Ask Red

[RedStarRocket91]

Over the past few months, there have been quite a few instances in which confusion has arisen over some of our rules and the way in which the moderating team acts, especially when it comes to topics like advertising, shoutbox conduct, and even how we fight spam. This thread is therefore intended to serve as a central place where I can give some clarity to anyone who's confused by the rules, who wants to know more about how we moderate, or who's just a bit curious about some of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes.

 

 

A few important things first:

 

There are some things I can't comment on, such as personally identifiable information, anything which could compromise the moderating team, or our ability to carry out moderation. I'll try and answer any questions as fully as possible, so ask even if you're not sure, but please be aware in advance that all I may be able to say is that I can't discuss the matter.

 

I can't discuss any individual acts of moderation such as member bans and warnings or edits to topics and posts. Similarly, I won't respond to any requests to review or overturn any existing moderating decisions, and please don't make accusations toward other members or try to air grievances. I can, however, talk about our philosophy and code of conduct, and give answers to hypothetical situations.

 

Lastly, please try to keep all questions on topic. If you're looking for more general or personal advice and answers, I strongly suggest you post to the excellent Ask The Director 2.0 thread.

 

 

I think that's pretty much everything. So, ask away!

[Helix Amell]

I noticed on your sidebar icon that you have a set number of stars-what do they mean?

[Yoshi1176]

When deciding what to do to a member, or any other bigger actions, does the whole moderating team discuss, or is it up to the individual moderator who initially confronted the problem to decide the plan of action?

[RedStarRocket91]

I noticed on your sidebar icon that you have a set number of stars-what do they mean?

 

The two little stars Twam and I have under our names are basically just visual flair. Since we now have banners in the top right-hand corner of our posts and different coloured usergroups they're no longer really relevant for identification, but it does at least help newer members quickly identify myself and Twam as the two most senior staff members on the site.

 

I believe that originally, we were going to have three stars against our names, Community Moderators were going to have two, and all other staff departments would have one (hence why there's room for a third in the banner), but we ended up just applying it to the admin groups instead.

 

When deciding what to do to a member, or any other bigger actions, does the whole moderating team discuss, or is it up to the individual moderator who initially confronted the problem to decide the plan of action?

 

It's very dependant on circumstance. Something which breaks the rules in a very obvious, objective way is usually just dealt with by whoever sees it first: if someone is using bad language right in front of a moderator, plagiarising articles, or clearly a spambot, then there's not really any need to discuss it because we have very clear guides on what to do in those kind of situations

 

For other things like abusive behaviour, repeat offences, or anything for which we don't have a specific guide, we'll generally get together and discuss it before taking any action. A lot of things that are brought to our attention concerning individual members are very subjective - what makes something abusive or insulting to one person might be merely honest or even harmless to another, for example - and so because we're a fairly varied group in terms of our backgrounds, personal beliefs and attitudes it's a good way of making sure that we get as many views and opinions as possible before making a decision.

[Fishy]

Are we still flower buddies? Because the rules don't state otherwise...

[Buns]

Why do we have bots like "Google(1)" or "Bing" ?

 

Sometimes these bots view certain topics. What is their purpose? 

[MCPO Mayh3m]

 

Why do we have bots like "Google(1)" or "Bing" ?

 

Sometimes these bots view certain topics. What is their purpose?

 

I know this one... :|

 

Red. Have you read that story I sent you?

[RedStarRocket91]

Why do we have bots like "Google(1)" or "Bing" ?

 

Sometimes these bots view certain topics. What is their purpose? 

 

In order for web pages to appear in the search results of an engine like Bing or Google they need to be initially recorded and indexed, and then kept up-to-date: to do this, search engines use bots which record the information and then upload it to their servers. It's possible for us to tell the difference between a search engine bot and a regular guest, and so when one of them arrives on the site, its movement on the site is recorded just like any other member, hence why things like 'Google' or 'Bing' will occasionally show up in the members online/currently reading a topic or forum lists.

 

As we're a reasonably popular site with fairly high traffic, we get quite a lot of visits from bots trying to keep their search engine's records up to date: if you ever see a bot at the bottom of a topic, it means that topic is currently being indexed for the relevant search engine.

[HIWBC]

What would you count as a very good quality post? And, do you think I'm a good quality forum member and poster in general? Also, how did you deal with the 'Indian Spambot Incident'?

[Rue]

What is an "active post count" in comparison with just the regular post count?

 

I've noticed that when I view my profile, my active post count is lower than the post count on my profile around forum topics?

[RedStarRocket91]

What would you count as a very good quality post? And, do you think I'm a good quality forum member and poster in general? Also, how did you deal with the 'Indian Spambot Incident'?

 

There's not really any specific criteria for what makes a good quality post, but I can give you a list of stuff which makes for a bad quality post: try and avoid things like making very short posts, going off-topic, or just posting images or videos without anything to support it, or repeating what others have already said in a thread - although these are all acceptable in the Offbeat section. Always try and avoid giving opinions or dismissing the opinions of others without any evidence or explanation, flaming other people or being overly aggressive toward those who don't share your views, using excessive bad language, posting anything inappropriate, or writing up posts without really thinking about what you're saying. If you can avoid all that, you're already on your way to a good quality post and the relevant Award!

 

The black magic astrologer spam we've been getting lately has been very frustrating to deal with, as it's been coming from a fairly wide range of IPs and email address extensions with only a few common aspects, and even then not to all of them. Normally when we get spam, it all comes from a single IP or an obvious spam email server, so we can just add those to the filters and put an end to it. However, to alleviate the spam this time, I've had to ban whole ranges of IPs rather than just individual ones: I'm not sure of the exact number, but according to a bit of quick maths in the last two and a half weeks alone we've banned about 450,000 IPs and three email servers, as well as blacklisting about a dozen username components.

 

I really didn't want to do this as I hate the thought of legitimate people losing access to the site, but unfortunately there were just too many spambots to manually flag individual IP addresses, especially as almost every one had a slightly different IP address, but I did work to narrow down the ban filters as much as possible to try and minimise the effect on legitimate users. So far, it seems to have worked: since the last of the new filters went up two weeks ago we've only had two black magic spammers sign up, from South Africa and Brazil, as opposed to the twenty or thirty or so we were getting every day from Indian IPs prior to that. It's not a perfect system and I'm still working on ways to focus the filters better to avoid affecting legitimate users, but it is at least reasonably effective.

 

What is an "active post count" in comparison with just the regular post count?

 

I've noticed that when I view my profile, my active post count is lower than the post count on my profile around forum topics?

 

The 'active posts' on your profile is both exactly what it says and very misleading, in that it only shows posts you've made and not topics you've started, both of which are included in the number on the profile preview you see around the rest of the forums. Stuff from Offbeat and the Clan Recruitment/Advertising forums aren't added to either, and for things like member group auto-promotion the total number is used, so you don't need to worry about getting to the next member group if you start a lot of topics but don't reply to many.

[Akali]

How do people become community moderators?

 

I know that there needs to be a space in the moderator group before you can start deciding but how does one become that dark blue?

[Frankenzer]

Hey red old mate, is that you on your profile picture? 

[Ranger Intel]

The two little stars Twam and I have under our names are basically just visual flair. Since we now have banners in the top right-hand corner of our posts and different coloured usergroups they're no longer really relevant for identification, but it does at least help newer members quickly identify myself and Twam as the two most senior staff members on the site.

 

I believe that originally, we were going to have three stars against our names, Community Moderators were going to have two, and all other staff departments would have one (hence why there's room for a third in the banner), but we ended up just applying it to the admin groups instead.

 

Why wasn't this applied to the Community Moderators and Member of Staff from other Departments? It seems like a good was to show status or control in the Staff team.

[RedStarRocket91]

Why wasn't this applied to the Community Moderators and Member of Staff from other Departments? It seems like a good was to show status or control in the Staff team.

 

Originally, I think that was actually the intention (hence why even though there are space for three stars, only two are filled). I suppose it's mainly because our staff groups now have their own member group colours which make them easy to identify, and all groups with access to moderation powers now have their own banners atop each post, so another way of identifying staff wasn't really needed. Beyond that, it also serves to help differentiate between the Moderator and Community Moderator usergroups, as they're fairly similarly named and there's a lot of overlap in our roles, and having stars on one but not the other makes for more of an immediate visual distinction than having different numbers on each. If ever there's confusion about the staff hierarchy in the future it's definitely something we'll consider updating, though.

 

How do people become community moderators?

 

I know that there needs to be a space in the moderator group before you can start deciding but how does one become that dark blue?

We don't really have a set criteria, oddly enough. If there's a space open, we'll look around the forums and pick out a few members who we 'feel' would potentially make good moderators: in general, we look for people who clearly put a lot of time into reading the forums, who seem to keep a cool head when faced with arguments or abuse, who are confident without being arrogant or abrasive, who have a healthy respect for the spirit of the rules, who have a sense of fairness and can be relied upon to put their duty above personal feelings, and whose personality seems like it would fit well with the rest of the moderating team.

 

Once we've agreed on a candidate, one of the orange Moderators will approach the candidate and offer them a chance to train. If they accept, the candidate is then secretly given access to a restricted set of moderator powers and taught how to use them, including things like how to manipulate topics, access and deal with reports, and the warning point system: we keep a few spare accounts around for them to practice on during this time, as it's only toward the end of their training period that we'll ask them to perform any moderation directly. Training usually lasts between two weeks and a month after they've been taught how to use their powers, and during this time we'll test them with things like hypothetical scenarios, past cases, and ask them to comment on active reports explaining how they would deal with the situation. If it seems like they're fitting in and coming to the same conclusions as the rest of the moderating team, or at least showing sound judgement and correctly applying moderation guidelines, then they'll eventually be offered a place amongst the moderators and if they accept once more, they'll receive the full set of moderation powers and go public.

 

Occasionally, things don't work out: if there are consistent errors in judgement, bad application of moderating guidelines, misuse of powers, or even just changing their mind at the end of training, then the candidate will go back into their original member group. This is one of the reasons why we'll never talk or unveil about candidates publicly, and it's one of the few things that we don't discuss with other staff groups, as there's a certain stigma to not becoming a moderator after training and we don't want to hurt anyone's standing on the site, or allow other members to put pressure on them during their training. At any given time, someone on the site could be wearing purple, green, silver, or even a staff colour whilst actually having a restricted set of moderator powers, and there would be no way to tell.

 

Ultimately, there's not really a 'best' way to be offered a role on the moderating team: a lot of it just comes down to being around at the right time, and to being a solid part of the community whilst being willing to cut yourself off from the community if need be. For all that being part of the moderating team can bring a lot of popularity, some days you're going to be the bad guy, and while a lot of the time you'll be dealing with people you don't know and who're obviously out to cause trouble, on some days there's going to be a lot of grey and you're going to have to moderate someone you like. I think everyone on the site has someone who they're particularly close to, or respectful of: if you can honestly say that you would be able to ban that person and ruin that friendship if the situation called for it, then you have perhaps the most important quality we look for in a potential moderator. A lot of people can't do that, and there's no shame in it - it's the worst part of the job, and I hate having to do it - but it is necessary and it's the thing we stress the most when making the final offer to someone who's completed their training.

[Ranger Intel]

 

Originally, I think that was actually the intention (hence why even though there are space for three stars, only two are filled). I suppose it's mainly because our staff groups now have their own member group colours which make them easy to identify, and all groups with access to moderation powers now have their own banners atop each post, so another way of identifying staff wasn't really needed. Beyond that, it also serves to help differentiate between the Moderator and Community Moderator usergroups, as they're fairly similarly named and there's a lot of overlap in our roles, and having stars on one but not the other makes for more of an immediate visual distinction than having different numbers on each. If ever there's confusion about the staff hierarchy in the future it's definitely something we'll consider updating, though.

 

We don't really have a set criteria, oddly enough. If there's a space open, we'll look around the forums and pick out a few members who we 'feel' would potentially make good moderators: in general, we look for people who clearly put a lot of time into reading the forums, who seem to keep a cool head when faced with arguments or abuse, who are confident without being arrogant or abrasive, who have a healthy respect for the spirit of the rules, who have a sense of fairness and can be relied upon to put their duty above personal feelings, and whose personality seems like it would fit well with the rest of the moderating team.

 

Once we've agreed on a candidate, one of the orange Moderators will approach the candidate and offer them a chance to train. If they accept, the candidate is then secretly given access to a restricted set of moderator powers and taught how to use them, including things like how to manipulate topics, access and deal with reports, and the warning point system: we keep a few spare accounts around for them to practice on during this time, as it's only toward the end of their training period that we'll ask them to perform any moderation directly. Training usually lasts between two weeks and a month after they've been taught how to use their powers, and during this time we'll test them with things like hypothetical scenarios, past cases, and ask them to comment on active reports explaining how they would deal with the situation. If it seems like they're fitting in and coming to the same conclusions as the rest of the moderating team, or at least showing sound judgement and correctly applying moderation guidelines, then they'll eventually be offered a place amongst the moderators and if they accept once more, they'll receive the full set of moderation powers and go public.

 

Occasionally, things don't work out: if there are consistent errors in judgement, bad application of moderating guidelines, misuse of powers, or even just changing their mind at the end of training, then the candidate will go back into their original member group. This is one of the reasons why we'll never talk or unveil about candidates publicly, and it's one of the few things that we don't discuss with other staff groups, as there's a certain stigma to not becoming a moderator after training and we don't want to hurt anyone's standing on the site, or allow other members to put pressure on them during their training. At any given time, someone on the site could be wearing purple, green, silver, or even a staff colour whilst actually having a restricted set of moderator powers, and there would be no way to tell.

 

Ultimately, there's not really a 'best' way to be offered a role on the moderating team: a lot of it just comes down to being around at the right time, and to being a solid part of the community whilst being willing to cut yourself off from the community if need be. For all that being part of the moderating team can bring a lot of popularity, some days you're going to be the bad guy, and while a lot of the time you'll be dealing with people you don't know and who're obviously out to cause trouble, on some days there's going to be a lot of grey and you're going to have to moderate someone you like. I think everyone on the site has someone who they're particularly close to, or respectful of: if you can honestly say that you would be able to ban that person and ruin that friendship if the situation called for it, then you have perhaps the most important quality we look for in a potential moderator. A lot of people can't do that, and there's no shame in it - it's the worst part of the job, and I hate having to do it - but it is necessary and it's the thing we stress the most when making the final offer to someone who's completed their training.

 

Great answers, thanks.

[Yoshi1176]

Why hasn't a new Moderator been named yet? We used to have AD and Jester. Why only one now?

[Helix Amell]

Why hasn't a new Moderator been named yet? We used to have AD and Jester. Why only one now?

Doesn't that remain a confidental thing between the community moderators and nobody else?

[RedStarRocket91]

Why hasn't a new Moderator been named yet? We used to have AD and Jester. Why only one now?

 

Having both Spectral Jester and Absolute Dog as Moderators at the same time was actually somewhat unusual for the site. For very long periods of their time in the role, both Spectral Jester and Absolute Dog were working by themselves, rather than in a pair, and while that arrangement was clearly something they felt worked effectively for them I've found that having just one person in the orange fits my own style better.

 

There are definitely advantages to having two orange moderators: it's more likely that one of them will be on-site to respond to inquiries at any given time, it means that work can be distributed more evenly, and that those in the position are more free to fit moderation in around their own lives as they have someone to cover for them if they need to take some time off the site. On the other hand, only having a single moderator also brings some of its own advantages, as there's no need for me to worry about information being lost or miscommunicated between me and a partner, the process for making decisions is more streamlined, and perhaps most importantly, there's never going to be a situation where the moderating team is completely split on a decision with no way of choosing what to do, as I can weigh in to resolve it. It's not something I'd like to do, as I far prefer to solve disputes by discussing them than just invoking my authority, but it's a useful tool to have if we're completely deadlocked.

 

As I'm a full-time student who spends most of my day at my computer during term-time, fitting in moderation around my life isn't such a big deal for me as it is for people like Absolute Dog and Spectral Jester, who both have jobs and families to devote their time to, so two of the big advantages of a double-moderator setup is immediately wasted. As I age and take on more responsibilities in the real world, that situation is likely to change, and so assuming I'm still here in three or four years I'll almost certainly be working with someone else (or more likely, I'll resign and ask to return to the Community Moderators after I've recommended my replacement to Twam). It's not likely to happen in the immediate future, but people and circumstances change and so I can't rule it out altogether.

[HIWBC]

Is there rules prohibiting topics about asking people to boost with them? Cause I've seen quite a few .

[Guts]

Sometimes when I go into new content it displays members who have recently joined and when I check, everything in by content type, by time period and other are changed. Why does this happen?

[Ranger Intel]

Why have Contests/Events and Art Department staff got the same colour? There are many other unused colours, some more distinguishable than others, that can be used as a way to separate the two staff departments.

[Akali]

What was you more surprised about, becoming community moderator or site moderator?

[RedStarRocket91]

 

Is there rules prohibiting topics about asking people to boost with them? Cause I've seen quite a few  .

 

This really depends on what they're asking to boost. If they're asking people to join matchmaking or custom game lobbies to boost rank, XP or commendation, then while that's against the spirit of gaming it's not breaking any rules, and so those are fine. Of course, if people are advertising boosting lobbies in exchange for payment, or are offering hacks or cheats, then those would be against the rules as we don't encourage breaking the rules of Xbox LIVE in any way, shape or form.

 

On the forums, creating or participating in threads for the sole purpose of boosting posts or likes is against the rules, as we want to encourage people to make good quality posts and to contribute to discussions, rather than just posting lots of small, inconsequential things in order to get to higher usergroups. This is a big part of the reason why content posted to either the Offbeat or Clan forums no longer contributes to total post count, as the former tends to have less serious topics where lots of low-content replies are made, while the latter's discussions tend to be fairly insular.

 

Sometimes when I go into new content it displays members who have recently joined and when I check, everything in by content type, by time period and other are changed. Why does this happen?

 

I'm sorry, I don't understand, can you rephrase that?

 

Why have Contests/Events and Art Department staff got the same colour? There are many other unused colours, some more distinguishable than others, that can be used as a way to separate the two staff departments.

 

I believe it's a holdover from the early days of the site, where all non-moderation staff shared a single usergroup colour. Over time, most of them got their own usergroup colour, but for some reason Event Management and the Art Department never made the change. For the most part, those two departments don't really have that much overlap on the forums so it's not a big deal, but it's something I'll get around to correcting eventually.

 

Part of what's stopping it is that the 'hot' colours (yellow, red, orange) are reserved for senior staff and legendary members, so that we're immediately identifiable: this is why most of the staff groups are shades of blue and green. White and black are used for bots and the Banned group respectively, and silver is already taken by Dedicated members, which essentially rules out the monochrome groups. Community Moderators, Trusted and Members then take up the darker shades of blue, purple and green, and so there are actually surprisingly few options for new, distinct usergroups.

[Composite Armour]

How much does a Predator tank cost?