[lokken]

Sorry i haven't been able to reply to a lot of posts today, i've been stuck on trains all day:

Originally Posted by Kargool

Can you say a bit about how you want to raise the standards on the message board, and also make it a bit more friendly for non asc posters?

Good question. We're rewriting the rules and giving some guidelines on how to post. mz will have full input on this. At the moment there are too many mod gripes, and we need to give help to our users. So i will put in some time to making this happen.

I'm also going to use more "life's unfair deal with it" when things get out of hand, as it was clearly effective for the time it was used this round.

Originally Posted by Kargool

I know that Lok is aware of this, and I've seen some info about this before, but would just want to know if he could try to make the Ascendancy crew understand that it's not nice to shout down anyone just because they got a different opinion than you.

There is a whole blog on this on the ascendancy website. I have made it clear that Asc need to limit their posting on the forum. I will use the ban if it gets out of hand but that would be very much a last resort drastic measure.

Originally Posted by Veedeejem!

I think other alliances should encourage their members to post more often, this one sided debat issue is hardly asc's fault.
I remember times when I played for certain alliances that the hc's told me not to post on AD or comment on something involving the alliance I'm in.
That + alot of players simply not wanting to get involved in the forums for one reason or the other (most heard reason: AD is a shithole) is the reason AD is so one-sided.

Alliance HC's: don't ban your members from posting
Players: don't be ashamed to post on AD, if at first you run into some flaming etc etc, don't give up but keep on posting.

This is a great ****ing point. If you've got good posters let them post on AD. If people are an embarrassment, you can always ask people not to post. I'd love to have heard more from CT and Omen last round.

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

Could you tell us who u had in mind before deciding to go for mz lokken?

Sure. Post activity was up this round and while I can moderate, there's not enough of me to go around. So I decided to appoint someone else. I thought of people who posted actively who might be good enough (based on what I've said) and really only mz came to mind. So now we've got more coverage. On top of that, he uses the report post function properly, which obviously you can't see, but I can, and his judgment tells me he can moderate.

Plus, this will free me up to do more about the changes I've highlighted above. On top of that, one day I won't want to moderate AD anymore (right now I definitely do) and I need someone capable of not just moderating but taking over the forum. mz has that in depth understanding that we need and will keep the continuity that we've maintained from ComradeRob, Cochese, jesterina and JBG.

Originally Posted by Phil^

You're surprised? Ultimately the moderators,asc or not are accountable to pateam ( even though at times it seems like its the other way around ) Its not the community they need to ask for permission.

We're accountable to PA team. We ask the community about what approach they want to take from time to time. We respond to your feedback. I go way beyond a lot of moderators have done to explain what I do and I'm not expending any more time than I already do. As for PA team, all we do is point out that we're the experts and we have some highly capable moderators on the other forums. If they wanted to get rid of mods they could.

Originally Posted by Phil

The question then becomes - were they appointed because they were asc or because everyone else wasnt good enough for the job. I suspect its both.

Purely a quality decision. It was more think of mz, then realise the problem that he would be ascendancy and that it would cause a shitstorm. I actually asked if other mods would be appropriate, but PA team thought mz would be an excellent addition, so mz is moderator. Given that a lot of people are going "mz is an excellent addition but" I think that's every justification.

Tbh, the forums in their current form are dying along with the game. There are better uses of peoples time than arguing semantics with people who behave and argue in a pack, backed up from on high.

All I can say is that I appointed a moderator because my workload went up, not down.

Originally Posted by Banned

Moderating AD is a thankless and shitty job, be glad anyone does it.

If you want someone from outside Ascendancy to do it, suggest them to Lokken in private.

But this thread is the best class on dealing with bias accusations that i could have hoped for, and I can't thank the users of AD enough. But yes, the fact I had to sell this as "how would you like a free pa account every round?" before actually asking mz to be mod illustrates your point.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Elegance aside, I'm not sure if moving offending posts to a section where everyone can read them is a good idea. They're being deleted for a reason, after all.

I did this in a limited way when we had life's unfair deal with it by moving posts to a locked thread. As for more open moderating, I don't know how we can do that all the time as we'd never have any time to do other stuff to be honest.

I hope that keeps everyone happy. I understood there was bound to be some discussions what with mz being Asc.