I am honestly surprised a freetalk conan exiles subreddit never really emerged as you cant freely talk about anything across their controlled channels.

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I believe that if i ever going to take a like from you i will ask from community to make it a badge ā€œliked by Tephraā€. Oh this i will wear, trust me!
(joke, do as you feel my friend, thank you for everything you’re doing in here, in discord and of course in wiki)

I’ve been silenced do to abrasive language, which is just me being me.

:100:

There is a lot you just don’t quit get. I’m not going to stop being me, I expect to get flagged and hidden, some times I weight if what I am about to post is worth a time out; I do actually discard posts and once and a while rethink after I post. What you see here and on the discord is as nice as I get.

Xevyr is basically a model citizen compared to me or YOU, that is why I was flabbergasted when I read about their ban.

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OK i have let this sit for a bit. 1) to see if it goes deep in the downward spiral and 2) to get a pulse on the feelings on others before I taint with my personal perspectives.

So about all of this and moderation and this and that and censorship and blah blah blah blah.

1)We all need to come to terms that any and all efforts that FC does with resources (including this very forum and official servers ) must meet the practicality that it’s done so in order to promote business. Any talk outside of that is, at least from their perspective, irrelevant to the goal at hand and they have full authority to remove.
2) Having open dialog is actually a great mechanism for feedback and getting customer perspectives but that doesn’t mean dealing with abuse and/or comments that serve no other purpose but to criticize without desire to correct.
3) Anytime you are removed from a situation, self reflection, empathy, and humility must be internalized to have any true meaning of maintaining a relationship. I personally had to deal with that once here on these very forums and gained a deep appreciation for the moderators that are just trying to salvage topics. This, in turn, created a new, better relationship I have with the moderators on this board.
4)We are all human and sometimes your little offense that may not be an issue individually becomes that last straw and the wraith comes down on you. Understand that these things happen and request reconsideration.
5) The length of time this thread has remained active shows there is something they feel is value added enough to continue so we should all pat ourselves on the back for keeping it positive.
6) It is not in the company’s best interest to silence folks here. The negative implications on other media would be harsh and they know that.
7) At the same time, this vehicle of feedback is one and one that isn’t as popular as others so don’t expect any special favor just because it’s FC’s message board. Content providers input far outweigh mine because I don’t have 20-50k followers. I’m one voice in a pool of a couple of hundred that can spin a good yarn. That’s about it. I’m only as good as that.

Now many of you will find this as just white knighting but that isn’t it. It’s simply acknowledging the facts that FC is in complete control and we are only here because they, for some weird masochistic reason, feel its value-added.

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I wouldn’t call it white knighting, because I agree on several of your points, in general. However, I’d say many of them don’t apply in context of this particular discussion we’re having here.

To refresh the context:

  1. @Rollotomozi started a discussion about whether blocking a certain specific bit of content would be against the rules.
  2. The discussion was civil, calm, and genuinely focused on the topic.
  3. The thread got summarily closed with a canned message referencing Zendesk and TOS.
  4. @Rollotomozi then opened this topic to complain about the closing of the original thread.
  5. I replied that opening this topic probably wouldn’t result in anything useful, given the way the forums are being moderated lately. I referenced @Xevyr’s case as a way to point out the problems with moderation.

So, given that context, let’s look at what you said:

If we’re talking about effort, it takes more effort to close a thread than to leave it open. On the other hand, it takes more effort to consider carefully before judging whether the thread should be closed or left open, than it takes to just skim it as superficially as possible and then close it because it fits some very simple criteria.

When it comes to promoting a business, however, the whole point becomes moot, because let’s be serious here: the nuances of moderation on these forums will have no impact on their business whatsoever. All they have to do is make sure these forums are not a breeding ground for certain forms of speech that bring bad reputation and that’s enough to protect their business. Everything else is completely unnecessary and has no real impact on their bottom line.

No one here is disputing their authority to do so. They have the right to do a sloppy job, or to abuse the power of moderation, or to do whatever the heck they want with these forums.

We’re just saying it sucks and it often makes no sense.

Agreed in general, but in this context? If we’re talking about the thread that got closed, there was no abuse or non-constructive criticism.

If we’re talking about @Xevyr’s silencing, you could technically say that the joke at the end was ā€œabuseā€, but the rest of his comment was constructive criticism and the joke was clearly labeled as such and much, much less abusive than a whole bunch of other comments that had pure vitriol and no constructive criticism. And yet, he’s the one who got a 7-day timeout for that.

I’ve been in contact with @Xevyr during his ā€œremoval from the situationā€, and I can assure you he took it with self-reflection, empathy, and humility. In fact, it was more self-reflection, empathy, and humility than I would’ve displayed in his shoes.

None of that changes the fact that what happened to him was abuse of moderation powers and that the rest of the staff did absolutely nothing to rectify that.

And yes, I know they have the authority to do that. And I know @Xevyr isn’t making a big deal out of it. It’s still an injustice, no matter how much Tae Tae makes fun of the idea.

In short, I agree with you on this general point, but it definitely doesn’t apply in this case. The fault is with those who abused the power and with those who could have fixed that but didn’t.

True. It’s human to make mistakes like that. It’s also nice to recognize one’s own mistakes and work to undo them or make amends. Whoever did this had 7 days to realize they acted disproportionately and revert their decision. Likewise, others with the same power to revert it had 7 days to do so.

But I guess that brings us back to your first point about effort and business? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I don’t think I could call this thread positive and keep a straight face. Hell, the thread that got closed and sparked this discussion, that was actually positive. Compare it to this one and tell me this one is worth keeping alive while that one needed to be closed.

Call me cynical, but I think this thread is being kept alive because the wiser among the mods and community managers know that it will eventually either run out of steam, or cross a line that justifies closure, whereas closing it prematurely would only risk spawning yet another one in its image.

Why? Why do people honestly believe this? Like I said in my reply to your first point, I don’t think these ā€œnegative implicationsā€ would do anything to Funcom’s bottom line.

In fact, other companies suffered much bigger blows to their reputations, for much more serious reasons, and yet they’re still happily in business, because too few consumers actually give a shіt.


That said, I’ve finally come to the belated realization that I’m not heeding my own advice. I started my participation in this thread by saying it wasn’t going to produce anything useful, and yet I’m spending my time here being pointlessly quixotic about something that won’t have any impact.

I’m not saying I’m going to stop participating here, I’m just saying I’ll try :laughing:

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True but the point is made for those used to passive maneuvers. There is a new stance that goes with the new ruling…take it up to Zendesk and it’s no longer tolerable here. When in doubt, report and let the chips fall as they may.

As far as @Xevyr , I didn’t get to see it all go down but I would like to think I know his character and I am like 90% sure it wasn’t in malice but definitely someone found it bad. Which is why I brought up my own story since it seemed similar. But none of that matters since to quote Army of Darkness; ā€œGood? Bad? I’m the guy with the gunā€

If it was just us, you have a point. But the content providers are the key since they move opinion. It’s a symbiotic relationship but even they have their limits (ie firespark who is practically a ghost in the shell now that you can sometimes see in Wak vids)

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Yeah, I understand that, I’m just not convinced even content creators can impact the bottom line unless they’re talking about in-game stuff.

Sure, if Firespark or Wak or Kiah come out and say ā€œdon’t buy XYZ from the Bazaar because it’s an absolute pile of shіtā€ (but not in those words, of course), that will impact the Bazaar sales of XYZ. I can also imagine they could impact the Bazaar sales in general with commentary about Bazaar, to a certain degree.

But if they make a video criticizing Funcom for ā€œsilencing people on the forumsā€ – just as an example – how many of their viewers will care enough to stop giving Funcom money? Sure, there will be some, but will it actually make any perceptible dent in their bottom line? My bet is ā€œhell noā€.

People get outraged easily – myself included – but few will put their money (or their time) where their mouth is. Myself included :smiley:

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Sometimes it helps nothing, but it feels good putting it out, @CodeMage . I never really cared about hurting funcom, even when they screw up. I always hope things get better, eventually. I write to get it out of my system, basically, without expecting changes because of it. But I feel good about speaking up when I think it’s needed. If they don’t listen, there will be a point where I’ll just stop playing and forget about it. Like me, many others.
In the end, it’s very complicated. The corporate world is complex. The power dynamics between players and studios are completely messed up, currently.
All in all, even if the game has some serious flaws that need attention, funcom seems much more benign than most of the companies out there.

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I’m re-evaluating my views on moderation here. Maybe you should also do something similar and re-evaluate your own views a bit and ask yourself whether your theories hold water at all before you decide to drag politics into a discussion where there’s no place for it.

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No it hasn’t. I read your hid post, you might have tried, but that was real political and YOU brought it with you.

Your name means nothing to me, unless I read a name a few hundred times it’s just a word. But I bet can guess your politics, it’s blatantly obvious. And we really don’t need any more rhetoric here.

Now I just can’t remember who went on about the failings of the flag system in a few threads, but this is beyond that.

My opinion funcom is trying to run all of Conan with a skeleton crew. I think there might be all of 4 or 5 people trying to run all of customer service, that is moderate this forum, handle zendesk; actual customer service, and server admin/moderation. You just can not operate a game effectively that way.

I was told they let their volunteer mods go. I only see one reason for this. When you are ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  up bad enough all your volunteers are complaining, there is 2 things a game developer can do, listen to them or let them go so they don’t have to.

Seems funcom is just further distancing them selves from us players. Now I’ve been here a few times, I feel like we are about to be ghosted. We’ll go to log in after the age of war to the age where the hell are the public servers. And the content will be a closed forum.

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TAEMIEN. It seems to me theses post are getting you worked up . With everyone of them. And evidently it is big a big deal to you or you would have just moved on

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In general, you must be more active on the forums than playing the actual game xD

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I can be here, on the discord, and play the game :astonished:

It’s called multitasking.

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To be entirely fair, we all have our pet peeves, and it is not for this one to publicly speculate as to the reason for such pet peeves…

Tae Tae has been very civil, in their (his, her? This one does not know the correct form of address) own way.
This one has seen what this one considers to be either peak Tae Tae pique, or peak Tae Tae troll job in other threads. Either way, very expressive.

Besides, isn’t that what the internet is for, other than prawns, to type furiously and decide one has won arguments against strangers?

Oh, and politicking.

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I heard there is a new crm out, ā€œthreadsā€. It’s new, but I’m comparing it if it has merit.

You are right we all have our pet peeves. However I stand by my post.

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Guys, when it comes to silencing, when I enter someone’s profile and select ā€œignoreā€ it says that I wont see their content. But are they going to see my posts? I’m tired of some folks following me here on the forum and downvoting my posts until they get hidden. I know who’s doing this and I wonder whether ignoring them will make me invisible for them or not?

The drama on the forums is terrible.

I don’t block anybody. Most of that chatter is just hype to get votes, or to scare away voters.

Oh I know I see posts by people that have me blocked. But no one is following you around ā€œdown votingā€ your posts. People flag your post and have to give a reason for it. You have the option to edit and repost it. If it gets multiple flags again, you can reedit it but a forum mod will have to ok it to be unhinden.
Which does actually happen.

Now in 20 years online :older_man: I’ve blocked 5 people. But they found my buttons and enjoyed dancing on them.

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