I sent through several totally unprovoked abusive comments that were said to me during a game to admin

i just ignored them and kept sending on through

this was nearly 2 weeks ago and the guys is still playing on the site

can someone confirm that it is ok to use foul and abusive language on this site with no penalty?

I also thought common courtesy would have been a message with the outcome of my grievance

As far as I am aware you never get a response to "Send a complaint"

As to why that person is still playing obviously, I can't answer not being staff.

I know that people have been banned for abusive/racist remarks.

I suppose some of it boils down to personal opinion, of the individual Admin as to how abusive the remarks are.

The only thing I can suggest is you try a "Contact us" and ask the very same question. They are meant to be answered within 3 days ( although depending how busy the Admin are it sometimes takes longer)




I agree with your last statement entirely - even if it is not what you wish to hear, to know someone has actually listened to you is important I believe.

you are right grae there should be some form of response just for the acknowledgement factor really ... but in my opinion moderators should be able to view complaints also and if it needs dealing with to a higher degree then admin should be notified but hey thats just my opinion what do i know :D

Matty, honestly I think there are instances where Mods could easily be utilised. More than that I feel the whole disciplinary procedure needs looking at it is, in my opinion, outdated and open to too much personal interpretation which can, in some cases, lead to discrepancies in moderating decisions.

I think some relatively minor changes could revamp and bring the whole procedure up to date and to a more consistent standard.

To be very clear I am not aiming my comments at any Moderator/ Administrator on the site, but I am suggesting improvements to the whole procedure.

I have also had this many times, and added the people to my m8s list, just to see if they were banned. Nothing was done so, im my opinion the "send complaint" feature should be avoided as no one seems to look at the complaints.

they do, 90% of the time action is taken you just don't know it (e.g. Post Warnings, Boot for several hours etc) some complaints no action is taken but most of them are.

1 thing i do agree on though is admin could message you saying

Thanks for your complaint, it has been processed and we will look into this

something like that so you know its being looked at

im sure they have messaged the guy with a warning about his future conduct. they will give him maybe 1 or 2 chances then they will take action depending on the seriousness of the offence of course. they tend to take racial offences more serious than most others and that would probs recieve an instant ban without warning. i guess it depends what mood the admin is in when he/she reads the complaint lol

It's sad that you feel that way Polida, it should really fill you with confidence that something will happen - I also have tracked complaints but unless they get banned, it is hard to know whether anything has happened like they have had a warning about their behaviour.

Dgen, I think your idea would be a good start ! Unfortunately unless something is seen to be done we could end up in the same position.

Without repeating myself too much, I think a complete overhaul of the system and a different way of training new Moderators and Administrators so there is more consistency in decision making.

Agree with g_k about major changes that are needed.
As a temporary improvement, a message back to the person who complained would help a lot.
Either when the complaint is read (to acknowledge receiving/processing it) or when action is taken/not taken (to tell the complainant what was decided, although this might take too much time and effort).

It's all about perception- people will be happy if they feel something is being done. That's why it would be interesting to see statistics on how many complaints are received/processed each month. It will give users an idea of the effort required.

Admin always view every sent complaint and the appropriate action will be taken against that person if needed, however small/big the problem is admin will view it...

Also ignore user is there so that person is unable to speak to you!

More complaints sent the better if this person is been abusive etc, but you can always contact a online moderator to deal with any problems...

There is no need for admin to reply to any sent complaint, admin will only reply through contact us if a complaint is made.

thats all i want - and to be - using unprovoked swear words and spacing it so it cant be recognised is worth being banned for if the swear words are aimed at your opposing player

all i want to do is come on and play the game - i know i will never play this guy again

i didnt contact admin directly - just sent through the chat using the in game feature to do so

sometimes ignore isn't a good idea as there was a case on pool recently, i won't go into details but a moderator told this person not to use ignore but to keep sending the complaints, when admin got enough of them then the person got banned.

also ignore doesn't stop them posting to you on the forum.

i agree you should be able to contact a moderator but should send a complaint beforehand just for that extra security.

just put em on ignore for now m8 and if hes like that with other members i cant see him being around much longer

Yet another admin/mod related query
These kind of threads seem to be increasingly common.

Yes thats true james, but it depends how much that person will be able to handle before they do the same back, thats why ignore user is there if needed.

I always ask anyone who pm's me to send a complaint before i enter room incase that person leaves the game.

Staff know when the time is right to ban or warn someone.

Edited at 13:33 Fri 20/01/12 (GMT)

As other people have said, all complaints are received, reviewed and logged on a person's profile for Staff to see. We as members aren't able to see what has been logged by staff, however moderator's and admin are able to see when a complaint was sent and all the chat included.

Perhaps an improvement to the complaint system would be allowing moderators to review a complaint and take action within their powers, such as a temporary boot. The ability to issue a ban to a player would still lie with the admin team, however this would only happen if forwarded from the moderators. This would also speed up the time it takes for action to be taken.

That comes with experience though, which not a lot of staff on here have much of, so I wouldn't completely agree with that.
If I was Nick, I'd revamp the whole moderating system.. As g_k said, the current one is outdated.. It's old school.. It needs changing..

I go on so many website/forums and I've never seen so many queries about the same topic being brought up over and over again, than I have on here.. Which is a shame because I love this site..

So yeh, revamp the moderating system (banning, booting, etc..), and revamp the moderator application form.

You've reminded me on another point I was going to make.
Why can't moderators ban members? It's pretty silly if you ask me.. No wonder there's no real structure when moderators are effectively useless..
They're like the community support officers of Funkysnooker. Admins, give them some real power for goodness sake!

Several years ago I suggested the ability for Mods to give a longer boot i.e up to 1 week for certain offences which when Admin are busy would give time out to catch up with a back log.
If it was felt a weeks suspension was enough the so be it - if not Admin could follow it up with suspensions of longer periods or indeed a totally ban.

The response was : - you would need to have more consistent rulings, hence why I say new training and an overhaul of the current system is needed.

Well I've moderator tons of websites and each and every one of them I've had the ability to permanently ban a member from the site.

Can bans be altered here? I'm not sure how the system works but on the sites I've moderated on, if an Admin didn't agree with my decision, they had the ability to change the ban time. But at the end of the day, for the Admins to choose a Moderator, they have to have faith in them that they will do the right thing, so by not allowing them to give bans, says to me that they don't fully trust their decision making.. Which is not a good sign at all..

Let's put it this way... The Admins should be like the government, and the Moderators like the police.. I.E, the Admins make the rules, and the Moderators enforce them.