8 replies to this topic

[SUPERlIIIlOR]

Hello,

I was reading Horror's suggestion concerning Yell2, which was bringing out much discussion when suddenly a forum mod declined the suggestion mocking clan banter as childish talk while instead suggesting the ridiculous idea that clans meet up in a similar clan chat in order to flame each other and then leave back to their cc's. 

Personally, I did not think Horror's suggestion was a good idea, yet it seemed as though many other players did, as the topic was less than 24 hours old before it was insta-locked by a forum mod. I was surprised to see it shut down so quickly by the opinion of a single (forum) moderator. I then found the "Handled suggestions" tab and was surprised to see that in each suggestion, it was handled and locked by a single post from a moderator. This is quite a ridiculous way to handle in-game content. OSRS has a staff team review suggestions in addition to having them polled by players. In Alora, one forum mod has the power to control game updates. Looking through some of the handled suggestions, it was not even clear that they were handled correctly. Here are some examples I found within one minute.

Examples other than Horror's yell2 post:
1. One post suggested that more nechryaels be added to Kourend Catacombs multi-combat zone and it was declined by a forum mod stating "Seems unnecessary due to there being other places you can go to kill these (Slayer Tower)." This statement ignores the fact that in OSRS, multi-ancient spells on Kourend Nechryaels is a meta for fast slayer xp and gp, yet it was shut down by 1 forum mod.

2. Another post suggested buffing the dragon claws and a few Pvpers (about 5) supported it and it was added to suggestions by 1 mod. Maybe the accuracy and damage of claws are coded exactly like Osrs already? Maybe the 5 pkers supporting this have just recently had bad RNG? This is ridiculous that such changes to PvP mechanics can occur with such a low number of people reviewing it. 

I should give the benefit of the doubt and perhaps the mod locking the suggestion has consulted with the staff team before making his decision. However, it is not clear that they did, nor is it clear with which staff/ with how many of the staff team they consulted. Not only that, but the commenting mod does not even state this, but seems to give his own opinion on the matter, without having a significant portion of the community review it.

Solution? I'm not sure, but there are definitely a variety of ways to combat this. Perhaps, allow each suggestion to have a poll? Perhaps require each suggestion to be reviewed by at least 3?, 4? mods before it can be force-locked and decided upon as accepted/denied. 

[Dylain]

Well explained topic. Every since day of one of joining I have alway's been confused as to why forum moderators are the ones to approve/decline forum or in-game content. I'm a wee bit confused as to why forum moderator's are responsible for approving or declining Ingame suggestions. I know it's solely not the forum mod's duty to decline or approve content as I'm assuming that one Forum moderator is speaking on behalf of the team, but that still doesn't justify the way suggestions are being handled.

Also, it would be nice for forum moderator's to leave more of a response or an actual reason as to why suggestions are being declined, instead of the typical "Your suggestion has been declined, if you feel this was wrongfully done please contact a Forum Moderator+"

I know @Omicron already more than enough responsibilities as it is, but this is his server and he should be the one to decide what content gets implemented, and what content gets bypassed.

Sorry for going slightly off-topic.

[IM Moe]

Alora definitely seems different in the way it handles things comparing it to others. However there could be a system we don't know about as you assumed earlier, maybe there is a review and the forum mod is the face of everyone's answers. Could be part of his responsibility to handle that side, not just to moderate the forums. Only way to know for sure is to either ask or wait for a reply on the subject. 

 

Good post though.

[Dante]

 I was surprised to see it shut down so quickly by the opinion of a single (forum) moderator. I then found the "Handled suggestions" tab and was surprised to see that in each suggestion, it was handled and locked by a single post from a moderator. This is quite a ridiculous way to handle in-game content. OSRS has a staff team review suggestions in addition to having them polled by players.

 

I'm going to try my best to not make a massive post about this seeing as I don't think a topic like this should even be gone into all that much. First off, I wanted to mention something that is blatantly obvious, or should be at least; Alora is not OSRS. We are a RSPS that tries to bring a similar feeling to OSRS without as much of a grind. That being said, we also aren't run like OSRS. Sure, we have a staff team that is slightly comparable to the team for OSRS, but we're no where near as big as their team. Along with that, we have only one Developer, Father Omicron. The amount of people that OSRS has and pays to test and develop new content is instantly higher than Alora (higher than 1, seeing as we don't get paid to be staff btw), and the amount of hours that they can put in opposed to just one person is very different.

 

The reason that Omicron isn't going through the list of suggestions himself and picking what to and what not to add to Alora is plain and simple; it takes too much time. For there only being one person who is actually developing the content you see in game it doesn't make much sense to allocate copious amounts of time doing other things like dealing with suggestions (there are many other things you can relate to this but I'll keep it on topic).

 

When a staff member deals with a suggestion it's not like they just accept/decline things as they please (even though it's understandable it seems this way), most of the time there is a lot of thought behind it as well as input from other members of the team, looking ahead to visualize whether or not adding something like this would be an overall benefit/would be worth the development time seeing as there is so much Omicron can do in one day, as well as looking over the feedback from the players in that suggestion thread.

 

I don't think it's fair for you to make a suggestion to 'Nerf Forum Mod Powers on Suggestions' just because a Forum Moderator, who not to mention STARTS with ranks in-game, and then gains powers on the forums as well, decided that a suggestion that was posted shouldn't have been accepted.

 

 

 

 

TL;DR: FMods are Server Mods with a bit of power on the forums and they don't just accept/decline suggestions without any thought behind it, and don't make the decision on their own to deal with suggestions.

[SUPERlIIIlOR]

I guess it makes sense not to allocate that work to Omicron, but I think the rest of the staff team can do a better job in handling suggestions. I am not making this post because a suggestion was denied (one that I did not even support), but in the WAY that it was denied. It was less than 24 hours. There was reasonable controversy and discussion. It seemed like the discussion could lead to an update. One mod responded with what definitely seemed like his own personal viewpoint and locked the post. That could have been handled better. There should be a requirement that a certain number of staff review a suggestion, though (does not have to be Omicron), in order to prevent private opinions from dictating content. The staff could have left his opinion and not locked the post and given it some time and possibly a poll. 

[Savitr]

Forum Moderators have too much power outside of what they should have anyways. Not just the suggestions thread.

 

They're pretty much welfare Global Mods. They act like they run in-game and the forums. It should just be the forums, moderating content and regulations. We've said forever that they have too much for being just a "forum" moderator yet they believe they have the capacity to handle all in-game affairs and then the forums. Not to mention they can access the SCP and search your IPs.

[ROCAINE]

forum mods have too much power....@Omicron you shouldnt have all this pple with such big powers... that should be reduced to a small amount of players or admin+ 

 

the global mods need to watch out what they are doing cuz sometimes is just too much.

[22]

Personally don't mind forum moderators declining/accepting the suggestion it was obvious at least for me that they discuss about it with a staff team before reply, but i agree with that the response could be more detailed than the exact same text over and over. I think good way of accepting/declining them would be adding the reason for the decision.

[Ultistic]

Hello!

I will personally do my best to be more involved with these suggestions being approved/declined. We already have a ton of accepted suggestions that have been gone over with myself and others. As some of us are usually pretty busy throughout the week, I did give the ok for xuf/cow to handle the suggestion thread. With that being said, he and others will still have the power to accept/decline after going over it with the team.
<p>Your suggestion has been declined, if you feel this was wrongfully done please contact a Forum Moderator+.</p>