StarGateWars Forums

Usually on a forum or in any organisation there is a complaint procedure to go through the staff structure. I'm pretty sure I followed it through the right course on these forums, yet the outcome wasn't what one would expect.

A post was made by someone clearly bullying me and even more clearly breaking Forum Rule 5.c

I correctly used the 'Report' function to highlight this to the Mod Team for action.

The Report was handled by a Global Mod and the thread in question appeared to be moved to the temple dump.

I PM the Global Mod in question to ask what happened as a result of the 'Report' because clearly this person had broken Rule 5.c.

The response i got from the Global Mod was.... nothing. Completely ignored me.

Therefore the next step in the structure was Admins. i contacted Zeratul via PM as he was clearly online at the time and I thought i would get a quick response. I awaited a response, which finally came. The Admin told me that although he doesn't know which post/report i am talking about it is up to the Global Mod that handled it to deal with it and that it has nothing to do with the Admins.

So I find this odd. If you are getting abused and you feel that a Mod has not handled the situation adequately and you can't go to the Admins because they wash their hands of that responsibility and turn a blind eye to the fact that bullying is going on in the forums, where do you go next?

Tetrismonkey wrote:So what did the post contain? Lets break this situation down.

It was a personal attack on my image. i.e. me and what i look like etc.

Tetrismonkey wrote:As for the report, after much time looking, I have not found a report that you made that says anything about this... How odd.

How odd? lol you trying to be smart TetrisMONKEY?

The report was made in the Temple, that is why the thread was moved to the Temple Dump. Are you a Moderator of the Temple? I think not. Therefore you cannot view those Reports open or closed.

Tetrismonkey wrote:

Dean Winchester wrote:

Tetrismonkey wrote:So what did the post contain? Lets break this situation down.

It was a personal attack on my image. i.e. me and what i look like etc.

Tetrismonkey wrote:As for the report, after much time looking, I have not found a report that you made that says anything about this... How odd.

How odd? lol you trying to be smart TetrisMONKEY?

The report was made in the Temple, that is why the thread was moved to the Temple Dump. Are you a Moderator of the Temple? I think not. Therefore you cannot view those Reports open or closed.

lol

Yes I can?

From what i thought i could never see reports made in Market Section, Temple etc because I was not a Mod of those areas. And I believe this to be correct. But you obviously think you know better.

Anyway the report was made on or around 28-29 Dec.

the rules on abuse/racism do not state that warning has to be issued, and thusly, it is up to the mod in question to decide what to do...

Zeratul wrote:the rules on abuse/racism do not state that warning has to be issued, and thusly, it is up to the mod in question to decide what to do...

Yet you make no attempt to find the report and look at the thread in question. The fact that i came to you with an abuse issue you brush it off and put it on the Global Mods shoulders. Do you not have a responsibility to follow up this sort of thing if a forum member believes they are not being treated fairly in an abuse case?

Do you think it's right that if someone asks the Mod in question what happened as a result of their report that they should get ignored by the Mod?

Do you think that it is right that if a member of the forum is ignored by a Mod that they then get turned away by an Admin that doesn't want to take responsibility?

Dean Winchester wrote:

Zeratul wrote:the rules on abuse/racism do not state that warning has to be issued, and thusly, it is up to the mod in question to decide what to do...

Yet you make no attempt to find the report and look at the thread in question. The fact that i came to you with an abuse issue you brush it off and put it on the Global Mods shoulders. Do you not have a responsibility to follow up this sort of thing if a forum member believes they are not being treated fairly in an abuse case?

Do you think it's right that if someone asks the Mod in question what happened as a result of their report that they should get ignored by the Mod?

Do you think that it is right that if a member of the forum is ignored by a Mod that they then get turned away by an Admin that doesn't want to take responsibility?

you're confused.
that isn't washing hands of the issue, that's backing mods up. by declaring it's the mod's right to make a decision, admins are in fact taking responsibility for said decisions.

perhaps it's worth pointing out that some margin of system should be put in place with regards to lee way and what not. Repeated abuse shouldn't be tolerated and the admins should enforce that.

Hitchkok wrote:

Dean Winchester wrote:

Zeratul wrote:the rules on abuse/racism do not state that warning has to be issued, and thusly, it is up to the mod in question to decide what to do...

Yet you make no attempt to find the report and look at the thread in question. The fact that i came to you with an abuse issue you brush it off and put it on the Global Mods shoulders. Do you not have a responsibility to follow up this sort of thing if a forum member believes they are not being treated fairly in an abuse case?

Do you think it's right that if someone asks the Mod in question what happened as a result of their report that they should get ignored by the Mod?

Do you think that it is right that if a member of the forum is ignored by a Mod that they then get turned away by an Admin that doesn't want to take responsibility?

you're confused.
that isn't washing hands of the issue, that's backing mods up. by declaring it's the mod's right to make a decision, admins are in fact taking responsibility for said decisions.

Zeratul had no idea what post I was referring to. He never looked up the report i was referring to.
He made no attempt to find out exactly what the "abuse" consisted of.
Therefore, washing his hands of any responsibility as a Forum Admin to nip any bullying in the butt at the start.

Dean Winchester wrote:

Hitchkok wrote:

Dean Winchester wrote:

Zeratul wrote:the rules on abuse/racism do not state that warning has to be issued, and thusly, it is up to the mod in question to decide what to do...

Yet you make no attempt to find the report and look at the thread in question. The fact that i came to you with an abuse issue you brush it off and put it on the Global Mods shoulders. Do you not have a responsibility to follow up this sort of thing if a forum member believes they are not being treated fairly in an abuse case?

Do you think it's right that if someone asks the Mod in question what happened as a result of their report that they should get ignored by the Mod?

Do you think that it is right that if a member of the forum is ignored by a Mod that they then get turned away by an Admin that doesn't want to take responsibility?

you're confused.
that isn't washing hands of the issue, that's backing mods up. by declaring it's the mod's right to make a decision, admins are in fact taking responsibility for said decisions.

Zeratul had no idea what post I was referring to. He never looked up the report i was referring to.
He made no attempt to find out exactly what the "abuse" consisted of.
Therefore, washing his hands of any responsibility.

No. backing up his mod's decision and taking reponsibility for it.
you are free to email game admin with the topic and with zeratul's response for it.
if his response was "i didn't know about it", that was washing his hands of responsibility.
i might add, that you do not know if zeratul did look into it.
also, were i an administrator, (and in real life i have been in situations like this) i would never attack a mod's decision in front of a user. why? because the administrators are in charge of appointing and training mods, and therefore responsible for their decisions.

Hitchkok wrote:No. backing up his mod's decision and taking reponsibility for it.

Backing up his Mod is laughable, now if he had looked at the report and the post in question and then backed up his mod that is something, but the fact is Zeratul did not look at the report or post and just blindly backed up his mod's decision even though i had personally come to Zeratul regarding a concern of abuse. He turned me away.

Hitchkok wrote:if his response was "i didn't know about it", that was washing his hands of responsibility.

He didn't know about it until i told him and even then he didn't have a clue what i was referring to.

Hitchkok wrote:i might add, that you do not know if zeratul did look into it.

Yes i do, he made it very clear in his PM that he doesn't know what the report of post contained and that it is not his issue.

Hitchkok wrote:also, were i an administrator, (and in real life i have been in situations like this) i would never attack a mod's decision in front of a user. why? because the administrators are in charge of appointing and training mods, and therefore responsible for their decisions.

I never suggested the Admin attack anyone. But I do however expect an Admin to follow up on a complaint of abuse when someone is not happy with how a Mod handled it.

If the Admins are going to blindly accept whatever the Mods do (or don't do) then we don't need Admins.

Dean Winchester wrote:

Hitchkok wrote:No. backing up his mod's decision and taking reponsibility for it.

Backing up his Mod is laughable, now if he had looked at the report and the post in question and then backed up his mod that is something, but the fact is Zeratul did not look at the report or post and just blindly backed up his mod's decision even though i had personally come to Zeratul regarding a concern of abuse. He turned me away.

but thats the entire point. by backing up a mod he is taking responsibility for past, current and future decisions.

Dean Winchester wrote:

Hitchkok wrote:if his response was "i didn't know about it", that was washing his hands of responsibility.

He didn't know about it until i told him and even then he didn't have a clue what i was referring to.

might be so, but he didn't use this as a way to cover his own ass. he actively backed up the decision.

Dean Winchester wrote:

Hitchkok wrote:i might add, that you do not know if zeratul did look into it.

Yes i do, he made it very clear in his PM that he doesn't know what the report of post contained and that it is not his issue.

still, that is backing up the mod's decisions and judgement.

Dean Winchester wrote:

Hitchkok wrote:also, were i an administrator, (and in real life i have been in situations like this) i would never attack a mod's decision in front of a user. why? because the administrators are in charge of appointing and training mods, and therefore responsible for their decisions.

I never suggested the Admin attack anyone. But I do however expect an Admin to follow up on a complaint of abuse when someone is not happy with how a Mod handled it.

If the Admins are going to blindly accept whatever the Mods do (or don't do) then we don't need Admins.

and if we're going to turn to the admins with everything, we don't need mods.
you got your answer from the admin. whether you like it or not.

Hitchkok wrote:you got your answer from the admin. whether you like it or not.

Far from it.

despite what you think, we have looked at it, and we still do not think the way it was handled was wrong...

Zeratul wrote:despite what you think, we have looked at it, and we still do not think the way it was handled was wrong...

So someone breaks rule 5.c and gets no warning or verbal warning?

I contact the GM that dealt with it and they blatently ignore me?

Where in that was it handled right?

what makes you so sure the person was not verbally warned...

and the thread was removed from sight, so action was taken...