READ FIRST: Notice of Increased Moderation

MikeB

Hey everyone,

We here at MMORPG.com are deeply committed to changing the environment here at MMORPG.com in 2010 and beyond to be more conducive to constructive discussion and less welcoming of the hostile nature the forums have taken a turn for in the past few years. To that end, this notice is to inform you that the moderating staff and myself have committed to a new initiative that has resulted in increased moderation in a number of key forums, this one included. 

Below is an explanation of what this means to you as a poster here at MMORPG.com:

As a Community Manager I subscribe to a fairly lenient policy, which has been instituted in the interest of providing slack to users who sometimes have a lapse of judgment, and given the general hostility on our forums, this can occur more than it would usually be expected, and I understand that.

However, some sub-forums are simply getting out of hand, so going forward, behavior that results in infractions against your account in these marked forums will go outside of our base lenient moderation policy in the interest of creating an environment where users should not feel that they need to give pause before posting on our forums.

Flaming, trolling, harassment, etc will NOT be tolerated. Take care that you respect other users on our forums before you post if you are interested in continuing to post here at MMORPG.com.

I advise all users reading this thread to review our Rules of Conduct at this time.

Below are some general posting guidelines and other helpful information for posting on our forums:

1) If you are attacked in any way, whether it be called a troll, a fanboy, or there is a user attempting to bait you into fighting back by posting something that clearly serves no purpose other than to get under your skin, simply report their post and move on.

Retaliating against users in violation of our Rules of Conduct will result in an infraction against your account as well as the user in question when reported. If the reported post or thread has not been dealt with within 24-48 hours, contact me at community@mmorpg.com so I can investigate the matter personally.

The reason we issue infractions for simply "defending yourself" is the fact that defending yourself can result in the derailment of a potentially constructive thread into a back and forth between two or more posters, or worse, start a flame war.

2) Negativity is perfectly fine and welcome on our forums. However, negativity without an opinion to back it up , such as, "This game sux!" is not acceptable, and is considered trolling.  Colloquialisms such as "DorkFail" for Darkfall also fall into this category. If you do not like a game, explain why. Posting that you do not like a game in most every thread about said game is also considered trolling, and is unnecessary.

3) Just a personal tip I share with a number of users who have contacted me after a flaming warning: Something that has helped me in the past is to simply type exactly how I feel (flames and all) to a user who has angered me, and then go ahead and delete the response without posting it. I have found the typing itself helps tremendously. Give it a shot!

4) Our community is huge, spanning 400 forums for 400 currently listed games (and growing) and as a result our moderation staff can not be everywhere at once.

Because you see other users "getting away with" some comments or types of behavior does not mean we endorse them, we just may have not seen them yet, so please report any violations of our Rules of Conduct so that we can be alerted to and deal with these issues.

If there is an overarching issue or condition in a particular forum, or users singling you out for harassment, do not feel there is no recourse but to have to defend yourself. Please get in touch with me at community@mmorpg.com so I can become aware of the situation.

5) In closing: attack the opinion, not the poster. Ad hominem attacks do not strengthen your argument, in fact, they accomplish the exact opposite.