When to report posts

[Ramsis]

Hey everybody o/ Just wanted to make a post that I'm going to sticky for a week or so in hopes of it helping out everyone who might be on the fence about the reporting system and when the best time to use it might be.

So, reporting is a feature that our forums has that more or less lets any user hit a button, type out what the problem is, and then it pings most of the moderators/admins/Ludeon Staff. In a sense this lets the overall administration team be everywhere at once without running us ragged.

Now in the past this system has been abused for silly things such as:

• Trying to tell the moderators/admins about a cool new feature idea someone had! (I've seen like 40 of these...)
• Complaints about how someone isn't backing down from an argument (Twice)
• Requesting we explain processes and how to upload things to confused users. (Not technically bad, but not really our job.)
• Updating mods because we all totally can do that. (More than I'd like to admit.)
• Reporting posts because they don't really like the topic and feel it should just go away. (.... too many times...)

Normally it's a case of where we scoff a bit, remove the report, and move one from there. As someone who tends to deal with a lot of the reports because I have no life it's more of a "well this is dumb, gonna just remove post and send the reporter a nice message about why it's not okay to put out a report like this." Mind you dumb isn't a problem, it's just when we get so many reports a week that are false it kinda just wears you down.

Now things that I am totally okay with seeing reports for and will gladly jump to solve the problem:

• Clear rules being broken should ALWAYS be reported. I'm perfectly fine if it seems like it's a broken rule and you reporting it despite not being 100 percent on it. We'll look into it!
• Hurtful speech, please report it as soon as you see it. Now we're not perfect, sometimes people use words like damn or other things as it's all dependent on dialect, but slurs and stuff, report it!
• Arguments are bound to happen and they shouldn't be reported just because they exist, but you can feel free to report them if they seem to be getting too dicey or aggressive.
• Go with your gut. Remember that when you report something you are pinging all mods/admins/and Ludeon Staff so do so only when it feels right. We get your username, their username, links to the thread in question, etc. It's like calling the police in a sense.

All in all most of you are doing perfectly fine! Report it if its something you don't think is right or go off of the generalized lists posted above. Also to those of you who have never reported anything, please don't hesitate to report what you see if it's questionable. We won't yell at anyone for being confused on content! No Boy Who Cried Wolf'ing here guys, even the bogus reports still get looked at and we don't look down on people who report silly things.

Tl;dr: Please keep in mind the lists above when making a report.

Thanks everyone, have a great day!

[Coenmcj]

o7 Yessir.
Duly noted.

For people doing this.

• Trying to tell the moderators/admins about a cool new feature idea someone had! (I've seen like 40 of these...)

If you feel that someone absolutely _needs_ to see it and it's been like a week or two without comment, you can just message them about it, they don't bite too much.

[Thorin]

I see similarities with my daily job. So many unnecessary calls, just because I'm a system admin.
One of the main reasons why I refuse any moderator tasks (if asked). I already have enough during working hours and don't need more of it in my private time.

Anyhow, very good and clear post and good luck.

[milon]

One addition I would make is to report any post that contains private information (email address, download link, phone number, etc). It's happened, so let's be proactive and look out for each other.

[LouisTBR]

No offence, but whoever those 40 odd people who suggested something to the moderators are, they must be stupid!

Moderators are there to help the community, enforce the rules and keep the forums safe and clean. They are not busybodies who carry suggestions, however amazing they may be, back to Tynan. I hate to point it out, but probably the most used category bar General Discussions is where all of your suggestions go!

Moderators also don't have much more leverage than us when it comes to new features, as moderators aren't part of the development. Public Testers probably get more chance of their suggestions getting through, as new alphas have a category dedicated to them! There is no point in notifying moderators, because they aren't gonna go out of their way to give Tynan an idea that he could have found in seconds by glancing at the thread.

Thank you!

[Adamiks]

In old days i got reported because i didn't count right... And i got warning for that...

[RemingtonRyder]

Something which I've seen a couple of times, is reporting mod release posts because of problems with those mods.

If you have a problem with a mod that you've downloaded, then post in that topic, or PM the mod creator.

[RawCode]

There are two generic problems with reports:

System is rarely useful, probably someone can post CP as bad 1st april joke and deserve report, but there is only one 1st april per year.
Users tend to report things they don't like, no matter is this *legal* or not.

There are two generic problems with "moderation" of mods:

Mods CAN contain harmful code, there is NO way to "prevent" malicious mods without crippling limits on things mods can do.
Any kind of moderation creates illusion of safety, illusion of safety is harmful and destructive thing.

Under normal conditions "reports" in mod's section should be disallowed and users should be warned about possible concurrences of downloading and executing code from not really trusted sources.

Probably mods should be distributed as archive with password "i_know_concurrences"

in all other cases this forum will eventually hit same issues as bukkit and users will blame "bad" moderators for damages.

[RemingtonRyder]

Um, we don't typically moderate actual mods except to move outdated mods out of the Releases section. Really not seeing how there is an 'illusion of moderation' just that some users seem to be getting the impression that the Report button sends feedback to the mod creator or that we can somehow come down on them like a ton of bricks for posting a faulty mod.

While it is true that we would probably like to squish the fingers of mod creators who post mods with painfully obvious bugs, typically it is the feedback of regular forum posters which alerts the mod creators to these problems and acts as the necessary control.

I've yet to actually see an instance of a mod with malicious code. That is something I would like reported. Thing is, anyone who posted malicious code in a mod would quickly be found out and banned - the tools to decompile and scrutinise a DLL mod are available to anyone. Obfuscated code and a reluctance to answer questions about what it does would be a dead giveaway. What would be far more insidious is, well, now I can't say because that would give people ideas.