Anythin a dit :

Anonymod a dit :VoirMasquer

We always try to improve our processes and try our best to listen to player feedback. We also always aim to bounce our thoughts off each other, including our newest staff members who have the most recent experience from the eyes of a player, quite a bit to try to keep up with the needs of the community.

Nah, you're not open to feedback. You're only interested in feedback that is consistent with your line of thought.

Completely agree 100%

I remember on the old forums, when Meli refused to adjust her behavior, the staff all got together to talk about it, and she continued to deny she had any issues.

The staff is doing the exact same thing, here but with the roles reversed.

You cannot fix an issue until you have actually reflected on why what you do is wrong, even I while I don't do a good job at handling my egotism, I have very much said I have an issue with it. The EN mod team won't even admit they have a problem.

As I said before, the mod team needs to step in and say "Ok fine let's look at how we can better handle ourselves."

Anonymod a dit :

Hello! This is from all of us mods.

We always try to improve our processes and try our best to listen to player feedback.

This is surprisingly tone deaf considering it came from "all of us mods." First of all, it isn't true that you (plural) "always" try to listen to player feedback. You can see from the comments here that the community doesn't agree with that. If people don't feel heard, you aren't "always" listening to player feedback. You don't get to decide whether people feel heard or not.

Anonymod a dit :

We also always aim to bounce our thoughts off each other, including our newest staff members who have the most recent experience from the eyes of a player, quite a bit to try to keep up with the needs of the community. It is hard for us to address all of your complaints here because everyone has their own sanction history that we cannot publicly discuss, but we will always talk it through privately.

That's great to know you guys are actively bouncing ideas off of each other. Maybe the moderation culture is where some of the problems lie, then. If the culture is one of consensus to avoid disagreement or conflict within the moderation team, that would explain quite a bit. Of course it's hard to address everyone's complaints, and no one is asking you to do so here on a case-by-case basis. This post was about a general issue with moderation culture among EN mods. If you aren't understanding that this is a broader problem than complaints over individual cases, I don't know how to explain that to you.

Anonymod a dit :

What we ask of you is to please understand that even if you do not see problems with your behaviour, or what you said and got sanctioned for, does not mean a problem did not exist. And that those problems are when we have to step in and take action.

You're telling me the moderation team got together and came up with this statement? This is your consensus sentiment? "...even if you do not see problems with your behavior..." "your behavior" There is an obvious disconnect between the actions taken by moderators and what the community of Transformice (at least in EN) would like to see in the moderation team. If you're openly saying you'd like to be villains who aren't interested in hearing feedback from the community, because you somehow said you were open to feedback while posting this statement where you uniformly blamed the community for "[our] behavior," then you are lying to our faces. And you're not even doing a good job of that.

Anonymod a dit :

We understand not everyone may agree with how we may sanction things, but we hope with you reaching out to us and calmly talking things through would help us both understand each other better.

We try our best to be as transparent as possible with our reasoning behind your sanctions, so that you can avoid sanctions in the future. You are always welcome to approach us to talk things through to hopefully reach an understanding. All of our forum PMs are open, and most of us have Discord DMs open as well. If you would like to go over your ban please reach out about individual cases privately, as we will not air your private sanction out in public.

Are you, the moderation team, committing to this as a new policy from now going forward? Because until now, this has not been the policy of moderation. It might have been nominally, but you haven't met this expectation across the board in EN. You're saying you're committing to hearing transparency and feedback, but why should the players believe that when you haven't been able to commit to that thus far until held publicly accountable?

Thanks. I'm sure I'll get a thoughtful reply if you're actually taking this seriously.

Mousechris a dit :

Nah, you're not open to feedback. You're only interested in feedback that is consistent with your line of thought.
Completely agree 100%

I remember on the old forums, when Meli refused to adjust her behavior, the staff all got together to talk about it, and she continued to deny she had any issues.

The staff is doing the exact same thing, here but with the roles reversed.

You cannot fix an issue until you have actually reflected on why what you do is wrong, even I while I don't do a good job at handling my egotism, I have very much said I have an issue with it. The EN mod team won't even admit they have a problem.

As I said before, the mod team needs to step in and say "Ok fine let's look at how we can better handle ourselves."

I can't speak to the Meli issue because I know nothing about it, but I agree with this sentiment 100%. Some of the moderators have assured me privately that they are taking this post and the responses very seriously. But now, I'm concerned how seriously it was being taken when they got together and came up with that statement posted by Anonymod which was not reflective of their own actions, and instead talked about the "behavior" of the players, without acknowledging any of their own actions or their own moderation culture.

Aurion a dit :

Candycain a dit :VoirMasquer

10 years of loyal gameplay...I have donated hundreds and hundreds of dollars to this game (if not over a thousand) via fraises, which has contributed to Transformice staying afloat despite a steady decrease in overall contributions and in the player base.

Let me get this straight: Just because you've played for a long time and bought fraises mods are supposed to treat you differently?

The next line in my post was literally: "To be clear, I don't think I should receive any special treatment for donations, but this game relies on its consistent donators to stay afloat."

a few years ago some guys hacked into the brazilian staff's private discord, banned all mods and made it public
all i can say is that mods have their own "canceling" scheme, they have biases against certain types of users and they do chase them, and since they are working for free (volunteers to a private sector company ROFL) they have their own motivation to do so, we even found evidence of them frauding a mod selection by chasing and banning candidates they didnt like, so they would get disqualified

like

Link a dit :

The normalization regarding the use of slurs is not something I can support. I’m here to protect the people that find the use of these words offensive.

you can see the pattern in their tone of entitlement

anyway, what i wanted to say is that not much can be done on the forums now
you have to face layers and layers of NPC responses and PMs until your "case is archived"

[Moderated by Matza#0001] Please do not encourage players to leave reviews of a certain kind. Reviews should be based on individual experience and reflect the game. This kind of comment is not tolerated (think of it as instigating ban abuse in game).

[Moderated by Matza#0001] See my comment above.

I think this is a great idea. We tried open communication and the entitlement/abuse of power came out in full force. I encourage everyone with similar experiences to leave honest reviews for Transformice on Steam. I have officially quit, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but for current players, this looks like one of the least aggressive ways to tackle this problem head on.

Matza a dit :

[Moderated by Matza#0001] Please do not encourage players to leave reviews of a certain kind. Reviews should be based on individual experience and reflect the game. This kind of comment is not tolerated (think of it as instigating ban abuse in game).

Candycain a dit :

We tried open communication and the entitlement/abuse of power came out in full force. I encourage everyone...to leave honest reviews for Transformice on Steam.

Matza a dit :

[Moderated by Matza#001]See my comment above.

What about encouraging "honest" reviews leads you to believe they wouldn't be inherently reflective of their experience playing the game? Your "see my comment above" wasn't relevant to my comment, and is hence ignored.

Matza a dit :

I have seen some serious concerns raised in this thread, which is why I decided I should respond in some way or another.

Different people have brought up different concerns that cannot and will not be discussed in a public conversation for various reasons, with the main one being the privacy of the account-related information. I will however address them personally in a private message with the relevant person in the next few days, because I believe it is wrong that players are so unhappy, as much as it is wrong that so many players belittle and accuse a group of volunteers who are working very hard to ensure a safe environment and fairness not only across EN community, but across other communities as well.

"...because I believe it is wrong that players are so unhappy, as much as it is wrong that so many players belittle and accuse a group of volunteers..."

Just because someone is a volunteer doesn't mean they are doing a good job as a volunteer. I know Transformice receives quite a few applications for moderator roles, or they at least used to, so you have choice. If loyal players of about a decade or so are telling you moderation has fundamentally changed for the worse, perhaps you should listen, instead of perpetuating some false equivalency that their dissatisfaction with moderation is as bad as a few volunteers taking advantage of their power and abusing players. Because we know better. You have the option to root out the bad apples, but you clearly have no interest in doing so, so I'm wasting my time here.

Your volunteers who are "working very hard to ensure a safe environment and fairness not only across EN community, but across other communities as well" as you put it, have had serious complaints leveraged at them. Hmmmm. What could that mean? Maybe it means some of them aren't "working very hard to ensure a safe environment and fairness." Please drop the vapid talking points and address the problem here. Do you have a new mute or ban quota? Your perfect volunteers seem more like cops abusing power to meet some arbitrary quota than well-intentioned volunteers.

And as I said above, I don't have a dog in this fight anymore as a former player only. Best of luck, players and moderation, on solving this potentially fatal dilemma that I merely brought attention to.

Also, Matza: if players got together in a class action lawsuit and sued Atelier801 for the amount we have spent on the game considering play experience has become impossible, how would Atelier801 be able to handle that financially? There's a legitimate case there and there's precedent for this in other games. I'm happy to cite the cases if you'd like. Even if the case didn't hold up in court, you'd still have to pay your own attorney and court costs.

Atelier801 has essentially sold a product to myself and other players sometimes in the thousands of dollars that we then couldn't adequately utilize due to insanely excessive moderation. You've sold us a product you didn't let us then subsequently use due to an increasingly arbitrary interpretation of rules. What is it to sell people a product they can't use? The legal term for this is "fraud."

I'm willing to cover attorney fees and court costs. PM me.

& Feel free to delete my account if silencing players who express dissent is something you like which I garner from your autocratic "management" style. I'm never returning to this game. But I've already screenshotted absolutely everything I would need. That won't make your problem go away. It'll just make me more committed to this.

a dit :

"...because I believe it is wrong that players are so unhappy, as much as it is wrong that so many players belittle and accuse a group of volunteers..."

Just because someone is a volunteer doesn't mean they are doing a good job as a volunteer. I know Transformice receives quite a few applications for moderator roles, or they at least used to, so you have choice. If loyal players of about a decade or so are telling you moderation has fundamentally changed for the worse, perhaps you should listen, instead of perpetuating some false equivalency that their dissatisfaction with moderation is as bad as a few volunteers taking advantage of their power and abusing players. Because we know better. You have the option to root out the bad apples, but you clearly have no interest in doing so, so I'm wasting my time here.

And as I said above, I don't have a dog in this fight anymore as a former player only. Best of luck, players and moderation, on solving this potentially fatal dilemma that I merely brought attention to.

I completely agree with cain that just because some players volunteer their time to be a mod, doesn’t meant they are doing a perfect job, and placing so much faith in them while disregarding the players seems a good way to scare off old and new players. I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but my ban is kind of a great example. I am in no way saying all mods are bad at doing what they need to, i received plenty of support from a few EN mods, however i was also shutdown blindly by many others. i just think it goes to show the blind trust mods have been given just because they are volunteers without giving their player base, their customers, at least a sliver of benefit of the doubt. Maybe I am naive to think that, but can a game that has only had a decreasing player base really be okay with just ignoring complaints against certain mods just because they volunteer to “help”.

Stormbreaker a dit :

....you guys really need to learn to read the game rules and the ToS
It aint hard lol

If you read through this thread, which I doubt considering what you chose to comment, most of it has not been a disagreement with the game rules or ToS. It has been a disagreement with a recent, overly harsh interpretation of the rules and ToS, which haven't fundamentally changed for years. If you don't know the difference, I "ain't" going to waste time explaining it to you. lol.

Stormbreaker a dit :

....you guys really need to learn to read the game rules and the ToS
It aint hard lol

this attitude is exactly why mods think they can do what they want, and if you think that just reading ToS will fix the great disparities between the player base (which i remind you again is DECLINING) and mods and admins, maybe you should read through this thread again.
as you said it ain’t hard lol

Edit: I see you are an ex-mod, i’m very glad someone with your comprehension skills is off the team.

Stormbreaker a dit :

....you guys really need to learn to read the game rules and the ToS
It aint hard lol

You’re a part of the reason why these moderators think that they can arbitrarily decide what is right and what is wrong without consistency. Let’s be honest, no one reads the TOS and no one is arguing against the TOS, we just want these moderators to take some accountability for their actions. Either you understand or you don’t.

Also, I have to laugh at the mods frantically reading through this thread and trying to ratio the well-thought out, organized comments with a few likes (op still has more, lol). If you can't win with a coherent argument, change your practices. The hill you've chosen to die on was so avoidable.

Keerstens a dit :

Stormbreaker a dit :VoirMasquer

....you guys really need to learn to read the game rules and the ToS
It aint hard lol

You’re a part of the reason why these moderators think that they can arbitrarily decide what is right and what is wrong without consistency. Let’s be honest, no one reads the TOS and no one is arguing against the TOS, we just want these moderators to take some accountability for their actions. Either you understand or you don’t.

This.

Edit: Omg. Stormbreaker is an ex mod. Okay. This is just getting sad.

Kiki a dit :

i mean if you break TOS you cant claim you didnt read it to act innocent when you agree to reading it when you create an account. regardless of if you actually read it youre subject to what it says. this applies to every other platform and social media and i personally dont think tfm is any different at all. lol

This comment is too dumb to deserve a legitimate response, not to mention it continues to miss the point.

Kiki a dit :

i mean if you break TOS you cant claim you didnt read it to act innocent when you agree to reading it when you create an account. regardless of if you actually read it youre subject to what it says. this applies to every other platform and social media and i personally dont think tfm is any different at all. lol

Keerstens a dit :

. . . no one is arguing against the TOS, we just want these moderators to take some accountability for their actions. Either you understand or you don’t.

Clearly you don’t.

okay if you want to base things of TOS: I was banned for hacking, something i didn’t do, something the MOD did not record evidence of, and when i fought to appeal it i was basically ignored by most people i contacted (again I do not see every mod as a problem i know many worked on my behalf to help me). In that case i did not break TOS but because Mods are trusted blindly, just because they are volunteers, nothing came at all even though i’ve loyally played this game, have spent more than a thousand dollars on my account, not even considering gifting( AND THIS DOES NOT MEAN I EXPECT TO BE EXEMPT FROM RULES BUT THAT COMMON SENSE SHOULD BE USED TO SHOW THAT WHAT PERSON WOULD HACK AND RISK LOSING AN INVESTMENT OF SO MUCH MONEY). In my opinion there is a clear problem with communication of players with mods/admins, rather lack thereof. This can be clearly seen by how this post has barely reached any players, with only mods voicing their disagreement because the playerbase has decreased so much the forums are as good as dead.

edit: i used all caps in parenthesis just to clarify that i’ve seen and used this point, and it is constantly either ignored or twisted to think I/ the others who have used it are trying to say we think we are above the rules, when I am just trying to use some basic common sense logic