2009-11-1: Recent Moderation Activity

I guess many of you are wondering why there have been several accounts banned in recent weeks, and it's been brought to my attention by SaturnReturn that an explanation would be worthwhile.

Essentially, over the past year or so, the conduct on WipEoutZone has degraded to the point where the original spirit of the community is being destroyed by a select few whose posting habits give scant regard to the guidelines we'd prefer our members to adhere to.

Task had taken it upon himself to review the posting history of the people who were causing the moderation team most amount of effort. It's not fair for the moderation team to have to wade through each topic and dish out infractions every day - especially when it's the same people causing the trouble over and over again.

Some of the posts that Task reviewed were worthy of infractions, some of which caused automatic short-term bans to come into force for some of the people involved. In certain cases, after I reviewed the infraction list in the admin panel and viewed the posts involved, I made the judgement that these people deserved to be banned for good.

I'm not naming names, but when people are directly calling out WipEout game developers in profanity laiden posts I deem that worthy of a ban.

Likewise, when someone is trolling just enough to get away with it - i.e. their infractions expire before they get an automatic ban - it's kind of hard to notice without the effort that Task went to in reviewing months worth of posts.

Seems like all the infractions in the world aren't going to make that kind of member adhere to the standards that made WipEoutZone a great community site in the first place.

Now, we've had accusations levelled at us in the past that we're overbearing or we're elitist in the standards we expect here. However, at some point I let those standards slip. It wasn't a fully conscious decision, but I decided to turn a blind eye to certain things after I'd left Sony in early 2008. I figured that since my employer wasn't going to come down on me like a ton of bricks for something that might happen on here, I could be a little more free and easy with the moderation.

That, clearly, was a mistake, and one which I intend to undo by excluding from this community those who cannot abide by the standards we expect.

Oh yes, it does reek of Big Brother and paranoia. But then, if you're posting in an appropriate manner and helping to foster the spirit of the community on here you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Those who should be worried are the ones riding roughshod over the rules, guidelines, and other members.

The core point I'm trying to make is that; if you want to be a member here and contribute to this community then simply show the same kind of respect to people that you would wish to receive in return. Read the guidelines. Know the guidelines. Report posts that are inflamatory without responding to them in kind.

All the petty, small-minded stuff, the baiting of other members, the trolling and the flaming - that's not what we do here. We're better than that.

This topic is closed because the above is just not open for debate.