help you understand where i'm coming from.

Basically, some time ago i made something in game that warranted a punishment by the moderators. After that i re-analyzed the situation and thought that what i did wasn't as harmful as portrayed by the moderation team and did not warrant the restriction. I then tried to contest the decision that i deemed incorrect, and made an appeal (which didn't do much). I was denied both a re-evaluation (more on this matter a bit further down) and a detailed explanation of why the mods thought i was wrong. After all that i was back at the start, with the only difference being that my only option to defend myself (the appeal) was gone. By the way the moderation currently works, at that point i was out of option and should shut up and accept my punishment, which i really could not bear to do because it simply seemed unjustified (as already said, an explanation to back it up was firmly denied, basically "i'm right because i'm a mod" and that's it).

Now, a small digression on the appeal process. By definition (there are multiple ones, but the content is somewhat the same) an appeal is: "a request to a higher court to review a decision made by a lower court", or "to formally request that a legal or official decision be changed (again, this is done by a higher court, surely not the same that gave the first verdict)". By this definition, having the same people who took the first decision also take care of the appeal is just wrong, even from a logical standpoint. If a group of people reached a conclusion the first time, chances are they'll get there again, unless the ticket somehow changes how their brains work.
The current appeal is not a real appeal but more of a miss-input protection: "look guys, i think you wanted to punish a player with a nick similar to mine and you banned me instead".
Also, the reported player has no real chance to defend himself in any step of the process. Was i ever asked why i did what i did? No. Was my request for more details granted so we could discuss on those AND the context? No.
Now, to end this digression, i know there is no "higher court" and this is not a tribunal, but the appeal should either work a different way, or have a different name, and situations should be treated differently, those who need context, and those who are universally clear and no context would justify those actions (example, a guy racial slurring another player in chat). Digression over

So, back to my experience. I thought the decision was wrong, in my head the context was either ignored or misread, and i was sure of it, so i wanted a re evaluation.
Since the situation needed context to be taken into consideration, and context needed a certain understanding of the game, i thought that maybe some higher rated players, given their better knowledge, could maybe give an unbiased (and hopefully objective) breakdown of the situation in game if i presented them the case. The second opinion i was denied previously.
Not that their word was more valuable than the moderators' because they're better rated, but because this decision revolved around game knowledge, and game knowledge was needed to motivate it (reminder that at this point, no motivations were given).

I decided to write a post about it, for 2 reasons:

1. posts are more organized, clean, and are easier to access than a message lost in the general chat
2. i didn't want to generate a disorderly discussion in general chat, with 10 people writing at the same time, shit being thrown around and no idea what's going on.

My goal was simple, either get evaluated by high rated players and know if i was wrong, or get an official explanation/motivation by the mods and if it made sense, know i was wrong. Due to some frustration from getting punished and dismissed without a proper appeal, i admit i didn't mince my words in the post, but i'm sure i was well withing civilized talk. The results? finally the moderators took seriously my request and openly provided reasons that backed up their judgement The post got locked and removed, i was basically silenced (again, as per current rules, public discussion of specific moderation cases is discouraged, not prohibited). Mods reached out after telling me the problem was the post being "too specific", and they would discuss later if letting me post a less detailed version of the post. Not that i was interested in doing that, but they never reached out regarding that matter again.

This is the way it's working right now, is it acceptable? To my standards that's a sound no. Then again, i may empathize with mods being volunteers and having a big load and people insulting you not being nice, but those shouldn't be excuses for doing poorly:

• You're a volunteer? We will appreciate your service to the community unless you do a poor job at it. Do not volunteer to do something if you cannot handle it
• Too big of a load? It certainly sucks, but is taking quick and rushed decisions and refusing to give proper reasons for them really the solution? We could ask for more people to volunteer as moderators (the post is certainly there, but we could also ping people and actively search for someone interested in sharing the load)
• People are coming at you with pitchforks if your name is mentioned when discussing a specific case? This is honestly what makes less sense. If your opinion is correct and you can prove it by discussing the case in detail and motivating your standpoint, and you are objectively right, what will people do at that point? Defend the guy who got punished when it's clear he was being toxic? Or keep insulting you without a reason? In the first case, i doubt people will defend assholes, unless they're friends ofc, in the second case people can just get moderated, as simple as that. I can't really understand why is it so scary to open this kind of things to the public. Also, to avoid having to repeat yourself, you could write a summary after each moderation action (yes i know, more work right? But much needed one imo).

Disclaimer: i'm not saying every moderator does a poor job, nor that those who happened to have done that ALWAYS make a poor job, absolutely not, but i have seen the bad face of moderation in first person and think some things could surely be handled better. Civilized users getting silenced for asking something that should be (imo) the bare minimum? Yeah that's a big no from me. That aside, we should blame the flawed system before the people, and the people after the system is fixed.

To add a little seasoning at the end, it wouldn't suprise me too much if this answer got removed too.

What are your opinions on this? Should moderation keep functioning this way?

EDIT: maud posted while i was writing this so i only got to read his answer later, he actually has a few points regarding public discussion issues.

[Jip]

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

Jip you have some really valid points, and i agree with you, it would not be nice for moderators to have to deal with extra work/flame due to general chat being sent after them, and public discussions like this can become uncivilized and ruin the image of FAF (although, if i have to be nitpicky, the 30k number seems a bit inflated, i really wish we had that many people, trust me).

That is the total number of members, see also an the information-resources channel. It has an invite link with a count:

I agree that we do not have 30K+ active users, and therefore the number may feel inflated . But that is where it originates from.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

The current appeal is not a real appeal but more of a miss-input protection: "look guys, i think you wanted to punish a player with a nick similar to mine and you banned me instead".
Also, the reported player has no real chance to defend himself in any step of the process. Was i ever asked why i did what i did? No. Was my request for more details granted so we could discuss on those AND the context? No.

I can not find the official explanation of an appeal, but Maudlin described it as such in the association channel:

@maudlin27 said in FAF rules on leaving games - have your say:

Checking rating of the most active 5 mods, the lowest ranked player is c.1.4k (significantly above average which from memory is around 800 rating, even if not a 'pro'). The mod team also contains >2k rated players. In most cases, I expect the mod dealing with the report gets the judgement right, and the appeals process is there as a backup for the rare cases a mistake is made. To be rejected on appeal, that'd mean at least 4 people (the person reporting, the initial mod, and at least 2 other mods) have all come to an incorrect assessment. If you have a low rated mod judging whether a game is lost in a high rated game, then outside of the very clear cut scenarios (e.g. someone leaving at the start when nothing has happened and the departure means a near-certain team loss) they're also likely to consult with the wider mod team/higher rated mods.

Now, this is where it gets a little difficult again. Don't take anything personal. It's just how I perceive your post and I can be wrong.

Based on what you wrote it sounds like you feel the moderators did not interpret the game state correct and that the game state is the context that is miss interpret on whatever you were moderated for.

I feel like your post is full of assumptions. And by summarizing them, I also make a few assumptions that may be incorrect. But I feel like you assume that an appeal is processed by the same people, even though they are not. You assume that the moderator team does not have high rated players that understand the game state the way you do, even though the average rating of the moderator team is reasonably high.

I also feel like you assume that the moderator team has an infinite pool of time. I base that on for example:

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

Since the situation needed context to be taken into consideration, and context needed a certain understanding of the game, i thought that maybe some higher rated players, given their better knowledge, could maybe give an unbiased (and hopefully objective) breakdown of the situation in game if i presented them the case.

This is of course not true. These type of discussions are quite exhausting. Let alone if you have to clarify the view of the moderator team in all detail every single time. And even when you do receive that information you may still not agree, because as you write:

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

My goal was simple, either get evaluated by high rated players and know if i was wrong, or get an official explanation/motivation by the mods and if it made sense, know i was wrong.

It may still not make sense to you . Moderation is naturally subjective. It is okay if you do not agree with the conclusion. There are many different cultures and customs in this community and some rules may feel too strict or not strict enough because of that. The reported (or the reportee, if the reported gets away for that matter) and the moderation team do not have to come to a consensus. At the end of the day the moderation team does its best to provide nuance where necessary. There are various safe guards in play to prevent a moderator from taking off to space.

And, again from my point of view - do not take it personal. I also think you took a bad turn by still trying to get 'your way' by making a (forum?) post. As Brutus mentioned, there's a lot of nuance required for the moderation team to come to a conclusion. And the moderation team will never share all the information that is required to make that post of yours work.

For all we know you're a cold hearted asshole that swears all over, slows down the game, intentionally team kills and generally ruins games while you're making a post about how unfairly you were treated for leaving this game prematurely where you appear innocent. Just saying, I don't have that context. Nobody reading this does except the moderator team and yourself. And it's a good thing that we don't know. Because I'd like to take your input and interactions on face value. It makes life much, much easier.

What I would suggest you do next time is to just let it be. Be banned (or whatever you got) for the duration. And perhaps read up about the rules so that you're less likely to break them in the future. Remember: nobody needs to break the rules. It's always a choice. Especially because you're not perma banned for the first thing that you do. You get a warning, or a single day ban. There's a lot of leniency in play here.

And if anything - if you can't beat them then join them. The best way to understand the nuance in situations like these, and even grow as a person, is to become part of the 'problem' you perceive and try to fix it from the inside. That is a journey you'll remember for the rest of your life. I certainly do when I became the Game team lead - some things that happened really stuck to me in a way that helped me grow as a person. And as a nice financial bonus - to better manage certain situations that occur at my job.

[magge]

@Crofis Your post contains inaccuracies and misleading information. I will address a few general statements and assumptions to provide the correct context, as it seems to me, you may misremember and misrepresentation certain things. Thank you for raising these points and providing an opportunity for discussion.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

...having the same people who took the first decision also take care of the appeal is just wrong

The moderator, who processed the original penalty, has no vote-right for the appeal-decision. The decision contains the vote of several moderators, who independently look at the case and share their result. This is always explained in the appeal-ticket.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

I was denied both a re-evaluation (more on this matter a bit further down) and a detailed explanation of why the mods thought i was wrong

The moderators who make the appeal-decision always explain in detail how the decision was concluded. Further discussion after the result will lead to nothing, because several people already have taken a look at the case and invested a lot of time. Stubbornness does not result in an automatically unban, even when people try really hard sometimes.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

Was i ever asked why i did what i did? No. Was my request for more details granted so we could discuss on those AND the context? No. (...) the reported player has no real chance to defend himself in any step of the process

The appeal itself is your chance to lay out your argumentation and explain the situation. If you provided it all, then your chance is complete when the moderator team reaches a decision.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

The [forum] post got locked and removed, i was basically silenced

The moderator team explained that the post contained far too many details related to the report-case, even information about the appeal-content itself. We gave you the opportunity to make the thread without those details.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

i thought that maybe some higher rated players, given their better knowledge, could maybe give an unbiased (and hopefully objective) breakdown of the situation in game

You are correct that if the entire moderation team is unable to reach a resolution due to an exceptionally high-level match, we can always consult high-level players for their expertise. However, in this case, all moderators - each with years of experience reviewing countless replays across all skill levels - unanimously reached the same conclusion.

On a personal note, I believe I remember seeing your Discord chat in the #general-chat at the time, where you tried to convince other users about your case and how unfairly you were treated. As far as I remember, you faced significant pushback from other users, before the chat died down.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

is taking quick and rushed decisions and refusing to give proper reasons for them really the solution?

The first standard greeting-message from us in the appeal ticket explains, that it can take from 1 to 3 days to come up with a result. Everyone who appeals, get the same message and a fair chance to reflect their POV. Nothing was rushed, and you got proper reasons at the end.

@Crofis said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

I can't really understand why is it so scary to open this kind of things to the public.

Because (usually not truthfully) posts about moderation-actions have no benefit to the community, except that those banned persons are unloading their hard emotions.

I understand getting banned can be an awful experience and very frustrating, but dumping such emotions into the community will not to lead to any meaningful resolution. It just consumes energy for any reader without providing meaningful value for either side.

[Crofis]

I shared my experience as an example to talk about how moderation currently works, but after reading your answers i feel the need to clarify some things about the whole thing.

@Jip said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

Based on what you wrote it sounds like you feel the moderators did not interpret the game state correct and that the game state is the context that is miss interpret on whatever you were moderated for.

yes, this is correct, i indeed felt that way, and further unofficial comments on the matter made me more convinced of this. The interpretation was incoherent (due to a rule applied differently depending on the situation) and exaggerated to justify the decision taken (imo).

@Jip said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

But I feel like you assume that an appeal is processed by the same people, even though they are not.

the moderator that answered to my appeal said something about he and 3 other moderators having watched the replay, i assumed he was part of the initial team who took the decision because the way it was worded pointed towards that. However from your and magge's response i'm now thinking that the process is different from what i thought, although having no public explanation of how things are done one can only try to go by logic and assumptions.

@Jip said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

This is of course not true. These type of discussions are quite exhausting. Let alone if you have to clarify the view of the moderator team in all detail every single time. And even when you do receive that information you may still not agree

What i cannot agree with is this thought. Generally if something is bad or there is a better way of doing it in game, a personal trainer is able to explain and i (having an average brain) am able to understand. I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to the situation there. I was accused of tipping the scales, it should be possible to be able to explain how i would have done that, i may or may not agree with it, but the superficial explanation given at the time seemed to go against any logic. That is why i proposed to pull in some high rated player with good game knowledge, he is more likely to make the correct call and also has no pressure to prove the decision previously taken was right, a competent third party.

@Jip said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

It may still not make sense to you . Moderation is naturally subjective.

I will agree on moderation being subjective if the decision revolves around personal and moral values. This didn't seem the case as the in-game situation was the core of the issue instead of some kind of behaviour.

@Jip said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

What I would suggest you do next time is to just let it be. Be banned (or whatever you got) for the duration. And perhaps read up about the rules so that you're less likely to break them in the future. Remember: nobody needs to break the rules. It's always a choice.

Sorry jip, again, while i understand where you guys are coming from, accepting a wrong punishment being imposed upon you just doesn't sit well with my personal values, if i think it's wrong i'll argue about it. It was nothing serious in term of duration, still i didn't argue about it because i wanted the punishment to be lifted, in fact when the whole discussion started my restriction was almost over anyway. It's the principle. Additionally, while there is a work in progres regarding rules, the currently written ones were not able to warrant a violation. I know moderators have the final say, but what's the point of written rules if you read them and understand something else completely? Might have an "Hall of good manners" instead of "Rules". Sorry for the excessive fiscality, but that's how i see it.

On to magge response

@magge said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

The moderator, who processed the original penalty, has no vote-right for the appeal-decision. The decision contains the vote of several moderators, who independently look at the case and share their result. This is always explained in the appeal-ticket.

As said to Jip, the moderator who was in charge of my ticket said he was one of the 4 moderators who looked at the replay and the way it was worded made it seem like the initial report was handled by these 4 moderators who made the decision. Now i don't know about the appeal procedure works in detail since this information is either not public or hard to find, but i recognize i may have misunderstood.

@magge said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

The appeal itself is your chance to lay out your argumentation and explain the situation. If you provided it all, then your chance is complete when the moderator team reaches a decision.

That's understandable, and by the way it works it should be over at that point. However, excuse my stubborness here, while i understand that contesting this decision would be the same as saying a lot of moderators were wrong, it just made no sense from a logical standpoint. The in-game dynamics imo should not have brought to that. Zooming out of the single case a little, we're saying there's a low chance for the moderators to all be wrong, but that can still happen. Once again, i agree with you that the issue here is time, so AS OF NOW, not much can really be done to change that. That is why i'm criticizing the process, because in the case that we as FAF community have enough resources, we should be aware that this is not the best method out there, and can improve it.

@magge said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

On a personal note, I believe I remember seeing your Discord chat in the #general-chat at the time, where you tried to convince other users about your case and how unfairly you were treated. As far as I remember, you faced significant pushback from other users, before the chat died down.

The main "setbacks" to my point were made by a guy similarly rated to me who was in all honesty saying whatever and making no sense. Here i need to get a little more "detaily" about the situation. It was established that i had impacted negatively an even game, so much that my "negative impact" was the cause for the loss, according to what was given as a reason in the appeal. Since i considered the possibility of being wrong, i separately asked for a replay review, and a personal trainer answered. I asked him "being me in this situation, what would you do to win the game"? He told me that the game was lost at least 4 minutes before, that at that point he would have probably quit in my place, and that my best bet for salvaging it was noticing my teammate needed help 10 minutes prior.

That doesn't seem much of a setback to my original claims, aside from whatr andom 800-1500 guys could say in general chat. The personal trainer was high rated in the same game mode the replay was about, his raiting being around 1950 and therefore i assume his advice to be somewhat reliable. Now, as someone pointed out, even some of the moderators are around that level of rating, while others are far from it. With this said we can take a look at 2 possible scenarios:

1. The moderators who judged the situation to be even could have a worse game knowledge than the personal trainer (could be lower rated and worse at the game), in this case the decision would be proven questionable
2. The moderators who judged the situation to be even could have the same game knowledge as the personal trainer, and the game altough of level 900~ was not easy to analyze.

In any case, some (understandable) doubts could begin to sprout.

@magge said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

The first standard greeting-message from us in the appeal ticket explains, that it can take from 1 to 3 days to come up with a result. Everyone who appeals, get the same message and a fair chance to reflect their POV. Nothing was rushed, and you got proper reasons at the end.

You're right, this was due to my poor understanding of the entire moderation procedure, appeal included, i likely misinterpreted some steps.

@magge said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

Because (usually not truthfully) posts about moderation-actions have no benefit to the community, except that those banned persons are unloading their hard emotions.

I understand getting banned can be an awful experience and very frustrating, but dumping such emotions into the community will not to lead to any meaningful resolution. It just consumes energy for any reader without providing meaningful value for either side.

that is another valid counterpoint to things going public. Maybe if users were more well-behaved things could work differently.

Please note that although i may sound harsh in some instances (i know from experience that i sometimes get through as offensive even tho it wasn't my intention), i have no grudges towards the mods. I do however think that my criticism, however harsh it may seem, is there for a good reasons, and is to be directed at the process which, for a lack of time, denies the opportunity to object in a satisfactory way when uses deem it necessary, potentially leaving some of them with the feeling of having been unjustly punished.

Thank you for pointing out the inaccuracies and for taking your time to answer.

[magge]

@Crofis Thank you very much for your valuable feedback. I highly appreciate it and I will make sure to share your suggestion with the team to ensure that the process about the involved Moderators is absolutely transparent.

We may add a sentence to the initial-welcome-default text, for example: "Your appeal will be reviewed by a minimum of two moderators who were not involved in the initial decision-making process."

The moderators hold no hard feelings against you or anyone who may react emotionally during frustrating moments. It is a human trait, which we all can understand. Do not worry about it. If you have suggestions, which are more case-related, you can raise a support-ticket in Discord and share it with me, so we find a solution.

[maudlin27]

To add to Magge's comments, Crofis' post is a good example of one of the downsides of having a free for all with discussing mod actions (the time required to deal with such discussions and how even significant time discussing will in many cases not satisfy the banned person)

Per Magge's comments above (and Jip's earlier reference to a post I made elsewhere), the process followed would've been:

• Player reported breach of rules
• Mod reviewed and made a decision wehther a ban should be issued
• User appealed decision, with the opportunity to provide details to support the appeal
• Appeal was considered by at least 2 mods independent of the original decision, who agreed with the action taken by the original mod
• Decision communicated to the user, which would've included a brief explanation why

In addition to this though, I spent more than an hour discussing this case via PMs with Crofis explaining the reason for mod action being taken (doing a rough word count, looks like c.3k words between the two of us).

So it's very frustrating for me to see comments such as that a detailed explanation was denied, that a request for more details wasn't granted, and that the mods took quick and rushed decisions, refusing to give proper reasons for them.

Had it been a public discussion, it'd likely have been even more time spent than was already, and this would be magnified by far more such discussions.

[BlackYps]

I had some more thoughts while reading the thread, but I don't have the energy to write them all down at the moment. Maybe later.
But I just want to say that this conversation illustrates really well that the "don't leave unless the game is lost"-rule is far to hard to gauge in practice and leads to bad experiences for everyone.

[IndexLibrorum]

@BlackYps said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

But I just want to say that this conversation illustrates really well that the "don't leave unless the game is lost"-rule is far to hard to gauge in practice and leads to bad experiences for everyone.

Agreed, though in this particular case the issue involved base Ctrl-K, rather than just leaving if I recall correctly.

[Crofis]

@maudlin27 said in Open Review of FAF Moderation:

In addition to this though, I spent more than an hour discussing this case via PMs with Crofis explaining the reason for mod action being taken (doing a rough word count, looks like c.3k words between the two of us).

So it's very frustrating for me to see comments such as that a detailed explanation was denied, that a request for more details wasn't granted, and that the mods took quick and rushed decisions, refusing to give proper reasons for them.

It's true that we spent like half an hour discussing the situation in better detail maud, and as i've already said i really appreciated you tooking the effort to talk to me, but i interpreted that as a personal initiative from you rather than an official action from the moderators team. Officially my request was denied, so in that aspect i can't say things differently from what i did. I will still personally thank you for trying to be more understanding and reaching out to me, but my thanks go to Maudlin27 and no one else in regard to the matter. I'm sorry if i upset you little cutie patootie.

Also, as i already said about the "rushed decision" and the whole appeal critique, the way things were worded + not having a real understanding of how the whole machine operates led to me misunderstanding how the procedure is structured, you can scratch it as it was inaccurate (information about that was hard to find, at least for me), sorry about that.

[Karl-]

This post is deleted!