BYOND staff are lazy?
Warning, this blog post contains the occasional use of profanity.
Ok so recently I had a friend of mine comment on the lack of response to his issues over here. It seems apparently that someone basically created an account to spam up Nova's (and possibly other's) blog, and when it was reported, the BYOND staff responded with a resounding "Meh.". Nova feels that maybe the BYOND staff are lazy, and I thought "Well hey, this is a good target for another of my posts."
Now, I see this from both perspectives here, being the owner and very busy GM of an already quite popular game, and at the same time, an end user of BYOND. From the viewpoint of someone who already has a lot to look after, a simple help post could easily be overlooked in the constant onslaught of morons who feel the desperate need to demand a staff member's attention over trivial matters like "I GAVE OUT MY SRC CODE TO X AND HE STOLE IT AND MADE HIS OWN GAME.", where the casual response of "No shit, sherlock." would pretty much sum up the help they are going to get.
It's annoying, and most staff members of anything are going to overlook badly-worded help posts when they come in the hundreds like these do, and when a real issue, such as Nova's comes up, it may not be treated as seriously due to the actions of all the morons who use BYOND. However, there is always the chance that some staff member looked at it, went "Well go delete his posts (and it's always a guy!) then." and went off to watch TV and eat popcorn balls. In that case, we may have an issue.
As Nova brought up semi-privately to the PRPR community, he's a BYOND member. He pays $15 a year, and one of the benefits of that is that he gets his own blog space where he can speak his mind and pretty much put anything he wants there (bar the usual stuff that people aren't allowed to post anywhere), and this service is provided by BYOND. Do they not have a responsibility to ensure that their paying members aren't being harassed by noobs who
A) Don't pay for anything and
B) Are quite obviously solely there to make everyone's life hard?
I mean, as a GM on my game, I come down hard on players who log in to spam up the game or to insult or be hateful towards other players. I provide that service FREE of charge too, because I feel that it's my responsibility as the moderator of the game to ensure that the good players aren't driven away by a hate-storm. And besides, it's a senseless act of hate, just like racism or sexism or homophobia. What moderator in their right mind would be supportive of that?
Ignorance is one thing. Purposefully choosing inaction in a situation that clearly is unjust - especially when you are one of the few who could actually make a difference - is just wrong.
There are so many reasons why one would step in and support Nova here. Firstly, he's a PAYING member. Thanks to people like him, this place is still running. Why WOULDN'T you help someone who clearly is doing the right thing and is a contributive part of the BYOND community - a key part in YOUR machine? Secondly, it's obviously a case of wrong vs right here. We have someone who was minding their own business and some jerk came in and just spammed Nova's personal space with all manner of profanity and irrelevance. Lastly, if BYOND wants to have any pride as a community, things like this should be a big deal. If you choose to let members (or even worse - NON-members) go around doing stupid shit like that, then you are indeed going to bring the entire community down, because then it sets a precedent of negligence and abuse which will eventually spread.
Mark my words - I was right about the whoring out for rank business and I am right about this. While an isolated incident isn't much of an issue, BYOND can't keep turning a blind eye to this kind of thing. I would like to see the issue resolved in an appropriate way by a responsible staff member who respects their position. Surely there are some left?
I would hope that I've been putting my time and money into a community that will support me just as I support them. Anyway, that's my two cents. What's yours?
Ok so recently I had a friend of mine comment on the lack of response to his issues over here. It seems apparently that someone basically created an account to spam up Nova's (and possibly other's) blog, and when it was reported, the BYOND staff responded with a resounding "Meh.". Nova feels that maybe the BYOND staff are lazy, and I thought "Well hey, this is a good target for another of my posts."
Now, I see this from both perspectives here, being the owner and very busy GM of an already quite popular game, and at the same time, an end user of BYOND. From the viewpoint of someone who already has a lot to look after, a simple help post could easily be overlooked in the constant onslaught of morons who feel the desperate need to demand a staff member's attention over trivial matters like "I GAVE OUT MY SRC CODE TO X AND HE STOLE IT AND MADE HIS OWN GAME.", where the casual response of "No shit, sherlock." would pretty much sum up the help they are going to get.
It's annoying, and most staff members of anything are going to overlook badly-worded help posts when they come in the hundreds like these do, and when a real issue, such as Nova's comes up, it may not be treated as seriously due to the actions of all the morons who use BYOND. However, there is always the chance that some staff member looked at it, went "Well go delete his posts (and it's always a guy!) then." and went off to watch TV and eat popcorn balls. In that case, we may have an issue.
As Nova brought up semi-privately to the PRPR community, he's a BYOND member. He pays $15 a year, and one of the benefits of that is that he gets his own blog space where he can speak his mind and pretty much put anything he wants there (bar the usual stuff that people aren't allowed to post anywhere), and this service is provided by BYOND. Do they not have a responsibility to ensure that their paying members aren't being harassed by noobs who
A) Don't pay for anything and
B) Are quite obviously solely there to make everyone's life hard?
I mean, as a GM on my game, I come down hard on players who log in to spam up the game or to insult or be hateful towards other players. I provide that service FREE of charge too, because I feel that it's my responsibility as the moderator of the game to ensure that the good players aren't driven away by a hate-storm. And besides, it's a senseless act of hate, just like racism or sexism or homophobia. What moderator in their right mind would be supportive of that?
Ignorance is one thing. Purposefully choosing inaction in a situation that clearly is unjust - especially when you are one of the few who could actually make a difference - is just wrong.
There are so many reasons why one would step in and support Nova here. Firstly, he's a PAYING member. Thanks to people like him, this place is still running. Why WOULDN'T you help someone who clearly is doing the right thing and is a contributive part of the BYOND community - a key part in YOUR machine? Secondly, it's obviously a case of wrong vs right here. We have someone who was minding their own business and some jerk came in and just spammed Nova's personal space with all manner of profanity and irrelevance. Lastly, if BYOND wants to have any pride as a community, things like this should be a big deal. If you choose to let members (or even worse - NON-members) go around doing stupid shit like that, then you are indeed going to bring the entire community down, because then it sets a precedent of negligence and abuse which will eventually spread.
Mark my words - I was right about the whoring out for rank business and I am right about this. While an isolated incident isn't much of an issue, BYOND can't keep turning a blind eye to this kind of thing. I would like to see the issue resolved in an appropriate way by a responsible staff member who respects their position. Surely there are some left?
I would hope that I've been putting my time and money into a community that will support me just as I support them. Anyway, that's my two cents. What's yours?
Posted by Perpetr8r the Perpetu8r on Sunday, July 27, 2008 09:33PM
- 14 comments
(link)
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Keywords:
lazy,
staff,
ac19189,
spam,
byond
(Edited on Sunday, October 12, 2008 09:48AM)
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#14 Ac19189:
Lummox JR wrote:
> There is a consequence: He won't be welcome back on your blog. It's just not a very stiff one. While I'd love for there to be more to it than that, there is one huge problem: Any consequence that'd extend beyond your blog would be, based on this once incident, very much out of proportion to his actions, and any such action would also require the involvement of BYOND Staff.
>
> But this doesn't mean that actions have no consequences whatsoever. If this was part of a larger pattern of disruption it'd be another matter entirely. It's not like he's free to do this again and again and again; if he did so it'd rise above the level of picayune trolling. If anything he's severely limited what he can get away with in the future.
>
> Believe me I understand where you're coming from here. I hate hit-and-run trolls even more than you do--way more. I used to run a chat where we'd get drive-by idiots all the time, or worse there was a time when former regulars were initiated into their little troll clan by burning bridges on their way out, doing some last act of evil because they knew the consequences would never matter to them. Lacking the yet-to-be-invented device that lets you beat the crap out of people by reaching through the Internet itself, there was literally nothing I could do there. Some people are just jerks, and sometimes the only way to deal with them is to lock the door after they leave. What you're asking is the equivalent of having the police launch a massive manhunt for the hobo who took a dump on your porch.
Fair enough... I guess I should put in a request for a filter option for the few of us that might want it on there blogs... *shrugs* It be a simi line of defense to filter out people that do stupid stuff like this maybe... <.<
HOWEVER at this time I would like to bring up that if this guy does do this to a lot of people unless he does it to a lot of people that get annoyed enough to report him rather then just delete it like you recommended he wouldnt get caught because you have no way what so ever to find or search for posts by a select person.
So in that matter of speaking shouldnt there be some simi based report system? Because in the end even if you mini mod ur own blog unless u bring it up like I did most of the time people really wont know unless its a friend... I think thats fair enough in my defense of the issue as well. o.O
Sunday, October 12, 2008 07:31PM
#13 Lummox JR:
There is a consequence: He won't be welcome back on your blog. It's just not a very stiff one. While I'd love for there to be more to it than that, there is one huge problem: Any consequence that'd extend beyond your blog would be, based on this once incident, very much out of proportion to his actions, and any such action would also require the involvement of BYOND Staff.
But this doesn't mean that actions have no consequences whatsoever. If this was part of a larger pattern of disruption it'd be another matter entirely. It's not like he's free to do this again and again and again; if he did so it'd rise above the level of picayune trolling. If anything he's severely limited what he can get away with in the future.
Believe me I understand where you're coming from here. I hate hit-and-run trolls even more than you do--way more. I used to run a chat where we'd get drive-by idiots all the time, or worse there was a time when former regulars were initiated into their little troll clan by burning bridges on their way out, doing some last act of evil because they knew the consequences would never matter to them. Lacking the yet-to-be-invented device that lets you beat the crap out of people by reaching through the Internet itself, there was literally nothing I could do there. Some people are just jerks, and sometimes the only way to deal with them is to lock the door after they leave. What you're asking is the equivalent of having the police launch a massive manhunt for the hobo who took a dump on your porch.
Sunday, October 12, 2008 07:26PM
#12 Ac19189:
Lummox JR wrote:
> I don't see how you can correctly say in one sentence that the staff can't afford to be swamped with a lot of help requests over trivial issues, yet in the next sentence claim we should drop everything to deal with a one-time ....etc
Ok I already understand where you are coming from on that point and I was offering the ban as an example I don't have an issue with modding my own blog its the fact that he is free to do stuff like that without any consequence now I sure a ban is a bit harsh I wont deny that but in all due respect if everyone got away with doing what ever they wanted without dealing with any ramification of there actions any game on byond you would join right now have some retarded spammer that dislikes the game.
Its not that I want revenge even though it may seem like that to me letting things such as this go and turning a blind eye to me sends the statement that its ok to do it an im sure there are other people out there that get the same message.
Sunday, October 12, 2008 03:50PM
#11 Lummox JR:
I don't see how you can correctly say in one sentence that the staff can't afford to be swamped with a lot of help requests over trivial issues, yet in the next sentence claim we should drop everything to deal with a one-time comment spammer. The position that an incident this isolated is somehow not only worth admins taking time on, but worth going to great lengths to police, is simply indefensible.
First let me begin by saying the fact that Ac is a Member is a big deal. Member concerns do get elevated above non-Member concerns as a matter of routine. However, we have provided Ac very good tools for dealing with these kinds of situations. He can not only delete the spammer's posts, but he can apply a ban from his blog which is semi-sticky and is likely to catch any future keys the troll makes (if any). So Ac is very prepared to clean up after this idiot in a way that requires very little effort on his part. That's good for him because it makes blog maintenance easy, and good for us because we don't have to get involved in hit-and-run spam incidents.
Here's why the Staff should not, and will not, get further involved: The spam incident covered his blog only and was a one-time affair. There was no coordinated attack from multiple users, there is no ongoing issue of the same troll continually making new spam keys (though he could always close comments to non-Members temporarily to cut that off), and there is nothing of this spilling over onto multiple blogs and causing a problem for more of the community as a whole (that I'm aware of). In short, the situation is contained and well within his ability to control. If something worse was going on, it might well merit Staff attention, because obviously we'd want to step in in situations where a problem was too much for a user to handle. I've personally dealt with some issues like that, like where multiple users spammed someone's forum; that is an order of magnitude worse than anything Ac has to deal with from this spammer.
As for going the extra mile to ban the spammer: It is simply inconsistent with BYOND's moderation policy to do so unless the problem spills over and escalates. If we had banned everyone who at one time had done something on that level of stupid, we'd probably be down about 500 Members right now. This easygoing policy is somewhat necessary in a community where so many of the users are young teens. While it is my personal preference to show the door to everyone who would pull that kind of stunt, it is not Tom's, and I think Tom's choice of a fairly forgiving policy is the better one for us as a community. And like Ac, I would also be deeply irritated if someone had done this to my own blog, but a BYOND ban would likely not be forthcoming from that unless the same user was leaving a swath of destruction all across the site.
So in conclusion: I get where Ac is coming from, I would share his anger with the spammer in his situation, and yet I still would not see it as a situation worthy of BYOND-wide action. Some users are simply going to be trolls and it isn't our job to deal with them until they reach a point where an individual user (and any admin staff they've designated for their blog/forum/game) can't handle the problem on their own. He can handle this, so that is where we're leaving it.
Sunday, October 12, 2008 11:11AM
#10 Ac19189:
Jeff8500 wrote:
> The problem isn't that the BYOND staff, is lazy, as I already said; they have concerns of their own. If it really bugs you that bad, use the administrative controls you have on your blog and ban the abuser from it.
That isnt such the big deal here I could very well do that it the fact that the person gets off free with no slap on the hand byond could get outside help im sure there is more then enough people on byond willing to put in a few hours a day watching over the site I know if I was offered to do it I would be more then happy to run around taking care of retarded people that make posts like that and spammers of the BYOND service not games but the byond service itself.
I wouldnt care if I was paid or not I use the service in my free time because i enjoy it and if I can help I would.
Friday, October 10, 2008 02:27PM
#9 Jeff8500:
Kinyara wrote:
> Very nice rant, I have had no exp. regarding the help of a BYOND Staff member. But this catches my attention, if paying members like ourselves continue to pay our 18 bucks. And get no support whatsoever. I would totally make this my last membership. It's pathetic to see that someone such as a BYOND Staff Member, letting something like this slide, what else may of our member rights be abused by people that don't pay for BYOND member? Personally, they shouldn't be able to see our sites at all. unless we accept as a friend. and verify who they are.
>
> I don't know your name to whoever made this rant. But i want you to be my friend. I added you to my pager and i hope to get in contact with you soon. Maybe to chat.
>
> Nice Rant. Now You Have My Opinion As Well. :P
>
> ~Kiwi
The problem isn't that the BYOND staff, is lazy, as I already said; they have concerns of their own. If it really bugs you that bad, use the administrative controls you have on your blog and ban the abuser from it.
Friday, October 10, 2008 12:53PM
#8 Kinyara:
Very nice rant, I have had no exp. regarding the help of a BYOND Staff member. But this catches my attention, if paying members like ourselves continue to pay our 18 bucks. And get no support whatsoever. I would totally make this my last membership. It's pathetic to see that someone such as a BYOND Staff Member, letting something like this slide, what else may of our member rights be abused by people that don't pay for BYOND member? Personally, they shouldn't be able to see our sites at all. unless we accept as a friend. and verify who they are.
I don't know your name to whoever made this rant. But i want you to be my friend. I added you to my pager and i hope to get in contact with you soon. Maybe to chat.
Nice Rant. Now You Have My Opinion As Well. :P
~Kiwi
Friday, October 10, 2008 02:59AM
#7 Ringostar II:
pokemon rp reborn don't work =S
i like that game!
what's happened?
Monday, September 08, 2008 07:16AM
#6 Madow:
I disagree with about every single word said.
Regards, Madow
Saturday, August 23, 2008 11:09PM
#5 Jeff8500:
Meh, just block all comments. Much of the staff has much more important things to do! Lummox and Tom are updating/bug fixing BYOND, Mike H is going through cancer, etc.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 07:38PM
#4 Naruto103:
I put in my two cents. Much to the delight of many people, I'm gone.
That uchiha guy made me that angry, that I made a quick rant.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 02:16PM
#3 Perpetr8r the Perpetu8r:
Well that was my basic point. Even if you can deal with it, people who are abusing shouldn't be let off scot-free. Let's hope BYOND sees it that way too.
Monday, July 28, 2008 02:44AM
#2 Ac19189:
Now now! We do have the power to delete the posts on our own hub an I could just as easy delete his post and ban him from my hub. Theres no issue with that the byond staff did make it so you can mod your own hub only reason I havent cleared it is because I want to have the post there if someone from the BYOND staff did care to look at it...
Now sure 15 bucks a year isnt much an clearly its not enough to ask for full time support however 15 bucks a year or not people that do stupid stuff like that should now be allowed to use a service they are only going to abuse that someone else has paid for... Im not saying remove there right to post but a report such as this shouldnt be blown over like its nothing just because he didnt make a "racist comment"... Others have been reported for making racist comments and get a two or three day ban slap on the hand an told not to do it again.. Buh honestly if I was going to spam the hell out of someones hub I could give two flying fcks if they banned me from the hub... Isnt like I was going to really waste my time even USING it or else I wouldnt spam it.. Having no action takin or even getting a slap on the hand is like saying hey its ok to do this so long as you arent racist about the matter...
Seems to me like thats a rather stupid reason... Thats like saying someone can fly past a cop doing 100mphs in a 25mph zone an because they didnt get pulled over or a slap on the hand they are just going to stop cuz it was wrong.... Hell no they are going to keep on doing it not only in that one zone but all over the city and every other road they hit! It doesnt seem like a big deal until you look at the bigger pic...
Monday, July 28, 2008 02:40AM
#1 THESINKING:
I strongly agree with everything you said Sirus. I mean, I was watching Nova's thread when that jerk came in and did that and he had a perfect reason to make a report and hearing that they haven't done anything? I mean they haven't even deleted the posts despite the large amount of profanity used in that jerk's post. Also, me being a paying member wish we had the right to delete posts our selves to get rid of the useless bs that floats around through random keys. I mean if the GM's of BYOND are such lazy asses that they can't even delete a few posts and ban a person such as him then how can we trust that they will be there if something else happens.
Sunday, July 27, 2008 09:40PM