This post has been on my mind for several months now, and I think it’s about time I finally made it. There is gonna be a hefty amount of text here, but I will include a TL;DR for those who don’t have the time to read the whole post.
Before we get started, it’s important we clarify a few things:
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This thread is not about the moderation team. I understand some of you may have your gripes with them but it’s important to note that it’s a thankless job; people only tend to notice them when they make mistakes. It’s important to keep in mind that the mods are trying their best to make the forums a safe place for discussion, and sometimes can make mistakes. It’s human.
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This thread will not discuss the disciplinary actions against specific accounts, due to the rules against it in the COC. As much as it may assist in providing context to this essay, I am a strong advocate for keeping everything within the COC and I don’t intend to back down on that front.
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This post is not defamatory, inappropriate, spam, or trolling. I am offering some sincere criticism on the way certain people behave on these forums, only to improve our environment. Not hurt it.
Now, let’s get started with Part 1.
Part 1: What’s going on?
These forums have never been perfect. In fact, they’ve never been close. Overwatch, sadly, has a problem with toxicity and that has seeped into the forums. It’s to be expected with any community, and it isn’t unique to Overwatch.
When the forums were updated a while back, they removed the dislike option and just left the “Flag Post” feature.
When they created the forums, the devs/mods had expected the dislike feature to be used to signal posts that violated the COC and were generally shunned by the community.
However, they removed it because they found that users would simply dislike posts that they disagreed with, and therefore paint a false picture that someone’s post was “bad”.
So, they removed it all together and now we just have the flagging feature. It’s anonymous, and is only to be used when a post may violate the code of conduct.
Fast forward to these past few months. The forums are relatively active, and Blizzard is rapidly making balance changes to the game every other week. There’s a lot to talk about and a lot of opinions to be had. So, as a result, the forums have been flooded by opinions on the balancing of the game, the current META, and problematic heroes.
And now, certain people have taken to false flagging posts they disagree with for “trolling.” And as a result, many posts have been removed. This is the current situation that continues to repeat itself, and is the main topic of this essay.
Part 2: Understanding the Problem
There will always be people that find away to abuse the privileges that the mods and devs have given us on the forums. It’s a fact of life and the nature of every human being. Trolls will be trolls, toxic people will be toxic people.
The main issue at hand is that people are using the flagging feature, and furthermore the “trolling” title, as a dislike button. The mods have come out and stated that this is not allowed and can possibly lead to consequences, but the fact of the matter is that it’s simply still happening and not much is being done about it.
And here’s where the Code of Conduct provided by Blizzard begins to become a problem. Anyone who’s read the Code of Conduct knows that it is very, very vague. For the amount of topics it talks about it spends a remarkably low amount of time and words on each, causing the exact interpretation to very significantly from person to person.
Here’s what it has to say about Trolling:
Spamming or Trolling
This category includes:
- Excessively communicating the same phrase, similar phrases, or pure gibberish
- Creating threads for the sole purpose of causing unrest on the forums
- Causing disturbances in forum threads, such as picking fights, making off topic posts that ruin the thread, insulting other posters
- Making non-constructive posts
- Abusing the Reported Post feature by sending false alarms or nonsensical messages
- Numbering a thread, IBTL, TLDR, or any other fad statements
Obviously, this only scratches the surface of what trolling is.
Many problems arise by this description of trolling, because it raises questions:
- How can you determine whether or not a thread was created to cause unrest on the forums?
- How can you determine if someone is picking a fight and not simply trying to engage in discussion?
- What defines a “non-constructive” post?
Because of the somewhat flawed definition of trolling, many people use it as an excuse to flag anything that has a somewhat controversial opinion or somewhat strong wording.
Sometimes, people weaponize the vagueness of the definition and use it as a tool to try to censor those who they disagree with, and it’s becoming a problem.
And because the moderators have to stick to what the COC says, it’s very hard for them to determine whether or not a post is trolling after being false flagged. It’s the vaguest option to flag a post and many people can see it in a different way, which may be the reason why so many people think their post is unfairly removed; many, many posts can fall under that category when interpreted a certain way, and the moderators have to account for the people that do see it that way.
And this is another reason why I don’t necessarily think the mods are to blame for this problem. It’s the people that are flagging posts that are causing this problem.
Part 3: So what can we do about it?
There are… a few solutions that may be able to reduce the amount of people that false flag. Like I said above, you can’t simply put a punctual end to it, but there are ways to perhaps minimize the amount of people abusing the system.
- Solution 1: Bring Back the Dislike Option
Probably the best solution that the mods/devs dislike the most. While the dislike option was often used less to signal poor posts and more to simply dislike a post you disagreed with, it’s better to have a harmless number attached to a post than a possible penalty to the user involved.
Right now, with the current system, posts can get hidden for upwards of a day and be shown to others as against the COC when in reality a couple of people wanted to show people that they disliked it. A return of the dislike option, while it may once again be abused, would reduce the amount of posts being false-flagged and direct some of that audience to instead dislike the post.
- Solution 2: Increase Penalties on false flaggers
Probably the most realistic of these solutions. Increasing the penalties of false flaggers will discourage those who do it, plain and simple. However, I do not think they should be punished with silences or suspensions to their account. They should instead have their flagging privileges disabled.
On the first circumstance of obvious false flagging, they receive a 1-week suspension of their flagging privileges. On a second one, they receive a month suspension. Third time is another month suspension of flagging privileges as well as a final warning. Fourth and up should just be a removal of flagging privileges as a whole for that user.
Spitballing a possible solution to a problem. It would probably require more fine-tuning, but you get the jist.
- Solution 3: Provide more User Feedback
The solution I want the most. When you punish a user, provide them with a short synopsis of why their post was assessed to be against the COC. Two or three sentences, nothing too bad. But people should have the right to understand why their post was deemed against the COC so they can avoid having a similar situation instead.
I have found that the Game Masters that deal with tickets are great at this. Having a similar type of civil and constructive feedback to users who have had posts removed could go a long way in helping people avoid making posts that can be false flagged in the future.
Conclusion/TL;DR
False flagging has become a widespread issue on the forums due to certain users abusing the vague definition of trolling provided in the COC. Moderators have a very difficult decision whenever assessing a post, because the definition of what trolling is varies from person to person and they have to take into consideration all points of view. Because of this, threads flagged for trolling will often be removed simply because of the small amount of people that may have gotten offended.
Reintroducing features like the dislike feature or other solutions to discourage the use of the flagging feature as a dislike button would go a long way in increasing the quality of the forums and help keep people from being suspended because they had a somewhat controversial opinion. I hope this thread was of some value to you, and I hope that some of you change the way you go about the forums. Thank you, and good night. Best wishes to you all.
guess I’ll leave…
