Two cents on "Calling admin abuse" and "Faction Forums"

This post will adress two subjects. First adressed will be the stricter treatment of “calling admin abuse”. After that, I will adress the planned dropping of support for Faction Forums.

Firstly calling admin abuse. During the last internal team meeting, the subject was brought up of players calling admin abuse on the server for a whole variety of reasons. We have decided to incorporate a standard message in the warning system that Cayorion implemented a while ago, this warning will be presented to a person who claims admin abuse of any staff member. Repeat offenders (like mentioned in the warning) will be met with a tempban. This has several reasons. There are different kinds of “calls for admin abuse” The more popular ones are highlighted below:

To troll or annoy administration (not legit)
To cause a shitstorm in chat channels (not legit)
To make a joke towards the administration (not legit)
To call out an abusing staff member (legit)

The majority of the “Oh my god admin aboose” comments on the server are jokes. We think however that alot of players understimate how these statements (even as jokes) negatively affect staff members and their mood during administration. Thus we’d like to make it clear that we no longer tolerate these comments, even if they are “just a joke JKJK LOLOLOLXD”)

Notice however we also recognize the possibility of an admin abuse claim to be legit. We however concluded that screaming this out loud on the server does not serve any purpose, nor is it productive. If anything it only aggrevates the situation further then it has to. We would thus like to stress, that any accusation of abuse of any magnitude should be brought to the forum section, in particular the complaints forum. Note that falsely accusing server staff of abusing their position is not treated lightly. It is thus highly recommended you present proof, or at least time and date stamps so we can investigate.

Secondly, Faction forums. We have decided that supporting Faction forums on our official forums is no longer our long term goal for the forums. What does this mean? We are officially removing all faction forums in about a month or so. Advance warnings will be posted in all the faction forums with a deadline when the content will be deleted. Why are we doing this?

In the future it will no longer be feasible to support faction forums when sharding is complete. The amount of work to maintain the system would be too great.
Currently the Faction forums covers more then half the forum nodes. This makes maintaining them now already increadibly difficult, and takes away proper quality care for the other nodes.
Most of the features that players want in the faction forums (like recruiting) will be exported to proper forum sections visible to everyone, meaning the faction forums technically lose their use.

13 Comments

Cookedporkchops_ 2013-03-10 at 15:48

*sigh* its affect, not effect. Effect means the result of something like, the effect of the hurricane was that it destroyed stuff. Affect means to change or alter something like, I affected Josh’s decision to become premium. Theres a difference people!
- MonMarty 2013-03-11 at 09:12
  
  Thanks for the correction!
  
  Contrary to popular belief, I always like my posts to be corrected when it comes to spelling or grammar issues. In this case my Dutch grammar sadly took the upper hand, as affect and effect have the same meaning in Dutch,
  - Eagle8777 2013-03-11 at 15:18
    
    Grammar nazi lolz
Xanderab 2013-03-10 at 17:27

Man, I am definitely going to miss having the faction forums as it seemed like a great way to communicate with your members directly.
- southw3i3n3d 2013-03-10 at 18:52
  
  Factions can use a google doc or some other outside forum for internal communication.
  - mulligan3000 2013-03-10 at 19:12
    
    I remember when I was in the old wanderlust we created our own separate forum. It was actually more convenient because you could control who was able to see things in the forum.
    - MonMarty 2013-03-11 at 10:38
      
      This. We support people creating their own forums. There are alot of free forum softwares available online and free forum hosting as well. It makes controlling it alot easier as well.
Nashor 2013-03-10 at 21:24

Well said. However, there are some other things to take note of. When I was banned, I was angry and frustrated with an Admin and vented my anger out in the global chat channel and was banned as a result. I did not have the forums to complain on and I was not exactly popular with the other Admins so I could not raise my concern with them either. I am glad though that you are not instantly banning those who claim Admin abuse. Kudos I guess.
- LordDan1989 2013-03-11 at 08:36
  
  Too little too late. I still disagree with the way the situation was handled and I still revoke my position as Aspirant. I am penalized by the team for defending the players for being treated appallingly and I will continue to defend them.
  
  The team need to take some of the responsibility for “Aboose” getting out of hand, not dish out rude warnings without even making the new rule known before hand.
SiennaReborn21 2013-03-10 at 23:29

I never used the faction forums, not for any specific reason, I just never used ’em. :P
made_by 2013-03-11 at 05:44

I used them a lot.. Guess I am just going to have to find another way to write stuff about my faction.
Cayorion 2013-03-11 at 08:11

I’m glad you are taking care of the the forums Marty :)
Sevrish 2013-03-11 at 21:08

gah! I just recently got my faction forum…