Before I start with this blog, I would like to say that I am not targeting or purposefully attacking any individual user. I have been on ESB for 4 years, and a lot of these issues have been recurring throughout this time period as well. __________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello ESB! In light of several recent incidences and misunderstandings, I wanted to try to clear some things up and give my personal opinion about some issues that should be addressed. This blog was written in collaboration with TheKorraFanatic. The issues I wanted to talk about are:
- Bullying
- Private messages
- Criticism
Policy[]
Firstly, let's go over the policy.
Private messages:
c. Chat moderators have no jurisdiction over what happens in a private message. If someone bothers you, ignore them. There is no definite way to prove what is in a private message.
Drama:
8. Drama - an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances. relevant 10. Drama, arguing, and having heated debates is forbidden. Friendly, civil debates are allowed.
Bullying/harassment:
A. User interaction
1. Do not attack other users personally. This includes but is not limited to: threatening the wiki and/or user(s), name-calling (including, but not limited to idiot, jerk, stupid, retard, etc.), derogatory statements, and use of profanity directed toward other users.
2. Do not discriminate other users based on their religion, political affiliation, sexual preference, or anything else. It is strongly recommended that users do not discuss these things as these may cause distress.
The Administration[]
Throughout my experiences on ESB, I have found that many people seem to dislike the administration. I have seen people labelling us tyrants, people who don't care about the community, powerhungry, corrupt, you name it. People tend to forget that we are just as human as you are. Even if you're just talking to someone behind a screen, we have feelings too. We are not perfect. We make mistakes all the time. I've seen some mods/admins do questionable things in the past, and I acknowledge that there is still a lot of improvement that can be made for us.
From experience, I can see that users often see admins and moderators as "higher" people and end up holding them to a higher standard. Don't get me wrong- it's a big job with countless responsibilities, but even if we do apologize and try to fix our mistakes in the past, it's often hard to restore our reputation. It seems that once a staff member makes a mistake or does something rude, even if they apologize or provide a reasonable defense for their actions, they will be held accountable for it for a very long time. A more recent trend I've seen on the administration reviews (not just this one) is that people usually do not change their votes, even if a user who is being opposed provides a defense.
Some common complaints about staff that I've heard include:
- Sounding rude or impatient.
- Being judgemental.
- Not responding to messages.
- Not caring about how users feel.
1, 2: People get stressed. Staff have bad days too, and we may end up snapping at people for no reason simply because of it. This does not make it okay, but I hope that you may think in our shoes if you feel wronged. Of course, I encourage you to speak up about it, but I don't want users to harbor resentment because of it.
3. It is extremely easy to miss messages. Suppose you are following several game threads, and you don't feel like responding, so you click on "mark all as read" and go on with your day. There could be a message on your wall waiting, but you missed it because you cleared the notification.
4. This may be how you feel about the situation, but it may not be what the staff member wants to convey. Emotions on the Internet sometimes aren't very easy to read, and the tone of a message will vary between each person's interpretation.
Perhaps you've disliked staff because we haven't helped you when you needed it, but it could just be that we don't know what happened. We are not on 24/7, and we have lives outside of the wiki as well. It's possible that we missed someone personally attacking you because we were too busy, and if you never report it or make it known to us, how will we ever know about it?
Criticism[]
I personally believe the biggest problem with user-moderator interactions right now is a lack of feedback. A few months ago, Red made a blog post about voting without a reasoning. If you look at the administration reviews, you will see that this is very true. The template at the beginning of the page encourages users to provide a reasoning for their vote, yet most of the time people just add a vote and leave it at that. I have rarely ever been able to witness a user leaving honest feedback for a staff member in the past, even if we encourage people to tell us that we are doing something wrong.
Making this a bit personal, on the last administration review, I had no idea that I sound arrogant or that I was doing something wrong. On the review before that, it was the same case. I have asked people to tell me if I am doing sometime wrong, but the only time I see honest feedback about myself is besides the "Remove" sign on the administration reviews.
Do not be afraid to tell someone that you think they sound rude, even if we are staff. We will not warn/ban/block you for voicing your opinion, as long as you do so civilly. Another misunderstanding I have frequently seen before is that a user may be warned after they argued with a staff member. More often than not, the user believes that the staff member is only punishing them for disagreeing, and they may grow to dislike that staff member. I have never seen a staff member punishing a user for doing anything except violating the policy. We do not ban free speech.
If you believe that you have been wronged by a staff member, but you don't voice it out loud, they may continue to do something wrong without you to mention it to them, and you will likely dislike them more. Keeping it in only creates more animosity between users, and no one wants that.
Speaking of criticism, some people have misinterpreted it as personal attacks or insults towards someone else. That is untrue. Criticism/feedback is supposed to be helpful advice on how to improve, rather than a way for someone to insult you. Unless you could fix all the flaws you have/are perfect, feedback will always help you.
In fact, I wanted to give a shoutout to two users who have not been afraid to voice their opinions about staff. They have given feedback to us, which isn't very common, and I am thankful for it.
Thank you to Worksponge and RedBomb1, for being brave enough to give their honest opinion about other people!
Private messages[]
Private message harassment has been a problem for a while on ESB now, and I want to explain why staff do not punish others over PMs.
Anyone can edit a screenshot. It is very easy to find out how to do so by searching it up on the Internet. It is even easier to forge a quote. If we took your word for PM harassment and punished a troll, you might be the next person to be punished because someone reported you for "harassment" in private, even if it didn't happen. If we take your word for it, we have to take everyone's word for it, and trolls can easily take advantage of it.
Most of the time, blocking a PM will deter the people who are harassing you. The last thing you want to do is to call attention to it in live chat, because then the harassers will know that you care about it, and they want to see a reaction out of you. Ignoring it might be hard, but it's your best and only viable option in this case.
Because I've already typed a lot on this blog post, I'll elaborate on anything I missed in the next part. If you read the whole thing, or even took the time to read part of it, thank you very much. The most expensive boss, Alex.sapre (talk) 00:01, June 14, 2018 (UTC)