Considering how big the community is, I'd say pretty damn good. Not great, but good.

 

It's still very extraordinary of people to give up their time to check up on here and look after us degenerates.

 

 

Hello,

 

I have mixed feelings about this topic.(I am an administrator on a different site not relevant to G17).

 

The Moderators work FOR FREE DONATING their own time, as an experienced administrator, doing this can be very stressful at times, I understand that they should have a good quality of work, and follow a general set of guidelines, in which my eyes they are. They are human just as we are, they have ups and downs as expected, keep in mind that also, they are not full time doing just as a regular work day. Most have studies, school and jobs that have priority of LCPDFR. With that, it becomes a cost to the moderation quality, now opposed to a full time paid moderator they will have more professional resources and have better experience with handling certain situations. So far I have not seen any instances that were taken care of in an improper unprofessional way. They follow some what strictly not to show bias and express emotions when they are doing official work. 

 

If LCPDFR charged for their program, your bar could be raised to a higher standard however it is not. Remember, all this is free, they are actually the ones paying-, wether its time, money and other factors that contribute. 

 

They could improve greatly if they had a set of rules that they followed and make punishments less spontaneous to certain situations. The reasons why people are getting punished are out of the random and are made up in lala land never before seen.

 

However, I personally, me personally feel like they take some things too seriously and other things too lightly. I sometimes feel like infraction points are given out like candy on halloween.  For example, if someone says, "haha thats funny" in reply to a topic I feel in my eyes rather than an infraction point a verbal warning would be more just than a infraction for a right off the bat situation; if the moderators do not like it and it happens again then a justifiable response to that would be an infraction (An accumulative penal system).  However, they would have to stick with this rule as well and not to break it.

 

I  feel there is a bias in the download section as well, my friend, was uploading a PED texture file that matched a car skin made by a moderator, so he took a picture ingame next to the moderator's car skin on a car (keep in mind that he was only talking about his PED skin in his description) and his file was immediately rejected for "copyright" and had received 5 infraction points. If the moderator wanted credit for the car skin my friend would have happily added the moderators credits for his background car skin if he was PM'ed, in my opinion did not see it was necessary for the 5 infraction point and the rejected file when the moderator could have asked nicely to add his credits. He was not breaking any rules at all. I have seen other files where this has happened.. but yet no moderation there.. Why is it that if it involves a moderator's skin of some sort does he get punished for it when there are many violation already out there?

 

Thanks,

TMG

 

I think the guys are great especially cp702 :D. But there have been a couple a times where I was caught doing something wrong one time I actually got a warning, no warning points or anything, just a simple reminder of the rules, it was a one time incident and I swore I never do it again. But again the moderates here are good and remember it's just a website, you really think getting in trouble one or two times is going to effect your life? No.

Edited November 13, 201411 yr by Chester199

[...]

And unless you have like a moderators manual with policies and procedures for every type of situation a moderator may encounter there is no way to eliminate the disparity between different moderators actions. 

 

Every moderator comes from a different background and has a different personality so they may have different tolerance levels for certain things and not for others. Thats just the way it works just like one cop may give you a ticket while another cop may just give you a warning.

 

Discretion is a double edged sword. 

[...]

I find this to be a very accurate statement.  There are some rules that just can't be made 100% clear - there will always be areas where the individual moderators will need to make their own decisions.  The decisions made aren't really "right" or "wrong" in many cases, because everyone has a differing opinion.  While I'm trying my best to rewrite the rules to be as clear as possible, there are some areas where there's only so much potential for improvement.

 

Also, it's worth keeping in mind that there are VERY few Community Team staff members compared to members (we have 8 community moderators, 2 advisors, and 1 Dutch moderator), and nearly every staff member is going through an education system of some sort.  Whether it's high school or college, we're all busy and many of us have full or part time jobs as well.  People expect miracles from a small team of very busy people, and it's quite sad (but entirely predictable as well).  We have a lot on our plate, and not much time to get things done.  Considering the fact that the member to moderator ratio is 18260:1, I'd say things are going well.  Would we be more efficient with 100 staff members?  Maybe.  Will that ever be the case? Doubtful.  We just have to make the best of what we have.  Considering the situation, we're doing quite well, but if we were all paid staff members that have been professionally trained then things would be unacceptable.  One problem is that people seem to think we're exactly that - paid professionals who spend our entire day here as a job.

 

There are always going to be people who dislike us (sometimes authority of any sort) and most of the time those people stay here without issue (the exception being when they ignore the rules and want to be banned).  Sadly, it's the small percentage of people like this that take it on themselves to spread any rumor they feel like spreading, and before you know it a large group of people gang up on us for really no reason.  As mentioned above by Ben, the most vocal members tend to be those who refuse to follow the rules, and then blame us for punishing them.  We get blamed for all sorts of stuff, and while some of it is certainly our fault, a lot of it is made up.  There are many times when someone walks in knowing only 10% of a situation, and then they make things up to fill the other 90% based on what they think happened.  If I had a dollar for every time it happened, I could have my tuition paid in full (and wouldn't need to have my internship!).  This isn't a problem that's unique to us though - it happens all the time in real life and is a perfectly normal part of the human condition (however obnoxious it may be).

 

In short, we've never once claimed to be a well oiled, professionally trained team.  We've always acknowledged that there's room for improvement, and that we will never be perfect.  We come on here as volunteers in our spare time, and will provide only the time that we think we can safely provide.  As Jay mentioned, if someone doesn't like this site, they can very easily pack up and go somewhere else.  We run the site the way we want to, and will not bend over backwards to appease those who want to make the site how they want it to be.

-snip-

 

The first part of your post is great, and thank you for the appreciation, but I have to address the second part.

 

Where exactly are you getting this information? We don't share who gets what punishment here. Pretty much everything you said is completely false. Warning points are not "given out like candy on halloween," you should see how much my inbox filled up since becoming a moderator a few months ago (mainly sent messages). I'm pretty sure this site hasn't used the multiple warning points system for a long time, it's either one point or nothing, so your story at the end there must either be made up or something that happened years ago (unlikely that someone got any type of infraction for using someone else's car in a picture, though).

I think many of the moderators could relax a bit. Not going to name any names. Otherwise they're alright I guess.

 

 

The first part of your post is great, and thank you for the appreciation, but I have to address the second part.

 

Where exactly are you getting this information? We don't share who gets what punishment here. Pretty much everything you said is completely false. Warning points are not "given out like candy on halloween," you should see how much my inbox filled up since becoming a moderator a few months ago (mainly sent messages). I'm pretty sure this site hasn't used the multiple warning points system for a long time, it's either one point or nothing, so your story at the end there must either be made up or something that happened years ago (unlikely that someone got any type of infraction for using someone else's car in a picture, though).

 

Hello Sir,

 

That happened actually the mid of last year sir, I can understand the confusion.

 

I can show you the proof if you want it Sir, however, I do not want to disclose the moderators or my friend's name. I will PM it to you at your request. It was actually this file: '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> you can check the logs Sir. (I was exaggerating 5 infraction points its only 1) the rest is fact not opinion or made up,

 

Thanks,

TMG 

Edited November 13, 201411 yr by TMG

The LCPDFR staff is probably the worst team of members I've ever seen, banning random people, breaking the rules, and harassing other members. Just the worst, and this guy thinks he's all high and mighty because he "runs" the site or whatever.

 

Lol jk, they're great. Gotta give a hand to Iconography though, probably my favorite moderator, sorry ini. :DDD

I think the community staff for the most part is pretty okay...and with that said they need a bit of work. Also some of the staff should "relax" a bit.

 

I also would like to point out that this is a privately owned site and therefore doesn't have to follow a "constitution" or anything.....but I feel they should have a certain type of "fairness", now so far the staff is pretty good with being "fair"....but I personally have had issues with a few staff members who have seemed a bit "power hungry", "unfair", etc.....But I won't be able to change anything so who really cares.

 

So yeah, overall...staff is pretty good, but everything in life needs improvement.

Have to say this...

Regarding pointless topics, I don't believe there is such one, but why the hell is this site turning into Buzzfeed? We don't need a discussion on ever single thing within society.

It's seriously annoying. This is a gaming forum first.

Ugh, another one of these threads. People are going to come into the topic just to add fuel to the fire for the satisfaction of their own ego. Regardless, let me give my 2 cents on the subject.

 

In my opinion, the LCPDFR Community Team is very efficiant considering the number of staff members vs. members. The team may not seem as efficient at times due to the location/timezones of the majority of staff members, but management tries to reduce that problem as much as they can. The staff team is going to do the best they can with LCPDFR along with school/extra circular activities. 

 

With the criticism, it's normally from the people who think they're better than everyone else just because they're in front of a computer monitor. The member then feels the need to start bashing someone for his mistake because he can't own up to his actions that caused the sanction in the first place. Bottom line is that if you would just follow the rules, their never would of been a problem to begin with.

 

I would like to write more but I just have trouble getting all my thoughts down.

The community team is awesome.

I was a moderator on a small forum where it was 60 persons/ moderator, and that was hard.

It's un-frigging-believable that they can handle 18000/Moderator, so i'm saying they are making a great job. 

If there was no moderators, what would this place look like?

 

Anarchy. 

 

 

The moderators is doing the best they can.

And so far, I've noticed that misplaced or double topics been gone under the hour.

 

And with the rules,

I think they're good. 

Without rules, this place would be ten times worse.

 

So please, stop squeaking about the rules.

The Community Team can be harsh, but forgiving.

 

They're not banning you instantly.

 

They ban people that spams,

Post stolen mods, annoys, breaks multiple rules,

And then saying "I didn't do it."

 

Please. 

If the moderators banned you, they surely had grounds for it,

They don't ban people because it fun,

They do it because they must.

 

So now i have written for ten minutes, and can't think of anything better to write. 

That was my $0.02 

I think efficiency is hard to measure on a site where the staff volunteer all their time. Sure, we can do things better but so can pretty much anyone at any given time. I've been here for about 4 years now, and I can say that for being a free service, the staff team is extremely engaged and active. Of course, real-life takes priority and a few things take a long time to get done. That's no secret. I am sure many can relate.

And I would be extremely surprised if everyone was 100% satisfied, you just don't get that anywhere. I do hope we're on the right track though.

Thanks for the kind words by the way, it means a lot. You don't get to hear the good things often enough; Most often it is the "bad" things shining though.

Have to say this...

Regarding pointless topics, I don't believe there is such one, but why the hell is this site turning into Buzzfeed? We don't need a discussion on ever single thing within society.

It's seriously annoying. This is a gaming forum first.

Yes! Exactly!

You could not be more right with that. lol

From personal experience: The LCPDFR CT is a lot more consistent with moderation than the Gamebanana moderation staff. Here, all of my 11 filed reports were responded to within the day (I'd give a mean response time but I can't get a timestamp) - on Gamebanana, about 57% of my reports do not go anywhere. Their moderation is inconsistent to the point to where they'll take one submission down for something but refuse to take something else down for the same thing.

 

So yeah, LCPDFR's community team is all right in my book.

Have to say this...

Regarding pointless topics, I don't believe there is such one, but why the hell is this site turning into Buzzfeed? We don't need a discussion on ever single thing within society.

It's seriously annoying. This is a gaming forum first.

Your signature is killing me. (L-O-L)

Honestly at the end of the day, all it boils down to is a bunch of people that love what we're doing here, who are passionate about this community and who want to lend their expertise, knowledge and above all else, time, for our benefit, for free.

 

Of course we don't always get everything right, and people seem to be a lot more vocal in criticising us now, but it doesn't change who we are or what we do.  For such a small number of staff on such a large board, I think the team do an outstanding job and deserve a lot more credit than they ever get.  You honestly won't find more passionate and caring people than those on the LCPDFR Community Team and it is something that we should all be thankful for I think.

 

As Jay rightly said - everything we do here, we do because we want to.  It has always been my belief that the best approach is to operate in as laid back a manner as is possible and something we try to do is set in stone the idea that the moderators are first and foremost, members of the same community.  Debating efficiency is, I agree, perhaps something that should be done in a corporate review meeting - it is therefore quite important to stress that there's nothing corporate about the community team or anyone else here - we're all here because it is our hobby or our interest and yes, this is a website run by ordinary people, not a well oiled corporate machine.

 

So, while I think our team, for the numbers they have, are very efficient indeed, whether or not the team is efficient maybe isn't the most important thing to be discussing.  Instead I think everyone should ask do they feel comfortable being here and to what extent the team supports this comfort.

 

I'm happy to see a discussion like this though - it is always appreciated when we can get feedback and dialogue in a courteous and thought out manner instead of the usual spiteful attacks, denial of service threats or knee-jerk reactions that nobody should have to deal with.

i think it is good but can sometimes be annoying as i nearly got banned for asking a question

EDIT: not a ban just a mild warning by insneri

Edited November 14, 201411 yr by 999firstmada

I personally find no issues with the Community Team. Yes they are slow sometimes, I am still trying to talk to a mod about my issues with the site not working at my house, but as others have said previously, real-life comes first. With their jobs and personal lives to deal with, the jobs that they do on this site is pretty good IMO. Yes there will be some things that slip through the cracks unnoticed, but for the most part, the moderators moderate pretty efficiently.

 

I think of it this way; the Community team would is like a small sheriffs office with 15 or 20 officers, policing a much larger community of lets say around 200,000 people. They do as much as they can, and rely on the upstanding citizens to keep the crime and law/rule-breaking to a minimum. But there will be those instances where they aren't able to deal with something, or they miss something. 

 

This may seem like a scatter-brain response, I'm quite tired at the moment.

I personally find no issues with the Community Team. Yes they are slow sometimes, I am still trying to talk to a mod about my issues with the site not working at my house, but as others have said previously, real-life comes first. With their jobs and personal lives to deal with, the jobs that they do on this site is pretty good IMO. Yes there will be some things that slip through the cracks unnoticed, but for the most part, the moderators moderate pretty efficiently.

 

I think of it this way; the Community team would is like a small sheriffs office with 15 or 20 officers, policing a much larger community of lets say around 200,000 people. They do as much as they can, and rely on the upstanding citizens to keep the crime and law/rule-breaking to a minimum. But there will be those instances where they aren't able to deal with something, or they miss something. 

 

This may seem like a scatter-brain response, I'm quite tired at the moment.

 

I'm just going to put one of the things you said in bold because I think it's pretty spot on and needs addressing in my eyes.

 

If a police officer walks down the street on patrol, and hears shouting and screaming he will investigate the source of the disturbance. Meanwhile he might have missed the guy quietly taking someone's car in the side street. Why? He didn't see it, he didn't hear it, he didn't even know there was a car or a guy in that side street.

 

Now apply that to the forum. We can moderate what we see, we see a thread like this one for example suddenly arise, with a somewhat controversial title (by this I mean, a title which is going to provoke a vast amount of responses) and we go in to see what is being said and how people are behaving. Meanwhile, in an entirely different section of the site (let's say the gallery comments for example) someone is behaving inappropriately. We didn't see it, we didn't hear it. We didn't even know that image got comments (while we were viewing the troublesome thread).

 

In the police scenario however, the car owner will have noticed a lack of car. He will have taken his magical device and dialed [insert your specific emergency service number here], "hello police, someone stole my car". What happens next? Car details get passed on, police know about it and can look out for it, and investigate. Or maybe an innocent bystander heard a window smash, looked around the corner to see the thief hotwire the car and they called the police. Oh hey look now the police have 2 accounts of the same incident, 2 different perspectives, 2 sets of information (1 of which includes details about what they witnessed). The police now have evidence, they have more information and they can now find the thief and the car.

 

Now take our forum example, the original image author, he...did nothing. The innocent forum user who saw the comments....clicked the back button and went to view other things. The mis-behaving person gets worse, provoking more people, and then when they eventually get punished, the people who jumped on the band wagon get punished too and suddenly "OMG WHY DID YOU PUNISH ME I DID NOTHING YOU SUCK".

 

Imagine if you had of dialed the community team and "reported" (hint hint) the issue. How different would it be? You wouldn't go and complain that the police are doing nothing about your stolen car if you nor anyone else reported it stolen, would you?

Just some food for thought....

 

 

On another note. This thread, good. Keep it. Things don't improve magically, you give feedback and the object gets better. Yeah really. Amazing, right? You give feedback about something and it makes a difference, incredible! Don't believe me?:

• People gave feedback about windows 8, Microsoft re-added the start button. People were happier with this. 

• People reported that the Battlefield 4 multiplayer was very buggy on release, Dice fixed it (or...tried to at least) and some people were happier.

• People cried out that they really wanted GTA V for PC and OMG GTA V PC HYPE #ChooChoo

• This list goes on for hundreds and millions everything

 

If you don't like something, let the guys who can do something about it know. Don't be snobby or rude about it. There is absolutely nothing wrong about going "excuse me, could you perhaps do something about _____ because I think it's _____"